If You Suspect You Are Being Abused, Tip #4 (of 6)

Description: This video is about, What to do if you suspect you’re being abused. It is Dr. Stephanie Lang’s Top Tip #4 – To the best of your ability, stop doing whatever negative behavior it is, that you do, that you use to rationalize your partner’s bad behavior.

Transcript: #4: Stop whatever negative behavior it is that you’re doing that you later on, use to rationalize away and forgive your partner’s abusive behavior.

I had a client who would always rationalize away the abusive arguments later on by saying, “Well I, I was abusive too. You know, I did it back to him. Yeah, he screamed at me, and he called me an f-in this, and an f-in…blah, blah, blah, you know but. But I said this back to him…”. And she would say something attacking. She would later feel bad and say, “Well, you know, I can’t be mad at him. I can’t really come down on him, because, I did it too.” I told her, she’s gotta stop doing her side, her role—the thing that she feels bad or guilty about. Whether or not it influences his behavior, she needs to stop doing the things that she later on feels bad about herself for. So she gave it a try. And the next time they had an argument, she didn’t attack back.

She listened and watched, and what she found was that it didn’t matter. He still went on and attacked, and attacked, and attacked her. It didn’t matter that she didn’t say anything back. And so, what happens is, when you stop doing the behaviors that you think cause the abuse, what you’re going to find is that, the person is abusive anyway. It doesn’t matter what you did. When you stop doing it, you see that they are who they are. And they’re going to act that way, regardless. And so, you’re able then to see the person more for who, he or she is – your partner, without your, your role, what you think your “role” in it is.

Now, let’s see, other ways that women think that they have a role in it besides arguing back, or being abusive, and being attacking back – that’s very common. Another one is drinking too much. Often women, sort of lay on heavy on the alcohol when they’re being abused. And then, their partners abuse them over their drinking too much. And then they feel bad because they did drink too much. And maybe if they hadn’t drank. Then they stay in the relationship and keep getting abused. So whatever are your negative behaviors, that you use to rationalize away your partner’s abusive behaviors, I want you to stop those behaviors – even if for just for a day or two. I want you to gain control over your own behaviors, and stop them, to see what happens. I want you to be able to observe your partner’s behavior, outside of any influence from you. That way you can see, who this person is, who they’re going to be, outside of what it is that you did, that you think caused the behavior.