AboutEugenia Springer, Ph.D. Expertise I can answer your questions on how to stop being a victim, and/or how to stop being an abuser. My ability to help you, however, would depend on your willingness to assume full responsibility for helping yourself.
Experience From 1980s to the present, my life has been a search after knowing my purpose, knowing myself, and knowing God. I talk about this search in my 2002 book ($US15.00). After years of teaching biology at university, I became a radio Family Life Counselor, and Consultant in Interpersonal Relationships. As a newspaper columnist, I answered letters from the public mostly on relationships. My book for the adolescent girl, "Girl, It's All About You"(Review & Herald Publishers 1980.) is out of print. To order my 2002 book, mail money order for US$20.00 ($US5.00 to cover shipping and handling)to Dr. Eugenia Springer, ESProductions, 98 Eastern Main Road, Tunapuna, Trinidad, T&T, W.I. Book will be mailed out within 48 hours.
Currently I am the host and producer of a weekly call-in radio program, "Life & Living/Soul to Soul".
.
Question So I've been with my boy friend for a year and a half now and we seem to always fight about lots of things but i can deal with the arguing but i can no longer deal with the physical abuse. He hits me when ever he gets really mad and its even gotten to the point where hes gave me a fat lip. I love him more then any thing and we've talked about this issue but he just keeps saying he cant control it at times and i tell him to take anger manege but he thinks he can make the change him self. Its not working. Please help me find a way to fix this problem! I love him so much and i don't want to leave him!
Answer Codie,
When I read your letter I googled, "Tolerating an abusive relationship". I was thinking, codependency. Look up the term, and see if you find your story in the definition of the codependent experience. Read for self-knowledge, for enlightenment.
Your problem is not your boyfriend. It is your response to abuse. It is about you not valuing your true worth, but looking rather, to another, for validation. Yes, you love him because he might in some ways make you feel like somebody. But what does it take to make you feel important? What is the payoff? Is it worth the cost?
I found, when I googled, "Tolerating an abusive relationship" an article, excerpts of which I have pasted below. Read, and learn, Codie. This is your life. Learn. Anyone who lingers in an abusive relationship subtly gives permission to the abuser to continue the abuse. It will not lessen. It usually does not.
Read, and learn.
From the site, Soul Kadee
"October 25th, 2006, 10:08 pm by Priya Florence Shah
...As someone who suffered physical abuse in childhood (that comprised beatings inflicted on me and my siblings by a maid servant), I guess I can write about this topic with some degree of sensitivity.
What spurred me to actually start writing this was being interviewed for an article on domestic abuse by Ryzer Pallavi Bhattacharya, and the fact that the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 comes into effect in India from tomorrow.
I think this is a historic act for Indian women, because it also includes punishment for sexual abuse of children. As per the new act, men found guilty of abuse of a wife or a live-in-partner or a child can be jailed for a year or fined heavily, apart from being booked under different sections of Indian Penal Code.
It allows victims of abuse to seek legal action for any of the following:
Sexual violence: Forced sexual intercourse, forced to look at pornography, child sexual abuse.
Verbal and emotional abuse: Insults, name calling, insults for not having a male child, preventing from taking a job, forcing you to marry a particular person, forcing you to get married when you don't want to get married, threat to commit suicide and preventing you from meeting any person.
Economic offences: Not providing money for your and children’s maintenance, not providing food, clothes and medicines, stopping or disturbing from carrying on your employment, not allowing you to use your salary, forcing you to live in a house, not paying rent and forcing you out of the house...
1. What is an abusive relationship?
An abusive relationship is any relationship that threatens your well-being and/or violates your boundaries, either physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually.
Physical abuse includes hitting, beating, torture and rape.
Sexual abuse should also include forcing one’s partner to perform acts they are uncomfortable with.
Mental abuse includes manipulating people into doing things they are not comfortable with, or attempting to convince a person that they are crazy (when it is really the abuser who is the crazy one)...
2. What causes spouse abuse? Why do spouses stay in an abusive relationship?
Here’s my take on this. On the psychological level, abuse is about power and control. Abusers are usually people who have been abused or have grown up in a dysfunctional home.
Their tendency to abuse or control is based on a feeling of being powerless to prevent situations or acts that they had to endure as children. Abusing or controlling another person is a way of regaining the power they had lost as children.
Because the abusive relationship is the only pattern of “love” they are familiar with, people who have been abused, neglected or abandoned in childhood choose to get into and remain in abusive relationships in adulthood, because the pattern feels familiar and therefore, “safe”..."
So, Codie, read, learn, and think, and work on appreciating your worth; then you would not be so craving of a boyfriend's attention (which you call love) that you would submit your mind and body to assaults just to be in a relationship.
