Expert: Kriss Mitchell, M.Ed, CRC, CNHP - 9/18/2009

Question
Dear Kriss,
I met my daughter's dad about 6 years ago. The first 3 years we were on and off. He was a very jealous person and although we loved each other a lot, we also argued a lot. He would always accused me of cheating and didn't trust me but I dealt with it because I wasn't doing anything wrong and I had faith in god that he would realize this and change. He didn't like when my friends called me and I lost contact with all of them. He was very controlling and I went through a lot of emotional abuse. I was at the point that everything I did revolved around him so that he would not get mad. I then became pregnant and at 4 weeks we had an argument about him not believing where I was and told me if I was pregnant that I would have to take a DNA test because probably the child wasn't his. His comment hurt me so much that I decided to break it off for good. He started to harass and stalk me so I ended up getting a restraining order. After I had the baby, he has sees her weekly because he has visitation rights.
About 3 months ago, we ran into each other and talked which we hadn't done since our horrible breakup. Our daughter is now 3 years old and lives with me at my parents house. He seemed a changed man and we decided to work things out as I had forgiven him for everything he had put me through. Soon after the same issues arose again, he didn't trust me and had doubts all the time. An old friend that I had a fling with called me one day out of the blue and it was my fault he called me because I was still seeing him, which I wasn't. Some guy was looking at me at a train stop and I all of a sudden knew him and had probably been with him. He put things in his head and he thinks that they are real but they are not. Anytime I mention anything he gets mad and turns it around to me being unfaithful somehow. We had a talk and I told him that things had to change and that the past must be left in the past. One day, he started asking me who I knew around where he lived he then he started asking me about a guy I knew that found me on myspace, which I did not have contact with. He flipped. He left the room and then came back, grabbed me by the neck and pushed me. He told me to get out of his house while yelling offensive things at me. I was destroyed.
I didn't hear from him until 3 weeks later asking me, why him? I was confused because I didn't do anything wrong. Then he tells me that he loves me, that he's sorry, that he regrets what he did. I told him that I couldn’t be with him. He tells me that he started to see a counselor and that he wants to work out our problems. He wants to be a family and I mean the world to him. I love him so much, and I believe him that he loves me. I love him so much that it doesn’t make sense. I started seeing a therapist but I feel that we have been through so much and I am making a mistake. I want to marry him and raise our daughter together but I don’t know what to do. When things were good with us everything was great but with him I felt like I had to always be on guard about everything. Can a person really change, if they wanted to and got help? I love him so much and I can’t let go. Please realize that I wanted to get insight from a neutral third party.
Thank you for your help!

Answer
Dear Caroline,
I am so very sorry to hear about your situation.  It is never easy to make decisions about these kinds of relationships and I understand your indecision.  But what I want you to understand clearly is that this is AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP. Abuse is complex, but what you are describing is abuse, classic abuse.

Let me describe to you the profile of an abuser:  Abusers are controlling and they isolate their partners so that person has no support network to turn to for help.  By isolating and controlling, they make the person dependent on them.  Abusers intimidate by using different types of anger; explosive anger, physical violence either directed at the victim or at an inanimate object or an animal. They manipulate. They hold you hostage by being destructive with things you love and care about.  Abusers verbally demean and humiliate their victims by yelling, lecturing, swearing at, name calling or humiliating their victims; the abuser's opinion is the only opinion and the victim's advice is stupid. In the worst case scenarios there is physical violence which manipulates, intimidates and has the potential to kill.  It only takes 8 lbs of pressure around your neck for 11 seconds to kill you. Choking is one step away from murder on the violence scale. In order to be in a relationship with an abuser, the victim must give up most of who they are and what they like in favor of pleasing the abuser and even then, the abuser won't be happy.  Abusive relationships have honeymoon periods that make it seem like everything is OK, but it isn't....those periods of good only precede the next event.

The cycle of violence starts with a stressor that builds and builds until the abuser explodes.  Usually the abuser blames the victim for whatever the stressor is.  Once the event happens, the abuser will cool down, and either go on like nothing has happened or apologize and say it will never happen again.  The victim enables this behavior by justifying the abusive actions, giving in to the abuser's demands, or forgiving and starting over.  Then there is a honeymoon period until there is another stressor and the cycle starts again.  This cycle will continue to repeat, the honeymoon period gets shorter and shorter, but it will not stop until there is either some kind of professional intervention, the victim leaves the relationship or the abuser is put in jail.  Once physical violence starts, an important boundary has been crossed and the relationship is unsafe for both parties.

Along the course of your relationship with him, you have taught him things about what you will do, how far you will let him act out etc, and you are excusing his behavior and saying to him that you are not worth being treated well. I absolutely applaud you for leaving.  That was a wise choice, but remember, abusive relationships have two sides....the abuser and the one that allows themselves to be abused.  

Over the course of your life it sounds as if you have redefined the word "love".  This is not love.  What you are describing is survival.  I'm sure your ex has some good qualities...no one is purely evil.  However the thing about relationships is that you do not have to give up who you are, you don't have to give up being safe or being respected to be in them.  That is what you are doing here.  This isn't about love, this is about safety, respect and honor....which you have none of.  If you know he loves you, I believe you need some help with that definition.

Look in 1 Cor 13:4-8 - that is the definition of love:  "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth;....According to this definition, what you are getting from this man is not love, and no one who truly loves you would treat you this way.  He seems to be suffering from paranoia and appears somewhat delusional, which can be signs of mental illness.  You asked if people can change, and the answer is yes, people can; however the question is can this man change?  Is he mentally ill, what is his motivation for change, will he do whatever it takes to change?  You don't know that.

If you have to give up any measure of who God created you to be in order to be in a relationship, you shouldn't be in that relationship because it isn't a good fit. Besides, the problem isn't you, it's him.  Even if you managed to change into what he says he wants, he still wouldn't be happy, because the problem doesn't reside with you.  It is within him and he needs to address what is wrong inside him in order to be happy.

Abuse is the deal breaker in any relationship and sad to say, even with counseling, statistics show that abusers have a very low percentage of rehabilitation.  Why would you want to stay in a relationship where you have such low compatibility?  You don't want to spend your life fighting with him, fighting to retain your personhood, fighting to have independence....why would you want to do that?  Another thing to consider is what will happen to your little girl if he kills you or disables you?  Do you want her to grow up with this kind of abuse?  Do you want her to be a witness to his abuse of you?  What concrete steps have you seen that indicate there has been enough of a change to re-establish a normal relationship?  Going to counseling doesn't mean a lot if the motivation is to get you back.  He says he wants to work out the problems, but how is he going to react when the "problems" turn out to be his?  Will he still be willing?  If he believes that the problems in the relationship belong to you, then what he's really saying is he wants the counselor to fix you.  

Love is not a good enough reason to stay in a relationship like this.  He is verbally, emotionally and physically abusive. My best advice is for you to invest in yourself with some abuse counseling. You may love him, but you are not being treated in a loving manner and actions speak louder than words.  Telling you he loves you and he's sorry is not good enough.  You need to see long term results...LONG TERM, not for a few weeks or months, but years.  You need to see those results in concrete steps, not just wishful thinking.  Believe me, this pattern is a common one, counselors see it all the time.....libraries of books have been written about it and the percentage of relationships that survive this kind of abuse is very small.  

The last thing I want to say to you is that the priority here is your child.  Her safety outweighs anything you or he may want.  Living in an environment of anger, fear, and/or abuse fundamentally changes the patterns in a developing brain.  Don't kid yourself, she will be effected by the problems in your relationship and you will model to her what relationships with the opposite sex are like.  She will follow in your footsteps, because what she sees you do and allow will develop how she feels about herself and how men treat her.

I truly wish you well and I know how hard these decisions can be.  Please take to heart what I have said.  You don't deserve this and somewhere deep down inside you know that.  If I can be of any further assistance, please feel free to contact me again.  I have some very good articles in the Library on my website www.livingwellcc.com and I would encourage you to download some of them.

Blessings, Kriss