TOXIC HUSBAND: DIE OR LEAVE

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Dedicated to T. S.

A girl came to me for a consultation. She said that she needed an assessment of the situation, and immediately asked not to consider her crazy. She was in despair and did not understand at all how to behave.

The problem was not with her. The trouble happened to her sister.

My sister, Vera, was a citizen of another country - just like my client, by the way. She graduated with honors from the Medical University, completed several foreign internships. There was no time for guys - and when at 25 she opened her eyes and looked around, she did not see anyone. A year, two - she worked, worked, worked … And then he appeared. Without education (looking for myself), temporarily unemployed (doing my own business), 36-year-old never married man. He quickly met his parents, made an offer and another offer - to move to Belarus. We have, they say, a beautiful country and a calm life.

The parents were happy. We got married quickly. We quickly bought an apartment in the capital - the son-in-law is a very sincere person. Everyone, of course, was registered for a son-in-law - after all, the daughter was only planning to apply for a residence permit. Then we bought a premise for a business. Then they opened a medical center there and bought all the equipment …

The happy young people lived far away, they called back on the phone and Skype often, but literally for a minute. It was clear that the young wife did not have a minute of free time: organizing the work of the center, hiring staff, and she herself did not even go to the toilet during the reception. The husband became the director of the center. Soon Vera announced pregnancy - but she worked until the last day. When the child appeared, the parents rushed to help. They were amazed that the young mother, having discharged from the hospital, went to work the very next day. The nanny remained with the child. Coming home from work, Vera cleaned, cooked and did everything as it should be. At night, the restless child did not sleep - and in the morning Vera again and again steadfastly walked to work, telling her parents, "Don't worry, I am EVERYTHING GOOD."

A year later, she called her sister and asked to come. Vera met her secretly, slipping away from work for half an hour, and said - I can't do this anymore … I don't know what's going on - but I feel bad around him. I feel like I'm in a cage … I lost myself … My sister tried to calm down and said everything that is necessary in these cases - make peace, everything will be fine … But Vera said one phrase: "YOU don't understand … He is a terrible person …"

The sister left, and Vera called a month later and said that she became pregnant again … And now - emotionally, waving her arms, the sister told - she gave birth to a second one, continues to work and turned into a zombie.

I still did not understand what the horror of the situation was, which I asked the client about.

And then she began to cry. “You don’t understand,” she said, “how Vera was replaced”

And she said that Vera, an excellent driver, having arrived in Minsk, never got behind the wheel - her husband took the car and said: I care about you. He drives it, of course, himself.

Vera does not know the city - she simply has NEVER been to the cinema, or to the cafe, or to the theater, or to the Botanical Garden. It only works.

Vera does not know where the stores are - for three years she has not bought any panties or tights. She used to be a big fashionista, she just turned into a shadow. With a height above 170, she weighs 47 kilograms. Her clothes are hanging on her, but at work she is in a dressing gown, the nanny is walking with the children …

When the parents, once again arriving, saw what was happening with their daughter, they were horrified. They took her to the doctor, but he threw up his hands - they say, anorexia, exhaustion, it would be necessary to rest, drink vitamins, pass all the tests … And then her husband called. Vera said: "I came to the medical center, I want to get tested." The parents saw how their daughter's face changed. She said that she urgently needed to go home and that her husband would come for her now.

At home, the son-in-law said that his parents rudely climbed into his family, packed up his things and put his parents out the door. They rented a hotel and wondered - how did it happen that they, businessmen, adults, bought an apartment and a business to essentially a stranger - everything is registered for him. But most of all, they were worried about their daughter's health.

They called Vera the next day, but she did not answer the phone. They tried to come to her work - but the administrator immediately called her husband, and he gently but persistently kicked them out the door. And the parents suspected that their daughter was on some kind of pills. Why was the son-in-law so nervous in response to a simple blood test? Why did the daughter not feed the child when she was discharged from the hospital, although she had milk?

I asked, what do they want from me? Vera's sister said: “I understand that I look paranoid. I already visited a psychologist in my hometown, and this was a specialist whom Vera turned to earlier because of the difficulties in building a family. When I told everything, the psychologist was surprised. She remembered Vera as an intelligent, active, energetic, workaholic girl. Her hypothesis was connected with the fact that Vera shifted her dependence from work to her husband and now she is under strong influence."

Of course, I tried to shift the focus from Vera to the client. Of course, I learned a lot about the family. But the story stuck in my head. How in a few years did an intelligent woman who won European internship grants, a loving daughter and sister, become a zombie? I read about sects and thought - how easy it is to break a person. Make him addicted, don't let him sleep, make him work a lot - and he won't get away from you … But most of all I was touched by the question - when does the fracture happen? After all, up to some point, and Vera kept her sanity - she noticed that everything was bad, and was ready to leave. But for some reason she stayed … And after that she broke down.

Why don't we move away from toxic partners? What keeps us close to them? Everything is banal - those experiences that "glue" us into codependency, and those investments that we have already invested in a person and can never be taken back. We are not leaving because:

• Ashamed. After all, people said - look at him! He's SO … But I didn’t listen and didn’t hear …
• Fearfully. What if everyone is like that? What if he will take revenge? What if he picks up the children? What if he kills?
• Sad. After all, there were a couple of bright moments at the beginning of the relationship, when it was believed that everything would be fine. Memories give rise to the belief that things can change. You just have to be patient a little - and he will understand how good I am …
• It's a shame. I have done so much for this relationship, put my soul into it, donated so much …

I thought for a long time whether it was worth writing about it - the topic is delicate, complex, multifaceted. I really don’t know the right answers - and I’m looking for them myself together with my clients, members of therapy and training groups. But sometimes I am overwhelmed by such a wave of despair and hopelessness that I don’t know how to continue to talk to a person, what to say to him, and whether it is worth doing it at all.

We are talking for the hundredth time about the very relationships that we easily call dependent. Every psychologist, and recently every second client, knows everything about S. Karpman's triangle, about building boundaries, about taking responsibility. The ice is broken, gentlemen of the jury, the ice is broken! But next to each of us there live people whom this knowledge never saves. These are those who are in a toxic, toxic relationship with their partner - and yet cannot part.

When I think of these women, a whole gallery of images rushes in front of my face. This is also a casual woman with a smeared bruise on her cheekbone, hurrying to the store in the morning. This is a woman driving a drunken husband home and listening all the way that she, a cow, cannot drive. These are victims of domestic violence who are raped by their husbands, giving birth to children every year, who fled to shelters and shelters and are ready to believe again that "he has already realized everything and corrected himself." These are women who have worked their shift and are in a hurry to cook borscht home for their husband who is lying on the couch, who manages both her time and her body in a businesslike manner.

Of course, a broken rib or black eye is more difficult to hide than constant humiliation, rejection, devaluation and contempt. But from this relationship, those become less destructive. I would like to list the characteristics that are inherent in such a relationship, and would start with how men behave in such a relationship.

• A man can be characterized by the capacious word "misogin". The misogin hates women and the feminine. Recently, they often write about this, but it is very difficult to accept that someone can despise and discriminate against a person on the basis of gender. Of course, almost all religious texts are permeated with the idea that women are second class beings. Of course, there is Nietzsche with his "You go to a woman - do not forget the whip", but misogyny can be simply difficult to accept - and therefore we come up with a thousand excuses (from "He had an evil mother" to "He is not in the mood today").
• A man with a power complex who wants to command and rule. He will indicate and tell what, how and why a woman should do - from cooking soup to choosing a job. Total control and submission is what such a man needs.
• A man is a psychopath, with a lack of empathy, “devoid of conscience,” deceitful, manipulative, using a woman as an object to achieve some goals. It is impossible to understand, calculate, change. Read books - whole volumes have been written about them, and at the beginning of a relationship one cannot help but fall in love with such a man.
• A man using physical aggression. He can push, hit a woman, throw a heavy object at her, throw tea on her. Then he says: “You yourself provoked me, you brought me on”. In fact, he is completely unable to manage his anger. His anger is like a country toilet, into which an automatic tape at intervals of half an hour throws a pack of the freshest yeast.
• A man who loves economic violence. The portrait range extends from “Where did you spend so much money?”, “You have maternity ones - buy food for them” to “Leave yourself a ticket, I'll go for groceries myself”.
• A man who is always dissatisfied with everything and constantly grumbles, makes claims, crushes, whines. Living with him is like being in eternal darkness without hope for a ray of sunshine.
• The man is an appraiser. He, as a jeweler, will always tell a woman how many carats she has gained, where her wrinkles are, compare her with her friends and the anorexic Angelina Jolie. The wife of such a husband does not need scales and mirrors - every day she receives clear and accurate information that she is not good, stupid, stupid, boring, does not deserve anyone's love - period.

If you meet such a man, you must run. If you fell in love, you must run. If you have been married to him for many years, you have no money, children are small, no one supports you - you have to count to a hundred and run.

Maybe you will be lucky and the day of epiphany will come. Maybe on this day you will suddenly realize that there is only one life, and God has not created for you any spare parts, or spare health, or even the opportunity to remain at the “18 years” point and start all over again.

Changes are not happening tomorrow, but right now. A toxic husband is a husband who poisons you. Are you ready to live near the Chernobyl reactor for a few more years? Do you deny the effect of radiation on your body and soul? Are you omnipotent?

Then you CAN'T HELP ANYTHING.

But if you have hope - run! They pay extra for harmful production - and people take risks, knowing what they are doing. Who will "pay" you extra for the total poisoning of your life?

Dr. House said, “People don't change.” They do change, but extremely slowly. How long are you willing to wait? 10 years? twenty? fifty? GAME OVER! The game will end before you realize that you didn't want to play it!

You can read the book "The Charm of Femininity" again. You can measure out some more period and talk directly with your husband about what kind of changes in the relationship you want. You can try again.

But just stop kidding yourself. You will not be able to live in a gas mask for the rest of your life - not to breathe, not to rejoice, not to be loved and accepted, appreciated and supported.