The Role Of The Victim In A Domestic Violence Scenario. Victim Behavior. "Call Of The Sacrifice"

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

Let's agree right away - responsibility for the violence lies with the perpetrator. This is personal responsibility. It cannot be shared with anyone. But in the scenario of domestic violence, both are involved: the "rapist" is the one who commits the violence and the "victim" is the person who is being abused. And they both make this scenario possible.

For me, this topic has been painful for many years. 17 years ago I experienced an act of violence and for a long time could not understand how this could happen. I have experience of experiencing myself as a victim, I know from the inside how this scenario works, and I can rely not only on my professional experience, but also on my own experiences.

It is important to understand that we are talking about domestic violence, not about attacking you from around the corner. We are talking about a relationship in which emotional and / or physical abuse is possible. And above all, it is the relationship between two adults - a man and a woman, husband and wife.

The overwhelming majority of the person committing physical violence is a man. The woman gets the role of the Victim in this process.

How do these two find each other - you ask? From the first experience. If a man behaves aggressively, and the woman does not leave after the first, second or third incident, but stays with him, then this is possible for this woman in a relationship. Not desirable - no, not great, not cool, not good, but maybe.

You can shout at some women, but physical violence with them is impossible. You can shout at someone and even beat them. Someone allows all types of violence against themselves, including sexual. The marker of opportunity is the fact that the woman does not leave.

What does a domestic violence scenario look like?

Psychologists describe it as a closed cycle, consisting of three phases:

1st phase. The build-up of tension

Phase 2. An episode of violence

Phase 3. Honeymoon

In the first phase, spouses experience an increase in tension. The first harbingers appear that this will happen soon. The husband accidentally touches his wife, so that she may fall. Or somehow he grabs her hand so that she gets bruises. The atmosphere in the house becomes unbearable. One spark is enough to cause an explosion.

The second phase is the actual episode of violence. It can last from a few seconds (one blow) to several days. The more deeply the personality of a man is destroyed, the longer the episode of violence lasts. In this phase, only the abuser can stop the violence. If a woman gets into this stage of the cycle, her task is to hide, protect the children and do everything to reduce the damage to her body. In rehabilitation centers, women are taught to take positions in which the internal organs will be maximally protected. This stage ends when the man stops himself. In the first case, he may simply be afraid of his outburst of aggression and the damage it has caused, and in extreme cases, when the violence lasts several days, the man stops when he runs out of breath.

Artist Angela Sekerak

The third phase is called "Honeymoon". The stage of "atonement for sins", requests for forgiveness and "giving gifts" begins. Once the gifts were accepted, the cycle of violence began a new round.

This death machine can only be stopped in two places:

At the first stage, when there is an increase in tension and the second - immediately after the episode of violence, during the first three days after it.

After an episode of violence, the man feels shame and guilt for what happened, but he does his best to minimize the damage and blame the victim on the responsibility, almost that she herself beat herself with his hands. "I was not standing there, I was doing the wrong thing, I was looking wrong, I was not answering that way." All this he does so that guilt and shame do not flood him. A man is ready to atone for sins and destroy traces of a crime (repair broken doors and furniture, pay his wife for plastic surgery and rest in a sanatorium, buy fur coats and rings), cry and ask for forgiveness, but … he is not ready to admit the damage caused to him. He refuses to fully believe and admit that he did it. Recognize the fact of damage caused to another person. Recognize the full extent of this damage. Take responsibility for it.

The real change begins with an admission of damage

According to the man: “I see what I have done with you, with your body. I admit that this is only my responsibility. You did not touch my body, it was I who damaged your body. Will you be able to live with me after all this?"

There are things that cannot be forgiven. Even after such an honest conversation and recognition of the responsibility of a man, people can leave. This is a woman's choice, whether she can forgive the damage caused to her, on the one hand, and whether she is ready to take risks, continuing to be in this relationship, on the other.

Artist Angela Sekerak

It is important to understand that neither gifts, nor the payment of doctors, nor the restoration of broken furniture are compensation for the damage caused. A man is obliged to restore what was broken and pay for treatment. This is his responsibility. But if a woman is ready to accept gifts (flowers, rings, fur coats, trips), then she agrees to continue the game. Over time, "advanced players" even have an unspoken price list of damage prices. A black eye - money for a new platishko, a broken arm - a gold bracelet.

Sex after an episode of violence is also a sign from the woman: “You are forgiven. Everything that happens suits me."

If the cycle of violence has passed into the phase of "honeymoon", if "gifts are accepted", then the circle has closed and the cycle has gone on a new round.

Artist Angela Sekerak

The second moment when you can stop the cycle of domestic violence is the phase of increasing tension. There are couples who learn to relieve stress by always staying within the framework of emotional abuse. I wrote about this in an article about "reckless women" and "patient men." In fact, then this cycle just slips. Tension and aggression are unconsciously not brought to such a force that an explosion occurs. Often a man redirects all the force of his aggression to the child. And then the child, not the wife, becomes an object for physical abuse.

aggression towards the child by the father is always the aggression of a man towards his wife

On the part of a woman, turning fire on herself is already a big step in order to pull the child out of the relationship between two adults, out of her relationship with her husband. Children - preschoolers and junior schoolchildren feel when the tension in the family goes off scale, and become a kind of lightning rod. Taking a blow on themselves, they return peace and quiet to the family. So the child serves the interests of adults, becomes a lightning rod for male aggression towards a woman. The man does not dare to present all this to his wife and finds a scapegoat, the one who is always to blame for everything.

In the title of my article, I stated that I will talk about the role of the victim in the cycle of violence. And her role is really important. There is a certain contribution that the sacrifice makes to ensure that this cycle is started and that it repeats itself over and over again. The first contribution is that the victim simply does not go away, it remains. Thus, saying "you can do this with me." The second contribution is that she accepts gifts and gives sex, demonstrating her benevolence and forgiveness.

the most important thing is what a woman does next to her man. what exactly turns him into a rapist and her into a victim. how does this transformation take place?

Victim's gaze

This is a magical look. It is felt on the back of the head, on the skin, it is caught unconsciously, you don't even need to look at it. It's enough to just see. Seeing this man as a rapist. The beast, the killer. The one who brings evil.

Have you ever walked through a pack of dogs? You walk, and on your way lie, walk, sniff a few possibly malevolent dogs. If you had experience when dogs attacked you, and your mother insisted in childhood that you should be afraid of dogs: "they can bite", you most likely backwards, backwards … and look for another way, if you dare to go through, dogs can really gnaw. If you did not have such experience, the dogs did not attack you, they never bite you, and as a child you had your best friend, a huge German shepherd, you will calmly walk through the pack, and the dogs will not pay attention to you. There is a rule: "Dogs attack those who are afraid of them." Those who see them as animals preparing to attack. And this vision somehow magically affects animals, becoming a signal for them to act.

In the case of relationships between people, the same mechanism works. A woman who had some experience of physical abuse in childhood can very easily see the rapist in someone else and automatically fall into a victim state.

Photo artist: Spoyalov Sergey

In psychology, such a mechanism is described as projection. This is when we see in someone those qualities that exist only in our head, we see a person based on our life experience, and we project this vision of ours onto another person. And then an amazing phenomenon occurs. In another person, that part of his personality that is close to our projection begins to come to life. If a woman projects a rapist, a villain, a scoundrel and a murderer onto a man, then she tries to wake up the beast in him. If a man's animal part is strong (it is strong in those who experienced violence in childhood, more on this in another article), then he will experience an irresistible desire to meet women's expectations. The level of aggression will rise incredibly and roll over. Someday the beast will wake up, and the victim will receive his own. The more the man's personality is destroyed, the more he himself had to endure, the more difficult it is for him to control his impulses and the aggression that rises to the “call of the victim”. The longer will be the episode of violence that will occur when his roof is blown off after all.

If a man had a calm childhood, no one beat him, did not rape him with food, did not perform harsh medical manipulations with him - he did not have time to grow an animal into himself, then he, too, experiencing the power of female projection, will feel an irresistible desire to strangle this unfortunate creature next to him. And even if he does not stand it, and an incident of violence occurs, the man will be very scared and forced to strengthen control over himself and look for other ways to relieve the tension that arises. He may begin to find fault with the child, see enemies at work, with someone constantly fight and fight, or disappear in the gym on duty - do everything possible just so as not to direct all the force of his aggression towards his wife. Staying together and experiencing a lot of aggression towards each other, which cannot be presented without physical violence, such couples can remain in the zone of emotional violence all their lives, turning their lives into hell.

When a couple decides to change, the first thing that psychologists teach their wife is not to project the beast on the husband, not to see him as a rapist. Communicate with him like a normal person. It is difficult, but it has a magical effect

In a period of increasing tension and precursors to notice what is happening. Again, when communicating with your husband, as with a normal person, say: “I see what is happening. We have already gone through this. There are traces. I hope you notice that too. This allows you to make what is happening explicit, understandable to both, and to outline the boundaries. This approach allows you to stay in the first phase without moving on to the second.

But there is also another side of the coin. Having got used to a certain cyclical nature of their life, getting drive and excitement from family storms, missing the sweetness of reconciliation, a couple, moving on to the usual human relations of two people, may lose all interest in each other. If this happens at the beginning of family life, these two may part, because they get bored with each other. Drive, violence, abuse, tears leave the relationship, the husband no longer repairs the taps to atone for his guilt and does not give flowers and gifts, and that's all - boredom. If a couple recovers, when they have already lived a lot together, have children, have a joint business and connect too much, then people can stay with each other, but go into the format of partnerships. To be close, but not together, solving common family matters, each live his own life.

There is also a third option, when a couple lives to a greater extent within the framework of emotional abuse, recovery can lead to renewal in relationships, improvement, to the search for new ways of interaction, to greater intimacy, understanding and acceptance of each other

but another result of the healing relationship may be that the spouses decide to honestly leave each other alone and divorce

I don't often write long articles. But the topic of sacrificial behavior, emotional and physical domestic violence is so vast and deep that even in this article I could not fit everything. Most likely I will write more.