I want to talk today about how our upbringing (and Disney movies) helped teach us to be okay with abusive relationships. I’ll walk through a scenario with you, and then in the second half I’m going to talk about the different types of abuse a relationship may encounter and what you should and shouldn’t put up with in a marriage.
It’s a long one today, but I think it’s a good one.
Here we go.
Do you remember the Disney movies we grew up with? I’m a child of the 80’s (barely), so for me those movies were
The Little Mermaid
Beauty and the Beast
Cinderella
Snow White
…Remember those?
We might smile at first remembering those movies we grew so fond of. The pretty dresses. The cute talking animals and objects. The music.
We were taught in those movies to hold marriage in the highest regard. That the story ended when you fell in love and got the man down on one knee, with a quick flash of the wedding before the movie ended.
Find a man, get that man to fall in love with you, get married.
The End.
Marriage was the goal and it came at whatever the cost:
-giving up our voice
-suffering isolation and abuse
-changing the way we looked
-and even dying.
It’s only later in life, after we’ve finally achieved the pinnacle of life (AKA marriage) that we start hearing, “Marriage is work.”
And we start to deconstruct this belief in marriage as being the end-all be-all. We’re now told that it’s not that easy. We’ll have to work at it, and it will be hard.
Hmm. Okay.
So we shift. We shift our views of marriage as we try to understand what comes next.
But where is the line where love switches from hard to destructive?
That’s where I struggled for a long time.
And it’s not just me. I think a lot of us are struggling.
If it’s destroying you, then it isn’t love, my dear.
Let’s walk through a story together:
You get married, and you face the hard things.
You remember the advice everyone tells you: “Marriage is work.”
Okay. We double down. We’re ready for this!
We communicate a little more. We give grace.
We’re working through the hard things!
Then he comments on the clothes you wear and your weight.
“Marriage is work.” And you let your hand pass by that outfit you really love. You look into healthier foods.
He yells about the messy house.
“Marriage is work.” So you try to clean up the mess. Stay more organized. Buy more containers. Listen to a podcast or two about organization.
He calls you lazy. A bitch.
“Marriage is work.” So you change your voice. Walk a little bit quieter around the house. Your light is dimmer, and it doesn’t feel right.
He calls you a liar when you point out a miscommunication.
“Marriage is work.” You question yourself.
Did I say that?
Am I forgetting?
Am I working hard enough?
Am I crazy?
“You never have sex with me!” And you think…he’s right. I don’t. Maybe that will fix the yelling and the name calling. Maybe sex is another hard thing that I need work through.
So you do it. And you quickly realize, that is not the problem.
This marriage is crumbling all around you. Crumbling despite all the hard work you’re putting into it.
You cry to him. Telling him you feel unloved. That the marriage is falling apart and you want to work together to fix things.
You’re trying, but it’s not enough. He needs to help.
He says, “Well, maybe if you’d clean the house more, then I’d be more emotionally available to you. You need to fix these things. There’s nothing wrong with me.”
And again, inside your head, you hear that voice…
“Marriage is work.”
So you go to counseling, talk to your family, read the books, self-reflect every damn day trying to fix what is “wrong” with you.
Then you find an amazing group on Facebook talking about abuse…
And you start to realize…
this isn’t a marriage worth saving with “hard work.”
Because this isn’t love.
This is abuse.
Years of emotional and verbal abuse that has only gotten worse.
You are in an abusive relationship.
******************
I want to talk today about abuse. But not the physical abuse that we as a society already know about.
Abuse comes in many forms, and we don’t talk about the other forms nearly enough. I bet a lot of people reading this are in an abusive relationship (romantic or not), some without even realizing it.
There’s this fantastic tool below called the Power and Control Wheel (this one is thanks to www.speakyourtruth.today).
The Power and Control Wheel describes 12 different types of abuse, many that I’m betting you haven’t heard of before.
Financial Abuse
Physical Abuse
Social Abuse
Cultural Abuse
Spiritual Abuse
Emotional Abuse
Intellectual Abuse
Sexual Abuse
Verbal Abuse
Pet/Property Abuse
Psychological Abuse
Using Children
Pick a couple and take a moment to look them over (or read them all. Knowledge is power. You never know who you might help with this knowledge).
Does anything surprise you?
Marriage is hard. Marriage is work.
But a healthy way of understanding that phrase is to recognize that marriage is only hard when you have to face the hard things in life together.
Hard things like:
-a death in the family
-difficulty conceiving
-sick children
-saving for a house
-a broken furnace
-looking for a new apartment
-a broken down car
-accidents
-illnessess
Those are the hard things a marriage is supposed to work through together. Those are the sources that create the work for us. It takes extra effort to get through hard times like that.
This whole idea that we are supposed to “work” our way through abuse is complete bullshit. But sadly, it’s what so many of us are conditioned to believe is right. That marriage will involve abuse and we just need to work through it.
I mean, look at freaking Beauty and the Beast.
So let’s draw the line there. Where the hard things turn into abuse.
Draw that line deep in the sand and vow to never cross it.
We are not required to work our way through name calling.
We are not required to work our way through financial control.
We are not required to work our way through isolation.
We are not required to work our way through gaslighting.
We are not required to work our way through yelling.
We are not required to work our way through put downs.
We are not required to walk on eggshells.
We are not required to cry every day over the pain of it all.
Marriage isn’t supposed to be tears and yelling and fear and sadness.
Marriage isn’t supposed to slowly destroy you.
Pull you away from your dreams.
Make you feel less and less like you.
Turn you into a shell of the person you’re supposed to be.
Marriage isn’t supposed to harden you.
To make you cold.
To force you to silence your voice instead of speak your fears.
Speak your sadness.
Speak your truth.
If you find yourself sitting in that gray area, toes touching that line in the sand, you’re right to feel alarm bells going off.
Love doesn’t destroy you. Abuse does.
If you’re wondering if you’re in an abusive relationship, there’s a great quiz you can take over at my favorite website: https://www.speakyourtruth.today/quiz
Check it out, and share it with someone who might need it.
I answered yes to every question in my past marriage.