I consider myself to be a logical person and a rational
thinker. For example, I usually keep
things in the same place and so if I can’t find an item, I retrace my steps and
hopefully soon find the object I’ve misplaced.
If my search is unsuccessful, I won’t rest until I discover it. My logic tells me that the object I seek is
exactly in the same place where I left it.
Most of the time, this approach works for me. If it doesn’t, I can never rest until the
search is over. My logical thinking always telling me that it’s exactly where I
last placed it.
However, if my ex-wife
had misplaced something (losing her keys/purse etc.), I was always blamed for taking it (or moving it) . This would then always
seem to provide an excuse for yet another violent outburst. Having gained some
insight from the excellent ‘Prone to
Violence’ by Erin Pizzey and Jeff Shapiro, I can now understand where her
approach comes from.
When I was assaulted by my ex-wife, a similar thought
pattern kicked in. I ended up making
excuses for her behaviour because that was the only way I could make logical
sense of the abuse.
Looking back, I still struggle about how my ex-wife can
portray herself as a pillar of the local community when I and our children know
the real truth about her. When
challenged about her behaviour towards us, she either denies or waters down the
severity of the offence. Recently, she
did admit to our daughter that she had had ‘anger issues in the past’ which is
the first time she’s acknowledged anything.
I have reflected over these feelings before and my online
friend, Andy Thomas of ‘A Voice for Men’, http://www.avoiceformen-uk.com/
suggested I read Erin Pizzey and Jeff Shapiro’s ‘Prone to Violence.’ This was a most insightful book and is being
featured on ‘A Voice for Men’s’ website currently.
Erin Pizzey founded the first refuge for all victims of domestic
violence in the 1970’s. She discovered
that out of the many women coming to her refuge, most were as violent (if not
more so) than the partners they were leaving behind. ‘Prone to Violence’ is an account of the real
truth about Domestic Violence. However, it can be a disturbing read because its
message is one that the Governmental Policy Makers don’t want you to hear.
I count it a real honour that some of my blogs are
included along Erin Pizzey’s articles on ‘A Voice for Men’ website. Erin’s latest article is well worth a read as
she writes about how Domestic Violence policy developed to the detriment of men
and their rights:
Reading ‘Prone to Violence’ has given me some of the
answers I’ve been seeking for a long time about my ex-wife’s abusive
behaviour. The book is based on
experience and observation and lays out how Domestic Violence victims fall into
two camps: Battered Spouses and those Prone
to Violence.
The battered spouses tend to
have grown up in emotionally-enabled families and fall victim to violent
partners. However, the ‘Prone to
Violence’ types come from emotionally-disabled families, never knowing the
proper love, care and nurture as young children that so many of us take for
granted. As a result, these ‘Prone to Violence’ people learn from an early age
that the only time they are noticed and given attention is when anger manifests
itself and so they become addicted to that emotion/pain, even creating
situations so that they can feel the buzz that the violent reaction gives them.
The following excerpt seemed to be written for me and, at
the very least, gives me some comfort of explanation that I have been searching
for:
Prone to Violence, Chapter Five
……If
you accept, as we do, that you are both emotionally and chemically bonded to
your parenting, then it becomes so much easier to understand your own
addiction. In a healthy family, that bonding plays its part while a child grows
and learns. Then, when the child is ready to turn outwards, the bonds are
slowly loosened, while the parents readjust their lives to use their time for
themselves and enjoy their future with each other. The child meanwhile seeks to
recreate the good, warm, loving relationships
and home environment that it experienced in its own home. Usually, this child
will succeed. An emotionally and chemically synthesised maturing adult will
seek the same relationship with its
partner.
On the whole, the emotionally able will avoid
the discomfort and turmoil of the emotionally disabled. If by chance they do
attempt to form a relationship with an emotionally disabled person, they will
then find themselves in the position of a battered woman or battered man.
Confused and bewildered, they continually misunderstand the messages they get
from their partners. It is very rare that
they can actually do very much to change their partner. If their partner will
not seek help, their best bet is to get out before children are born and they
become the unwitting parents of another generation of damage.
Children born into violent homes will usually
express the violence and betrayal of their childhood according to how it
personally affects them, their position in the family, and their genetic inheritance.
Instead of flowing with the warmth and the love of a happy family, they have
had to survive against the violent and often incestuous onslaughts of their
parents. Violent and incestuous families do not let each other go. The parents
take little pleasure in each other's company, and use one or all of the
children in the highly complex emotional theatre and battleground of the
family.
Betrayal
is the key word in these families. Betrayed parents in turn betray their
children. They rob them of their childhoods. They exploit them physically. They
exploit them emotionally. They keep them on edge in a jealous rage for
attention. Then when the children do finally break away, the rest of their
lives are spent in reaction against their parents.
Should a girl from a non-violent home marry a
boy from such a family, the chances are that no amount of reassurance will ever
convince him that she will be faithful to him. That primary betrayal of a
faithless or promiscuous mother will make him morbidly jealous for life. His
only hope is that he can find someone who can help him not only to come to
terms emotionally with the damage, but also to be able to identify the moment
when an event can trigger a chemical reaction in him that sets off the emotion of jealousy, and then to
relate it to the past, not the present. Sometimes it can be a smell, a perfume,
an inflection in a voice, which can stimulate the feelings of betrayal, and
bring the rage flooding back into the present. He then behaves in such a way
that it is out of proportion with the current event.
Unfortunately, so far, very little work has
been done in this field in Britain, where there is noticeable resistance to any
attempt to understand why human beings behave as they do In other countries where
I lecture, I find a great deal of interest and research going on.
Thank
you Erin Pizzey.
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