Karma

At a recent family gathering, I was asked what my views were concerning Karma.  It seemed a little strange as an opening gambit from a relative who I only tend to see at family occasions.  However, I’ve often posted about my spiritual journey which has taken me from being a Christian church minister  to flirting with Atheism.  So I guess, it wasn’t  that strange a question after all.  I had certainly been reflecting on my own beliefs and the origins of personal belief.  My initial response was to say that “it’s probably easier to say what I don’t believe, rather than what I do believe.”

I don’t believe in the concepts of eternal/everlasting or indeed previous lives now.  The only thing we know with any certainty is that we are living this life now.  There is no factual evidence for anything before or after.  I know that some people claim to have had near-death experiences that equate to their own particular belief of what happens next, and there are those who under a form of hypnosis called past-life regression.   My own take on these ‘experiences’ is that the person’s own belief system has already influenced that person’s mind, so your sub conscious tells you what you want to hear. 

Similarly, well-meaning Christians have tried to convince me of the errors of my ways in turning my back on their faith by employing  Pascal’s Wager.  Pascal's Wager is an argument in philosophy which was devised by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). It posits that humans all bet with their lives either that God exists or not. Given the possibility that God actually does exist and assuming an infinite gain or loss associated with belief or unbelief in said God (as represented by an eternity in heaven or hell), a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss.  In other words, you have nothing to infinite loss, but everything to gain by believing in a God.  If the Judeo-Christian God doesn’t exist, you lose nothing.  It’s a hedge your bets argument.  Strange when most Christians/church teaching is opposed to Gambling, they ask you to ‘bet on the existence of god.’

As for Karma I can’t hold the view that my existence in a previous life, affects my current position now.  I have made conscious decisions and then had to live with the consequences of those decisions, many positive and some negative.  Nothing from an unknown past has influenced those decisions. 

However, there is a different type of Karma that we all often refer too.  Phrase like “What goes round comes round,” and “they’ll get what coming to them” has entered our vocabulary.   When someone hurts us or commits an injustice against us and isn’t punished, we use the afore-mentioned statements hoping that everything balances out, that the pain we have felt will soon be inflicted on the person that hurt us.  Does it happen?  It would be nice and rather comforting to think that it does, but in all reality it probably doesn’t.  My abuser has never accepted any responsibility for her actions and has failed to grasp the impact and consequences of her violent actions have had on me or our children.  While I hoped that natural karma would happen, so far it hasn’t.  She carried on living her live oblivious to the destruction she’s caused.  For me, I had to let go of wanting such karma to happen and move on with my life.   While I was anxious for my abuser to receive retribution for her crimes against me, the angst it caused me was a way of still allowing her to abuse me.    I guess I don’t believe in any form of Karma either. 

All that matters to me is the here and now and what I make of it.

Men don't feel pain....

After I was regularly attacked and my assailants’ (who happened to be my wife) anger had burnt out and she was on a calm plateau, I would challenge the unreasonable behaviour and be met with one of two responses: denial or she’d say, “You’re a man, you can cope with it.”  As I’ve spoken to other men who have been violently assaulted by their partner I’ve found that this notion seems quite common among some women, the idea that it’s okay to hit your male partner because you can’t really hurt him, he won’t feel any pain and therefore it doesn’t really count as domestic violence.

I’ve been giving this some thought as to where such nonsense originates from.  During infancy, boys receive the message that it’s a sign of weakness to cry, in fact that to show any sort of emotion is not the done thing for men.  And so when a young boy is hit by another in a juvenile fight, he tries his upmost not to show the pain he feels from his injuries. “It’s just a scratch.”   “It’s only a little cut’   “It looks far worse than it is.” Etc.   The last thing he wants is for his peers to see him ‘crying like a little girl.’  For the young schoolboy, being called a girl is reason enough to grit their teeth and not to show the pain they feel.  This response then stays with most men all through their life.  The reality is that males feel pain just like everyone else but society has conditioned them to suppress that pain and not exhibit any emotion. 

In the laws of the playground jungle, Boys also learn very quickly that you never hit a girl.  Some girls however, also recognise that a boy won’t hit them and they may think it’s funny to hit a boy who they know won’t strike back.  Again, this pattern of behaviour later establishes itself in adulthood.

As a man, I’ve found it hard to express my feelings and emotions.  Even now, I’m still reluctant to show my pain or to express my hurt.  The important thing is that I have found a safe environment where I can.   Bottling it all up or suppressing our hurt and our feelings then impacts our own mental well-being. 

Domestic violence is still largely perceived as a gender issue.  It shouldn’t be.  All abuse is wrong and the gender of both the perpetrator and victim is immaterial.  Gender is NOT the reason the abuse happens and therefore, any restorative action shouldn’t be based around gender.

However, the difficulty remains.  A man being attacked by a woman feels defenceless.  He often chooses not to fight back because of his values.  There are many portrayals of women attacking men – some view it amusing.  Others see it as fair game, the man must deserve it, and anyway that little woman can’t hurt that big, strapping man.  Because of this, people will accept the violent behaviour not appreciating the bigger picture. 

However, for every example you can think of where you’ve seen a man being hit by a woman  (and you would have seen quite a few on television maybe without realising it) ,  just imagine switching  the genders.  You will never see that scene portrayed as man to woman.  Why then, make mockery of women attacking men.  Any form of violence towards any person hurts.  All abuse is wrong.

Men DO feel pain.  They feel the pain of the attack.  They have the pain of having to cope alone as very few will have understanding towards them.  They may even suffer the pain of losing everything in life they held dear.

Domestic Abuse is not gender specific, and neither is pain.  Everyone hurts.

A fearful silence

Part of an abusers armoury is their employment of emotional blackmail and constant belittling of the victim.  People looking from outside may wonder why one untrue spoken comment causes so much damage.  However it is not the sole innocuous word spoken in haste, but a constant barrage of depreciation wears the target down, who then starts to sink into low personal self-esteem and little confidence which then affects every area of their lives.

Abusers also use their environmental perception to further degrade their victim with comments such as  “No-one will believe you,” or “No one else would want you.”

My abuser would tell me every day in front of our children that she hated me.   This would be without any provocation and not even in the context of those barbed statements that are sometimes thrown in a verbal domestic exchange.   I stopped talking about our work (because part of our work load was shared), because she found fault with everything.  With hindsight, I probably stopped working to the best of my ability because I was just so tired of having to face a bombardment of insults concerning my labours.

Knowing that the slightest thing could trigger a violent assault from her, I completely withdrew into myself.  I put on a charade to hide the truth, but I wasn’t myself.  

I’ve already written that when challenged, my abusive ex-wife would respond with “You’re a Man, you can put up with it.”  She also resorted to emotional blackmail.  On a regular basis I would be told, “If you leave, I will destroy you completely,” and “I’ll take you for every penny”  That wasn’t hard since I didn’t have a penny to my name!

Being church ministers, our house was the property of the church (as was the car I drove).    She told me often that she could leave whenever she wanted because if she took the children, enough agencies would be willing to rehouse a single mother with three children.  She would also tell me that I couldn’t leave because I had nowhere to go and no-one would provide me with housing .

She was right, she knew it and exploited that fact.  She knew that, as a man, I was unlikely to tell anyone my fate at her hands.  She knew that there was no refuge resources for me. She knew that people would not and could not comprehend the level of abuse that I’d suffered.  She knew that people would assume I may be over-reacting to a simple fall-out. 

Men also remain silent because they know that it will be difficult to convince others that they are a victim of domestic abuse.  Sadly, the perpetrator usually exploits this knowledge to their own advantage increasing the psychological pressure on the victim.

The silence deepened.  I felt I had no choice.  As fear clouded over me, my mental and psychological well-being evaporated.   If you have followed my story, you will know that the point came after 17 long years when I choose not to go back into the abuse.  I escaped.  What happened?  

All the things I feared came true.  I did indeed have nowhere to go.  I ended up sleeping on my elderly parents’ sofa for 6 weeks.  Their bungalow wasn’t big enough to house me indefinitely.  Yes, there were many who though I was over-reacting to a simple fall-out.  Only it was far from simple and eventually the whole truth emerged.  

My fearful silence was over.  I won’t pretend it was easy. In fact, life which had been quite secure was now tough.  However, I’m a different person now.  The journey I’m on as a survivor is hard,  but I have regained my life.  No longer am I just existing from moment to moment, I’m learning to enjoy the moments living free of all fear.

Fear

Fear becomes the over-riding factor when one feels trapped in an abusive relationship.  In the early stages of the relationship, fear didn’t exist.  I thought that there was trust and honesty.  When I met my ex-wife, I naturally assumed that everything she told me was the truth.  I believe now that she deliberately lied about certain events that would have led me to ask serious questions and discover her hidden character traits.  At the beginning of a new relationship, we don’t ask for confirmatory evidence.  We assume that we have been told the truth, unless we can clearly see through the lies.  If we uncover dishonesty, then invariably the relationship doesn’t continue.  My ex-wife has never been honest with herself, and I suspect that this is the reason why she can’t be honest with others.

The first time that I was exposed to her anger, I was shocked.  I’d not seen any behaviour like it leading up to that point.  I wasn’t fearful of her.  Although I was a victim to rather bizarre and unreasonable conduct, I made excuses for it.  However, there is NO excuse for Domestic Abuse in ANY form.   I accepted it initially because I thought that it was a one-off occurrence caused by stress and bereavement grief.  However, in my unconscious acceptance I allowed my ex-wife to continue abusing me and more extreme actions became part of daily living.  That’s when fear developed.

The first type of fear I recall experiencing was fear of being left alone with my ex-wife.  Her mood swings were so irrational and unpredictable that I dreaded going home after work.  Her aggression could be vented unprovoked.  However, in the presence of other people, she seemed calmer.  I would encourage family and friends to visit just because I feared those moments when we were on our own.  In those moments, nothing could placate her, I just learnt to let the anger burn itself out.  It was not a healthy way to live.

Although I thought that other people’s presence in the home brought some respite for me, I have now discovered as I have started sharing my experiences, that those family and friends that came dreaded doing so because of the things they witnessed my ex-wife say and do.   

As a male victim, I faced a bigger fear.  This was the fear of losing my children.  I felt I couldn’t leave the situation.  I couldn’t admit to what was happening at home.  I knew that society in large had no comprehension of men being victims of domestic abuse.  I had nowhere to go.  There wasn’t any place I could flee to with my children.  My children needed me and if I left, I had no way of providing any safety for them.  Again, in most broken relationships, the children stay with their mother.  And so, the fear of losing my children overweighed the fear of being left alone with her.

As the cycle of abuse continued through the years, I knew that I could not live in that relationship indefinitely.  I was then fearful of how people would respond to the end of the relationship.  Again, I put my children first trying to cushion them from the abuse inflicted on me that they saw and witnessed.  They would also be the ones most affected by the end of their parents’ marriage.   I was also fearful of losing all the security I had in my life.  By leaving the marriage, I would also lose my home and job.   I was then fearful about finding alternative employment.

Three years later, all fear has gone.  My life hasn’t the security it once had.  I can’t say that it has been easy.  It hasn’t but life is not a bed of roses.  Some of my fears proved well-founded.  

I lost my job and home.  I had nowhere to go or anywhere to work.  Some people struggle to accept that I was a victim of severe domestic abuse.  Some people I once considered friends have cut me off totally.  However, in adversity you discover who your true friends are and I certainly have.  My true friends have been very supportive and understanding of me and the journey I’m still on. 

And what of my main fear of losing my children?  My children now live with me and I’m immensely proud of the young people they’re growing to be.  As I’ve written, I’ve tried only to record the impact on my children when it’s relevant without disclosing too much detail.  They have their own stories that they may wish to tell one day.  That will be their decision.  I did everything I could so that I wouldn’t lose my children and so that I could keep them safe and as a result, we have a strong bond.  As a father, nothing else matters to me.  I now fear about my children’s future, but doesn’t every parent.  At least now, I know they have a good future.