We were recently reminded of an epidemic filled with shame and pain: Domestic Violence and abusive relationships. The media tends to focus on what they see on the surface for a few days, and then it fades away. However, there are deeper and more serious realities that each spouse has experienced in their lifetime, and as a result, they continue in their abusive patterns. Let me explain more clearly.
The Roots of Domestic Violence and Abuse
Domestic violence is not as rare as we might think or hope. It doesn’t only apply to sports athletes. As a Marriage and Family Therapist, I see this in various venues and professional fields, including high-level executives and professionals with any title or status you can imagine. It’s not about a specific profession, gender, or wealth. Bottom line: it’s about one thing—individuals’ early personal life experiences and training. I will expand on this and give you specific examples later in the article.
Abuse and domestic violence are highly complex, and I want to take you to the true roots of this problem. In this article, I want to introduce you to the husband and wife who have a particular bonding and relationship style, one that they each learned many years ago during their early life experiences. As a result of those early experiences, they underwent painful training, which now manifests in controlling, reactive, and abusive behavior from one spouse, while the other functions as a victim. The victim learned to respond in helpless, powerless ways, minimizing the reality of the abusive behavior. All of this is familiar to them from long ago.
This is a serious, deep wound in each individual that requires attention, treatment, and recovery.
Let me be more specific about what I’m referring to. Many times, when I am in public places—shopping, running errands, or in places like grocery stores, department stores, or even on the street—I see a parent with a preschooler or a young child. The child is whining, feeling tired, crying, complaining that they are hungry, or need to go to the bathroom—a basic need! Then I hear the parent’s reaction: the mother screams and yells, telling the child to leave her alone, or threatening the child with a list of punishments if they don’t stop whining. Finally, she tells the child to “shut up!”
Are you getting the picture? Sometimes there are even more painful words spoken in a disgusting tone to the child. Then the child responds by yelling back the same mean words they heard from their mother, with the same anger. The child talks back, saying, “I hate you.” Now, imagine this happening in a public place. If this is how a parent and child behave in public, what do you think is going on at home behind closed doors? It trembles and saddens my heart.
No, this is not an article about parenting, but what we experience in relationships with our caretakers is connected to domestic violence. I’m sharing this with you because I want to invite you to think about a few important insights and possible solutions that could help adults stop the bleeding and wounding in their abusive relationships.
Let me spell it out: we all form a particular type of attachment. Attachment is the process by which we learn how to bond with our caretakers during our upbringing. These attachment styles are shaped by our real experiences with parents who modeled and trained us in how to relate and connect with another human being. We learned how our needs could be met—or, perhaps, our needs were never met—and then we learned ways of surviving and coping in those relationships where injuries occurred, as seen in the earlier scenario. It’s because of these primary relationships that we continue to repeat these dysfunctional and painful patterns in intimate relationships. Early life experiences leave long-term impacts and footprints in our hearts, minds, and souls, which are expressed and acted out in our behavior.
So, speaking of the roots of this problem or any relationship issue, the real question is: what is the core pattern of your story? If there was ambiguity, insecurity, and inconsistency during those bonding years (the first eight to ten years of life), then the individual’s blue-print for relationships could lead to confusing, painful, and chaotic connections. These patterns often lead to unhealthy and painful marriages.
Spouses who experience abuse and domestic violence have most likely encountered chaotic homes in their early years. They are still stuck in those patterns and have not learned how to separate from them. They have no idea how to move toward growth, healing, and recovery.
We are meant to live in loving and healthy relationships. It is up to us to seek that in our lives and make changes. It is a difficult journey but not impossible. More importantly, we are not meant to do this alone. We must seek the kind of help and new training that will help us make changes and recover from old, painful patterns.
The purpose of this article is not to blame the parents, but rather to give readers insight into why these types of relationships and marriages exist. It is also to inform adults that they have new and different choices to make. When an individual’s connection and attachment style with their caretakers were sporadic, unavailable, and painful—as in the earlier scenario—their deep emotional needs were not properly met. Therefore, they carry deep and painful wounds into their adult relationships, where they react to their partners, and the cycle of chaos begins again. This is dangerous because their reactivity hurts both themselves and others. We call them the abuser (the controller), overpowering the other person, who functions as the victim in denial, feeling helpless.
The Path to Recovery and Healing
The first step to recovery is to address the underlying feelings and emotions that have never been fully addressed. The second step is to do this with someone. They cannot heal alone in isolation. We are designed to be in relationships, and it is through relationships that we also heal. Therefore, seeking the help of a seasoned therapist and participating in a supportive small group will help them create new patterns of healthy relationships. In these relationships, they can learn to connect with others authentically. They were wounded and injured in those early relationships, but it is in new and healthy relationships that they can recover, heal, and grow.
Abusive relationships require serious help and intervention. The injuries are not only the result of what went on inside the home. Sometimes, traumatic experiences outside the home, such as in the neighborhood, can also play a role.
When you constantly live in a painful, war-zone situation long enough, it becomes the norm, and you forget how much of a serious negative impact it has on your soul, heart, and mind. This is why the couple lives in denial, hiding, feeling shame, pretending, and continuing the cycle of violence until something happens and their behavior is exposed to others.
The controller/abuser becomes an adult with thoughts like, “Don’t question me,” “I didn’t do anything wrong,” and “Feel the shame in silence.” Controllers also struggle with authority and act impulsively. Victims, on the other hand, tell themselves, “This isn’t so bad,” because growing up in chaotic homes, their realities become distorted. They minimize the situation and feel numb while living in intolerable circumstances. Victims may believe it’s their fault or tell themselves that anything is better than being alone. They might think, “This happens to other couples, not just me,” or feel hopeless. The victim stays in denial, telling themselves, “I will be good.” These are just a few of the ways they talk to themselves.
These are the belief systems formed and shaped from their chaotic backgrounds and painful early life experiences.
The good news is that there is hope. It all depends on not waiting any longer in these destructive patterns but having the courage to take responsibility and get good, effective individual therapy. Only when it is safe enough can they engage in good couple’s therapy after showing their readiness.
As a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist in Burbank, Los Angeles, I want to give you hope. I have seen couples resurrect their marriages, whether due to domestic violence or extra-marital affairs. It happens when each partner makes a true commitment to their own personal recovery, takes responsibility, becomes vulnerable about their pain, and moves toward healing. Only then can they recover from their previous dysfunctional styles.
The key to this recovery is accepting reality and learning to ask for needs in relationships while practicing appropriate boundaries within the marriage. Many people who come from chaotic and painful backgrounds don’t know how to practice healthy boundaries in relationships and marriages.
