 |
||
|
|
||
Domestic
Violence
This
is an appeal to men who commit domestic violence.
Research suggests that three elements contribute
to the impulse to abuse women: justification, need and
disconnection. Eliminate one of these factors and the abusive
behavior stops. Change can be that simple, or that difficult.
For
those of you caught in this behavior, consider these three messages:
- You have no moral justification to abuse anyone.
- Whatever personal need prompts you to abuse someone is not the necessity you perceive.
-
Abusing people demonstrates a deep psychological disconnection
from others, a lack of empathy that prevents you from identifying with
the pain you cause.
The
first factor is based on some value in your mind that convinces you that
your violence is justified. Perhaps you learned this from
your father when you were very young, or from an abusive brother or bully
on the street. This value insists that the end justifies the means. Violence
allows you to assert control. It places you in a position of power which
then tries to affirm the significance of your existence.
There is what appears to be a moral component
to this. Once violence is perceived as justified, it is
no longer considered something bad. The negative components of violence
get placed on the victim who provokes this reaction, rather than on the
perpetrator-at least in your mind. In a sense, you feel entitled
to assert violent behavior. Almost obligated. Slipping into this mode
seems as natural as slipping on a glove. The more you get away with it,
the more justified you feel.
This is a deception of the mind which gropes
for power over one's own life in an unhealthy and even dangerous fashion.
It feels right at the time, even though a twinge of conscience may tell
you that it's not. At some point, as the mind continues to justify itself,
even that twinge of conscience will fade. This is the trap that many men
fall into. Feeling unable to control one's life in a civilized manner,
not knowing how, finding a replacement in using threats and force, violence
becomes translated as something good. Once you convince yourself that
the person you abuse is responsible for instigating the violence, you
fall into a pattern that propagates itself. Justification closes off one's
conscience, and can only lead to trouble.
If you find a way to stop justifying your
abusive actions, and really take it to heart, you may be able to change
your behavior.
When you think about it clearly, there can
be no moral justification for physically or emotionally harming someone
you love or care about. Hurting people is the opposite of love. Forcing
one's control over others is the opposite of freedom, and therefore a
fundamental assault on their humanity. This cannot be compared with punishing
a child for misbehaving, or asserting one's control as parent, or man
of the house, or the person who knows better. It stems from insecurity
and lack of skill in dealing with other people. Your moral justification
is nothing but crutch to compensate for a lack of relationship skills.
That
you value justification, however, points to a sense of morality
that you need to take hold of. Once you realize that your behavior has
no justification, indeed, that your behavior is completely inappropriate
and downright wrong, a true sense of morality will lead you away from
it.
The second factor, need, implies
that you are in a situation that requires you to take control,
and that you either have no means other than force, or that the means
of force are somehow preferable. This stems from envisioning the give
and take of ordinary life as somehow threatening. Strict control is required
or the result is loss of authority and opening oneself to peril. The idea
centers on the perception that the world is a dangerous place, and personal
stability relies on strict, uncompromising measures.
In
other words, this need for control is based on fear, and the anger which
accompanies fear. The strength you feel by hurting someone is a poor replacement
for personal confidence and competence, the ability to act appropriately
to everyday occurrences. It is the fear of losing one's authority. Your
loved ones, the very people you rely on, are then perceived as risks.
This vision of life is doomed to failure
and discontent. It is the opposite of manly self-sufficiency. It is bullying.
You may feel entitled to the
control you force upon your spouse. You may feel that you contribute most
of the income, and that gives you special rights. Or maybe just because
you're the man you deserve to be master over
your home and family.
Fear of losing that entitlement, which is
an aspect of self-identity, also seems to justify your need for power.
Such conclusions contribute to a mindset that immediately sets you apart
from your partner. By setting yourself in a position of authority, equality
is impossible. You degrade her position in the relationship to that of
disobedient child. This is the antithesis of love, where two people help
each other to realize and enjoy their true potentials. You end up destroying
what is best for both of you.
The third factor, disconnection from
others, is the most personally debilitating of all three. With
this factor, you see people as fundamentally different from yourself to
the point where you cannot identify with their human needs or suffering.
Every person wants some autonomy in life, a sense of power and worth and
freedom. You have this yourself, reflected in your concern for control,
justification, responding to perceived threats, avoiding pain, seeking
personal security. This is all part of being human. The problem stems
from the fact that you recognize this in yourself, but not in others.
Or that you perceive the autonomy of others as so personally threatening
that you have to deny them of it. You disconnect from their basic humanity.
A simple sense of fair play demonstrates
how this is wrong. But it is more than that. When you deny the humanity
of another person, you kill something of yourself as well. You become
unfeeling, incapable of love. You deny yourself of the richness of life
by closing yourself off to its complications. Perhaps the complications
of life encourage you to avoid them. When you do, however, you cut yourself
off from joy.
Relationships need connection. If you disconnect
yourself from your spouse enough to abuse her for your own sense of control,
you have already killed any sense of a loving relationship. You live behind
a wall of inequality and disrespect. You may try to convince yourself
that this isn't true, that you are merely responding as you need to, but
the fact remains that you are extricating yourself from the healthy dynamics
of a good relationship and replacing it with one of control and punishment.
This may make you feel powerful and even secure, but such feelings are
illusions. You have created something dysfunctional, where your spouse
suffers while you enjoy a sense of power that will ultimately ruin everything.
If your relationship is not based on the
equality of partnership, what is it, exactly, that you have? Where is
the comfort in your own life of being loved by an equal whom you cherish
and care for? Where is the love you expect in return, if your control
is based on instilling fear? You have far more to feel insecure about
in such a relationship, because you have already pushed away the depth
of feeling that love is based on. You've already lost, through your own
efforts, what you were trying to protect.
This short summary cannot replace the professional
help that will lead you to remediation. The most it can do is offer some
insight, hope and encouragement to seek professional help. The above three
elements form the root of domestic violence. Remove one of the elements,
completely, and the root dies. This offers reason for hope. It still requires
hard work and commitment, but the rewards are great.
Rewards?
That's right. There are two victims of spousal
abuse. The woman who is battered, and the man who bears the stigma of
personal weakness that battering represents. Ending domestic violence
liberates you both and allows for the possibility of love to flourish.
For
more information, contact the Non-Violence Alliance at (860) 347-8220
or (800) 349-6682, or by e-mail at: novamanager@endingviolence.com
.
