Identifying Abuse

The first and hardest step for me in healing from abuse has been to understand and admit that I was in an abusive relationship. If you are in an abusive relationship, or have a loved one who you wish to help, the first thing you must realize is that it is very difficult for a victim to realize the truth. If a victim admits they have been abused, they must accept that they have been used by the person they have loved the best, spent the most time and energy on. That is no easy thing. (For ease of discussion, I am going to use "he" for the abuser and "she" for the victim for now. In a future post, I will discuss tendencies between genders in abuse.)

There are many excuses a victim makes for an abuser. Two of the most common are 1) but he never hit me*, and 2) everyone does that, so it's not really abuse. Both excuses downplay the impact of the abuse. The first operates under the very common and unfortunate attitude that abuse is physical violence. In actuality, physical violence is only the more easily demonstrated portion of abuse. Look at it this way. If a husband tripped and fell against his wife, breaking her arm, it would be merely an accident. If, however, a husband wanted a wife to make him dinner and pushes her against a wall, breaking her arm, it would be abuse. The difference is not the injury. The difference is the emotional environment around the injury. The injury itself is incidental.

The second excuse I have heard (everyone does that) is used when a victim has been convinced that the behavior is normal. Sometimes it is because the victim was abused as a child. Rarely it is because the victim herself is an abuser. Often, it is because the victim does not want to be seen as different from everyone around her. Some abusers use the fear of being unloved to isolate their victims by convincing them that they deserve the abuse or that it is normal.

In an LDS framework, abuse has a particular outlet. The LDS Church is structured under the order of the Priesthood. When the priesthood is misunderstood as a tool of authority, it becomes the method of abuse. The scriptures call this "unrighteous dominion". Spouses are taught to honor each other, to look first within themselves to make changes in the marriage, and that marriage is a sacred and holy covenant which should not be broken. All of these things are true and good most of the time. However, without a complete understanding of the Priesthood and the covenant of marriage, these attitudes can utterly trap a victim.

To use an analogy which was used on me, imagine you are at a baseball game, and a man trips and spills beer all over you. You tell him not to worry, that it was an accident, and you forgive him. Nine people out of ten will look at you and think "Oh, what a nice person." The last will see potential prey. There are two parts to an abusive relationship: the abuser and the victim.

When I was presented with that, I thought to myself "but I want to be a nice person! I don't want to turn my back on Christian values of kindness and forgiveness, simply because there are those out there who will take advantage of me." Victims tend to see the world with a paradigm of mutuality. They want relationships to be mutually beneficial. Abusers tend to see the world with a paradigm of control. They want to be in control of their environment as much as possible, and are willing to go to lengths they would otherwise be horrified by to obtain it. A victim does not need to abandon divine compassion. It needs to be tempered, however, with divine judgment. We spend so much time avoiding judging others, we sometimes forget to judge situations. Relationships need to be examined with guidance from the Holy Spirit to make certain that they are divinely balanced. If the bad in a relationship cannot be pruned away to leave room for the good, sometimes the entire relationship must be "hewn down", however painful the process is. Otherwise, it will take over the entire life of the vineyard. Once a victim has done her best (and that can only be determined by the victim and the Lord), and the abusive relationship is destroying the rest of her life, it is time for the final harvest.

One last thing I would like to mention. Couples counseling is strongly not recommended for couples in abusive relationships. Couples counseling only sets a new playground for abuse. Unless a counselor is trained and experienced with abuse, the abuse can go on during counseling. The best way for a third party to measure abuse is not in the actions of the abuser, but in the reactions of the victim. When a person becomes familiar with the patterns of abuse and otherwise seemingly irrational reactions of a victim, it is easy to spot the difference between true abuse and "mere" marital disharmony.

For more information, please read this. It is a wonderfully balanced discussion on abuse in an LDS framework.

*If you have a loved one in an emotionally abusive relationship, I strongly recommend "But He Never Hit Me" by Dr. Jill Murray. I believe that book literally and figuratively saved my life.