Physical and emotional abuse in a relationship; giving and receiving

I am going to warn you that this post will probably anger some people but please stick with me. This might save a lot of people from both physical and emotional abuse in all of their relationships. Let me first introduce to you two completely opposite ways of thinking:

Giver: “You love me because I give you stuff. I give you stuff because I need you to love me.”

Lover: “You give me stuff because you love me. I give you stuff because I love you.”

Giver: “I love you because I am with you. You love me because I am with you.”

Lover: “I am with you because I love you. You are with me because you love me.”

Giver: “You owe me love me because I treat you well. I treat you well because I need you to love me.”

Lover: “I treat you well because I love you. I owe you nothing for being treated well. You owe me nothing for being treated well. We are human.”

Giver: “I hit/fight you because I want to test your love for me.”

Lover: “I hit/fight you because I want you to go away.”

Giver: “You hit/fight me because you want to test my love for me.”

Lover: “You hit/fight me because you hate me.”

Can you see where I am going with this? A Giver and a Giver is a great combination in a relationship, so is a Lover and a Lover. As a couple, they are a disaster. A Giver (victim) wants to teach the Lover (abuser) that no matter what the Lover does, he or she is always loved. The Lover doesn’t feel loved, he or she feels trapped by this kind of love and disrespected to boot. To the Giver, such concept as a break up is about as realistic as the thought of casually moving to the other side of the planet with nothing but your backpack on a whim. They know some people do that, and that to them it’s as easy as wink, but to them, the idea is IMPOSSIBLE. It is not that they don’t want it – they do – but suggesting to a Giver that they should leave the relationship is like casually suggesting to them that the best thing to do now was to just pack your backpack and move to the other side of the planet, right now.

When the Lover first suggests that they should break up, the Giver takes this as emotional abuse. This is not a real suggestion, this is abuse, so the Giver doesn’t take the suggestion seriously but gets insulted instead. Sometimes the Lover has already told the Giver a million times that they have broken up, the Lover has even proven their point by sleeping with other people, but the Giver takes this as emotional abuse and cheating. To them, breakups are never one-sided, if there is a break-up, it’s either their choice, mutual choice, or it doesn’t happen.

Because a Lover never stays with a person who they do not think is the most amazing human being on the planet (or at least the most amazing person they know) they do not understand why the Giver would take all that shouting and emotional abuse from them if they are not completely convinced that the Lover is God incarnated. The Lover stays with you and takes care of you because they think you are amazing, and in a good relationship there is nobody as giving as a Lover, who continually feels like they need to pay back for the privilege of being with this person – so a previously abusive partner IS NOT always abusive in all relationships, and they have not “redeemed themselves” nor are they fake, they simply have found someone who they genuinely love and who understands their language of love.

Is it physical or emotional abuse or is it self-protection?

Normally, the Giver is the female and the Lover is the male. This is because, as a society, we have been raised to protect the female perspective over the male perspective without a second thought. Now, if we reverse the roles, you will see what I mean: The Lover is the woman and the Giver is the male: In other words, the man is buying her gifts, taking care of her financial needs and whatever a guy is supposed to take care of, and he figures this relationship is going great. Unfortunately, she isn’t feeling it, so she wants out. He says she can’t leave because they are in a relationship. He has given her everything she could possibly want, therefore, he owns her. Let’s pull out our stopwatches to time how fast the cops are there to throw his sorry ass on the street.

In Female-giver, Male-lover the scenario is this: She buys his love by being nice to him, showing him love and care, doing his dishes, ironing his clothes, that sort of thing. At first he thinks that’s a bit weird, but, given that he kinda fancies her, lets her do it… Until he wants to break up. “We are not breaking up! LOL”

The reverse: SHE is the victim, he is the abuser. Whichever way this goes, the MALE is always the blame by society’s viewpoint, although:

There is NO HELP for a man who winds up bought with ironed shirts by a woman he doesn’t want. There is nowhere he can go, apart from escape, and if he hasn’t got the money to do that, he’s stuck. Often, he owns the apartment the woman is staying in and can’t get his property back because the woman is without means and refuses to leave, anyway. There are not that many halfway houses for men, and if he says he can’t get his girlfriend to leave…. Oh funny that. “Go back, just talk to her. We deal with real problems here.”

Many men avoid women like that by instinct and never wind up in a situation where they need to fight their way out of a relationship. I have a male friend, though, who had to PHYSICALLY CARRY his ex-girlfriend out of his apartment after breaking up with her, and she was coming at him with a knife demanding to be taken back as his girlfriend. Charges? Why of course not. Luckily, he knew martial arts so she couldn’t harm him, and luckily, he is not a guy who takes bullshit. A lot of the time, men are so conditioned into thinking that women are better at relationships, that they are already submissive to her will going INTO the relationship and many men feel they do not have a right to break up with a woman who wants to stay with them, and they are not assertive enough in their actions straight away after suggesting a break up and the fighting escalates.

How the Lover becomes addicted to the fighting

Remember the Lover thinks this way: “I am with you because I think you are amazing. If I no longer think you are amazing, I will break up with you.” Simple as that. This is his truth. To a Lover, love isn’t about deeds, it’s about a feeling, it is not about loyalty, it’s about how you treat each other. Both physical and emotional abuse, to a Lover means: “go away, I don’t find you amazing anymore and you’re not getting it!” Now, if you start physically or emotionally abuse someone who doesn’t feel that is too bad compared to the love they feel, what it means is that this person thinks you are INCREDIBLE somehow. The Lover’s idea of themselves grows because this person is so much in love with them (thinks they are amazing) that they are willing to take any amount of abuse in order to stay close to them. They might still despise the Giver for it, but with nowhere to turn, why not take the fun out of it? So you can bark at them as much as you like and if you don’t hurt them too bad physically, nobody is going to put you in jail, and you are certainly not afraid of losing the Giver once they finally snap to their senses and pack their bags.

When the Giver keeps defying logic and refuses to break up with the Lover, the Lover becomes power crazy. Even though they powerless to regain their freedom and life, they find that all the same, they do not  need to behave well in this relationship and if love is out of their hands they might as well throw in the towel and do whatever they can to make life worth living. Depending on his social class and job, he will either drink and “cheat on her” whenever he likes, or he will uphold the externals of his relationship for professional reasons and keep going behind her back whenever he can, knowing full well she will never leave him – and if she does, all is good in his world.

The Giver may, in some cases, think that the Lover would stop them from leaving although they would not blink an eyelid if they did. Now, THIS IS NOT the only reason for domestic abuse, sometimes people really do use violence and abuse to stop a person from leaving, but in this scenario, the doors are wide open for the Giver to take her exit. The Giver might easily leave their spouse periodically to see if they’d come after her, but when the Lover doesn’t even bat an eyelid they return home and frame it so that they are, again, showing how giving they can be and afford the Lover forgiveness. The Lover is back to square one. It is typical for the Givers to absolutely blatantly ignore anything unpleasant they’ve been told, and they only remember the good stuff. They have an incredibly selective memory and remember the unpleasantness of their situation only when there is sympathy and admiration for their tolerance and ability to forgive and love to be gained.

Difference to traditional view on domestic violence

The normal cycle of domestic violence is identified as 1. Tension building 2. An incident of violence 3. Reconciliation 4. Peace (honeymoon)  and return to point one. If this is the type of abuse in question, the violent, abusive party is not the one apologizing, too profusely anyway. If they do make an apology, it is mild and they won’t really mean it, and they are more shocked about having been pushed to that sort of behavior than what they are sorry about losing their temper. If they never lose temper beyond physical violence, it is unlikely they would apologize at all. Physical violence, the way we are trained to think, is such a social taboo, however, that anyone resorting to physical violence is likely to apologize for letting things escalate that far, but NOT for losing it to begin with. In this case, the more likely situation is that the so-called victim will come back and make the peace, promising to do better and be better so the “abuser” wouldn’t have to get angry again.

These are the women who will not hear their helpers message: “He does not love you. He doesn’t want you. He is no good for you.” They sit there, and these words fall on deaf ears as she is considering how she will be able to go back now that everyone knows she’s been beaten up again. She needs a restraining order made against her, but then, what kind of judge would do that when she’s the one bleeding?

Subscribe to get a Daily Message