As I was falling asleep last night I got a call, she was in tears. As she was telling me about the events that had caused her so much distress, I could reflect back to her the signs of abuse, emotional and mental abuse. As I have studied domestic violence over the last six years, I have learned how to recognize the spectrum of control that men use to get what they want (mostly it's men who abuse this power in intimate relationships, but not only). While you are still in the relationship, they can use everything from using words as weapons, to manipulating those around you, to threatening force, all can be done without ever physically touching you. Once you leave the relationship it seems all their energy is directed towards just making sure your life is miserable. Full of constant conflict, sucking all your energy, so it's difficult to rebuild a new life without them.
It's really important for our community to be able to recognize the signs of power and control that are the vehicle for domestic violence in our families. We have been taught that hitting women is wrong, but there are many other ways to manipulate a person that doesn't include actually hitting them. These manipulations change the dynamics of power in an intimate relationship. When the individual who uses force to compel obedience, the other partner quickly loses the freedom to make choices without suffering consequences and learns what is allowed in the relationship without risking a consequence of abusive behavior.
In the book Why Does He Do That, Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men, Lundy Bancroft illustrates how one incidence of anger can totally corrupt the power dynamics of a family without ever touching anyone.
“There is also a third level, which is rarely mentioned in discussions of abuse but which is actually one of the most important dynamics: the benefits that an abuser gets that make his behavior desirable to him. In what ways is abusiveness rewarding? How does this destructive pattern get reinforced?
Consider the following scenario: Mom, Dad, and their children are having dinner on a Wednesday night. Dad is snappy and irritable, criticizing everybody during the meal, spreading his tension around like electricity. When he finishes eating, he leaves the table abruptly and heads out of the room. His ten-year-old daughter says, “Dad, where are you going? Wednesday is your night to wash the dishes.” Upon hearing these words, Dad bursts into flames, screaming, “You upstart little shit, don’t you dare try to tell me what to do! You’ll be wearing a dish on your face!” He grabs a plate off the table, makes like he is going to throw it at her, and then turns away and smashes it on the floor. He knocks a chair over with his hand and storms out of the room. Mom and the children are left trembling; the daughter bursts into tears. Dad reappears in the doorway and yells that she’d better shut up, so she chokes off her tears, which causes her to shake even more violently. Without touching a soul, Dad has sent painful shock waves through the entire family.
We move ahead now to the following Wednesday. Dinner passes fairly normally, without the previous week’s tension, but Dad still strolls out of the kitchen when he finishes eating. Does a family member remind him that it’s his turn to wash the dishes? Of course not. It will be many, many months before anyone makes that mistake again. They quietly attend to the cleanup, or they squabble among themselves about who should do it, taking out their frustrations over Dad’s unfairness and volatility on each other. Dad’s scary behavior has created a context in which he won’t have to do the dishes anytime he doesn’t feel like it, and no one will dare take him to task for it.
Any incident of abusive behavior brings the abuser benefits just as this one did. Over time, the man grows attached to his ballooning collection of comforts and privileges.”
Excerpt From: Bancroft, Lundy. “Why Does He Do That?.” Penguin, 2002. iBooks.
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Learning to recognize behaviors that make one partner dominate the other is really important to helping a friend survive an unhealthy relationship. Helping her (or him) see through the manipulation, to see how their partner's words may be in contrast to their actions and to consider leaving. A friend reminded me it usually takes a woman 7 times before she can finally leave an unhealthy relationship. 7 times! So when you see a friend going back and forth, just know it's proven and studied. It's they way a person leaves abuse. Slowly....
Be supportive of them. Keep encouraging that they deserve to live in a home where peace is a priority and where they are respected and treated well. A marriage should be a fortress of well-being. It should nurture both partners and the children. If it is a source of constant conflict and harm, the choice to leave should be considered. Counseling should be used. And if in the end, a true change in the dynamics of power can't be created, ending the relationship is actually the best thing you can do.
I'm sharing two of my favorite passages from the Baha'i Faith about abuse in our marriages. These were bright lights for me when I was stuck in the deep dark depths of the abuse of power and control and because I wasn't being hit, it couldn't see it for domestic violence. Looking back now, I can see I always submitted to his will. He never had to use physical force to get what he wanted. That was until the end. Or what became the end. I knew how dangerous it was when there was physical violence. It only escalates, it doesn't get better. I wish I had known how to recognize all the abuse that is emotional and mental and very damaging. I would have left sooner. So now I try to share what I have learned, tell my story and help friends choose peace. We will never build world peace if we can't create peace in our homes. Building peace, one heart at a time.
"The stress laid in the statements of Bahá'u'lláh and Άbdu'l-Bahá on love and harmony as the hallmark of marriage, and in view of Άbdu'l-Bahá's exhortation that each member of the family must uphold the rights of the others, makes it clear that violence in the family is contrary to the spirit of the Faith and a practice to be condemned. It is clear that no husband should subject his wife to abuse of any kind, whether emotional, mental or physical. Such a reprehensible action would be the very antithesis of the relationship of mutual respect and equality enjoined by the Bahá'í writings — a relationship governed by the principles of consultation and devoid of the use of any form of abuse, including force, to compel obedience to one’s will."
Letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice, dated April 12, 1990, to a National Spiritual Assembly, in The Local Spiritual Assembly Handbook, 3rd ed., pp. 260-261
NO ONE SHOULD BE SUBJECTED TO TYRANNY
"From the pen of Bahá'u'lláh Himself has come the following statement on the subject of the treatment of women:
The friends of God must be adorned with the ornament of justice, equity, kindness and love. As they do not allow themselves to be the object of cruelty and transgression, in like manner they should not allow such tyranny to visit the handmaidens of God. He, verily, speaketh the truth and commandeth that which benefiteth His servants and handmaidens. He is the Protector of all in this world and the next.
No Bahá'í husband should ever beat his wife, or subject her to any form of cruel treatment; to do so would be an unacceptable abuse of the marriage relationship and contrary to the Teachings of Bahá'u'lláh."
Letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice, dated January 24, 1993, to an individual believer
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