I was talking to a woman who recently escaped a horribly violent domestic situation. She constantly referred to the differences she sees in her children and why she can't allow them to ever be treated that way again.* Three things stood out strongly while I was talking to her:
1. Though she is quite clear that she cannot ever tolerate her children being treated this way she never sees that she allowed herself to be treated this way - and in front of her children. Every time I try to raise this issue, she shies away and comes back to the children. As long as she allows herself to be treated like this she is modeling for her two daughters that this is how a woman is to be treated. And even if the man does not get violent with her children, they are present when he is violent with her. Her daughters will, most likely, grow up to pick out men who treat them just like their mother's men did. So she is not only not protecting them from the violence, she is dooming them to repeat it.
2. She is doing nothing to examine what drew her to this type of relationship in the first place. Without doing this work she is almost certainly doomed to pick out another new man just like the last one. And the last one was just like her father. What a surprise. I see and hear her intellectually acknowledge this pattern, but she has not truly internalized this awareness yet.
3. She continues to suppress her anger about what was done to her. She believes it is not lady-like to be angry. And she equates anger with violence. Anger is just a feeling, a normal feeling that every human has. However, we are responsible for how we choose to express it. It can be expressed calmly, sanely, and with positive results. Or it can be expressed as violence. She has only seen anger expressed as violence, therefore she believes it is bad. She has also been taught that anger is "not becoming" or "not lady-like". So you believes it is bad. But anger is simply a normal, human emotion.
Many believe that anger is a "negative" emotion or a "bad" emotion. Emotions simply are. They are not "good" or "bad". They are how we feel. Typically, in this culture, men are not allowed to cry or be fearful and women are not allowed to be angry. This is just insane. Many men, unable to express the sadness or fear we face in life sometimes resort to the emotion they are allowed to have - anger. Women, unable to express anger outright sometimes resort to whining, nagging, griping or passive aggressive behavior. They also lose a lot of power when they allow anger to be taken from them. Anger is what makes you say, "I've had enough", "You can't treat me that way", or "I'm not going to put up with that". Anger is what makes you fight back. Anger is what makes you get up and walk away. Without it, you stay and put up with things no person should.
*All names and cases on this blog are completely hypothetical and fictitious. They are not based on actual people or real-life cases. All client vignettes are confabulated.