Abusive Partners: The Male Perspective

It is prudent to assume that there is an institutional bias that favors the woman's side of the story in cases of domestic violence. That may not always be true but it is prudent to assume that you will be at a disadvantage if you are a man and the neighbors call the cops.

The reason for the bias is that the verbal realm is he-said-she-said. On the other hand, physical evidence typically substantiates the woman's version "He hit me" while it rarely substantiates the man's version "She hit me first". She has bruises. He does not.

Thousands of repetitions over the decades make it a "fact" or a foregone conclusion in the collective minds of the legal system. "Women are verbal and try to settle differences with words. Men hit."

As a man, it is something we just have to accept and deal with.

Slippery Slope

We were made for each other. Men need women and women need men. Or more precisely, a man need one woman...but which one?

If you get the wrong one it can be fine for a while but when it goes south, it can go that way very quickly.

While every couple is different, the literature suggests that the man should grab his hat and head for the door if:

1. She gets physically violent. The exception to that rule is if the violence is "play" that both agree upon beforehand when involved in certain couple activities.
2. Her verbal attacks veer into one of the three "third rails": Attempting to provoke Jealousy, Envy or Shame.

A short story

The woman who "did" my youngest daughter's hair had a sixteen-year-old-son. She shared custody of the son with his father who lived in Florida.

The son romantically connected with a young lady in Florida via social media. He begged his mother for a ticket to "...go visit his father..." 

Young Romeo showed up on the doorstep of his romantic interest. The young woman's live-in boyfriend stepped out the door and stabbed him in the chest multiple times. The Romeo did not make it to the hospital.

Juliet had been using Romeo as a way to torque-up her boyfriend, as a way to punish him for not giving her enough attention. Romeo was a pawn.

End short story

Jealousy, Envy and Shame are the depleted uranium rounds in the woman's arsenal. She knows they will pierce you stem-to-stern and she is using them for kill-shots. HER GOAL IS TO HURT YOU OR GOAD YOU INTO PHYSICAL VIOLENCE.

Secondarily, introducing a third-party into discussions introduces huge amounts of noise and chaos. If her goal is to have you get home on-time every third Wednesday so she can go to her manicure appointment, the real issue is buried when she brings up your handsome neighbor Daniel who makes $299k a year working from his apartment.

Your mileage will totally vary, but two important stakes in the ground are

1. She gets physically violent. The exception to that rule is if the violence is "play" that both agree upon beforehand when involved in certain couple activities.
2. Her verbal attacks veer into one of the three "third rails": Attempting to provoke Jealousy, Envy or Shame.

Grab your hat and run. If you think the relationship is worth salvaging, you can do it while sleeping on your buddy's sofa.

Biblical road-maps for leaving abusive partners

I recently ran across this academic paper: ‘‘God Just Brought Me Through It’’: Spiritual Coping Strategies for Resilience Among Intimate Partner Violence Survivors (Link but behind a paywall)

This paper will probably never get a wide audience, even among Intimate Partner Violence advocates. The sample size is small (42) and the study is specific to women who self-describe as Seventh Day Adventists (a small denomination).

The study does have strengths. For one thing, it specifically addresses Religion and Spirituality which some survivors of domestic violence identify as the most important factor in their survival and escape; there are very few papers which explicitly address this resource. 14% of the participants in the study were African-American and there are reasons to believe that African-American women are over-represented in Intimate Partner Violence. The study makes use of many direct quotes from the participants. Examples:

No, I don’t have the physical arm around me to hold me when I cry, but I can go back to my bed and lay on it and cry and talk to God.... God has never failed me. (B)

I think the thing that has helped me to get through it all and during those times, especially when I couldn’t talk to anybody else, I was talking to God. (J)

[God’s] the one that carried me through and that’s one thing I know—that if I cannot depend on anything or anybody else in this world there’s one person I can depend on. (A)

Well, after the suicide [attempt] I realized He was the only way out. God was my only way out of this.... He was the only thing I could hang on to at that point; I was so desperate. (K)

God just brought me through it.... That was what got me through, just my relationship with God and prayer. And really, truly, each day was just a matter of prayer. (R)

In order to cope with my first husband, I spent a lot of time in prayer on my knees. (M)

I would go to sleep and then about 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning I would wake up and I would go to another room and I would read my Bible and I would pray and I would get strength for the day. I wasn’t sleeping a lot but somehow God would give me strength for the day. (J)

When I would get to the point where I had no hope— didn’t even have a knot in the end of the rope to hang onto—I would say, ‘‘O Lord, please show me something that will help me right now,’’ and I would just open the Bible and start reading the whole page, and you would not believe all the verses in the Bible that talk about children being returned. And that really gave me some hope. (S)

Interviewer: How did your spiritual life help you cope with the difficulties?

Participant: Um, that holding on. And claiming some [Bible] promises. And, especially the one—my favorite one at the time... ‘‘God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.’’ And I was wanting to hold on to my sound mind. Not lose it. (L)

Note: Names of participants changed to initials for additional privacy.

One of the disheartening parts of this paper is that formal religion and clergy were not particularly helpful. The authors of the paper make the distinction between "Religion" (not so helpful) and "Spirituality" (lifesaving).

As a blogger, I like puzzles and I found this puzzling. Why did the rank-and-file of Christianity "Whiff" when swinging at the ball?

Looking for subtle clues when God is handing us a road-map

It is not the place for an academic paper to speculate. They explain how they collected the data. They present the data. They inform us if the hypothesis conforms to the observed data within a predetermined degree of confidence.

As a blogger I CAN speculate.

If you go to a Bible Concordance or if you use an internet search engine, you will find very few Bible quotes that directly support a person in a situation of Intimate Partner Abuse. Most of the verses seem to read as "Go back. Try harder. Accept your lot in life."

That dearth of practical instruction seems very odd when the Bible has actionable advice on topics as niche-like as vegans while domestic tension has undoubtedly been a very big deal since Adam blamed Eve for getting booted out of the Garden of Eden. How could the Bible be silent about domestic strife and yet have something to say about those annoying vegans?

Paraphrasing what one of the respondents said "I would randomly open my Bible and read until I was tired" suggests that maybe the source of spiritual strength is more involved and complicated than the rare, random, pithy spiritual-righty-tighty-lefty-loosy. Maybe God isn't dropping the occasional, random bread-crumb but maybe God is handing us a detailed road-map.

And with no further ado....

I believe that Exodus (the second book in the Canon) is a nearly perfect analog or roadmap for how people trapped in untenable domestic situations must extricate themselves from the situation.

• It will not be easy.
• It is very important to find a guide who is a Godly person (Moses).
• There will be false starts.
• It is very OK if you must use a false-pretext to leave the situation.
• Be armored against the temptation to fall into another abusive relationship. JUST DON'T DO IT!!!
• Trust God.

And many, many more examples of help for your difficult journey.

Truly, there is a land of milk-and-honey waiting for you.

So if you are a believer and if you know of somebody who has struggled and the situation has proven unfixable (perhaps due to unwillingness on the part of the other party) encourage them to read and reread Exodus.

Hat-tip to the tireless Lucas Machias for finding me a copy of this paper to read.

Nothing new under the sun

I read this and immediately thought about Vegans and the belief in their moral superiority. Paul addressed this exact issue...the use of minor style variations as a blunt instrument to bludgeon others of faith. Rather than bringing together and being mutually supportive, the pot-stirrers are looking to exalt themselves rather than God.

Welcome anyone who is weak in faith, but not for disputes over opinions. One person believes that one may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. The one who eats must not despise the one who abstains, and the one who abstains must not pass judgment on the one who eats; for God has welcomed him....Who are you to pass judgment on someone else’s servant? Before his own master he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand

Why then do you judge your brother? Or you, why do you look down on your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit; whoever serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by others. Let us then pursue what leads to peace and to building up one another.     -Romans 14:1-4,10,17-19

 

Note to readers: I am having some hardware problems. Light posting until I resolve that issue.

Karpman Drama Triangle (again)

The author of this article attributes the increase in "drama" to people's increasing perception of the world as a chaotic and dangerous place.

He claims that there are three arch-type characters that offer safety and stability: Persecutor, Victim and Rescuer.

That is different than "seeking status" which is seeking increased social wealth.

I see no flaws with the authors' thinking. It appears that "Drama" benefits from both the Fear and Greed swings of the cycle.

It will crash-and-burn as the costs of operating on an economy-of-drama come to fruition.

Drama burns a lot of bridges.

I was shamed into it

I was on a Quixotic Quest to find and deliver as many examples of local quince fruit to a recent transplant from the west-coast.

Every individual is blessed with unique talents. One of mine is to be able to identify plants while driving past them at fifty-five miles per hour. I have excellent peripheral vision, a gift from many years of parenting. For somebody like me, identifying a quince bush is not that hard.

Noticing that it was a good year for quince (not every year is) I reached out to this very sweet transplant via her husband. Certain protocols must be followed.

She responded "Yes! I want some quince fruit."

I ended up delivering fruit from five different bushes (two of which may have been repeats). 

One of my stops was a bit sad. The owner of the quince tree had very recently lost her husband. She looked to be eighty...a very spry eighty, but still.

She was impressed that I knew what a quince was, much less that I recognized it in her yard. She told me several times that she wasn't going to do anything with the fruit on her tree this year. She also told me that it would be a huge favor to her if somebody picked ALL of the fruit from the tree as she would otherwise have to pick it off the ground and dispose of it.

In the course of our conversation, she mentioned that quince and quince/pear jelly is the bees-knees for sore throats and for throats that are raw from coughing.

I have absolutely no doubt that she was overwhelmed due to recent events.

After dropping off the examples from the various trees, I sent the recipient of the quince an email detailing the origins of the fruit. I also included a few details about the widow's quince.

I quickly received a reply from the west-coast refugee. She and her faithful wingman "L" (visualize Calvin and Hobbes) were going to help the widow out. They were going to swoop down upon her prolific quince bush and render the ungrateful fruit into enough quince jam to banish sore throats from the county for the next three years.

Well, drat and daggity-nabbit

I am watching a toddler who might get a sore throat. My supply of quince was freshly depleted and it is late in the season.

What I still have that is fair fodder for jam are Steuben grapes. Tart, tannic, deeply pigmented.

And as quick as two jerks of a pig's-tail, I had seven pints in the canner.

Eight pounds of fruit

The ladle

A native Sour-gum (Tupelo) tree. They are not super common around here but you can find them if you look.

Walks with Quicksilver

Image snipped a couple of days ago

Quicksilver and I went on a 2 mile walk yesterday and we knocked out a three-mile walk this morning. 

Both Zeus and I carry a backpack. Zeus's backpack contains snacks, water, a diaper, wipes and a bag to hold dirty diapers should the need arise. My backpack holds Quicksilver who is 25.5 pounds of rompin', stompin' cow-girl.

Quicksilver is predictable. She is ready for first-snack after a half-mile. Then she will start swatting my shoulder when she wants another. The feedbag is currently filled with frosted, mini shredded-wheat and she gets two of them each time she slugs me.

She wants a drink of water at 1.5 miles.

Three-miles is the standard, ERJ approved walk and I have little ambition to make it longer.

Rain predicted for tomorrow so we will need some other bonding experience.

Beyond creepy

 

Matt Gaetz in a white-knuckle demonstration of hardball-politics appears irresistible to Ilhan Omar.

Many adjectives can used to describe US Representative Gaetz. "Attractive to Progressives" is not one of them. And yet here we see Representative Omar eyeing Gaetz as if he were a prime cut of filet mignon.

For those who don't follow US politics, Representative Ilhan Omar is one of the five most "liberal" of the 435 US representatives. Politically, she presents herself as the polar opposite of the person Gaetz presents himself to be.

Two interpretations present themselves:

1. Representative Omar is excited by the apparent chaos Gaetz injected into the GOP's hold on power in the lower house of Congress -or-
2. Representative Omar is not motivated by progressive ideals but by the acquisition of raw power.

You decide.