I love going to church. Unfortunately, it’s something I rarely do because I never feel like I belong. I have a spiritual belief system. It has no rules and no requirements. My relationship with God (a word chosen to represent the vague higher power) is a private one. I feel joy in sharing that relationship with others, but I am very protective of it for a variety of reasons. I choose to talk about this today in the hopes that my story can help someone else.

As a child, I was given no religious structure – meaning that I was free to choose whatever path I wanted. I am so grateful that my parents chose to parent us this way – they were available for all questions but there was never a feeling that if I believed something besides what I had been told all my life, they would be disappointed. I researched all kinds of things, went to Sunday school rarely, and for a long time considered myself an atheist. As we all know, thirteen-year-olds have it ALL figured out.

There came a point in my adolescence where I became so depressed that I was beyond the point of apathy – I was a shell of a girl. I wafted through my life, getting average grades and never getting angry and never getting sad. There was no joy and no pain, just gray. Gray everywhere inside of me. I began inflicting pain upon myself because I wanted to feel something, and a part of me knew it was wrong but it was my secret. That is, until my sister found out and told my parents and I had to go to therapy. A little bit of therapy helped a whole lot and I got much better. But, I sort of wondered how it was possible that I even survived. I know that might sound dramatic, but believe me when I tell you – I was in a dangerous place. I thought about committing suicide all the time, but I was too apathetic to even make the effort. I was truly a ghost of myself.

That was when the previously nonexistent spirituality and faith began. It started as a tiny seed, just a thought, that perhaps there was something bigger than me after all. I certainly didn’t do any of the work to get better – even the therapy was minimally effective. I don’t even remember talking to her that much, I just remember playing with magnets and that at the end she would ask me about payment, which I found to be extremely rude.

Anyway, this seed blossomed and began to grow. Today it is a beautiful tree. Probably a cherry blossom. It exists within me and is a part of who I am. I don’t even question it anymore. There have been a few times when I questioned my faith – the worst moment when my uncle died of cancer, but I even managed to work through that. I just feel a greater presence and energy all around me and I pay attention to the “signs” of the universe.

Which brings me to church. I should start by saying that I support each individual’s right to express faith in the way that he or she chooses. Religious freedom means a lot to me, and I do not see this reflected in most churches. To give you an example, when I lived in Ohio, there were many individuals in my life that were very Christian. If someone asks me, I tell them I am Christian. I have never been baptized, I have never committed myself to a church really, and I didn’t go to church every Sunday. My belief system is nothing like a Christian’s. A Christian will tell you that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save our sins, and the only way into heaven is to accept him as your savior. Until you accept Christ as your savior, you’re not allowed in heaven.

I asked one of them once – what if I am a good person my WHOLE life, I still won’t get into heaven? He said “Nope. It doesn’t work that way. You have to accept Jesus.”

Here’s what I hear: If you want to be a part of our club, you need to follow the rules. One of the rules is that you have to accept Jesus as your savior. Don’t follow the rule, you don’t get the ONE  thing that everyone talks about: heaven.

Imagine me, having gone through this entire ordeal and discovering my faith in a time of darkness, being told that my relationship with God isn’t a real relationship with God. That I’m only half a Christian, but I’ll come around. I’ll see the One True Way. Also, all those other people – the Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Protestants, Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses – they are all wrong, too. But, that’s okay, because in the eyes of all of those people, the Christians are wrong. The whole thing makes my brain hurt. Who decided that one particular path to faith was the right path? Oh, that’s right, all of their Gods decided that. It kind of makes me wonder if Allah and Jesus are boxing somewhere, trying to figure out who is a more deserving deity.

Here’s what I say: seek your own individual path to spirituality, in whichever way you choose, if you want to. I’m not even saying you have to be spiritual. Do whatever you want. It’s none of my business. But, for me, walking into a Christian church I feel like an imposter! Like I’m wearing a t-shirt that says “I do NOT walk with Jesus”.

I love going to church, I love the feeling of community and the music and the prayer. I love the energy of the room when everyone is reminded to be a good person. It’s emotional and cathartic and I just adore it. But, unless I drink your club-kool-aid, I’m not really allowed.

So, that brings us to this morning. I woke up early, got all my chores done, and sat down at the computer. I poked around on the internet for a while, watched some YouTube videos, then realized it was Sunday. As I do most Sundays, I wished I could go to church, but where to go?

I decided to do a Google search to see what was around. I don’t know what any of these words mean. Episcopalian, Lutheran, etc. I thought I’d just look at the websites and see what it said under “beliefs” or “about us”. Every single website lays it out real clear: this is the way to God. Come worship with us and find out more. No, thank you. And then, just when I was starting to feel like I’d never find something, I happened upon the Keene Unitarian Universalist Church.

I had never heard of those words before. Unitarian – well that has the root word unity, which means bringing together. And then universalist, which could mean encompassing all things. I decided to take a look. The first words I read were “welcoming congregation”, but I was skeptical. They all say that and then hand you a rule book in the shape of a bible.

I went to “about us” and read the principles of faith. And then read them again. And again. Here they are:

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

The word God isn’t even on there! Holy crap! What is this about? I started to get excited! I poked around a bit more and saw the Sunday service is at 10am, and at this point it’s nearly 9.

I hopped in the shower and dashed over to my BF’s apartment to see if he wanted to go. He said sure so we walked down to the church. I was very nervous at this point, I had become so excited and I didn’t know what it was going to be like and I didn’t want to be disappointed. I have never been to a service that wasn’t about The One True Way, so I had no idea what they would even talk about!

We walked in and were greeted warmly. It was in a smallish room with fewer than fifty folding chairs. They explained that in the summertime they have much smaller services (fewer people) and so don’t use The Sanctuary (the giant room with stained glass, organs, pews, etc.) They gave us a hymn book and a piece of paper with the list of events for the day. The title of today’s sermon was This We Believe.

Apparently they did something new today – different speakers got up and talked about what they believe in. There were two men and one married couple. Oh, also, there was a giant rainbow equality flag hanging by the front. Amazing. You’d never see that in a Christian church. They don’t like homosexuality there. Something the bible says, I dunno.

So, everyone gets up and talks about where they come from. One man is a preacher’s son and had to come to terms with abandoning the family belief system. The married couple were Catholics that had just had enough of the Catholic church. The last one… well he was very hard to understand, but he quoted Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker’s – so he was okay with me. There was a small ceremony (?) where we could walk up to the front, take a pebble, tell the group whether it represented joy or sorrow and why, and drop it into a bowl of water – the ripples from the rock symbolizing the ripples of energy that accompany joy and sorrow. There was singing (I just followed along, I don’t know hymns and it’s been years since I knew how to sight-read sheet music) and stories. I couldn’t help but feel like this was exactly where I belonged. A few times I almost started crying, because I was overwhelmed with relief that I could sit in a place and express my faith with others without feeling like I didn’t belong there. There was one woman who said “blessed be” to us, which is a Wicca phrase I believe, … there were just so many elements that really erased any division between us as individuals.

My very favorite part of the entire hour was when they passed the offering basket around. I really have a problem giving money to churches, especially ones that have funding from other places. I will happily donate my hard-earned money as soon as you present an itemized report of your spending for the year. However, when they got ready to pass it around, they said “If you are visiting or brand new, please do not put money in the offering. We are just so happy that you are here with us today, that is enough.” I smiled from ear to ear!!

After it was all over, we were going to scoot out of there but of course the others were so happy to have us! It was a small group, maybe twenty people, and everyone there knew we were brand new. They wanted to know how we heard about them (because they do not evangelize, which means they do not actively try to recruit members. Of course I plugged Cheshire TV, and they jokingly made me head of communications) and what we thought. I was so overwhelmed with gratitude and happiness. It felt great to talk to them and not feel like a phony, to tell them exactly how I felt: I love going to church but I never feel like I belong because my faith is so “unorthodox”. They all smiled and nodded and seemed to know exactly how I felt.

They also loved my Beatles t-shirt – because the kind of church I want to go to is one where I can wear my Beatles t-shirt. Everyone was, not surprisingly, dressed in shorts or casual clothing. We checked out The Sanctuary, which is where normal services will resume in early September, and of course the BF walks right over to the piano to play it, but it was locked. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful morning.

So, I share this story with you all, because I know I am not the only one that struggles with wanting the church atmosphere but not feeling like staying inside the box of faith that the church requires. Or, alternatively, that respective religion. Actually, no one even said the word God the entire time I was there, except for the people telling their stories about where they come from in terms of faith. We talked about being a good person and spreading joy and happiness to our neighbors. We talked about taking care of each other and community. We talked about the things that are real and tangible for me – all things I have been saying all along, but without all the Jesus stuff attached to it.

The KUU belongs to the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. If this sounds like something that you might like, you can look for a congregation here. =)

For all of you that have been following along, this is my final research paper on abusive relationships. It took hours upon hours (days, really) of research, pondering, emotional ups and downs, and hurdles to overcome (not the least of which is my inability to condense my thoughts – surprising, right?) but it is finally done. Considering that it’s due exactly 24 hours from now, I am mostly satisfied with the finished (ha.) product. There are so many avenues to take with this, and although I jokingly say that I will write a book, it is more likely that I will continue gathering data at a leisurely pace (I hate deadlines) and write the book when it’s ready to be written. In any case, I appreciate your feedback and support. =)

I should also note that, unfortunately, you will be missing the charming footnotes included in the paper. I do not think word press will allow me to format the post that way. But I should be able to include all of the in-text citation and the table I used, as well as my works cited and bibliography, in case you are interested in the references I used for further reading. I wish I could have read each book cover to cover, but I did not have the time nor the emotional stability to do so. Another time.

The most devastating wounds in the world are not visible. Intimate partner abuse is not only pervasive, but for too long goes unnoticed and unattended by victims and society. Most individuals define abuse as violent acts, but nonviolent abuse is more common. Nonviolent abuse is not the cultural stereotype, and a victim who experiences it may not realize it is happening or seek help. Society identifies females as the primary victims of abusive relationships, but an equal number of victims are male. This information changes the conversation about intimate partner abuse. If gender is symmetrical in terms of victim and aggressor, it is no longer about gender – it is about people. Several decades ago, intimate partner abuse became a relevant social issue and there has been a massive effort to reduce violence among intimate partners. Unfortunately, the majority of these changes have helped only half of abuse victims: women. Many male victim testimonies state that most resources available to females are not available to males. In essence, this is a two-fold problem: the full range of symptoms of abuse are not understood by victims and society, and gender, while not affecting who abuses whom, is relevant in terms of aiding the victim.

Society, and as a result, victims, have a skewed understanding of what behavior is classified as abuse. The collective misconception is that most abusive behavior is associated with violence when, in fact, there are more nonviolent abusive behaviors than violent ones. Even the dictionary has a limited definition of abuse, but definitions are based on common usage rather than science. Because nonphysical abusive incidents frequently precede violent ones, it is important to understand the full range of abusive behavior.

The first draft of my research paper is due on Monday, and I have a lot of thoughts floating around in my head. I’ve been pretty busy lately, and haven’t made the time to write, but I decided to sit down and get my thoughts out so that I may see some semblance of order. I am really excited to share my findings with the world – this is heading in a much different direction than I anticipated.

Coming from an abusive relationship, I thought for sure that I would want to write all about the war on women. I mean, what could be greater than reaching out to all the poor, defenseless, women that have been mistreated by their partners? I was on this path to further educate the world about abusive relationships and warning signs.

If you have been following along throughout this process, you know that I recently conducted several interviews with abuse victims about the kinds of abuse they received. Approximately half were male and half were female. I must say that the male stories had an unexpected effect on me. I was horrified. The effort to raise awareness on abuse towards women has been going on for over thirty years – and some studies indicate that although it is still a major social issue, it’s trending down. Obviously it is my deepest hope that no woman ever receives abuse ever again. However, it is obvious that women do have a voice and an advocate, from community resources to literature to the behavior of the police to the behavior in the courtroom. Women have an entire army to back them.

But what about the men?

I will tell you that there have been near three hundred surveys done regarding domestic violence, intimate partner violence, and abuse in relationships. These are not your typical surveys. They are conducted by highly respected scholars. PhDs, MDs, graduate students, scientists… and they are thorough and extremely scientific. I can hardly read the description of how the survey was conducted… most of the words make no sense to me. Words like multi-collinearity, logistic regression analysis, and all kinds of talk about variables, coefficients, and controls. Basically, it is obvious that this wasn’t some online survey conducted by a questionable magazine. This represents real research. I read every word and tried to make sense of what they were telling me. It wasn’t hard to understand… as long as I didn’t try to figure out what logistic regression analysis meant. I’ll just trust that if they know the word, they must be respectable. Plus, all of the studies are published in peer-reviewed journals.

Anyway, that’s off topic. I am only telling you this so that you know that these findings are, in fact, scientific. I won’t cite all my sources now, because I am making broad statements, but you will see in my final research paper (when I post it) the citations and you can look it up for yourself.

Before I tell you what I’ve found, a few words on how to write a research paper. Apparently I have been doing it wrong my entire life. Most people, when they want to write a research paper, will think of a thesis and then search for evidence to support that thesis. This is backwards. It’s called a RESEARCH paper for a reason: first you do the research, then you make assertions, then you form your thesis. An assertion is basically a factual statement derived from the evidence found in research. So, that being said, here are my assertions for my paper (read: factual statements based on the support of evidence):

Assertion One: Abuse is equal between men and women. And when I say equal, I mean nearly 50-50. It is not going to be a perfect divide, of course, and sometimes it’s more men than women and more women than men. But the point is this – for every woman who is abused, there is one man who is abused. The ratio is 1:1. Even more alarming, this statistic applies to the aggressor as well. That’s right: for every one man who abuses a woman, there is one woman who abuses a man. Mind. Blown.

Assertion Two: Women are more likely to be violent because they know men won’t retaliate. This might be a tough pill to swallow. It casts my gender in a negative light, and a truly horrific and terrifying one at that. Doesn’t that mean that abusive women take advantage of the fact that men are raised not to hit back? Yes. But, wait a minute, haven’t we been saying that men take advantage of women for smaller stature all these years? Hasn’t it been ingrained in us that we are the weaker gender and that bad men will exploit that? Well, apparently, bad women will exploit a man’s weaknesses, too.

Assertion Three: Male victims are given less help by the police force, the courtroom, and community resources. This shocked me and made me feel pretty nauseous. There are so many variables at play here – but the chief one is that our societal view of what a man “should” be affects our judgement. Victim interviews state that when a wife attacked a husband (successfully, of course, because good men don’t strike women) and he called the police, they refused to arrest her. Another instance is that a judge would not approve a restraining order for an abusive wife, and she somehow obtained custody of their children and he was left with nothing. Another example is that one man called a battered women’s shelter, just needing advice on who to turn to, and they told him that they only help women and hung up the phone. It’s no wonder that men can’t talk about it when it’s happening – and to know that they receive little to no support? I think about what I went through and wonder… if other people had treated me like it was meaningless, if I had no support, if the police had just left that night… what would have happened? I can tell you what would have happened… I would not have been able to heal without the support and validation of my friends and family. And if I had been made to feel like it was no big deal… it would have crushed me, and it would not have gotten better. I say, with no dramatics whatsoever, that I probably would have committed suicide. Think about that. How strong do I feel when I have an army backing me – versus how strong is a man, who is really just a person, dealing with the same emotions, with no support?

Assertion Four: Abuse causes severe psychological damage. This is brief and true. Most of my interview subjects have been through bouts of depression, some hurting themselves while others seriously considering committing suicide. It’s post traumatic stress disorder, and it’s nothing to play around with. Sure, this might all sound dramatic, but as we saw with Peter – when a kid has a belt around his neck considering taking his own life, and credits the woman who made him feel like he was less than worthless, abuse is a serious problem. And, even if that happened years ago, he’s still not okay. None of us are ever going to be okay. That dark place… it’s always going to be there.

There are more assertions pending, and my teacher playfully reminded me that this is a ten page paper, under twenty pages please. I cheerfully informed him that he will be receiving a single-spaced twenty page paper. Ha-ha. There’s just so many aspects of this that are so important. First of all – what is abuse, anyway? Defining my terms and listing abusive behaviors… and encouraging the reader to really think about what it means to treat others with respect. I have done some of those things on that list, and I knew they were bad when I did them. Sometimes we act out when angry, sometimes we just can’t help ourselves. Sometimes this and sometimes that – the whys don’t matter as much as admitting that we abuse one another on a frequently basis. Our family, our friends, our coworkers… with varying levels of severity of course, but this is an abusive world. When you really start to think about how people treat one another, suddenly it’s all you see. Me, personally… I’m never going to go to that place again. I’m never going to disrespect others if I can help it, and I will not allow others to disrespect me.

So, as this process unfolds, I find myself more and more an advocate for men rather than an advocate for women. As I stated earlier, women have an army to back them. They are pitied by the public, protected by the police, and the court sees them as the inherently downtrodden gender. Every piece of the puzzle is engineered to help empower women and help them to get out of a dangerous and unhealthy circumstance. But, the men are not only receiving an equal amount of abuse, they have little to no resources. On top of that, it seems that there are barriers put in place to prevent them from achieving the same goal: get away from the abuse.

So, with that being said, I declare myself an advocate for male survivors. I will contact the MCVP and see what resources they have for male victims. I will start support groups, start the conversation in our society, and spread awareness. It seems so silly, almost insulting, to be a woman advocate for males. But why do I think that? Only because the way we view men, as a society, is so deeply ingrained that I think this: won’t it be weird to be a woman (lesser gender) fighting for male victim rights? Doesn’t that make the male look weak if he needs a woman to come to his aid? Who says? Who?! How about this instead: people abuse people. People that are female have resources and support to extricate themselves from abusive relationships. People who are men do not have that luxury. The system is horribly imbalanced and something needs to be done. Who cares who helps? Male, female, lesbian, gay, transgender, or Klingon – it’s all hands on deck, people.

Be a part of it.

Names have been changed.

Meet Michelle. She is a 26-year-old female that grew up in New England. She comes from an emotionally stable home with loving parents. When I asked Michelle about her parents as a role model for relationships, she commented that all relationships are about power play, even healthy ones. Michelle also observes that her mother holds the power in her marriage and that her father defers to her mother, or at least seems to. She also commented that they love one another very much and are equally supportive of one another.

Michelle has had three abusive relationships.

Wesley was Michelle’s first abusive relationship. She met him when she was eighteen and they were together six months.

John was Michelle’s second abusive relationship. She met him when she was twenty-one and their relationship last a year and a half.

Steve is Michelle’s third abusive relationship. She met him when she was twenty-four and is still with him.

Using Social Status/Peer Pressure

When I asked Michelle about partners using social status or peer pressure in an abusive way, she told me that her current partner (Steve) will frequently make comments about women being subservient to men. She also commented that this is a learned behavior for him (from his father) and it does not bother her. She mostly brushes it off.

Michelle also commented that all three partners would frequently make decisions for her, but not necessarily in an openly stated way. As she puts it, they made her make decisions that she would not normally make, by being manipulative.

As far as acting as the “master of the castle” and assuming the dominant role in the relationship, Michelle told me that Steve does try to do this, but she does not allow him to. He also tries to define Michelle’s role as the woman in her relationship. Although he does not tell her to do things, he complains that he is the woman in the relationship because he does the cooking and cleaning. He tries to make her feel guilty, but not successfully.

When I asked Michelle about any of her partners threatening to expose her or tell lies, she told me that Steve will try to do this on occasion. Unfortunately for Steve, the secrets he threatens to tell are ones that Michelle’s friends already know. Michelle is very open about the decisions that she makes. She refers to it as hiding in plain sight. By exposing her weaknesses to others, no one can ever expose her or make her feel embarrassed. Although Steve tries to use information against her, he is not successful.

Anger/Emotional Abuse

Michelle told me that John would frequently tell her that she was fat. She also commented that he was not wrong in telling her that because she had put on some weight at the time. He also told her that she was lazy, which she agrees with as well. He would also tell her that her friends didn’t like her. Michelle thinks that this might have been true, but it was John’s M.O. to put her down, which is why he said it.

Steve also puts down Michelle, but it is not effective like it was with John.

As far as name calling, Michelle told me that she has been called every profanity. She specifically mentioned that, toward the end of her relationship with John, he was calling her “cunt” like it was her first name.

John would also make Michelle think that she was crazy. Michelle would accuse John of being abusive and he would tell her that she was crazy and if she wasn’t acting the way she was acting then he wouldn’t have to treat her the way he did. John also told Michelle that she made him hurt her. “Look what you made me do.”

Michelle told me that John would play mind games with her. He would have a “violent fit of rage” and then when Michelle would go to console him a few minutes later, she would find him crying and he would tell her that he was depressed and that he had nothing.

John humiliated Michelle by refusing to acknowledge that they were in a relationship, even though they were sexually involved for sixteen months and living together nearly a year. They slept in the same bed and ate meals together. They were, by anyone’s definition, in a relationship. If one of Michelle’s friends would refer to her as his girlfriend, John would say “She’s NOT my girlfriend!”

After John was arrested, he told the police that his charges should not be domestic violence because he and Michelle were not in a relationship and were not sexually involved. Michelle told me that she had to go to a lawyer and sign an affidavit stating that they were sexually involved. She told me that it was humiliating.

In terms of guilt, Michelle commented that Wesley causes the most guilt, even now. She told me that he had a terrible childhood and has a mental illness that was not diagnosed until after they broke up. He has been homeless, in prison, and in various mental institutions since they broke up. Michelle feels responsible for this.

John also made her feel guilty. She comments that John did not work during their relationship and so she felt responsible for taking care of him. She would buy two packs of cigarettes, two six-packs of beer, two meals, etc. Not doing so would make her feel guilty.

Steve sometimes tries to make Michelle feel guilty about housework, but it is not effective.

Intimidation/Threats/Sexual Coercion

When Michelle and I talked about being afraid in her relationships, she told me that she was only afraid with Wesley once. It was the day they broke up and he was having a negative reaction to drugs he had taken. He grabber her by the throat and pinned her against a wall, begging her not to leave.

With John, he would make her afraid all the time. Michelle commented that it started off in a relatively minor way with screaming and yelling. After some time, it progressed to small shoving. The next step was her being pushed so hard that she flew across the room.

John would also throw things. Michelle recalls that one time John threw something at her head and she dodged it, but it went straight through the wall.

One time Michelle tried to escape to her room and he broke her bedroom door down. He also tried to push one of her friends down a flight of stairs in what Michelle described as a “drunken rage”.

John pushed her into things and left bruises. He threw her phone into a toilet, poured a bottle of champagne over her head, kicked her in the lower back, hit her in the lower back with a bat, and smashed a mirror and pushed her onto the broken glass.

Michelle told me that in the beginning, with the gentle shoving, she was not afraid. As she puts it, “I had never thought that he would be capable of physically hurting me to the point where I had to go to the hospital.” I asked her if she was ever hurt so badly that she had to go to the hospital and she told me no, however once John slammed her hand in a door and broke her finger. Since there is not much that a physician can do for a broken finger, she taped it herself. Overall, John was very careful not to leave marks on her face or hurt her to the point where she had to go to the hospital.

When I asked Michelle if John ever threatened to report her to the police, she told me that one night he was in another drunken rage and a friend came to pick her up. As they were leaving, John was speaking into the phone reading off their license plate number, as if he was reporting her to the police. They drove directly to the police station and Michelle’s friend convinced her to tell the police what was going on with John. As it turned out, John was bluffing about making that phone call. However, once Michelle started talking about the abuse, the entire story came forth. She recalls that the junior police officer, who was male, was so disturbed that he could not look her in the eye, and could barely hold his composure.

Michelle described her emotional state during the questioning. She comments that she was completely hysterical and angry at her friend for making her talk to the police, because she did not want them to arrest John and they did. All she wanted was to talk to John and make sure he was okay. When a victim advocate called Michelle and let her know that there was a no-contact order in place, Michelle told me that she felt horrible because she desperately wanted to see him. She was also terrified that he would come back and retaliate, but she also wanted to talk to him.

Michelle has not heard from John since the incident occurred, aside from one email where he apologized for the way he treated her. Michelle guesses that it was a part of his sentencing to attend therapy and write a letter apologizing to her as his victim. When I asked Michelle how she felt about hearing from John, she told me that she was “so happy to hear from him”. She wrote him back right away but she never heard from him after that.

Michelle has done several illegal things for partners. She would drive drunk to get John alcohol because he needed it, and once she drove Wesley to get LSD.

John would frequently have sex with Michelle whenever he felt like it, but Michelle made it very clear that she is not traumatized from this. She was never forced nor did she protest. She told me that in a sexual relationship, you give sexual rights to your partner and they can have sex whenever they want to. She commented that this is the norm in most cultures. At the time, Michelle just felt that was part of the dynamic of their relationship. From the way she described it, John did not appear to take Michelle’s feelings into consideration.

Minimize/Deny/Blame

Michelle told me that she would have weekly conversations with John about the abuse that was occurring. He would tell her that she was being ridiculous and that he didn’t remember behaving that way. She was told that she was over dramatic and a dramatic person. John would also tell her that she got upset about everything and would minimize her feelings.

Michelle also told me that John was only abusive when he was drunk, and she could always tell when he was going to become violent. As she states it, “His eyes would go black. The pupils would expand fully. There was no iris left. And his eyes were blue, so there was a huge black pupil and a small ring of blue. He would black out, he wouldn’t know. He legitimately would not know an hour later what had happened.”

John also flat-out told Michelle that the abuse was her fault.

Isolation/Exclusion

As far as being controlling, John would get angry when Michelle would spend time with her friends, especially males. When she wasn’t with him, he would send her text messages the entire time. One night, while Michelle was at a party, John texted her over one hundred times. He would have emotional and angry outbursts. Once, Michelle recalls, she invited John over to her friend’s house to play a board game so that he would feel included. When John realized that he was not doing as well as the others in the game, he flipped out. He started screaming and her friends were horrified.

Wesley was very possessive due to his obsession with Michelle. About Wesley, Michelle told me, “He needed me desperately. I was his angel of goodness. I was the most beautiful thing in the world, he could not live without me, how could I go out with my friends when he might need me? He had no one. I took care of him for years after we broke up. He desperately cared for me, or thought he did, I was everything to him. There was always extreme guilt. He wasn’t guilting me on purpose. He wasn’t a skilled manipulator at all. He was just desperate.”

Aftermath

When I asked Michelle about how she felt about love and relationships prior to her first abusive relationship, she told me that her parents gave her a model for what an ideal relationship should be. She has never seen them fight or disagree about anything. Her father  dotes on her mother and her mother does everything for her father. There was never any tension between them and they were a single unit. Michelle told me she thought that’s how relationships would be, but they weren’t.

Michelle also commented that because her father seemed to be subservient to her mother, she assumed that men were people who she could control and do with whatever she wanted. She assumed that all men would bow to her will. In terms of discovering her sexual identity, once Michelle lost her virginity she quickly realized that sex was a way to manipulate men and get them to do what she wanted.

Wesley reinforced this idea of what a relationship should be like, because he adored her so completely and let her do whatever she wanted. Michelle commented that he just annoyed her because he always made her feel guilty about not wanting to spend time with him every second of the day, and it didn’t feel quite right.

After the relationship with Wesley ended, Michelle still felt that she could have any man who she wanted and for any purpose that she deemed fit. She commented that she would frequently say this, out loud, at twenty-one: “I will have any man that I want, I will have him for as long as I want, and I will have him as much as I want. When I am done with him, he will be gone.” When she met John, she told her friend that he was very attractive and that she was going to have him. And so she did.

Michelle told me that everything was going fine until one night, they were having sex and John was “black-out drunk”, and he said to her: “You need to leave me. I’m going to hurt you, you need to go. You need to leave. You need to never see me again. I’m going to really hurt you.” Michelle told me that she called him crazy and he agreed with her, telling her that he really was crazy. John did not remember this happening, but Michelle told me that she found out after they broke up that he had severely abused his previous girlfriends.

After Michelle’s relationship with John ended, she told me that she did not see anyone for a long time. She was severely emotionally traumatized. If a man raised her voice or acted aggressively, she would flinch. Michelle wasn’t eating or sleeping. She was found sitting in her apartment among the broken glass and mess from John’s final outburst.

Michelle told me that the violence center had a list of abusive behaviors that they called a “severity index”. When she listed the things that John had done to her, she was told that it was the most severe case they had seen that year. As a result, her therapy was free of charge. Michelle attended therapy, began doing yoga, and started to feel much better about what had happened to her.

When I asked Michelle if she felt that the way she was being treated was abuse at the time, she told me yes. When I asked her why she stayed in those abusive relationships, she told me that she has spent a lot of time thinking about it since the events occurred. Michelle told me that prior to John, she had never attempted anything and failed. She was successful in every area of her life. Michelle, after reflecting on the events that occurred, realizes that she stayed with John because she was not going to fail because she had never failed. She was going to save him.

Michelle reflects that the methods she tried to use with John were not effective, but they have worked with Steve, her current boyfriend. She told me that he is a much different person now than when she met him and she credits her influence in his life. They are very competitive and every time she makes a decision to better her life, Steve wants to out do her. It is for this reason, Michelle believes, that Steve is graduating from college, in better shape, and makes better life choices. These methods are effective with Steve, but were not with John. With John, when it did not work she tried even harder. He took advantage of Michelle’s efforts and used that part of her personality to get her to do anything he wanted.

When we talked about Wesley, John, and Steve collectively, I asked Michelle what personality trait they all share. She gave it some thought and told me: They are all weak. They need something – emphasis on the word need. They all have terrible mothers. Michelle told me that although they are all “mama’s boys”, their mothers have severely mistreated them.

Michelle also commented, about abusive men, “Men who are abusers have learned to hate women because they have had a woman display extreme dominance over them, often their mother, or perhaps from a previous relationship. They have learned to lash back and see all women as wanting to seize control.”

Michelle does not feel anger towards any of her abusers. She still believes that relationships are power play, but now sees that even during those abusive relationships, she held all the power. It was never taken away from her. Michelle appears to have a very healthy outlook about the things that have happened to her.

She also observes that whereas previously men were seen as the dominant force in our culture, things are changing. Men, particularly white men, are the downtrodden members of society. There has been such a push for female rights that men are sort of being shoved into the background. Michelle told me that at a lot of colleges, there are more female students than male ones. She also believes that school program are geared toward women and their success and that men are falling behind.

Michelle also feels that men should always love women more than women love men. She told me that her father told her once, “The perfect marriage is one where the husband loves the wife a little bit more than she loves him, and the wife is a little bit smarter.” Michelle does not know why he feels this way, but credits his parents’ relationship and his own marriage with her mother. When I asked her if this is the model she has with Steve, she told me it is the model she wants to have.

I asked Michelle why she is still in her current relationship even though she classifies it as abusive, and she told me that it’s different with Steve. It is not their relationship that is abusive, but Steve does have an abusive personality. He is abusive to everyone, not just Michelle. As far as the power struggle in the relationship, they do struggle for the power, but one person does not hang on to it for very long. It is like a pendulum. One will have it for a while and then decide to give it to the other person for a while. Michelle believes that this is more balanced than her previous relationships, and would not want to be in a relationship where one person abuses the other the majority of the time.

Michelle’s outlook on love and relationships appears to be relatively healthy, even though it is the exact opposite of what society and the media tells us a relationship should be. The reality is that whenever two people are put together, survival instinct will kick in and one person will assume a leadership role. She is also very frank about her partner’s shortcomings, but has positive things to say about him as well. Overall, she appears to be one-hundred-percent aware of what is happening, and also in complete control of what happens to her. She is not a victim anymore. Her relationship with John taught her that she can set her own boundaries and demand that others respect them.

Names have been changed.

Meet Jade. She is a 22-year-old female that grew up in New England. Jade describes her childhood as stable and loving. Her parents are still married and frequently go on dates and take time for themselves. Jade describes her parents as happily married. They have only ever fought twice, that she can recall, and are very loving towards one another.

Tom was Jade’s first abusive relationship. They dated briefly (a few weeks) when she was fourteen, but the bulk of their relationship was when she was sixteen. The relationship lasted about a year and a half and the abuse began after three months.

Derek was Jade’s second abusive relationship. She was seventeen and he was nineteen. Their relationship lasted one year and the abuse began after six months.

Jeffrey was Jade’s third abusive relationship. The met when she was seventeen and he was twenty-three. They were only seeing each other a few weeks and the abuse was ongoing.

Alan was Jade’s fourth abusive relationship. She was twenty-two and he was twenty-four. The relationship lasted two months and the abuse began within three weeks.

Using Social Status/Peer Pressure

When I asked Jade about being treated like a servant, she talked to me about Tom. Whenever they needed condoms, Jade had to buy them. Whenever Tom needed anything, he told Jade to go and get it for him. She had to make the popcorn when they were watching television or movies, even if it was at his house.

As far as making decisions for the other partner, Tom did not allow Jade to have certain hair colors or wear flip-flops. When they did not attend the same school, Jade was not allowed to do her hair or makeup because Tom felt that if she did, she was showing off for other boys at school. She wasn’t allowed to go to the beach because she would be in a bikini. She wasn’t allowed to eat certain things or she’d get fat, according to Tom.

Alan behaved in a similar fashion. Alan did not allow Jade to have certain hair colors, get piercings, or tattoos. Jade told me that Alan would present it as if he were looking out for her, for example, she would not look very good in a certain hair color, but she now feels that he was simply being controlling. He only allowed her to hang out with certain people and whenever she went somewhere she had to clear it with him first.

With Tom, Jade says, “I had no backbone. If he said it, it was word. Whenever Alan tried to control me I would tell him ‘I don’t care what you think, I do what I want.’ ” She credits this as being a reason why their relationship was so brief.

Jade also told me that Tom was very adamant about her role as the female in their relationship. During their relationship, Tom told her that it was her responsibility, as the woman, to clean and cook. That she is the woman and should assume a “housewife” role and that women are subservient to men.

When I asked Jade how she felt about relationships prior to her relationship with Tom, she told me that she never really thought about it. She describes her relationship with Tom as being brainwashed and it caused the subsequent abusive relationships.

Jade also told me that Tom would tell lies and spread rumors about her. When they dated briefly, at fourteen, after they broke up Tom told everyone that they had sex when they didn’t. That is the reason that he broke up with her, because she would not have sex with him. Nicknames and harsh words followed her all throughout high school as a result of Tom’s lies.

Tom, in their second attempt at a relationship a few years later, would threaten to show his friends intimate pictures of her if she did not behave the way he wanted her to. Her defiance was met with threats to embarrass her. Jade told me that he would typically use this to make her do something sexual, but sometimes for something as simple as preventing her from cutting her hair or hanging out with her friends. Jade told me that the threats worked: she behaved how he wanted her to and lost a lot of friends as a result.

Anger/Emotional Abuse

Tom would frequently tell Jade she was fat. He would grab her hips and tell her that she needed to get rid of her muffin top. She told me that she never ate as a result.

Derek would tell Jade that her clothing made her look terrible, mostly when it was even remotely revealing. He would put her down to control how she dressed.

Alan and Tom would call Jade names all the time. Jade recalls that she was called retarded, bitch, and cunt. They would speak to her in an extremely derogatory fashion.

When I asked Jade if any of her partners made her feel crazy, she said that Tom was really good at that. Alan tried, but by that point she did not believe it as much as the first time it happened. With Tom, it got to the point that Jade started to believe what they were saying. Tom would tell her that she was not normal because of the things that she liked, as far as hobbies. He would tell her that normal girls don’t like the things that she likes and she is not normal. This made her wonder if maybe she really was abnormal.

Tom would also play mind games with Jade, boasting about how good a boyfriend he was and showering her with gifts and affection that made her think she was crazy for having doubts about their relationship.

Alan would also play mind games with Jade, making her feel guilty for almost everything in their relationship. He would make her feel guilty for not reciprocating feelings or having trouble opening up to him. Every time Jade wanted to spend time with other friends, he would make her feel guilty for not spending time with him, or for spending time with male friends as if it made her a bad girlfriend.

Intimidation/Threats/Sexual Coercion

When I asked Jade if she was ever afraid in her relationships, she told me that Tom made her afraid several times. He would threaten Jade with his gun, not by pointing it at her, but by reminding her that he had a gun and would shoot her. He had swords and he would swing them at her.

Jade recalls an incident where she wore flip-flops. Remember from the first section that Tom did not allow Jade to wear flip-flops. When she arrived at his house wearing them, Tom grabbed his air soft gun. An air soft gun is a gun that fires plastic or rubber pellets by means of compressed air or a spring. They are designed to be non-lethal but can leave welts and bruises. Tom told her to take the flip-flops off or else he would shoot her in the foot. When she didn’t, Tom shot her, point-blank, in the foot and said to her: “You won’t be wearing flip-flops again, now will you?”

Alan would also threaten Jade. He would grab her arm tightly to reinforce his point: that she could not do this or could not do that. Jade told me that she would frequently have finger-shaped bruises and marks on her arms from him grabbing her so firmly.

Jade also told me that Tom would describe, in casual conversation and specific detail, how he would kill her if he ever found out that she was cheating on him. She tells me one conversation that sticks out in her memory: Tom told Jade that if she ever cheated on him, he would hang her upside down in the woods. He would then wrap her in wet rawhide. When rawhide is wet, and begins to dry, it shrinks. By wrapping her in wet rawhide, it would slowly crush her to death while it dried. Jade told me that it never clicked in her head that Tom might actually be crazy. She just thought to herself, at the time, that she better never cheat on him.

Tom and Alan would both threaten to break up with Jade if she didn’t behave in a certain way. They would also threaten to commit suicide if Jade broke up with them. Jade told me that she didn’t really believe that they would do that, but she recognizes that it worked  because the bottom line is a person doesn’t want that on his or her conscience.

When Jade and I talked about partners making her do illegal things, she told me that Tom would make her steal cigarettes from her job. Sometimes she would buy the cigarettes underage, and her coworkers would sell them to her. Other times when she did not have the money to buy the cigarettes, Tom would tell her to steal them. Jade stole the cigarettes for him because he demanded her to, but also because when he did not have nicotine he was even worse. She never got caught stealing, but hated it every time.

Jade and I also talked about sexual coercion. Alan would spike Jade’s drinks. When I asked her what she meant, she told me that Alan would make the drinks really strong to get her drunk. Even if she told him she didn’t want to have sex, once she was drunk she was more willing to comply.

Tom would not have to get Jade drunk to have sex. Instead he would accuse her of not loving him or threaten to expose the aforementioned pictures of her.

Jeffrey took things to a whole new level. Although Jade does not remember most of what happened, she told me what she did know. Jeffrey and Jade had mutual friends and were at a house party. He put roofies in her drink and raped her that night and stole her car. She did not tell anyone about the rape for years and did not press charges because she didn’t want to talk about it. She was seventeen when she was raped and twenty-one when she told her parents what happened.

Jade was so calm and nonchalant during this portion of our interview, I had to ask her if she remembered what happened. She told me that she doesn’t remember what happened and I asked her how she knew she had been raped. She told me that it had been recorded on a camera. The camera is now missing, but she saw it. I asked Jade how many times this occurred and she told me that it’s only the one incident that she is completely aware of. There are blocks of time in her memory where she is not sure what happened, and she has received multiple stories about that night and other nights. Some witnesses told her that she was not just raped by Jeffrey, but also two other men at the party. Some witnesses tell her that it didn’t happen.

Minimize/Deny/Blame

Jade tried to talk to Alan about the abusive behavior. She would tell him the things that he did or said and he would outright deny grabbing her arm or saying that she was retarded.

Jade never brought up the abusive treatment with Tom or Derek because she did not want the partners to get angry with her. She did not handle confrontation well and wanted to avoid it.

As far as blame transference, Tom would always twist Jade’s words around and make her feel like the abuse was her fault. Alan would also tell Jade that the abuse was her fault, or that she brought it upon herself. She ended up believing both of them.

Isolation/Exclusion

Tom would not allow Jade to hang out with her girlfriends because they did not like him. Derek did not allow Jade to hang out with her friends because they were “bad influences”. Alan did not want her to hang out with her friends by herself, because he knew that they would try to convince her to break up with him when he wasn’t around.

Aftermath

When Jade and I talked about her abusive partners and their personalities, Jade commented that Tom was supremely arrogant. He would always brag about how amazing he was as a boyfriend and a person and would get angry if she was better at something than him. Tom has divorced parents and Jade told me that his father was mean and his mother was a drug addict.

Derek was a pathological liar, according to Jade. She had no idea that he had children the entire year of their relationship. He was always very vague when talking about his childhood or pretty much anything. This experience caused her to feel that vague partners or partners that are not forthcoming are usually liars.

Alan was also very arrogant and delusional, according to Jade. He thought he was better than what he was. He made up his own rules for the world around him. Jade comments that in Alan’s mind, “If two plus two equals fish, he believes it. There was no telling him that two plus two actually equals four.” Both his parents are children, according to Jade, and have alcohol and drug problems. Alan would have to go on the street to get pain medication for his father and then started taking the pain medication as well.

I asked Jade how she felt about the abuse in her relationship with Tom (the first abusive relationship) and she told me that she immediately recognized that his behavior was odd. She would let it slide and then eventually got used to it and let him get away with it. Jade told me that she would make excuses for his behavior, that he was just having a bad day and everyone is allowed to have a bad day. Or that he was just in a mood.

I asked Jade how the relationship ended. She told me that she realized that she was not happy. She also told me that she tried to commit suicide. She went to sleep one night and before going to sleep took six Tylenol PM and said to herself before she went to sleep: “I wonder if I’ll wake up?” Jade told me that she woke up in the morning she was vomiting violently and knew she had to do something. She knew she had to do something and went to therapy to eliminate the negativity in her life. Tom was very upset when Jade broke up with him, begged for her to take him back, but she cut him out of her life completely.

With Alan, Jade knew immediately the abuse was occurring. Since it was a new relationship, she let it slide, thinking that maybe they were just “working out the quirks”. Once she realized that he was not going to change, she broke up with him. I think it bears mentioning that their relationship was two months long and he has continued to contact her – for a period of time longer than the actual relationship. He tells her that he loves her and he wants to be with her, both of which seem to irritate Jade. They have mutual friends – she comments that he integrated into her social group – but she is careful not to be alone with him.

With Derek, when she broke up with him, he behaved indifferently. He had cheated on her with two of her friends and treated her like she did not matter because he had other women. This made things easier for Jade, she felt grateful that these other women had taken him away from her.

Jade did have several friends that she talked to about the abusive relationships. They were women that she met online and they were incredibly supportive and gave her advice to get away from all of these men. Jade told me that she did not talk about the abuse with her “real life physical friends”, meaning friends in her social group or at school. Only with the girls she met online, and her therapist.

When we talked about Jade’s depression, she told me that Tom was the cause of that and it has had a lasting effect. She has attended therapy and has had other moments where she considered committing suicide but did not go through with it. When it comes to the rape with Jeffrey, Jade told me that it doesn’t really upset her because she doesn’t remember it happening. She sees it as a third-party and she said she is thankful that she doesn’t remember as a result of being drugged.

Jade and I also talked about self-esteem and self-worth. Prior to the first abusive relationship, Jade felt that she was an average girl. Tom would frequently put Jade up on a pedestal, making her feel like the most amazing woman on the planet, and then quickly realize that she was feeling too good about herself and knock her down. This happened over and over again. It got to the point where Jade felt so bad about herself that she felt that Tom was the only person that could love her, and she stayed with him for that reason. Their relationship also drove her friends away, and Jade felt that Tom was all she had.

After the relationship with Tom, Jade found ways to increase her self-esteem and sense of self-worth. She describes her relationship with Derek as being lonely and he just happened to be there. Derek’s abuse was not as severe and her self-esteem was much higher so eventually she just got tired of it. With Alan, Jade felt very secure with herself but he had a terrible self-esteem. He put her on a very high pedestal and would always tell her that he was not good enough for him. Then he would try to keep her in a box and contain her awesomeness because it made him feel small.

She talked about her boundaries and being aware of red-flags as they happened. Jade describes personality traits to look out for: someone being vague typically means that they have a lot of secrets, extreme arrogance, rudeness and lack of manners, controlling behavior, and jealousy.

Jade defines abuse as mental and physical. In physical abuse, any kind of hitting or shoving. As far as mental, being controlling and verbally abusive.

Jade thinks that society defines abuse as hitting. She feels that mental abuse is known, but typically it’s thought of in a physical way. She comments that the worst kind of bruises society can’t see because they are emotional.

My interpretation of Jade’s experiences is that it has made her a much stronger person, and she has handled everything in her life with grace, but she talked about how she wishes that she didn’t have to experience the abuse the learn what she learned about boundaries. We agreed that it is important to learn from mistakes and experiences and that something can always be gained, but that it is a terrible thing to have to learn this way.

Names have been changed

Meet Peter. He is a 21-year-old male that grew up in New England. Peter describes his upbringing as a close, tight-knit family. His parents have been married for over twenty years. Peter was raised in a loving, stable home. He has two older sisters and one younger sister. He credits having female siblings as the reason why he treats women the way he does: with respect, kindness, and patience. Peter refers to himself as a gentleman, supporting women in feminism and whatever role they choose in a relationship and in life. Peter represents the kind of man who every woman wishes existed outside of romance novels – a sweet and gentle spirit that is truly kind and loving.

When I explained to Peter that I wanted to list through the behaviors in The Power and Control Wheel, he agreed that this was a good option. He told me stories along the way. Of the multiple abusive relationships that Peter has been in, only some of the behaviors applied to all of the women that were his aggressors. Certain traits were across the board while other women only had a few. For the purposes of this case study, I will list the women along the way in relation to the stories Peter told me. It is important to mention that all names have been changed to protect Peter’s privacy.

In order to avoid any confusion, I will tell you now about Peter’s two most prominent abusive relationships.

Jessica was Peter’s first abusive relationship. They met when he was fifteen and a sophomore in high school. Their relationship was on-and-off for two to three years. The abuse began about seven months after the relationship began and continued consistently until the break up.

Sarah was Peter’s girlfriend when he was nineteen. They met in college. Their relationship lasted three months. The abuse began about a month after they met.

Using Social Status/Peer Pressure

When I asked Peter if any of his partners had ever treated him like a servant, he told me that both Jessica and Sarah treated him that way. They would demand that he pay for meals and buy them things. If they wanted something, he had to pay for it.

Peter also told me that Sarah frequently made all the decisions in the relationship. The wheel is called Power and Control for a reason – in relationships we must find balance and share the power and control. In Peter’s case, Sarah would hold onto the power and control whenever possible. She also acted as the “master of the castle” in that way.

As far as defining male and female roles, both Jessica and Sarah behaved this way. Peter was the man and as such he was responsible for financially stabilizing both of these women. He was the caretaker, the man who did not have feelings or sensitivity, and was to be the provider for things that they needed.

When it came to peer pressure, Sarah would tell lies about Peter to his peers. She would spread rumors and say that Peter hit her. Peter says, “When we broke up she told everyone that I would hit her. I’ve never hit anyone.”

Anger/Emotional Abuse

Peter described both Jessica and Sarah as being emotionally abusive and using anger to be abusive. For example, both partners put him down repeatedly. They would tell him that he was useless and going nowhere in his life, particularly when he helped his family. As previously stated, Peter grew up in a tight-knit family that was very close. He recalls a specific incident where he took Sarah with him to pick up his sister from a basketball game. Peter quotes Sarah as saying to him: “Why the fuck do we have to waste our time doing this? Don’t you love me?” Peter explained that Sarah’s position was that he should not expend energy on his family and instead meet her needs. Sarah felt that Peter’s desire to support his family made him weak.

When it comes to name calling, Peter’s been called everything in the book. When I asked him specifically what names he has been called he listed faggot, dick, asshole, prick, and bastard. Both Jessica and Sarah called him these names. They called him these names sometimes during arguments but other times during moments where Peter was being vulnerable and trying to express concern about the relationship. When Peter would try to point out that his feelings were being hurt and he did not feel respected, he was told that he was being a pussy and a faggot and to suck it up.

Sarah would also play mind games with Peter. He told me that Sarah had gone to a party once and kissed another man. She told him what she had done, and Peter thanked her for her honesty. He wanted to have a conversation about what happened, but more important than her indiscretion was her honesty. When Sarah realized that he wasn’t angry at her, she told him that the reason he wasn’t upset was because he obviously didn’t care about her, and that he was a fucking faggot. Peter’s words telling this story: “Mind. Blown.” We laughed at the absurdity of her statement, but we also talked about how it made him feel. Between this and having indiscretions while telling him that she loved him – Peter felt that he had no value.

Sarah would also make Peter feel guilty. If he didn’t behave in a certain way, it was because he didn’t love her.

Intimidation/Threats/Sexual Coercion

Peter and I talked, at great length, about fear in a relationship. Not all abuse can cause you to be afraid, but there are very specific kinds of hostility that cause one to feel fear. When I asked Peter if he felt afraid in both relationships, he answered yes. Since fear is a complex emotion and can stem from many different causes, I will simply illustrate a few of the events that happened in both relationships.

Jessica, for example, threatened to commit suicide if Peter did not stay in the relationship with her. This is a common behavior in aggressors. It is a way of using fear and guilt to control another person. Peter states, about this, “I’ve been with a girl [Jessica] that threatened to commit suicide all the time and used it against me. That pretty fucking hefty at fifteen. I don’t want that on my conscience, some girl cutting herself.”

Sarah would frequently use violence to control Peter. He told me that she would act out in the most aggressive and bizarre ways. When we were talking about it, Peter was laughing at the absurdity of it all. He had a look on his face that was completely stumped: still to this day he cannot quite get a grip on how completely insane she was behaving.

Sarah would throw lamps across a room. She would punch the windows from the inside of his car. All of a sudden she would get upset and just start punching the window from the passenger seat. Sarah punched mirrors and broke them. When I asked Peter how it made him feel to witness her behaving that way, he said, “I was scared as fucking shit. First of all, I’m the guy in the relationship. So, if for some reason the cops come, I’m the target regardless because cops don’t buy into that.” Of course Peter is referring to how a police officer would assess a situation. In Peter’s mind, he would be arrested because he is the man and the stereotype is that men abuse women. For Peter, he was at risk just based on his gender. This caused a feeling of helplessness and vulnerability. Sarah was completely in control of what happened to him.

When I asked Peter how he handled Sarah’s acts of violence, he said, “There was nothing I could do about it. What am I supposed to do, restrain her? No, because then my hands are on her. I don’t want physical contact. You’re just sitting there awestruck like ‘oh my god I don’t know what to do’. I would just remove myself from the situation. Go outside until she calmed down, or leave.”

Peter recalls the time he was most afraid with Sarah. They were in the car driving back from a concert and she was agitated for being lost. When he suggested that they stop for directions, Sarah said to him that perhaps she should just drive her car off the road. He had to talk her out of that from the passenger seat.

As far as physical violence and contact, when I asked Peter if he had been hit before, his response was “”Fuck yeah” as if it were the most commonplace occurrence in the world. He said that Sarah would play-wrestle with him, but it would quickly turn into something violent. She would punch him all over his body and he would stop her, making it clear that it wasn’t playful or fun, it was not okay. Her response was almost always that he was just being a pussy or a faggot and to grow a pair.

In terms of the role of sex in the relationship, I asked Peter what would happen when he did not want to have sex with his partner. He said that although it did not happen very frequently, Sarah and Jessica would both get angry and leave the room. Even during our interview, Peter seemed uncomfortable talking about this. He behaved defensively, justifying that sometimes men just don’t want to have sex. He listed the reasons as severe exhaustion or being too drunk after going to a party. I felt that he was trying to explain himself to me, as though I might yank away his “man card” for admitting that sometimes he doesn’t want to have sex. In a society where men are portrayed as sexual beings that are always thinking about sex – Sarah and Jessica’s reactions reinforced this stereotype but also made him feel that he was not fulfilling the male role in his relationship that they had defined for him.

When I asked Peter about whether or not he had done anything illegal for any of his partners, he told me that he would frequently steal for Sarah. I was surprised; this is the same person that found money and returned it to its owner rather than keeping it. Why on earth would Peter steal for his girlfriend? As he puts it, “I have stolen for girls because they told me to. Most every relationship I’ve had I’ve had to steal for people. I’ve stolen nail polish. CDs. A pair of jeans once from Forever 21 [a store in a mall]. I should have just dropped the seven dollars on the pair of jeans.”

When I asked him how it even got to a point of theft in the conversation, his explanation was simple. Sarah would want something and demand that he purchase it for her. If he didn’t have the money, Sarah told him to steal it. He described the conversation as not-optional, nor did Sarah seem to feel ashamed of what she was ordering him to do.

Minimize/Deny/Blame

When Peter and I talked about communication in these abusive relationships, I asked him if he ever tried to talk to Jessica or Sarah about the way they were treating him. The responses varied.

Sometimes the women would tell him to get over himself and take it like a man. Other times, recalls Peter, “they wouldn’t try to justify it, they would get upset. Yell at me and walk away and not talk to me. Tell me I’m being ridiculous.”

Sarah would sometimes tell Peter that it was his fault. Or, she would transfer the attention to some unrelated topic, such as something that Peter had done a long time ago to upset her. She would exaggerate the circumstances and before he knew it, they were having a discussion about his faults in their relationship.

As far as the violent incidents, I asked Peter if he ever tried to talk to her about it. He told me that she would act normally as if nothing had happened, and if he tried to push it further she would simply walk away. Sarah was unwilling to accept responsibility for any abusive behavior. Period.

Isolation/Exclusion

Peter told me that it was mostly Jessica that tried to control his behavior and change him. She would make decisions on who he would spend time with – both men and women. Jessica felt that some of Peter’s friends were “bad influences” and did not want him spending time with them. There were also some friends that Peter was allowed to hang out with, but Jessica had to be there. Peter describes her as being very jealous and possessive. As Peter describes it, “You’re not allowed to do what you want to do. You have to spend time with her all the time. You lose your life.”

Jessica would also comment on the clothes that Peter wore, telling him to wear other types of clothing. She would make him listen to the kind of music she liked.

Aftermath

After talking about the Power and Control Wheel, Peter and I talked about the emotional effects of the abuse and how his view of love and relationships has changed. Peter told me that his first abusive relationship – with Jessica – taught him most everything he knows about boundaries. After they broke up, Peter found that he put less of himself into relationships. He stopped being willing to change as an individual. Although he did meet Sarah and had a second abusive relationship with her, it was very brief, and that experience solidified what boundaries he has. Peter comments, “My first real relationship [Jessica] I had to be pushed to my breaking point. After that, the signs become so much more apparent and I stopped putting up with that bullshit.”

We also talked about him feeling somewhat jaded from the experience. Although he does not necessarily feel that something bad is going to happen in his current relationship, he is unwilling to try to make it work if he is pushed as far as he was before.

During our conversation, Peter mentioned how Jessica’s abuse made him feel awful about himself. He did not talk to anyone about the abuse when it was happening. When I asked him how he coped with this kind of treatment as a teenager, he says, “I used to drink really heavily afterwards [after the events occurred] and I would write music. Fight, they leave, and you’re like ‘fuck I don’t know what to do I feel so out of control’. I would just get annihilated. So you just sit in your room and listen to The Cure and do your thing.”

Peter also tells me that he thinks he was depressed. When he was nineteen he thought about committing suicide from the depression. He wanted to hang himself and had the belt around his neck. Then he just got sad and took it off. I asked him where the depression came from and he immediately told me it was from Jessica and Sarah. He told me that he felt like an invalid person and that he must be crazy to trigger abuse in other women. Peter described thinking that it must be his fault, that he must have something wrong with him for women to treat him this way.

Peter is in a much happier place now, but he still feels the weight of what happened to him. He still goes through period of depression and describes it as a dark place, that he wanted to die at one point and sometimes still does. He told me that he believes the abuse he experienced changed the way he looks at love and relationships. He feels somewhat jaded. Although he is in a healthy relationship now and seems to be very happy, it is obvious to me that what happened to him has left a wound that will never quite heal. At the very least, it will be a jagged and ugly scar on his soul.

We talked about abuse in society and the way it is defined. Peter commented that society defines abuse as violence first and it is almost always a male aggressor and the female is helpless. Even when Peter contacted me to be interviewed, his words to me were these: “Believe it or not, I was the victim and not the aggressor.” He felt the need to point out, to me, that just because he wanted to be interviewed that didn’t make him the abuser. Just this statement alone reinforces the way that the stereotype affects how we view abuse as a society.

Recently I came across a tool used to describe abusive behaviors. It is called The Power and Control Wheel. I was poking around the internets looking for information on abusive relationships and came across the website Love is Respect. From there, I navigated to The Power and Control Wheel and was shocked to find the extensive information on abusive behaviors and how they can be categorized.

As a part of my research paper, I have been conducting interviews with victims of abuse. I lead the interview with going through every aspect of the relationship(s) and asking if any of the aggressors behaved as described on the list. From there, I am collecting data about abusive relationships to form my thesis.

Other questions following this initial portion of the interview include: self esteem, self worth, personality traits of the aggressors, the childhood of the victim, how the victim felt about relationships and love prior to the first abusive relationship, how the abusive relationship altered how the victim feels about relationships and love, relationship role models growing up (parents and other authority figures), the relationship between abuse and drug/alcohol use, how the victim defines abuse, how the victim feels society defines abuse, thoughts about the aggressors, the victim’s depression before or after the abuse occurred, support systems while abuse occurred, support systems after the abuse occurred, the length of the abusive relationships and at what age the abuse occurred (for both the victim and the aggressor), boundaries prior, during, and after the abuse occurred, trust, how long the relationship lasted before the first abusive incident, and what led to the eventual breakup of the abusive relationship.

Needless to say, it has been a very emotional several days for me. Likely, it has been an emotional process for everyone. I have more information than I need for my paper, and I am beginning to think that I will take these interviews and write a book. And that I will conduct more interviews over time (not just until the end of my semester) and try to cover a wider demographic.

In the meantime, I have decided that the best thing for my creative and intellectual process is to write blog posts about different aspects of my research and then assemble pieces of the blog posts for my final paper. At the very least, it will help me sort out my thoughts and feelings on the topic.

That being said, I start with The Power and Control Wheel. There’s not much explanation needed, I think it speaks for itself. Here is a list of abusive behaviors, divided into categories. I should mention that, as you read this, bear in mind that if it is on this list – it’s abuse. A lot of these things surprised me.

Using Social Status/Peer Pressure
Examples of Using Social Status

• Treating you like a servant
• Making all the decisions
• Acting like the “master of the castle”
• Being the one to define men’s and women’s roles

Examples of Peer Pressure

• Threatening to expose your weakness or spread rumors
• Telling malicious lies about you to your peers

Anger/Emotional Abuse
Examples

• Putting you down
• Making you feel bad about yourself
• Name calling
• Making you think you’re crazy
• Playing mind games
• Humiliating you
• Making you feel guilty

Intimidation/Threats/Sexual Coercion
Examples of Intimidation

• Making you afraid by using looks, actions or gestures
• Smashing things
• Destroying property
• Abusing pets
• Displaying weapons

Examples of Threats

• Making and/or carrying out threats to hurt you
• Threatening to leave, commit suicide, report you to the police
• Making you drop charges
• Making you do illegal things

Examples of Sexual Coercion

• Manipulating or making threats to get sex
• Threatening to take children away
• Getting your drunk or drugging you to get sex
• Repeatedly making sexual advances after you’ve said no

Minimize/Deny/Blame
Examples

• Making light of the abuse and not taking your concerns about it seriously
• Saying the abuse didn’t happen
• Shifting responsibility for abusive behavior
• Saying you caused the abuse

Isolation/Exclusion
Examples

• Controlling what you do, who you see, who you talk to, what you read, where you go
• Limiting your outside involvement
• Using jealousy to justify their actions

Last night I was able to make a great jazz performance at a local hotel. As it turned out, the jazz performance was for an event celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Monadnock Center for Violence Prevention. Although I only caught the last hour or so of the event, I will never forget how it made me feel.

This entire room was full of survivors of abuse. Abuse comes in many forms – mental, physical, sexual, emotional. It can be as simple as name-calling and as complex as aggravated sexual assault. Each abusive experience is completely unique, but we all share similar experiences and similar feelings about our aggressors and ourselves.

As a result, I found myself completely at home in this room full of volunteers and survivors. I arrived near the end and thus only had the privilege of listening to one survivor story, but I was completely moved. I was moved by the energy in the room. It’s so hard to describe. It wasn’t just that her story was emotional – because it was. It wasn’t just that it made me sad, because it did. It wasn’t just pride on her behalf for her courage, because there was definitely a lot of that.

The first thing that happens when you realize you are in an abusive situation is you vehemently deny it. You don’t want to be that person. I mean, how could you be so stupid? Suddenly you start to realize that it wasn’t just one incident, it was hundreds. And you start to realize that you fell in love with someone like that. Then there is shame. Being able to accept that it happened to you, that’s tough. Don’t we all make decisions about how we live our lives? Didn’t we play a part of this mess? Isn’t some of the blame on us?

So, then we feel guilt. And more shame. We don’t want to talk about it because we don’t want to be pitied, or judged, or treated differently. We want it to just go away. We want to pretend it never happened, but we are permanently different. We don’t want this thing – that can feel like an oily substance that coats our souls – to define us. We want to go back, so far back, to the beginning of it all and do things differently. Sadly, we cannot. And we are victims, we are survivors.

That word – survivor – bothers me. It makes me uncomfortable. What exactly did I survive? My partner didn’t outright hit me. He didn’t rape me. He never did anything that bad, did he? He never threatened to kill me, never stalked me, never locked me in a basement in chains and starved me half to death. And didn’t I just let things get that bad to begin with?

So “survivor” makes me feel like I am just being dramatic. That if I referred to myself as a survivor of abuse, someone might scoff and tell me to just get over it already because it wasn’t that bad anyway. At least he didn’t (blah blah blah).

The problem with that mentality is that it opens a dialogue that any kind of abuse is okay. I mean, yeah, he did tell me once that if I didn’t do x, y, and z that he would put my ass on the floor. But he never actually knocked me down. So how bad is it, really, that he said that to me?

Here’s my new test: if it makes me cringe and feel nauseous, it’s probably pretty bad.

But then there all the things he said to me. I mean, pretty much every negative and derogatory term in the book, I was called it. But didn’t I say those things too sometimes? Don’t couples get mean when they argue? Aren’t those things relatively normal? Well, common and normal are not interchangeable.

So, if I can admit that being called a cunt is abuse, what does that say about the things I said too? Does that mean that since I called him an asshole or a prick (usually with the F word in front of it) I am abusive too? Oh great, now I can’t even really be mad at him because I’m just as bad.

All of a sudden, the shame intensifies and the guilt. It really is my fault. If I had only just done things differently, he wouldn’t have to call me those names.

But, I remember vividly when he said those things to me. They weren’t expressed out of anger. It wasn’t like we were in an argument and he got exasperated and walked out of the room muttering “You’re a fucking bitch sometimes.” Cause let’s be honest, we can all be assholes and bitches. But for someone to look at you, take a pause, level a look, and calculatingly call you a cunt? That’s abuse. That’s not reacting to emotion, that’s just plain meanness. And it’s not okay.

So, back to last night. Here I am nearly a year later since my marriage ended, and I am in a room of people who do not have that look on their face when I talk. That horrified look, that indignant look, that angry look. They don’t look at me with pity, they don’t look at me with sadness. They look at me gravely, which is different from sadness. They understand completely how I feel and how I have felt. It made me cry. I have not, since everything happened, felt like I truly belonged in any group of people.

Every single one of these survivors, victims, whatever you want to call them – they are all torn up inside just like me. They are permanently different. This defines who they are. It is not the only thing that defines them, but we can all sit in a room and just let it go. We can turn off the switch where we have to be careful about letting it out. We can just be in it together. And it was incredible.

I am so frustrated. I could write two thousand more words and I still couldn’t express it correctly. I just felt… bonded to them somehow. Like we are all carbon copies of one another. That we are twins. That we are soul mates. That every single one of us unconditionally loves the other just because we understand one another so completely. Because pain is pain, abuse is abuse. Once you go through it, you learn something about yourself. Most of the things you learn, unfortunately, are pretty unpleasant. And, it takes the luster out of life a little bit. You’ve seen how ugly the world can be, felt it in every fiber of your being, and it’s just not the same after that.

Imagine if you lived in a world where everyone saw in black and white, but no one really knew they couldn’t see color. And then, all of a sudden, this thing happens and you can suddenly see color in high-definition. And you can’t really share it with anyone because you could never accurately describe the way the color blue makes you feel, or green, or the many shades of orange. Lilac, hot pink, pale yellow, and silver. And then someone comes along and they see the colors, too. And you don’t really have to talk about it at all. You don’t talk about what the color red looks like or how it makes you feel, because you can just tell that it makes them feel exactly how you feel. If you want to talk about it, you can, and it’s more validating than any other conversation you could have.

And you look into their eyes and you see yourself reflected back from the inside out. Our souls… they are different now. Who we are… is different. And our souls recognize one another. We have been reaching out and hitting a wall. Of course, nothing replaces the support and love of a family and friends. But talking to another victim… it feels like belonging.

I remember after I left, I was on the verge of tears. I was so completely overwhelmed, like I felt like I was supposed to be a part of a secret club and I just stumbled upon them by accident. This is why people go to support groups and this is why they work. There’s nothing quite like sitting a room of people exactly like you and just looking at them validates everything you have ever felt, ever experienced, and ever feared.

On top of that, a woman I was talking to is on the Board of Directors and mentioned that they are looking for someone to join. Of course I told her immediately I wanted to do it. Meeting one day a month and making decisions about funding and organizing events? I want that. I want to speak at events. I want to speak in a health class to teenage girls and boys. I want to continue writing, and seeking out others. I want to communicate with people about the seriousness of this issue. I want to be a crisis prevention worker when I am ready to go there. Be on call for victims. Facilitate support groups. Get men and women talking about what has happened. I want to cry with them, and hold them, and tell them how strong they are. We give one another strength.

The reality is that it is way more common than anyone ever really thinks about. Just to throw a statistic out there – once every two minutes someone is sexually assaulted. It’s taken me forty-five minutes to write this much. Think about that. In the time that I have been writing this, TWENTY people have been sexually assaulted. Twenty. That’s most of the wait staff at my job, twice as many people in my math class, and my immediate and extended family. Just think about it. It’s horrifying.

But, we are not alone. None of us. We have our amazing support systems, and we have each other. I just… felt like I belonged there. That I was put there for a reason, that I need to take action, that it’s not enough to just belong, I need to extend those feelings out to someone else as well. I need to emotionally embrace them and look upon them the same way that those women looked at me, and cry out of relief.

It’s all very important. So important. It’s this thing attached to who I am, and for a long time I didn’t want it to define me, but after last night I have really believed that it’s okay and a good thing that it defines me. It defines me no more than any other thing. It defines me like the fact that I was in a bus accident at 14 defines me, or that time I fell out of a tree when I was a kid, or that time someone picked on me in middle school. It defines me the way that being born first defines me, the fact that I am left-handed, and that I like Pepsi instead of Coke. It’s just another thing that makes up who I am, but it’s the thing that a lot of people can’t relate to. Or, more sad than that, they have been through it but don’t wish to share it with me. Or, perhaps, they are somewhere else in their journey and do not feel they need it.

Regardless, I don’t feel like a freak anymore. I don’t feel like the damaged girl, nor do I feel like some broken woman. I am a victim of abuse and I am a survivor of abuse. And I welcome you into my heart.

I have a friend that I spend lots of time with and he and I spend a great deal of time talking about our lives. We talk about our hopes and dreams, areas of improvement, thoughts and feelings. It is so funny because sometimes when I talk about where I am on this personal journey, I feel a little like the damaged girl. Truth is we’re all just trying to figure it out, but sometimes other people won’t freely admit that they are just as conflicted as I feel. With him I never feel like the damaged girl, I just feel like a person being honest about my life.

We’ve clocked hours and hours talking about pretty much everything under the sun. Our families, our interests, what we really love out of life. We really connect and it is through these conversations that I have come to understand more about what it means to be a healthy individual.

There are so many things I have learned over the past year. I’ve learned that I am a strong woman and I can do just about anything I set my mind to. I’ve learned to be more in touch with my feelings and to really trust them and always rely on them to help me make decisions. I’ve also learned how to quickly judge other people for the right reasons and based on the right things. When I look at people, I really look at them. I’ve learned to trust my gut and stop second guessing myself. I always have an open mind, but when I get that solid feeling that someone isn’t good for me, I trust those instincts.

Despite all that, I am still struggling with being emotionally codependent. Wait, that’s not true. I’ve learned how to be emotionally independent. I function just fine on my own, more or less. But I still keep everyone at arm’s length. Little by little I’ve allowed deeper connections with friends, but romantically I am still stumped. How do I have a healthy relationship that is also deep and meaningful, like some of my friendships?

Well, during one of this amazing talks, I finally came to the conclusion: human beings are fundamentally codependent creatures. We thrive on relationships with all kinds of things. We thrive on our relationship with our job, our friends, our passions, and our partners/loved ones.

Okay, so if I accept that as being the truth, then why is it that every time I get deep with anything, it almost always ends badly?

Answer: I have been picking the wrong things to invest in.

We, as people, should need things. We should need our jobs, need our friendships, and need intimate relationships. It creates harmony and balance with our own independence. So when we reach a point where we feel more or less stable, how do we get close to things and people without it consuming us?

We pick the right things to invest in.

Investing mass amounts of energy and emotion into a job that makes you miserable? Stop it right now. You are literally pouring your heart and soul into this thing you call a job – but get nothing out of it in return. I have found this to be a problem time and time again. Currently it is not a problem for me, and it feels as if a weight as been lifted. I put myself into my job and I get something back in direct proportion. When we invest in our jobs and we feel that we do not out of it what we put in, we commonly say that we are overworked and underpaid. What we really feel is that there is not harmony and balance in that area of our lives. And now that I have a job where there is harmony and balance, I am so happy in this area of my life.

In friendships, I have carefully – CAREFULLY – selected individuals to whom I invest and I have received, in proportion, the same investment from those individuals. It is more harmony, more balance, that makes this girl extremely happy. I can have codependent friendships because they are not hurting me. I can need my friends because they need me, too. And there is respect there. They see what I am giving them and they respect me and give it right back. Whenever it goes too far one way or the other, we can openly discuss it because I have also created mature and grown-up friendships with other adults. I can trace every unhealthy friendship back to a lack of respect and a lack of balance in the giving and receiving.

Once I realized this about my job and my friendships, I had a sudden clarity about the long list of boyfriends I’ve had. In almost every single situation there was a serious lack of harmony and balance and respect. I was giving and giving and giving – but receiving nothing in return. There is nothing wrong with making sacrifices – but only if your partner makes sacrifices, too. And I happen to think that a person does not necessarily choose for themselves what they are willing to sacrifice – then it’s not a sacrifice at all. It has to be an open communication. There has to be respect for the other human being’s needs and desires. We have to fully appreciate when a sacrifice is made and make sure that the person never feels taken for granted.

So, knowing this, it became glaringly obvious: I have been picking the wrong kinds of men.

There are obviously other pieces that go along with it. Communication is key, starting slowly and building a relationship is key. Can’t jump in the deep end of the emotional pool before actually knowing who someone is. And the generosity and sacrifice should be proportional (and therefore appropriate) to the length of said relationship.

I felt such a rush of relief – having this conversation with my friend – sitting on a bridge and listening to the sound of white water nearby. A sudden clarity, an audible clicking noise in my head as the last piece slid into place. It is not that I am too generous, nor that I am too giving or too forgiving. It is not that I am “too” anything. It is that I can be all of those things and as long as I am receiving the same treatment in return, we are in a healthy place. I can be exactly who I am and have a healthy relationship. I don’t need to be someone I’m not. I just need to make conscious decisions when giving myself to others, rather than reflexively. And I need to continue paying attention and trusting my instincts. 

Being in an intimate relationship does require generosity and love and vulnerability. Giving these things to someone is precious to the infinite power. The opposite needs to not only cradle these things carefully, but also give the same back in return. This is how trust is formed, and we all know how important trust is in relationships. Perhaps we can get to know someone and make the safe bet when it comes to picking a boyfriend or girlfriend, and we can follow our heart, but ultimately we are going out on a limb by handing them these incredibly delicate parts of who we are. Thus, when the partner does not carelessly shove it in a pocket or toss it on a coffee table for review at a later date, we learn to trust and feel safe.

THAT is what it’s all about. So, armed with this new and empowering knowledge, I feel I am ready to go to that next level with someone.  I have met a lot of different kinds of people in the past few months, but only with one have I had that gut instinct that it’s a good idea. That it will go somewhere really awesome, that it’s a high likelihood for success. I wish I could just follow my hormones and throw my heart around, but it’s been tossed around so much as it is I have to approach this kind of thing logically. Scientifically. It seems heartless and cold but it’s the only thing I haven’t tried. My other methods have failed me thus far. So let’s see what happens when I make an informed decision rather than just let my pelvis lead me around.

I’m really pleased that I have reached this point relatively quickly. I spend so much time analyzing myself and my choices and my feelings and my instincts and my everything… I feel I am nearing the place where I have finally figured it out and can just enjoy my life without having to question everything.

To review: live in a world of color. Abandon a grey-scale existence and embrace the things you need: people, passions, interests, careers, and the like. But take your own emotional temperature on a regular basis. Do I feel fulfilled? Am I getting what I need out of my relationship? What are my instincts telling me about this situation? And communicate! Communicate with yourself, most importantly, and then when you know how you feel, communicate with others. Tell your boss that you are seeking a new challenge (or that you feel overwhelmed and need help). Tell your friend that you need more balance in your friendship. Tell your lover that you need more respect or more time or more sex. And give positive feedback as well. Tell your boss that you appreciate the efforts to create a harmonious environment. Tell your friend how thankful you are for all that he or she gives, and that you hope he or she is getting as much in return. And finally, tell your partner that you hope you add as much color to their existence as they add to yours.

Most importantly – love yourself. Nothing can go wrong.