Dear marv:

You have witnessed yourself the father ranting and berating his daughters for hours, that includes your partner, his daughter. You asserted yourself with her father, appropriately reads to me. You didn’t physically hit him, you didn’t call him names, you didn’t yell at him, you didn’t break things or destroyed property, correct? If so, you were not aggressive.

It is common for an abused child (and adult child) to view the aggressive parent as a victim and to feel empathy for the aggressor. It is the way a child survives such trauma, seeing the aggressor in the best possible light so to feel safer. She may have complained about his aggression many times but at the same time, in between the complaints, she felt empathy for him.

If you stay in this relationship, I believe that you will continue to feel “hopeless and helpless’- because there is no hope for your partner to heal (unless she is very motivated over a long, long time, willing to cut contact with her father, attends serious, quality psychotherapy and do the ton of work required), and there is nothing you can do to help her. After all, you tried and failed.

If a relationship is in reality, a situation of hopelessness and helplessness, as this relationship is, it is detrimental to your mental health. What results from a situation like that is that she doesn’t get better and you get worse.

I would end it as soon as possible.

anita