Dear Jupiter:

Thank you for your valuable, comprehensive original post. There is so much in it. I want to respond to a few things:

“When I was at my most vulnerable I experienced dismissive actions on the part of police, managers, coworkers and my family… most people were cynical and judgmental, and tried to minimise the severity of my experiences. This further led to the belief that I was bad, I had caused it, I was perhaps just as ‘difficult’ as he was, and that I wasn’t worthy of love or respect” – I want to be careful in my reply, best I can: to indicate no doubt in your experience as you told it, to not dismiss or minimize it; to not judge, accuse or blame you of anything.. no aggression, and nothing else that would suggest that you weren’t- or aren’t- worthy of love and respect.

“In internet parlance, my ex was an abusive and controlling narc….But screaming at someone for being an abusive narc often doesn’t bring healing“- I agree and it has made me cringe whenever I read from women online using what has become a common and popular name-calling: narc.

“I’d bake him cookies with terrible icing and make little gifts that fell apart“- the image of a child wanting to love (and be loved in return) in such a simple, honest way makes me smile.

“He simultaneously believed himself to be unlovable… and desperate for love” – the combination of these two ingredients make for a disastrous recipe when it comes to love.

“He would hurt me immensely by making sexist jokes and by relentless physical contact. Unfortunately, I think that the idealised woman in his mind had no capacity to be offended or hurt, because she wasn’t a real person…  Mythical goddesses don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed…. (they) don’t need personal space and they’ll never reject you…  he was angry all the time… This drove so much cruelty and abuse” –

– it happens that people hate gods: misotheism  means “god hating”. A related term is dystheism, meaning “bad god”: it is the belief that a god is not wholly good and is possibly evil.  Your boyfriend turned husband idealised and worshipped his goddess, but he was also angry at his goddess and was therefore motivated to hurt her. Young children idealise their parents, seeing them as gods.  But when a mother-goddess repeatedly hurts her child, the child gets angry at the bad-goddess and secretly dreams of punishing bad goddess.

I am guessing that he inaccurately projected his real-life mother/ primary caretaker into you.

“I suspect that, deep down, he could see the pain I was in but that something was blocking him from feeling empathy. I think he felt guilt.. He couldn’t let go of his fear and shame, so he chose to take all of it out on me, all the time” – his fear and shame culminated in anger. Anger is the most effective empathy-blocker I know. It also blocks guilt after dishing out the abuse quite effectively, I think.

“My ex-husband was traumatised and sometimes acted more like a wounded child than a grown-up“- my mother too acted like a wounded child when she abused me, only she had the physical stature and strength of an adult, and the official authority of an adult parent (and therefore no one intervened on my behalf)

“I couldn’t even suggest any wrongdoing to him without him immediately believing I was accusing him of something toxic, something that called him unlovable and triggered his shame. So he could accept no criticism without anger“- same is true in regard to my mother when I tried, as gently as I could when I was a teenager, to suggest … some constructive criticism to her: all hell broke loose!

“But breaking my promise to him hurt me. In a way, it probably hurt me more than the abuse did. Because I believed in unconditional, permanent love, and he made me prove to myself that I couldn’t love him unconditionally” – I love the child that my mother was when she was actually a child unconditionally. I would have done anything and everything to help the child that she was, if I was alive and capable at the time. But the child that she was is gone and the leftover of that child, aka inner child is too repressed in her, to locked and blocked to be helped by anyone.

“Shame is almost impossible to heal from… As a survivor of domestic abuse I experienced no shortage of my own shame” – I agree. To a large extent, healing from shame is possible.

“The truth is I haven’t let go of those beliefs… Deep down I believe that no-one is ever going to love me as a person, that someone only wants me to fulfil a role, that I am replaceable, and in the end I — like him — will always be too much for someone. The fear and mistrust is with me every day, and so is the need to protect myself from threat. Just like he did.” – I don’t want to rush a reply to this ending of your amazing original post. I want to reply to this part later. If you would like to respond to this post before I return to you, please do.

anita