I gotta ask...porno and N's

[Ami]

Dear Axa,
  This is just how I "lost myself" with my M.It was a systematic brainwashing like they do it cults--- VERY TRUE.
  Also, as I get in touch with my inner child., I see how I ,always KNEW the truth about situations  BUT I would not face it. I am realizing that we do have a lot of the animal in us. I read the "Gift of fear" a long time ago. The author talks about our "primal" nature. It tells us information which is more true than our head.WE, override it with logic.
  I am trying to honor my gut.I knew that my sociopathic  b/f was SICK. I knew it down deep, but I "needed' him too much to totally face it.
   When I got stronger, I faced it . HOWEVER, I could have gotten REALLY hurt if I disregarded it, totally,which I did not.                                    Love to You    Ami

[JanetLG]

Axa,

I think, now, that I too would 'run like the wind' if I even felt a whiff of a similar kind of relationship with such a terrible, deformed example of the male of the species. But when you're in it, and you have absolutely no self-esteem, and all that other people can see is the nicey-nice performance that they give in puiblic, it is so hard to understand it. My Nboyfriend used to appear so 'normal' in public, then, on the same day, we'd go home and he would throw me from one side of the room to the other, for some stupid reason like I'd asked him to put away his coat. WHA? 

Sometimes, if we were out and we'd bump into people he knew, but I didn't, he'd actually push me behind him with one hand to hide me from them, or if we were in the car, he'd put his hand on my head and just squash me down out of sight, so that it looked like he was alone in the car, rather than have people see him with me - he was that ashamed of me. That takes a lot of getting over.

This is a person who raped me. This is a person who, after I split up with him, my family continued to see, and when I said 'after all he's done to ME?' they said, 'Oh, don't be like that, he's a good bloke really.'

Unbelievable.

No wonder we have trouble with our self-esteem.

Janet

[Ami]

Dear Janet,
   I am so sorry that you went through all that suffering. You are right, though, a life with your mother prepared you for just that.
  Thank God that you got away and found someone to love who treats you kindly and gently. That is a success story. Also,you have made your own business.
  Your M could not crush you the way that she wanted.Thank God for that.                Love  Ami
 

[JanetLG]

Authentic,

"Awe, we're gonna miss him though, he was so funny."

That's a despicable thing to have said to you. I'm so sorry - as you said, they are in so much denial, and  they're so callous. When I see it happening with someone else, I can see it as it is - when it was me, though (especially as I heard these callous comments from my own family right after I'd split up with him, so I was still reeling from his treatent of me), I just thought 'Oh well, I suppose they've got the right to still see him if they want to.'

I just didn't see it straight.

If my step-daughter had been in the same situation with a 'boyfriend', I'd have KILLED HIM WITH MY BARE HANDS!!! No way would I have kept up a 'social' relationship with the bastard! That's what is so crazy-making about all this - the FOO treat you as if you're a non-being, and then look at you as if you've got two heads when you call them on ther behaviour.


Ami,

You're right, my NMum couldn't crush me, but she had one hell of a try! It was her and my sister who 'set me up' with this boyfriend in the first place - because they thought he'd 'do' for me (better to have 'someone' than 'no-one', apparently. )

Janet

[reallyME]

Janet:

If my step-daughter had been in the same situation with a 'boyfriend', I'd have KILLED HIM WITH MY BARE HANDS!!! No way would I have kept up a 'social' relationship with the bastard!

When I read this, it reminded me of something that was the reverse in a sense.

When Kay and I ended our friendship/ministry partnership, whatever you want to call it, I was still talking to her mother.  It seemed her mother and I had no problems getting along, yet KAY would come to me and accuse me of trying to get back close with her (Kay) through her mother.

I can recall one day when she said to me "suuuuuuuuuure you aren't trying to get back with me.  You haven't talked to my mother hardly at all, and now, after we split, all of a sudden you are messaging her almost every day."

I also recall my reply "Kay, in the beginning you told me that if I wanted to be close to your mother, that it had NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU, WAS A TOTALLY SEPARATE RELATIONSHIP," and, yet now, all of a sudden, you know exactly how often I message your mother online and you seem upset that I'm still close with her.  What's goin on, Kay?"

She:  "well, when things ended with ME, they should have ended with my mother too!"

Me:  "oh, so your mother doesn't have the right to have a relationship with whom she pleases, just cause YOU don't like them anymore?"

She:  "I didn't say that."

Me:  "what ARe you saying then?"

She:  "I know how you are using my mother to get to me!"

Me:  "I wouldn't do anything to come between your mother and you."

She (mockingly laughing) "oh don't WORRY about that.  I'm not even meaning that, cause THAT would never happen.  Mom and I are TIGHT!"

Me:  "Ok ok, so what are you all upset over, just cause your mother and I are still close?"

She:  "I'm just saying I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK!"

Me:  "I have no clue what you are talking about.  Your mother and I have NOTHING to do with any relationship I had with you!"

She:  "Well, that's how it goes.  I know what you're doing...cause you wouldn't even be talking to my mother if it weren't for me being in this."

Me:  (LAUGHING IN DISBELIEF)  "ARE YOU REALLY THAT VAIN??????????  Do you honestly think I people become friends with your mother, just so they can be close to you?  COME ON NOW!"

She:  "I ain't saying that.  I'm just saying your plan is not going to work!"

HONESTLY, in the end, her mother pulled away from me, most likely torn between a bio-daughter and a friend who was like a daughter to her.  Her mother wasn't there for me much after that, no doubt upon Kay's URGING, BEGGING, and PHONY TEARS OF ENVY AND INSECURITY...and, finally, I met my current spiritual mom who is AWESOME and HOLY and a wonderful friend to me, and Kay's mother "handed me over" to this new, TRUE mom.

Sorry if it seems like so much online/offline drama, but that's really how the relationship with Kay all concluded...well, besides her replacing me with my former best friend and 2 other women after her.

[finding peace]

Janet and Authentic,

I had a similar experience - it wasn't rape but it involved a violent boyfriend.  I am so sorry you went through this.

Shortly after I got out of the violent relationship, I was at my parents house one day, and my father said to me:  your brother and I were talking about what happened to you, your brother said he can understand why [BF] got violent with you. 

 

It was adding insult to injury.  I was devastated by this.  It really was a breaking point for me.  No one, but no one deserves to be beat up or raped for any reason.  It is sick attitudes like this that perpetuate abuse.

I am very sorry you had this too - it was awful.

I am also sitting here in shock that so much of our stories are so similar.

Peace

[JanetLG]

Peace,

That kind of attitude towards women who endure violent relationships are what perpetuate them. I'm sorry they treated you like that, after all you'd been through. It's the ultimate in not hearing you, isn't it?

Reallyme,

I'm not sure I understand the 'reverse' situation you've described. I, too, have had friends and acquaintances who wanted (and did) stay friendly towards my family when I was cut off by them and labelled as 'the one with the problem'. That was their choice, even if I didn't agree with them. I wouldn't have tried to interfere with their choice - they are adults, after all.

But I don't see it as anything like the same situation, when the rapist ex-boyfriend of a woman keeps a relationship going with the mother and sister of that woman. Do you see that as similar to your situation, then? In what way? My ex boyfriend wasn't trying to get back with me through my family - I never heard from him directly, ever, after we split.

I just see it as another way that thay totally abandoned me, to never admit that what I went though was appalling, and that I should have had familial support.

I think that should come before having the right to ' a relationship with whom she pleases'. That's what I meant by I would kill anybody who hurt my step-daughter like that - even if I'd been perfectly friendly with them beforehand. 'Step-mother love' comes before 'social acquanitances', in my book!


Janet

[reallyME]

Janet,

I'm sorry and do apologize.  I must have misunderstood something.  There was just something in your post that triggered a memory with me, I guess.

I do NOT EVER EVER EVER feel that rape is ok or that there is ANY REASON for it.  I was RAPED too, by a former boyfriend, as well as assaulted by a friend of my family, even right at my own grandfather's funeral parlor meeting.  I KNOW what it feels like to be unheard, brushed off and even ACCUSED OF WANTING it.

I sure didn't mean for my post to sound like any type of JUSTIFICATION of this heinous perpetration.

I think I was just remembering another situation that felt SO UNFAIR to me.

~Laura

[JanetLG]

Laura,

It's OK, we all have triggers. I just didn't get what you meant, that's all. There seemed no rational link between friends and ex violent boyfriends wanting to keep in touch with N parents - different ball game entirely!

Authentic,

You're a fantastic mother. Your daughter is very lucky to have you.


Janet

[Hopalong]

Janet, Authentic, Peace:

Line 'em up.
I am ready to abandon my pacifism.

throttle throttle choke smack whack

(I realize that's not a mature response but it makes me angry.)

Hops