This week a reader wrote to ask: Why am I heartbroken at the thought of losing somebody who treats me like dirt? Why indeed? How is it that you know something with your head and yet your heart drowns it out? And is it really your heart? Or if it is, what is that really about? If I had a dollar for every time a woman has told me how wonderful her lover is, even with his hurtful, punitive behaviours, Id be writing this in my very own palazzo on Venices Grand Canal. The fact is you love your investment. Once you start to invest your time and quite possibly money your heart, your trust, and your future in a dream, its hard to let it go. One of my constant rants is that people arent terribly good at joined up thinking, or joined up living. Were forever compartmentalizing our life. We do it in all sorts of ways, but for now, lets just look at how we do it in relationships. Theres this thing called The Love Conquers All button that we all have, which, once pressed, short-circuits logic, common sense, friendship even family values. Sometimes, its known as the Throw Everything Over For The Man You Love button. Either way, it tends to be a pretty dangerous process. Not least because as well as throwing caution to the wind, you cast aside all previous criteria and points of reference. The heart has its reasons, allegedly, of which reason knows nothing. Quite. But is this a good thing? Just suppose that instead of arguing that falling in love is like nothing else, you compared it to the selling process. After all, most of us are guilty of falling in love with things that we buy; like shoes and clothes etc. You buy, because people sell to you. Ideally, in the sales environment, there is the upsell. Either youve bought a small thing, or youve agreed to listen to someones 'pitch' and they use that as a foundation to sell you a much higher ticket item. Do you notice any similarity with relationships? An abusive man will, consciously or unconsciously, sell you on his charm, his vulnerable side, his fast-track wooing. Thats actually the low ticket item. Sadly, the high ticket item is not more of the same. Its his dark side, the return he expects from your investment as well as the investment of his time and trouble. The high ticket item is this: making him feel good becomes your responsibility. And if you fall down on the job and why wouldnt you? hell make himself feel good by making you feel bad, by treating you like dirt. Thats the contract as he sees it. But you dont get it. You still believe that the contract is based on the low ticket deal. And every so often, when he needs to, hell give you some of the low ticket sweet-talking. Just enough to get you to buy into him all over again. Because there is another important factor in all of this: and thats the power of words. Whether or not abusive men are educated or in any way sophisticated, they all have a great intuitive grasp of the manipulative power of words. They may deny the power of their words, because it is convenient to do so. It's another denial of responsibility. But the truth is that manipulative words work. They work every time, unless you consciously challenge them. They work because they send you into a sort of waking trance. You only have to think of the way a partners words can send you spiralling into despair, or more rarely, relief and joy, to see the way it works in action. Add into the trance, the immortal words that every abuser utters with monotonous regularity: Youre lucky to have me. Youll never have another man as wonderful as me and you begin to see it. He says it and, even as you gaze on the tormentor whose face is contorted with fury, it sinks in and you believe it. You believe what he says, rather than what he does. So he acts like he hates you, but tells you some involved story about how youve hurt him and you believe it. You believe his story rather than your own. Incredible as it may sound, it happens all the time. But now you know how the mechanism works. Now youll catch yourself having the old buttons pressed and youll start to say No. Knowledge isnt foolproof, but awareness and practice will neutralize the old hooks and protect you in the future. As you become more aware of the mechanisms and learn to love yourself, the less the less likely it becomes that anyone will ever treat you like dirt again. (C) 2006 Annie Kaszina |
