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them they deserve such treatment.
Exercise: Establishing Your Boundaries
1. Only you can decide what you will and will not accept in your
relationships. In order to set your boundaries, you need to
know what they are. Spend some time thinking about the kinds
of behavior that bother you the most, behaviors that push your
buttons, or behaviors that are morally unacceptable to you.
Make a list of these behaviors. Your list might include such
things as: reading your mail, going through your private
papers, making fun of you in front of others.
2. Make another list about what your personal limits are regard-
ing your partner s behavior. For example, you may think it is
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How to Prevent Partner Abuse 167
okay for your partner to have two drinks, but no more since
you have noticed that his personality changes after two drinks
and you come from an alcoholic family and have no intention
of being involved with a drunk.
Communicate Your Limits and Boundaries
Your partner needs to know you have limits and boundaries. In order
to establish your boundaries you will need to state them clearly. At
an appropriate time sit down together and share your lists with your
partner. Explain why you have the limits and boundaries you have
and ask your partner if she will honor them. You may also take this
opportunity to ask your partner to share her boundaries and limits
with you.
Don t expect your partner to be perfect. Boundary violations can
be healed in the moment if you gently tell your partner about it at the
time and she apologizes for it and assures you that it will not happen
again. Unfortunately, this doesn t always happen. Your partner may
get defensive or deny that she violated your boundary. Don t let this
discourage you from bringing up offenses, however. While she may
deny the violation at the time, after thinking it over she may realize
what she has done and try harder to honor your boundaries. Plus, you
need to stand up for yourself and assert your limits.
Have Reasonable Expectations
A good romantic partner is supposed to bring pleasure, security, and
joy into your life. He or she is not supposed to be able to make up for
all the neglect, deprivation, or abuse that you sustained in your child-
hood. All too often survivors of abuse and neglect expect their part-
ners to provide the nurturing, unconditional love, and support that
they missed as a child. Unfortunately, this is impossible for an adult
partner to give. Adult partners have needs of their own and a healthy
person has limits and boundaries in terms of what they are willing to
put up with.
It is a common pattern for those who were neglected or abused to
really be looking more for a mother or father than for an equal romantic
partner. This kind of unreasonable expectation is a setup for abuse.
For example, the typical female survivor enters an intimate relation-
ship with a hunger to be protected and cared for and a fear of aban-
donment or exploitation. In a quest to be rescued, she seeks out a
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168 Breaking the Cycle of Abuse
powerful authority figure who seems to offer the promise of a special
caretaking relationship. Inevitably, her chosen partner fails to live up
to her expectations. In reaction to being disappointed she becomes
furious and denigrates the same person she had put on a pedestal.
Don t Make Assumptions
One of the most damaging aspects of coming from an abusive or ne-
glectful background is that we make certain assumptions about people
and their motives that are unrealistic and can even be destructive to a
healthy relationship. For example, those who were abused often have
a difficult time trusting other people and may, in fact, grow up to
believe that no one can be trusted. This, in turn, can cause their per-
ceptions to be distorted. By assuming that another person cannot be
trusted they will tend to read into her behavior, seeing deceit and dis-
honesty in everything she does. When someone they love makes an
honest mistake, they will assume she deliberately intended to hurt or
deceive them. This assumption is the cause of many marital problems,
causing partners to view one another as enemies instead of allies.
The way you feel at any given time has to do with the meaning
you attach to the experience. We all attach different meanings to
things. What I experience as someone being inconsiderate or selfish
you might interpret as normal behavior. For this reason we need to
stop making assumptions about the meaning of our partner s actions
or inaction. The next time you become upset with your partner for
something he or she said or did (or didn t say or do) ask yourself this
question:  What else could this mean? For example, instead of
assuming that the reason your partner did not call you one night when
he was out of town on business was because he doesn t love you or
because he was with someone else, see if you can come up with some
other, less negative possibilities. Maybe his business meetings were
delayed, or perhaps he went out to eat with some colleagues. Or
maybe he had intended to call you later but fell asleep.
Rosemary s Assumptions
Here s another example of how assumptions can affect a relationship.
My client Rosemary s father cheated on her mother and was sexually
inappropriate with Rosemary.  My father was obsessed with sex. It s
all he ever talked about. He constantly made sexual innuendoes and
told dirty jokes and he was always flirting with women. My mother
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How to Prevent Partner Abuse 169
just seemed to tolerate it, she even put up with him having numerous
affairs. But it made me mad. Then, when I was a teenager he started [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]