Does anyone know of any posts or resources that are targeted at rationalists that help with extracting yourself and recovering from an abusive relationship?
I hope you don’t wait with getting help until you find something targeted specifically for rationalists. Get all the help you can right now. A little bullshit here and there may annoy you, but non-rationalists can also have a lot of domain-specific knowledge.
GO BACK, YOU HAVE TO HELP HER
If there are any methods—rational or not—to erase this feeling from your mind, do it a.s.a.p. That is priority #1. Stop your brain from ruining your life.
Congratulations on telling your family. Actually, telling anyone. Saying certain things aloud allows one to think about them more clearly.
Thanks for this. I am pursuing help. I have scheduled appointments with two therapists (first office visit today) and I’m looking for a third to try to find one that I can work well with.
Erasing the dangerous thoughts is the hardest part and what I wish I had better methods for. I’m in general the type of person that likes to help others, and feel more empathy for her than any other person. Part of the reason I stayed so long is that I viewed the way she was treating me as an illness and thought to myself, what would I do if she had cancer? I’d stick around and be supportive and try to get her the help she needs. That’s what I should do here. That analogy breaks when you start to not feel safe though, something that took me too long to realize.
Erasing the dangerous thoughts is the hardest part and what I wish I had better methods for.
Finally an opportunity to use my Dark Arts for the benefit of humanity. Here it goes:
You see the abusive mentality of your girlfriend as an illness, and your support as a cure. Your urge to stay is rationalized as a hypothesis that being there, exposing yourself to the abuse, somehow cures the illness. Now let’s ignore the fact that it is you and your girlfriend for a moment, and ask a general question: Do you really believe, as a general rule, that the best way to cure abusive people is to give them a supply of victims? Is there any psychological pubblication suggesting that this could be true? If you were a psychologist, would you recommend this as a therapy? Because as far as I know, it is exactly the opposite: enabling harmful behavior, protecting people from natural consequences of their actions, makes it more difficult to heal. That means, your staying in the relationship actually makes your girlfriend’s illness worse.
Returning to your specific case, is it your personal experience that the longer you are with your girlfriend, the less abusive she gets? (Something like: at the beginning, she was threatening to cause you serious bodily harm every day, now she barely does it once in a month.) Do you have any data to support the hypothesis that your “healing” actually works? Or is it all just imagination and wishful thinking?
Does your girlfriend take a therapy? If you believe she is ill, she definitely should. Using your analogy, if she had cancer, would you let her stay home avoiding the doctors and try to heal her using your power of love? What would be your opinion about someone who did exactly that? Because that’s what you are doing right now.
If this wasn’t a situation between you and your girlfriend, but e.g. your (male) friend you deeply care about and his abusive girlfriend, would you recommend your friend to stay in the relationship? Imagine that the friend is not dating her yet; he just noticed her a he likes her, but you already know that she is an abusive person. Would you recommend your friend to start dating her, knowing that this will happen afterwards, or would you try to stop him?
Imagine a parallel reality where you live with a girlfriend who is not abusive. Would you break up with her only to be able to start dating an abusive girl and have a tiny chance to heal her by your suffering… because doing that would feel more altruistic, so you are morally required to choose that instead of happiness with a non-abusive girl? I am not just talking hypothetically here; the non-abusive girlfriend actually exists in your future, and it is your choice whether you open yourself for the relationship with her, or if you dump her in favor of the abusive girl you have now.
Imagine that you stay with your girlfriend and she remains exactly the same, or keeps getting worse. (Which is quite likely: the best predictor of a person’s behavior is their past behavior.) Imagine yourself ten years later, twenty years later, having dealt with the abuse all the time. Ask your 50-years old future you, who is probably too emotionaly broken to rescue themselves, if they could use a time machine and send a message back to the past, to your current self, what would that message say?
Do you want to have children one day? If yes, do you want your children to have an abusive mother? Do you want to see them abused in the same way you are, or worse? Because they will be more helpless than you are. And unlike you, they didn’t choose this voluntarily. Please realize that if that happens, it may become impossible to do help those children in any way, because in the case of divorce, the judge will most likely let the mother keep the children, regardless of her personality. (Read some stories in “men’s rights” debates to get an idea about how horribly family court can work in real life.)
Do you believe that decent human beings should help each other and support each other, as much as possible, especially when they are in a relationship? How does your girlfriend fulfill these criteria? Or do you perhaps believe that moral duties apply only on a few selected people (such as you) and don’t apply to other people (such as your girlfriend)? That would mean you don’t even consider her a member of the same “moral species”.
If helping other people is a high priority in your life, is staying with your current girlfriend really generating maximum good? Imagine that you would find another girlfriend, who is not abusive, who would make you happy, which would probably make you more productive. Then you could together sometimes volunteer in a kitchen for poor people, or contribute some money to effective altruist causes. Wouldn’t that generate more good?
For best outcome, please read this list repeatedly, focusing on the parts than resonated with you.
Thank you for this, exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.
Believe it or not, I’ve had almost every one of these thoughts myself over the last year and a half.
Do you really believe, as a general rule, that the best way to cure abusive people is to give them a supply of victims
Nope. Don’t believe it at all.
Do you have any data to support the hypothesis that your “healing” actually works?
I have data to the contrary. I’ve spent a year and a half trying and the abuse has gotten progressively worse.
Does your girlfriend take a therapy?
No. She doesn’t acknowledge that she has a problem. When I try to talk to her about getting help she says that her problems are because of me and if I would just do what she says (a long an unreasonable and constantly shifting list) she would get better. She also believes I deserve what she does because I “push her over the edge.”
would you recommend your friend to stay in the relationship?
Absolutely not
Imagine a parallel reality where you live with a girlfriend who is not abusive...
I do this all the time. I of course would not leave her to sacrifice myself for an abusive stranger.
Ask your 50-years old future you, who is probably too emotionaly broken to rescue themselves, if they could use a time machine and send a message back to the past, to your current self, what would that message say?
It would tell me to leave ASAP and never look back. It would be sent as close to the beginning of the relationship as the time machine allowed.
Do you want to have children one day? If yes, do you want your children to have an abusive mother?
Yes and no.
Do you believe that decent human beings should help each other and support each other, as much as possible, especially when they are in a relationship? How does your girlfriend fulfill these criteria.
I believe moral duties apply to everyone and she has certainly failed at fulfilling hers. I don’t think it’s her fault, however you want to parse that sentence, but the consequences are real for me and should be for her too.
If helping other people is a high priority in your life, is staying with your current girlfriend really generating maximum good?
It wouldn’t at all. I do care about helping others and in my normal state I’m an extremely high functioning and successful person. I’ve basically become a drone that works and worries about her and that’s about it. I miss my former self and getting that back is one of the things that excites me most.
Thanks for the long response. The most difficult part of all this is feeling a bit insane myself. My rational mind can output the right answers, but I haven’t been following them. Introspection and internal consistency (and a willingness to update) has always been something I’m naturally good at and valued greatly. I’m not the same person I was before this started and that’s terrifying. I feel like I’m on the road to recovery though. Your comments are very helpful.
Heh. From a certain point of view, she really doesn’t. If she cuts you up, that would be your problem.
she says that her problems are because of me and if I would just do what she says (a long an unreasonable and constantly shifting list) she would get better. She also believes I deserve what she does because I “push her over the edge.”
I’ve basically become a drone that works and worries about her and that’s about it.
A friend of a friend was dating a person who would fit this description exactly, and… well, it would be a long story. Towards the end the person demanded that they spend the whole day together, every day, which made them both unable to keep a job, so they just kept borrowing as much money as was possible from anyone. The victim was completely brainwashed, and despite trying to do everything, was beaten regularly, more and more severely. At the end, the victim’s family kidnapped the victim and kept them in another country for a few months, not allowing them to use phone or internet. This finally allowed the victim to “awaken”.
Meanwhile the abuser was evicted from the appartment they haven’t paid rent for. Instead of finding a job, the abuser spent all their time trying to contact the victim, manipulating a wide social network quite successfully; but the family did a good job at hiding the victim until their “awakening”, at which point the victim didn’t want to see the abuser anymore. I don’t have detailed information about what happened afterwards; I believe the family didn’t call the police, but threatened to do so if the abuser tries to approach the victim anymore. (Institutions scare the abuser like shit.) The abuser is now homeless, works for food, and keeps a blog about how this all was a conspiracy of unfavorable parents against the True Love, with prayers to God to make the victim return to them. Note: the abuser is an atheist, but the victim is strongly religious; everything the abuser does is a calculated manipulation. Hopefully, as a homeless person, their ability to charm and seduce people will be diminished. The victim is back, living a normal life again, as far as I know. This happened about five years ago.
So, congratulations on quitting soon enough! You were not harmed; you didn’t lose your job and savings.
I miss my former self and getting that back is one of the things that excites me most.
For the victim in my story, it took less than one year. I mean, about a month to “awaken”, a few more months to regain emotional balance and feel the certainty that even if they would meet the abuser again they wouldn’t succumb to their manipulation, and the rest of the year to stop bitching about the abuser and focus on living their normal life again.
At this moment I would recommend trying to remember what you enjoyed doing before this all started, and perhaps contacting your old friends and doing it again.
Also, cut the contact. She will probably find many different reasons to talk to you; may blackmail you to talking. For example, if you forgot some of your property at her place, she may insist on meeting you one-on-one and having a conversation before she returns it to you. Do not, ever, meet her in an isolated place. She would probably try to brainwash you again, but if that fails, she might try some insane shit as a “punishment”—cut you with a knife, start screaming that you raped her, or whatever crazy idea may come to her mind.
If you felt empathy for her, it would be the feeling of threatening to hurt you. You are feeling sympathy, guilt or something else. There is a difference.
If there are any methods—rational or not—to erase this feeling from your mind, do it a.s.a.p. That is priority #1. Stop your brain from ruining your life.
I disagree with the one-sidedness of this advice—esp. without knowing all that much about the situation.
I have also been in a not really alike but also difficult situation and there are many layers. See also this. It might be that he understands only just too well that it was a mutual cycle. It might also be a cry for help on her side. Not that the method is acceptable but a signal it is. And I imagine a smart person can help her. Without going back. Someone else might help. Whatever help is the right kind here.
I didn’t give any advice. I urged for understanding that the situation might be more complex and layered than implied by the simplicity of the advice IN ALL CAPS. I hedged with lots of ‘might’ and ‘if’. And I didn’t intend to imply that the relationship should be repaired (at least not the romantic one; one cpuld hope to get along well though). In my worldview everyone is the hero of their own story to use that old picture and I work from the assumption that no side meant evil. It is difficult and may in many cases be impossible to untangle the vicious circle that developed. but even if one doesn’t interact personally after the break-up doesn’t mean that one can not or may not feel empathy and help. It could be possible to help indirectly in many ways like telling mutual friends or acquaintances to help. Offer to contact help lines or even offer material expenses (quite relevant in cases of break-ups). If these are refused or accusations are made due to it for me personally the human possible limit is reached. Also I don’t think that there is a moral responsibility to help that much at all. Everyone has to draw ones individual line somewhere. Maybe I’m more altruistic than average.
And yes. Obviously I’d also propose to listen to a battered woman when she proposes to help her ex. If she understands the dynamics of his anger and maybe her part in the mutual circle. I don’t propose that she go back to him though.
This feeds directly into what the OP has just broken free from: a cycle of continuously re-convincing himself that this relationship might not be what it appears on the surface and that he still has a responsibility to the other party.
One-sided advice is exactly what the brain needs to stop it from falling back to the endless well of excuses and rationalizations.
Maybe. But if you don’t know more than I do from what what posted here your can’t say with the strength you did in your post (though agree that by now some more details have become apparent).
I have been in a probably much less but still abusive relationship and if your are smart, reflective and it’s not too abusive (though I guess that the level of abuse changes over time) you can break up without loosing everything of the relationship. After all both sides have a part in it and by denying worth one looses or misrepresents also ones own part in it. My view of her and us has changed by our breakup but I salvaged positive emotion for her, esp. the things we did right and what was good about her—without feeling compelled to help her overly. A point he is over too apparently now (yes, it does take time).
One-sided advice is exactly what the brain needs to stop it from falling back to the endless well of excuses and rationalizations.
Could you back that up with non-anecdotal evidence please.
I hope you don’t wait with getting help until you find something targeted specifically for rationalists. Get all the help you can right now. A little bullshit here and there may annoy you, but non-rationalists can also have a lot of domain-specific knowledge.
If there are any methods—rational or not—to erase this feeling from your mind, do it a.s.a.p. That is priority #1. Stop your brain from ruining your life.
Congratulations on telling your family. Actually, telling anyone. Saying certain things aloud allows one to think about them more clearly.
Thanks for this. I am pursuing help. I have scheduled appointments with two therapists (first office visit today) and I’m looking for a third to try to find one that I can work well with.
Erasing the dangerous thoughts is the hardest part and what I wish I had better methods for. I’m in general the type of person that likes to help others, and feel more empathy for her than any other person. Part of the reason I stayed so long is that I viewed the way she was treating me as an illness and thought to myself, what would I do if she had cancer? I’d stick around and be supportive and try to get her the help she needs. That’s what I should do here. That analogy breaks when you start to not feel safe though, something that took me too long to realize.
Finally an opportunity to use my Dark Arts for the benefit of humanity. Here it goes:
You see the abusive mentality of your girlfriend as an illness, and your support as a cure. Your urge to stay is rationalized as a hypothesis that being there, exposing yourself to the abuse, somehow cures the illness. Now let’s ignore the fact that it is you and your girlfriend for a moment, and ask a general question: Do you really believe, as a general rule, that the best way to cure abusive people is to give them a supply of victims? Is there any psychological pubblication suggesting that this could be true? If you were a psychologist, would you recommend this as a therapy? Because as far as I know, it is exactly the opposite: enabling harmful behavior, protecting people from natural consequences of their actions, makes it more difficult to heal. That means, your staying in the relationship actually makes your girlfriend’s illness worse.
Returning to your specific case, is it your personal experience that the longer you are with your girlfriend, the less abusive she gets? (Something like: at the beginning, she was threatening to cause you serious bodily harm every day, now she barely does it once in a month.) Do you have any data to support the hypothesis that your “healing” actually works? Or is it all just imagination and wishful thinking?
Does your girlfriend take a therapy? If you believe she is ill, she definitely should. Using your analogy, if she had cancer, would you let her stay home avoiding the doctors and try to heal her using your power of love? What would be your opinion about someone who did exactly that? Because that’s what you are doing right now.
If this wasn’t a situation between you and your girlfriend, but e.g. your (male) friend you deeply care about and his abusive girlfriend, would you recommend your friend to stay in the relationship? Imagine that the friend is not dating her yet; he just noticed her a he likes her, but you already know that she is an abusive person. Would you recommend your friend to start dating her, knowing that this will happen afterwards, or would you try to stop him?
Imagine a parallel reality where you live with a girlfriend who is not abusive. Would you break up with her only to be able to start dating an abusive girl and have a tiny chance to heal her by your suffering… because doing that would feel more altruistic, so you are morally required to choose that instead of happiness with a non-abusive girl? I am not just talking hypothetically here; the non-abusive girlfriend actually exists in your future, and it is your choice whether you open yourself for the relationship with her, or if you dump her in favor of the abusive girl you have now.
Imagine that you stay with your girlfriend and she remains exactly the same, or keeps getting worse. (Which is quite likely: the best predictor of a person’s behavior is their past behavior.) Imagine yourself ten years later, twenty years later, having dealt with the abuse all the time. Ask your 50-years old future you, who is probably too emotionaly broken to rescue themselves, if they could use a time machine and send a message back to the past, to your current self, what would that message say?
Do you want to have children one day? If yes, do you want your children to have an abusive mother? Do you want to see them abused in the same way you are, or worse? Because they will be more helpless than you are. And unlike you, they didn’t choose this voluntarily. Please realize that if that happens, it may become impossible to do help those children in any way, because in the case of divorce, the judge will most likely let the mother keep the children, regardless of her personality. (Read some stories in “men’s rights” debates to get an idea about how horribly family court can work in real life.)
Do you believe that decent human beings should help each other and support each other, as much as possible, especially when they are in a relationship? How does your girlfriend fulfill these criteria? Or do you perhaps believe that moral duties apply only on a few selected people (such as you) and don’t apply to other people (such as your girlfriend)? That would mean you don’t even consider her a member of the same “moral species”.
If helping other people is a high priority in your life, is staying with your current girlfriend really generating maximum good? Imagine that you would find another girlfriend, who is not abusive, who would make you happy, which would probably make you more productive. Then you could together sometimes volunteer in a kitchen for poor people, or contribute some money to effective altruist causes. Wouldn’t that generate more good?
For best outcome, please read this list repeatedly, focusing on the parts than resonated with you.
Thank you for this, exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.
Believe it or not, I’ve had almost every one of these thoughts myself over the last year and a half.
Nope. Don’t believe it at all.
I have data to the contrary. I’ve spent a year and a half trying and the abuse has gotten progressively worse.
No. She doesn’t acknowledge that she has a problem. When I try to talk to her about getting help she says that her problems are because of me and if I would just do what she says (a long an unreasonable and constantly shifting list) she would get better. She also believes I deserve what she does because I “push her over the edge.”
Absolutely not
I do this all the time. I of course would not leave her to sacrifice myself for an abusive stranger.
It would tell me to leave ASAP and never look back. It would be sent as close to the beginning of the relationship as the time machine allowed.
Yes and no.
I believe moral duties apply to everyone and she has certainly failed at fulfilling hers. I don’t think it’s her fault, however you want to parse that sentence, but the consequences are real for me and should be for her too.
It wouldn’t at all. I do care about helping others and in my normal state I’m an extremely high functioning and successful person. I’ve basically become a drone that works and worries about her and that’s about it. I miss my former self and getting that back is one of the things that excites me most.
Thanks for the long response. The most difficult part of all this is feeling a bit insane myself. My rational mind can output the right answers, but I haven’t been following them. Introspection and internal consistency (and a willingness to update) has always been something I’m naturally good at and valued greatly. I’m not the same person I was before this started and that’s terrifying. I feel like I’m on the road to recovery though. Your comments are very helpful.
Heh. From a certain point of view, she really doesn’t. If she cuts you up, that would be your problem.
A friend of a friend was dating a person who would fit this description exactly, and… well, it would be a long story. Towards the end the person demanded that they spend the whole day together, every day, which made them both unable to keep a job, so they just kept borrowing as much money as was possible from anyone. The victim was completely brainwashed, and despite trying to do everything, was beaten regularly, more and more severely. At the end, the victim’s family kidnapped the victim and kept them in another country for a few months, not allowing them to use phone or internet. This finally allowed the victim to “awaken”.
Meanwhile the abuser was evicted from the appartment they haven’t paid rent for. Instead of finding a job, the abuser spent all their time trying to contact the victim, manipulating a wide social network quite successfully; but the family did a good job at hiding the victim until their “awakening”, at which point the victim didn’t want to see the abuser anymore. I don’t have detailed information about what happened afterwards; I believe the family didn’t call the police, but threatened to do so if the abuser tries to approach the victim anymore. (Institutions scare the abuser like shit.) The abuser is now homeless, works for food, and keeps a blog about how this all was a conspiracy of unfavorable parents against the True Love, with prayers to God to make the victim return to them. Note: the abuser is an atheist, but the victim is strongly religious; everything the abuser does is a calculated manipulation. Hopefully, as a homeless person, their ability to charm and seduce people will be diminished. The victim is back, living a normal life again, as far as I know. This happened about five years ago.
So, congratulations on quitting soon enough! You were not harmed; you didn’t lose your job and savings.
For the victim in my story, it took less than one year. I mean, about a month to “awaken”, a few more months to regain emotional balance and feel the certainty that even if they would meet the abuser again they wouldn’t succumb to their manipulation, and the rest of the year to stop bitching about the abuser and focus on living their normal life again.
At this moment I would recommend trying to remember what you enjoyed doing before this all started, and perhaps contacting your old friends and doing it again.
Also, cut the contact. She will probably find many different reasons to talk to you; may blackmail you to talking. For example, if you forgot some of your property at her place, she may insist on meeting you one-on-one and having a conversation before she returns it to you. Do not, ever, meet her in an isolated place. She would probably try to brainwash you again, but if that fails, she might try some insane shit as a “punishment”—cut you with a knife, start screaming that you raped her, or whatever crazy idea may come to her mind.
Glad I could help.
If you felt empathy for her, it would be the feeling of threatening to hurt you. You are feeling sympathy, guilt or something else. There is a difference.
I disagree with the one-sidedness of this advice—esp. without knowing all that much about the situation.
I have also been in a not really alike but also difficult situation and there are many layers. See also this. It might be that he understands only just too well that it was a mutual cycle. It might also be a cry for help on her side. Not that the method is acceptable but a signal it is. And I imagine a smart person can help her. Without going back. Someone else might help. Whatever help is the right kind here.
I’m still stuck in the Dark Arts mode and I’m aware of it, but I will ask you anyway:
Would you also give the same relationship advice to a battered woman?
I didn’t give any advice. I urged for understanding that the situation might be more complex and layered than implied by the simplicity of the advice IN ALL CAPS. I hedged with lots of ‘might’ and ‘if’. And I didn’t intend to imply that the relationship should be repaired (at least not the romantic one; one cpuld hope to get along well though). In my worldview everyone is the hero of their own story to use that old picture and I work from the assumption that no side meant evil. It is difficult and may in many cases be impossible to untangle the vicious circle that developed. but even if one doesn’t interact personally after the break-up doesn’t mean that one can not or may not feel empathy and help. It could be possible to help indirectly in many ways like telling mutual friends or acquaintances to help. Offer to contact help lines or even offer material expenses (quite relevant in cases of break-ups). If these are refused or accusations are made due to it for me personally the human possible limit is reached. Also I don’t think that there is a moral responsibility to help that much at all. Everyone has to draw ones individual line somewhere. Maybe I’m more altruistic than average.
And yes. Obviously I’d also propose to listen to a battered woman when she proposes to help her ex. If she understands the dynamics of his anger and maybe her part in the mutual circle. I don’t propose that she go back to him though.
This feeds directly into what the OP has just broken free from: a cycle of continuously re-convincing himself that this relationship might not be what it appears on the surface and that he still has a responsibility to the other party.
One-sided advice is exactly what the brain needs to stop it from falling back to the endless well of excuses and rationalizations.
Maybe. But if you don’t know more than I do from what what posted here your can’t say with the strength you did in your post (though agree that by now some more details have become apparent).
I have been in a probably much less but still abusive relationship and if your are smart, reflective and it’s not too abusive (though I guess that the level of abuse changes over time) you can break up without loosing everything of the relationship. After all both sides have a part in it and by denying worth one looses or misrepresents also ones own part in it. My view of her and us has changed by our breakup but I salvaged positive emotion for her, esp. the things we did right and what was good about her—without feeling compelled to help her overly. A point he is over too apparently now (yes, it does take time).
Could you back that up with non-anecdotal evidence please.