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can women be abusers?

26 June 2023

Without belittling the violence suffered by women at the hands of men,

women can be abusers too

so there are men out there abused by women.

The set-up is similar, although women mostly seem to use manipulation, verbal and emotional abuse.

At least that’s what I’ve spotted so far.

In addition, I think a man is much less likely to open up to anyone and ask for help.

And let’s not forget that believing that a woman/mother can be abusive is much harder. Perhaps because subconsciously she is assigned the role of the “primary protector“?

Whatever the set-up is, we can help an abused person by simply

listening to them without doubt or judgement.

Because only they can decide what their next step will be.

Abuse can be verbal and emotional, not just physical.

And while a slap hurts physically, I’d liken

emotional abuse to poison slowly dripping over a long time.

It takes a lot of time to notice it, but also to acknowledge it afterwards. Although there is no physical trace or contact, it is still just as destructive.

It’s invisible, destroying the other person from within.

What if we are less likely to see a woman as an abuser because she is the “weaker sex”. Is that perhaps why we often turn a blind eye?

And it is not only men who suffer from such a woman, but also her children.

It can take a lifetime to heal from the devastation caused by such a mother if you even dare to face the reality of your childhood.

I salute all who stepped up to break the family pattern.

Here is my hand.

Tears (of manipulation) i.e. how are your boundaries?

18 September 2021

We are seemingly prone to give in when we see tears. I wonder why?

👇 👇👇

Children have seemingly endless creativity to convince, coerce, persuade their parents to change that NO into a YES.

Those crocodile tears do not necessarily flow like a river because they are hurt, sometimes they just simply do not want to accept that NO as an answer. I was too a kid once 😊

Tears seem to work most of the time.

Even when adults cry for the same reason.

We are seemingly prone to give in when we see tears.

I wonder why we give up our boundaries so easily?

I do not know for sure, but my guess is that our subconscious pulls out a formula that drives us to give in.

Even if it is about nothing else but trying to push those boundaries. Which adults do too. However, they usually do it very consciously.

Tears can manipulate us to say YES when we want to say NO.

Sticking to our NO is tricky because we need to do two important things. And we must do both:

We need wisdom to determine if those tears are genuine or manipulative.
If the latter we must believe that keeping our choice of NO
will do no harm and
it does not mean lack of love.

Sometimes our NO originates in our self-care – which is paramount for our own wellbeing.

Other times it is for their benefit (just think of bringing up children). It can be good in the short term, but mostly it is good for the long term. Even if it is painful now.

When we say NO we teach the other person (whether a child or an adult) as well:

By “enforcing” them to respect our boundaries they can exercise self-control.
As role models we show it is ok to say NO, teaching them not to be afraid of setting boundaries.

If we love them, we must take on healthy confrontations with them in order to teach them about boundaries.