The best response to psychological abuse

      The best attitude the victim and everyone in her network can adopt when faced with her ex’s constant harassment is to never respond emotionally to his attacks, never answer back, never seek to take revenge, but concentrate on collecting proof of the abuse. And if there are children involved, the victim’s best bet to foil her tormentor’s determination to have them taken from her is to concentrate on being the best mother she can. In short - she must always stay true to her own values, the values she sought to defend by leaving him and never allow herself to stoop to his level.

      This is the consistent advice given by all knowledgeable sources that I have come across. That it is a very effective method has also been proven time and time again in Maria’s and Eric’s case – which is very typical in many respects. What is not so typical is that Maria, to a much larger extent than most, has all along managed to stick to the fundamental principles of the advice, and that the man, largely because of this, was in fact finally sentenced for his persecution. 

      Already when Maria left Eric she knew instinctively that this was the only route she could take or would ever want to take. In fact, her main reason for leaving the marriage was in order to be able to be the good mother she knew she could be – if she was given a chance. She knew that in order for the children to be able to grow up without having to witness one violent incident after the other between their parents, it was imperative that she and Eric would henceforth have as little contact as possible. She had known for a long time that Eric took malicious pleasure in hurting her, and she also knew that it is very detrimental to children to time and time again have to witness their father’s abuse of their mother. In her heart she knew that for her children’s sake she had to get away from Eric’s endless abuse of her and his constant attempts at making her loose her temper – only to immediately use her anger against her by saying something like: “You really need to seek psychiatric treatment for your unbalanced behaviour!” Then, when she finally told him that she saw no other solution to their problems than a divorce – in order to spare the children – he told her that if she dared go ahead with this, he would make sure the children were taken from her “because of her mental instability”. 

      This is in fact, a very common trick among violent men to frighten their partner into staying in a destructive relationship. Don’t fall for it! No divorce court will just take your ex’s word for it! Remember that a man who resorts to violence and threats in order to force you to stay with him does not love you -  leave him!

      The overall guiding principle is: 

When dealing with a sworn avenger there is no way of winning except by refusing to play his game!

      After the break-up, you must never again allow yourself to enter into an argument with him. Let him accuse you; let him throw dirt at you. When dealing with someone intent on throwing you off balance and to twist everything you say around to get back at you, the only way you can win is by refusing to give him more words to twist around. And if you never allow yourself to respond emotionally, no one will be able to corroborate his allegation that you are mentally unbalanced!

      Remember that he wants you to enter his game, the manipulative game that narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths excel in, and that honest people can never win. The whole point of his endless provocations is to throw you off balance so as to make you and yours become as bad as he, so that he can turn your reactions against you, so that he can despise you the more, so that he can make others believe that you are unbalanced and blame you for what he does to you, and so that he can counter any police report you file by filing a counter report against you.

      Remember that he hates it when you fail to respond, but that he gets exhilarated whenever he manages to trap you into reacting emotionally. Not only does it give him the opportunity to accuse you of being unbalanced, but it also proves to him that he still has power over you. 

      Remember that to him your relationship has always been a question of POWER and CONTROL – his god-given power over you that he needs to maintain in order to preserve his inflated self-image.  

If an attack should end up in court, it is of course also vital that you yourself are whiter than snow. Don’t ever fall for the temptation to lie to the police or anyone else about what happened! The truth has the enormous advantage that it can never be proven wrong. And a truthful person never risks nailing herself into a corner or entangling herself in a net of lies. 

      Your best bet is to simply allow him to be the precipitator of his own downfall. This sort of man is in fact his own worst enemy! If you can only manage to stick it out, wait him out, while you let your pile of evidence grow – sooner or later he will get caught up in his own net!

      The above advice may sound fairly simple, but in reality it takes a lot of courage and a lot of patience to follow it through. Everyone who has been exposed to constant, serious abuse knows how incredibly difficult it is to not fall into the abuser’s trap and stoop to his level. But, as Maria’s story shows, it can be done, and, fortunately, while you concentrate on keeping your calm and being a good mother, there is a lot you can do in terms of various precautionary measures to take.

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