“I was desperate to do anything to prove to him I wasn’t the terrible mother he was accusing me of being.”

When someone thinks badly of us or accuses us of terrible things, it’s normal to want to defend ourselves and persuade them that what they’re saying isn’t true.

We might want to encourage them to change their opinion of us, we may seek to persuade them that they’ve got it wrong. Even when separated and experiencing post-separation abuse, a survivor is often still concerned about what her abuser thinks of her.

She may go to great lengths and make huge efforts to try to show him that she’s not ‘sleeping around’, that she’s not lazy and selfish, that she is a devoted mother, that she puts the children first and remains ‘fair’ at all times in a desperate effort to change his opinion of her.

Although this behaviour is common, it’s inappropriate for her to seek his validation and it’s damaging too. Her efforts will almost certainly be in vain. Trying to appease him will leave her continually controlled. She is also ‘feeding’ his need to continue to control her. As an abuser he will inevitably think and behave negatively towards her as his former partner – that’s the nature of abuse. He will not be fair in his assessments and will invariably withhold praise because he will want to continue to control and punish her.

Even if she isn’t intent on changing his negative opinion of her, she may feel wounded by his unfair accusations and this can make her vulnerable to feeling distressed by any negativity he directs towards her.

Survivors seem more vulnerable to seeking their perpetrator’s validation when they fail to acknowledge how abusive he is. I notice that women often imagine that their perpetrator will mirror their own good qualities and in doing so remain in denial about his abusiveness. If they’re honest, they’ll imagine honesty from him, if they’re fair, they’ll expect fairness from him, if they’re empathetic, they may imagine he has some capacity for empathy too.

It can be difficult for survivors to view their situations objectively and this can make them vulnerable to self-blame, imagining they are at least partly responsible for the abuse they are suffering. Thinking like this can make women highly vulnerable to being concerned about their abuser’s judgments of them.

Negative judgments by an abusive former partner about a survivor’s parenting ability seem to cause particular distress. Being a mother is an integral part of many women’s identity and is often a role that women value above all others. Perpetrators will commonly attack and undermine their former partner’s competence as a mother because they understand how much this will hurt. This type of attack can feel devastating for the survivor because it sabotages what she values most – her identity as a good mother.

For this reason, it can be very difficult for her to resist defending herself from these attacks and she may try to do all that she can to prove to her perpetrator that she is a good and devoted mother, and that what he is saying about her isn’t true.

There seems to be a misguided belief amongst many survivors that if they continue to try their best, at some point their abuser will give them validation for not being all the terrible things he has accused them of being.

She may hope that he will change his opinion and come to the realisation that he was wrong all the time, that she is actually a good mother and a worthy person.

There are two important messages I want to give. Firstly, he is extremely unlikely to acknowledge your efforts, he almost certainly won’t. Secondly, ask yourself if it’s still appropriate to care about what your abusive former partner thinks of you.

By caring you are giving him the power to continue to punish and abuse you. I regularly see these patterns of thinking in the women I support. I also see the relief that they feel when they finally give up seeking validation from their perpetrator.

“I was the one who decided to leave. The abuse had been horrible, Martin had been highly controlling and verbally abusive and however hard I tried, he’d always find fault with me. Despite this I felt terrible for leaving when our son Harry was only two, but I knew I couldn’t carry on living like that. I was losing my identity, my self-esteem, my confidence and I was miserable most of the time. I was consumed with keeping Martin happy so as not to trigger one of his vile rages. It was exhausting and I knew I deserved better.

“I’d lost the dream of having a perfect family but I committed myself to coparenting to the best of my ability. I wanted to be respectful towards Martin as the father of our son. I wanted to be fair in all my negotiations with him. I also committed to continuing to be the best mother I could be to Harry. His childhood wasn’t ideal having his parents’ divorce when he was still so young, but I was determined to make this work.

“I was naive to imagine the abuse would end when our relationship did. It took a different and more subtle form, no more rages, and we largely communicated by email because I found myself feeling stressed every time a text message pinged on my phone, anticipating it would be from Martin. However hard I tried; Martin would find fault with me. His criticisms were subtle but his emails would always hurt me.  He accused me of only thinking about myself when I asked if he wanted to look after Harry so I could go out to celebrate my birthday. He told me I was a ‘neglectful mother’ when my cat scratched Harry on his arm. When I just bought small Christmas presents for Harry, Martin accused me of spending all my money on myself and neglecting our son’s needs. I felt wounded and would justify my actions and explain to Martin that I wasn’t the mother that he was accusing me of being. I tried harder to be selfless and always put my focus on Harry’s needs. Martin continued to find fault with me, none of my efforts seemed to pay off, there would always be something that would trigger one of his “I need to bring this to your attention Megan” emails. But I still believed that if I continued to try, Martin would see how hard I was trying and we could develop a more mutually respectful coparenting relationship, possibly even become friends.

“I’m still trying really hard, I feel sure that in time things will settle down. I absolutely prioritise Harry’s needs above my own and Martin must now see this and appreciate it. He’s clearly still hurt by my decision to leave but I’m a big believer in time being a healer.” 

Women in this situation might ask themselves:

  • Where should you be getting your validation from? Internally (yourself) or externally (from someone else)?
  • Is your abusive former partner likely to validate you as a good person/good mother? Or will he cruelly withhold this validation and continue to abuse you?
  • How will he feel when he is aware that his abusive behaviour is upsetting you? Will you be ‘feeding’ his need to control you? How will this affect his on-going behaviour?
  • What control do you have in this situation?
  • How can you think differently?
  • What action can you take to be less concerned about the negative judgments of others?

“It wasn’t easy to give up caring about Martin’s opinion of me as a person and as a mother. I’d cared about his opinion and tried to win his validation for all the time I’d known him, so changing this habit took effort. But I now understand how he was continuing to abuse and control me. I now don’t care what he thinks of me and I know he will always be hostile. I’m increasingly learning to self-validate and this for once puts me in control.”

Once we liberate ourselves from caring about our perpetrator’s opinion of us, the power balance tips in our favour and his ability to hurt us lessens. If we care about his opinion and he calls us a ‘lazy bitch’ it will hurt. If his opinion is of no consequence to us, being abused in this way will be irrelevant to us.

Being aware of this dynamic is so important. If we find ourselves doing or saying things to try to please or appease our abuser, we need to catch ourselves and stop it! If what we’re doing makes things better for the children, then that’s fine, but if it’s solely for our abuser, we need to start to phase this behaviour out and at the same time remind ourselves that his opinion of us is of absolutely no concern to us.

By doing this we can step off the soul destroying, confidence wrecking cycle of trying hard but being continually hurt by his behaviour. It may take a bit of practice to change habits, but the benefits of this small change of behaviour and mindset are huge.

Are you still seeking validation from ‘friends’ who question you?

We know that terrible things can happen with friendships and family relationships post-separation. When our perpetrator has gone on a campaign to spread malicious gossip and lies with the intention of sabotaging our reputation and winning the loyalty of those we had considered our supporters, we can find ourselves trying to win validation from these people too.

If we find we are justifying our actions and over-explaining to people who should know us better, we might question if these people really are true friends. It’s reasonable to expect to explain our actions on certain occasions, but if we find we are doing this habitually and feeling attacked and in constant need to defend ourselves, it might be better to stop and question what we are hoping to achieve by this. It’s always better to seek validation internally.

We may need to re-evaluate, accept that certain social contacts are now hostile and choose to disregard their opinion of us, refuse to justify our actions to them and completely refrain from seeking validation from them going forward. In doing this we will protect ourselves from these toxic social connections and be less vulnerable to the negative judgments of others.

“Trying  to defend myself to Sophie on a constant basis was exhausting. She seemed very much persuaded by my ex partner’s social media campaign against me. He was purporting to be the victim of my abuse, all lies of course. It really bothered me what she thought, she was my friend and her opinion of me mattered. But when she asked one day, “But why would he say you were having affairs if you weren’t?”, I knew she had gone too far. Her question triggered anger in me and I wasn’t even prepared to respond. I realised in that moment that she was working against me and I no longer wanted her negative influence in my life.”

 “When you do not seek or need approval, you are at your most powerful.” (Myss, 2013)

References

Myss, Caroline (2013),  Sacred Contracts: Awakening your Divine Potential, Penguin Random House: New York

This is a chapter from Sandra Reddish’s book – Beyond the Break-up which is available from Amazon.

Beyond the Break-up – understanding and surviving men’s domestic abuse and violence against women post-separation

One in Four Women – understanding men’s domestic abuse and violence against women

 If this blog resonates with you, please check out You Don’t Own Me’s Resources Page for useful links.