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Victimized BY HIM—AGAIN?
Still think he’ll change or he just needs someone to understand him and love him? How many years do you want to keep doing this dance of waiting and getting only more pain?
~For all women who are tired of the cycle of hoping and seeing no change, hoping and seeing no change, and then just fearing…~
From: Sandra L. Brown, M.A. Author of: ‘How to Spot a Dangerous Man’ and ‘Counseling Victims of Violence’
Day after day in my counseling practice, I would hear stories just like this…”He swept me off my feet—he was so charming---he acted like everything I was looking for. He felt safe—at least in the beginning. But the relationship changed—and pretty soon he was lying, cheating, hitting me, making everything my fault (OR-- fill in the blank of what your dangerous man has been doing ______________).
Then he was always sorry and I stuck around thinking he would change and he wouldn’t—it almost seemed like he 'couldn’t' be any different for some reason….Then I stayed because I had burned my bridges with my family and friends because I kept staying with him or going back to him and they didn’t want to hear it any more—I had no where to go.
I stayed to figure him out too—I thought if I could just understand him then I could help him, or meet his need, or do something that would make him be happier or better. It was a cycle of hoping, then getting frustrated because he wouldn’t do what he said he would, then hoping again. I lost myself and self esteem in this process. I need to understand why this happened.”
“I want more than anything for women to understand what’s behind a dangerous man.” (Sandra L. Brown, MA Psychotherapist & Author)
Day after day in my counseling practice, I would also hear stories just like this from dangerous men, “I know how to pick the women. I have a built in radar that can hone in on who is ripe for the taking. These women need to wake up – guys like me can look like ANYONE she wants us to be…until we’re in. Then the rules are ours! Let me tell you a few of the ways I get in….”
So, in counseling the women and I would talk about why this happened…or what in her childhood and early adult years helped contribute to her selecting dangerous men as partners. She would begin to understand how her previous exposure to dangerous men in childhood or early adulthood helped her to think how he treated her was ‘normal.’ Or she began to see that the head-games he played to keep her confused actually just kept her THERE with him.
BUT she would always believe that ‘he will change’ ‘he said he would stop doing ____’ ‘I want to give him one more chance’ ‘maybe this really IS my fault or if I just did _____ he would stop what he is doing.’ And then she’d leave counseling….and months later she would come back to counseling and we’d talk about all of this again.
And then guess what? Yep. She went back again. And each time she came back to counseling, she was more and more damaged and as a counselor I kept thinking it was going to take even more time to glue her back together once she really stayed in counseling.
Then something HUGE would happen (he would cheat, drink too much, blame all the problems on her, or hit her, beat her children, not come home for days, threaten to kill her….etc.) and she’d make a fast path to my door—now wanting to know ‘What’s wrong with him? Why is he like this?’ Finally we had something we could really begin with in counseling….
‘DANGEROUS” is what he does to your soul
1. Have You Been Emotionally, Physically or Sexually Abused In Your Relationship with Your Dangerous Man?
2. Cheated On? More Than Once? Do You Keep Picking Cheaters?
3. Have You Dated Or Married Stalkers Or Predators?
4. Are You Attracted To Addicts, Abusive, Violent, or Married Men?
5. Have You Picked Men Who Are Mentally Ill?
6. Are You Tired Of Go-Nowhere Relationships With Married Men?
7. Do You Want To Know Why You Keep Picking These Kinds Of Men?
In my counseling practice the court-ordered dangerous man continues to tell me, “Do YOU know what makes a woman vulnerable? I DO. Any of us do… (**he smirks**) Women ‘NEED’ to believe in their ‘man.’ That helps me a lot. She will think over and over again that I’m gonna do what I tell her I’m gonna do. Hell NO! Look, I know enough about myself that I know I-am-who-I-am. She just doesn’t know it. Good---so what.”
So Kelly comes to my office and says, “I have wasted SO many years waiting on this guy to get it together. Really…a lot of my wasted youth. He really took advantage of my giving nature. I’m such a nurturer. I think these guys look for women like me—those who give and give and always see the best in people. And they like women who are patient and long-suffering. I kept believing every promise he made…he would do this, he would stop doing that….we would finally do this together… It was all lies. But I stayed because I didn’t know which thought was ‘real’—the one where he said he would change OR the one where I thought he wouldn’t. "http://mary1960.howtospot.hop.clickbank.net/
