I structured my book, Coercive Relationships: Find the Answers You Seek, around issues and questions I frequently hear from survivors and often from those who work with them. Sometimes they ask these questions exactly as posed, but my titles also capture the meaning behind their questions and struggles. This blog walks through each section of the book, giving a glimpse of what is covered.
Why Read This Book?
The book begins by recognizing just how painful it is to consider a relationship abusive. Naming it means feeling the agony of how a loved one could be hurtful. It also opens the door to seeking support from those who can listen to and encourage, the importance of which the book returns to many times.
The section addresses common issues survivors raise, such as “why did I allow it?” It acknowledges the shame and guilt they often feel because of the silence and denial they live in. Partners deny abuse, and denial becomes a coping strategy built upon efforts to please them. Coercive Relationships builds recognition they are not responsible for partners’ behavior. It encourages survivors’ confidence that they are the best judge of what they need. Often out of fear, family and friends confuse support with telling them what to do. This section also encourages safety planning for both physical and emotional forms of abuse.
Am I Being Abused?
Frequently those who experience intimate partner abuse question whether they are abused. This section begins by identifying the many names used when referring to intimate partner abuse and differentiates it from normal conflict. The book also recognizes individuals’ frequent discomfort with the terms, “victim” and “victimization.” It corrects the perception that abuse is a reflection on victims instead of the ones who choose it.
The Coercive Control Checklist includes twelve forms named for the hurtful impact they have. It helps individuals answer once and for all whether they are being abused. Attention is given to how emotional it can be to review these. The section ends by identifying the self-protective strategies they used, strengths that are often missed.
Why Do They Hurt Us?
Survivors try out various answers to this frequently asked question, such as their partners had abusive childhoods or their jobs stress them. This section shows that there is a domination belief system operating behind their behavior. Not everyone who experiences trauma responds by becoming abusive. Those who use coercive control believe they are entitled to it.
Coercive Relationships examines several common dominance beliefs victims experience. It then identifies factors that can mediate their behavior, making it worse, a couple of which are alcohol/drug problems and personality disorders.
The last chapter identifies abuser treatment options that can be effective and those that are ineffective. It cautions that treatment success depends upon their willingness to change. This chapter encourages considering their individual circumstances and options as they evaluate staying or leaving.
Why Do I Feel Crazy?
Chapters examine how abusive partners take advantage of the natural vulnerability everyone has in intimate relationships. Abusers believe in their right to manipulate and coerce, and this goes against what we expect to have in love relationships. Survivors’ healthy abilities to look for whether they play any role in conflict is turned against them. Abusive partners often tell victims they are crazy. This diverts attention from their abuse to what victims are doing.
Victims do often say they feel crazy. This section walks through several reactions to experiencing abuse. It encourages a compassionate understanding of their circumstances and responses.
Coercive Relationships identifies the injuries that abuse inflicts. It divides them into emotional, mental, physical, behavioral, and spiritual injuries. All coercive control affects people spiritually by damaging their trust in themselves.
Why Do They Believe They Can Control Us?
This section asks why so many partners believe it is okay to dominate and abuse, rather than the question “why do they stay?” or some other form of victim blaming. Asking the right questions places the responsibility where it belongs.
Coercive Relationships explores the cultural beliefs and assumptions that encourage “power over” dynamics in our society. It then links them to the abusive beliefs examined earlier.
The last chapter examines the partnership worldview and its values and behavior. It is contrasted with the domination worldview we currently have. This opens the door to everyone recognizing these dual values throughout our society and choosing to emphasize those that increase peace and joy in relationships as well as our institutions.
How Can I Recognize Abuse of Power?
Survivors may experience abuse of power in other contexts than their relationship, and this can confuse and sometimes trigger them. Survivors are often uncomfortable with the term “power.” This section shows the difference between “power over” dynamics and personal power that we all have a right to. This information provides a deeper knowing that they are not responsible for others’ abusive actions.
Chapters are devoted to what healthy behavior as well as misuse of power looks like. These are explored with families, schools, work, professional relationships, spiritual communities, and political and economic institutions. This section underlines how the domination worldview is at the root of all our social injustice problems.
What Can I Change?
This part turns survivors’ attention to what they want to change. After clarifying what they aren’t responsible for, they can focus on what they can do to heal and grow. This begins with understanding how mistrusting themselves makes them more vulnerable to those who choose abuse. The book explores societal messages that encourage that mistrust in everyone.
Twelve chapters examine common issues that survivors identify and how abusers use these to manipulate them, each ending with an affirmation. Coercive Relationships uses the term “instilled fear” to recognize how abuse may be internalized in ways that continue to limit survivors, sometimes even after leaving their abusers.
The section ends with examining how individuals relate to fear, whether real or instilled, because of trauma’s emotional and physical effects. It speaks to responding to fear in ways that don’t stop them from growing and changing.
How Do I Go Forward?
This section uses the metaphor of seeds to guide survivors in their recovery. Elements that encourage moving forward include self-reflection, self-care, social support, safety, and radical acceptance. The book acknowledges how difficult it is amid abuse chaos.
Recognizing that manipulation and abuse often continue after relationships with children end, the book provides information about how to disengage from abusers’ repetitive dramas. In addition, it encourages seeking mental health or addictions therapy if those interfere with changes they want.
Coercive Relationships includes an exercise for contemplating what next steps individuals want to take. Three different paths are explored. Staying and working on the relationship with a partner who is getting treatment. Staying even when partners don’t work on change. Leaving the relationship.
Surviving an abusive relationship entails losses of many kinds, beginning with the loving relationship they envisioned. Survivors are encouraged to attend to their grief as an essential part of healing. The book defines forgiveness, that it cannot be demanded, and that it’s done as part of moving on, not for the abuser. Self-forgiveness is explored in case it’s an issue.
The book encourages survivors to be patient and compassionate towards themselves. It recognizes that growth takes time and everyone has their individual paths.
Addendum
Three appendices include further information for survivors on safety planning, power and control wheels, and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. A fourth addresses issues for professionals, and the last encourages concerned family or friends.
My hope is that Coercive Relationships inspires individuals in their recovery from abuse and deepens the understanding of those who serve them.
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