I thought about my struggle over these past two years and all my efforts to work through the hurtful memories of the illusion created by my abuser. What I thought about was my role in the relationship. I had certainly understood about the man I chose, a man with a familial history of disorder relationships and behavior, so I needed to think about why I chose to be with this disorder person. Suddenly, my heart dropped and I questioned, am I a disorder person?
Growing up with a mother, similar to my abusive partner, I had to learn to accommodate the disordered behavior. I was a child. In order to survive in that environment, when my disordered parent said it was BLACK, even though I could clearly see it was white, I would make sure that I would say it was black as well. If I challenged the delusional perceptions of my disordered parent, I would surely suffer the consequences. However, I knew that BLACK was BLACK and WHITE was WHITE because there were other supportive people in my life that reassured me. The fact of the matter was, those supportive people weren’t my mother, and as a child, it was important for me to have her love, acceptance and approval. So, I learned very well how to accommodate the disorder person, one with a delusional perception of the world.
So, my abuser tells me I brought all my past into the relationship, which tells me about his frustration at my unwillingness to be entwined into the dysfunction or take responsibility for the crap he projected on to me. Since I could not make excuses for his disordered behavior and inappropriate abusive treatment, I am NOT a disordered person. To be in a relationship with my abuser, one would have to be a disordered person. The difficult part for my abuser was that I would not allow him to distort reality, behave or treat me inappropriately or tolerate participating in an enmeshed and unhealthy family system. This is where his frustration was and so, because I would not normalize, ABNORMAL behavior, my abuser would certainly make me suffer the consequences.
I experienced my mother’s rational for why a square peg fit perfectly into the round hole. In fact, even if there wasn’t a rational, I just had to accept it because otherwise, I was berated, abused and chastised into believing that something was wrong with me. So I tolerated my mother. Somehow, my abusive fiancé expected that I would tolerate believing his distorted thinking and accept his degradation as well. He even went so far as to be hurtful by using my son. Later, after time passed, after I stopped spinning in his vortex, I was able to clearly see the disordered person my fiancé is. It wasn’t until after I was drawn from his realm of perfection and into his sphere of trust and dependency that my nightmare began.
This is not something that was exclusive to my abuser. In fact, in a moment of clarity, my abuser complained to me about an incident where his mother was sick at home and no one knew she was ill. When he told her that she should have called him, her response was that he should have called her, that it was his responsibility to call her. This is a clear example of trying to put a square peg into a round hole. These are clearly irrational statements that his mother was trying to NORMALIZE, even going so far as to project blame by placing responsibility onto her son.
So, when my abuser attempts to make me believe that the reason his first wife ran away with his daughter one day when he was at work, was due to his mother-in-law brain washing his wife, trying to get her away from him; I was confused by the square peg being thrust into the round hole. He also said he did not know her whereabouts, yet he was paying his child support to the District Attorney. Yet, the District Attorney had that information and unless he lost his parental rights (rare, but happens if the child is not safe with the parent), I was expected to believe once again, that a square peg fits into a round hole.
Another odd calamity was that when his daughter decided to go to Las Vegas and meet her mother after being estranged for several years, one thing my abuser said to me was that his daughter told him that her mother could not even remember why they broke up. This is another example of a square peg in a round hole. First off, any woman that ever breaks up with a man, especially one that you were married to and had a child with will remember why the relationship ended. Second, his wife ran away with his child while he was at work to obviously escape a very bad situation, so there is not a NORMAL statement that would substantiate an ABNORMAL situation. A square peg does NOT fit into a round hole.
My abuser was especially good at providing normal explanations for abnormal situations. However, a square peg does not fit into a round hole! He was also very good at “Blame Shifting.” After reading Meaning from Madness, I learned that “blame shifting” “is another defense mechanism based on distortion of reality”. “It is also fundamentally narcissistic”. “Blame shifting is simply the rational or irrational assertion that the responsibility for problems lies in someone other than the disordered person”. “Blame shifting is often used by disordered people when a partner confronts them about their abusive or neglectful behavior”. “Rather than distorting the reality of what has happened, this defense mechanism focuses attention away from the person responsible for what has happened and distorts reality to direct that responsibility toward someone other than the disordered person”. “This can be viewed as a combination of the defenses rationalization and projection” (Richard Skerritt, 2006).
So, from the beginning, when he did not acknowledge the commitment he made to plans we had and made other plans with his son, stating to me “my kids come first,” was a diverting his obligation to be respectful, responsible and courteous to me by showing consideration and discussing the change with me. Another time I challenged my abuser about not calling me or even acknowledging my phone call or text messages after his father in law’s funeral. In order to avoid responsibility or be considerate to me he berated me and responded to my email stating “who do you think you are talking to?” “I’m not one of your clients.” He later told me that he thought I was “keeping tabs on him.” These are examples of “square pegs in round holes.” If it doesn’t feel right, you’re falling into the vortex of an abusive relationship.
If anyone has ever seen a vampire movie, we all remember how charismatic and good looking the vampire is. He shows interest in whatever it is that you love, alluring you to eventually be overcome. The vampire’s goal is to allure you into his realm by any means, much like the disordered partner. A vampire really has not identity, no allegiance to anyone, so he becomes whatever he sees fit, to bring you into his world. Much like disordered partner who has no identity, but will appear to be the “perfect” person you’ve been waiting for, he will appear to you as the partner you’ve been looking for and make agreements that are meaningless.
Like the vampire, once you’re bitten, now you become his. That means, the perfect world he has kept you in, the world that he has wanted you to believe is gone forever. You become the object, the focus of their insecurity, low self-esteem, and anger. The disordered abuser begins to project his never ending struggles of anger and pain on to you. He does this through is berating, shaming, blaming, criticism, chaos, drama, inconsideration, accusations, paranoia, jealousy, and distortions of reality. He hammers and hammers square pegs into round holes and expects you to accept them.
What I have learned is that my fiancé, my abuser is a disordered person. Richard Skerritt has written so eloquently about the disordered person, the person with a cluster of personality issues that we fall in love with. I know that for me to be with a disordered person, or survive within that family system, I would have to be a disordered person myself. As a child, I had no choice and although I knew what was real, what was right from wrong, black from white, when I chose to be with my abuser, I had not yet been taken into the “other world,” the one where I transformed into the object of all his anger and pain. I had been forgiving. I made excuses for the inappropriate behavior, did not affirm that I knew his mood and affect were not normal, and overlooked that he was unable to understand abstract concepts or the use of acronyms, analogies or metaphors. My life became concrete, black and white, as I had been sucked into the vortex of my abuser. This is when I either accepted all the square pegs in round holes, or be subjected to his attempts to degrade, devalue, and show how inadequate I was.
It is one thing to be tolerant of another person’s need to put square pegs in round holes, similar to tolerating a dear friend’s love for singing, but they really don’t know they are tone deaf and just can’t make the note. So, as long as they aren’t hurting anyone, we can allow ourselves to be tolerant of their illusions, because if the people we love are happy, it brings us joy.
However, sometimes the reality is far more serious and this is where differentiating sickness from a song is crucial. A good way to think about it is whether there are other people involved. As with my mother and my abuser, the square peg was always a judgment, perception, value or belief projected outwards, so it would not conflict with their world. A disordered person will work to create the illusion of a perfect world to others.
I am tolerant to allow a certain amount of square pegs in round holes, but when my abuser says to me “I love you” and then “I was hoping you would change” is a huge square peg in a round hole. This is truly someone thinking he can sing but is tone deaf. At some point, if you’re a person like me that grew up accommodating for a parent putting square pegs in round holes, before you know it, my abuser had me in his cesspool of dysfunction, going so far as to degrade me, my profession and even hurt my family. Fortunately, I had the good fortune to sense something was wrong and eventually went off the deep end, unable to tolerate the abuse any longer. It didn’t feel like it at the time, but that was my saving grace.
I learned that he will never change. He is wired that way. He is wired not to the rest of the world, but of his own world. It is a world where he has no friends, no spontaneity, and no deviance from black or white. Unfortunately, I have struggled though physical repercussions and surgeries, financial, emotional and spiritual harm. What is hurtful is that the disordered person will NEVER acknowledge their responsibility in the situation, and make excuses as to why “it’s not their fault.” I cannot expect that the “wires” will ever change, that he will be struck with compassion and empathy, because my disordered abuser has is his own little world that he desperately tries to protect at any cost, even if it causes grave consequences to another human being.
My abuser told me that his father was a drug user. Well so is my abuser. He used drugs in his early years, even lived with his father and they did drugs together. He also said that he and his late wife were marijuana users up until the time their sons were born. So, from there it went to alcohol. My abuser indicated that every night he has a beer to relax. So, perhaps he is a substance abuser.
Now, most people would minimize a beer every night; however, from a professional view, his chronic and lifelong use, indicates differently. So, when I was in my abuser’s home one night, I opened a cupboard, finding it full of booze. My abuser quickly responded “that was her stuff; she liked to drink that stuff.” Knowing that her life ended, struggling with pancreatic cancer, I can’t help but wonder whether the cupboard full of booze that she needed to cope with her disordered spouse was what led to the end. Everyone in his family would always say she was such a “saint,” so I suppose one would have to have a cupboard full of booze to be able to cope with her disordered husband. She did what she had to do. I was not willing to give my life for a disordered, abusive 50 year old angry man.
Although he has moved forward, finding another victim, just shortly after our tumultuous ending, all I can do is pray for her. My disordered person will need that object to constantly purge his anger and pain on to. I believe I have standards and I pray one day she will too.
