Domestic Abuse Hotline for Men and Women Needs Volunteers

The Domestic Abuse Hotline for Men and Women (DAHMW) is a very important and very rare non-profit organization. Why is DAHMW so important and rare? 

Because it helps male and female victims of partner violence. That’s right, it recognizes that all victims of abuse need help, not just women victims. DAHMW was founded by Jan Brown in October 2000 in Harmony, Maine and has answered thousands of calls from men and women in crisis since that time.

Jan asked me to join the DAHMW Board of Directors in 2012. I officially joined January 2013 and am amazed at how much Jan, the Board and DAHMW volunteers have accomplished with such limited resources. Unsurprisingly, DAHMW does not get to wantonly feed at the VAWA, federal and state domestic violence monies trough like most women’s domestic violence organizations do. Since its inception, DAHMW has operated on an extremely lean budget — and Jan’s grit, determination and sheer force of will.

Some of you reading this may be familiar with the Earl Silverman tragedy. For those of you who are not, Mr. Silverman founded and ran the only men’s domestic violence shelter (MASH4077) in Canada for years. He recently killed himself in despair after having to close the shelter doors due to lack of funding.

Billions of dollars are spent each year on women’s domestic violence shelters, but not a farthing to help male victims and their children. Much like Mr. Silverman, DAHMW doesn’t have tens of thousands of dollars to sponsor events in which young college men are shamed into parading across campus in high heels, to dispense white feathers and other such contrived nonsense that doesn’t do a damed thing to stop partner violence, but does a great job of painting all men as rapists, pedophiles and wife beaters. DAHMW spends what little funding it receives to keep our hotline up and running for all victims of intimate partner violence regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race and religion.

Jan Brown explains DAHMW’s mission:

We collaborate with a number of the established women’s domestic violence shelters in the country that also understand that the human capacity for family violence is not limited or dictated by gender. DAHMW offers support and practical services to victims, to the best of our ability given our limited financial resources.

Our trained volunteer advocates  cover our toll free abuse helpline in shifts throughout the day and night. They take calls from victims, their family members and friends who are concerned about them, as well as social services agencies looking for referrals and supportive services for their male clients. 100% of our volunteers (and staff) are compassionate, caring people who want to make a difference in the lives of victims of domestic violence.

DAHMW is an organization with a lotta heart (say that with a down east accent!) that could use some helping hands and some spare change if you’ve got it.

Passing the Hat and Reaching Out for a Helping Hand 

If you would like to help DAHMW to keep their hotlines open and to continue to provide resources, very badly needed resources, for male victims of domestic violence, please consider making a donation. DAHMW is also in need of volunteers to operate our hotline.

To better understand the volunteer program, I asked Jan a few questions and here they are along with her replies:

1) What are the responsibilities and requirements of becoming a DAHMW volunteer?

Those interested in volunteering on our helpline must fill out a volunteer application and then set up a time to meet with our Intake Coordinator and Training Coordinator by teleconference. We do a reference and criminal background check. If the applicant is approved we invite them to our training group.

Before joining the training group, we ask potential volunteers to make a $45.00 tax deductible contribution to DAHMW (via our paypal link on our website) to help us defray the costs of the criminal background check, etc. If the $45.00 is a hardship, we may reduce or waive the donation.

Once in the training group, the trainee has up to six weeks to finish the reading, quizzes and assignments (we may extend the training time if there is good cause). Once the trainee successfully completes training, he or she will schedule a time to participate in a mock call session (more than one if needed). Once the trainee feels comfortable about taking helpline calls, he or she will choose an available shift (shifts are 4, 6, and 8 hours long). The line is then forwarded to the trainee’s cell phone or landline for that shift weekly. The Intake and Training Coordinators are always available by phone or email if the trainee has any further questions.

We require that our helpline advocates be “violence free,” IOW, not in an abusive relationship for at least one year prior to commencing our training. We ask volunteer helpline advocates to commit to one shift a week for one year. They must also attend monthly volunteer teleconferences, usually held on the 2nd or 3rd Sunday night of the month. These meetings are usually between 45 minutes and 2 hrs long depending on the subject being discussed and/or whether or not we have a guest speaker.

In addition we require helpline advocates to submit their volunteer hours weekly at a site that keeps track of our volunteer hours for us and to submit “call logs” (explained in more detail in our training) for each helpline call they take online at the end of each shift.

2) DAHMW is located in Maine. Can you be a volunteer if you don’t live in Maine? How does that work?

Those interested in volunteering with us can live anywhere in the country. Our agency is set up “virtually.” We use a call forwarding program to send the toll free helpline to helpline advocates phone for their shift, we communicate with each other via teleconference, email, group lists and chat. All a potential volunteer would need is a computer with an internet connection and a cell phone/landline with unlimited long distance. Of course, being a good listener and comfortable working with people in crisis is a must also.

3) You mentioned that all DAHMW volunteers take a training course. What does that entail?

The training course is made up of ten sections. Here is a sampling of the material covered: History of the Battered Women’s Movement, Dynamics of Intimate Partner Violence and Legal Issues for Victims of Intimate Partner Violence.

4) If men and women are interested in volunteering, how do they begin the process?

Send an email stating their interest in volunteering to Theresa Chow at: theresachow75@yahoo.com or Jan Brown at: dahmwagency@gmail.com

Thank you, Jan!

If you have been a victim of domestic violence, have found your way out of the abuse FOG (fear-obligation-guilt) and would like help others to escape that hell, becoming a volunteer would be a great place to begin.

If you are a Men’s Human Rights Activist and don’t know where to direct your efforts, volunteering with DAHMW is definitely a worthwhile cause.

Hope to hear from you!

Ending a Relationship with an Abusive Parent, Child or Sibling, Part One

In our culture, family is sacred, well, maybe not as sacred as it used to be, but it’s still a cultural and psychological institution. As such, there are certain taboos attached to it.

For example, denigrating motherhood is taboo – fatherhood, not so much. Physical incest between family members is taboo. Emotional incest should be equally taboo, but let’s face it, our society – including mental health professionals and Family Court — often turns a blind eye when mothers emotionally incest their children by parentifying them, making them their surrogate spouses, confidantes, peers and emotional and physical caregivers. It is also taboo to break ties with one’s family, whether with a parent, child, sibling or grandparent, etc. Blood is thicker than water, but then again, so is bullshit.

Family may be the tie that binds, but it should not lock one into a permanent, gut-wrenching stranglehold of abuse, contempt, and financial, physical and emotional exploitation. Sharing genetic material is not a license to abuse a child, parent or other family member, carte blanche.

Sharing DNA means there is an obligation to take special care in your relationships with your family, not that you are obligated to tolerate a parent’s, sibling’s or child’s abuse because he or she swims in the same gene pool as you.

I have worked with many men and women, who have had to distance themselves, both emotionally and physically, and, in some cases, sever all ties from their parents, children and siblings after years of unrelenting and unrepentant abuse. These were not easy decisions for my clients who were wrought with guilt, anger, grief and other painful emotions.

The questions I ask in every case are, “If this person weren’t your mother or father or sister or brother or daughter or son, but were a colleague, acquaintance or friend and they treated you like this, would you have anything to do with them? Would you continue to turn the other cheek or would you cut them out of your life like a malignant tumor?”

When blood isn’t involved, it’s a no-brainer. You avoid abusive jerks, but when the abusive jerk is your mom or dad or your son or daughter, most people freeze like a deer caught in headlights at the thought of walking away. This is the aforementioned cultural taboo in full effect.

The emotional torment doesn’t stop after making the difficult choice to end a relationship with an abusive adult child, sibling or parent. Many individuals who make this painful, but rational and healthy decision are plagued with guilt, doubt and societal and familial pressure to maintain the relationship at any cost and in spite of the ongoing abuse. That’s when the Kumbaya Forgiveness Police (*thank you to whenthescapegoatquits for that expression) and well-intentioned, but clueless friends, other family members, pastors and many mental health professionals start the chorus:

But they’re your children. You only have one mother. You only have one father. Blood is thicker than water. Family is family. You have to forgive your family. What kind of a son or daughter doesn’t talk to their mom or dad? What kind of heartless monster won’t have anything to do with his or her children? I know your mother/father misses and loves you. She/he doesn’t understand why you won’t talk to him/her. No one will ever love you like your mother. As a parent, you should never give up on your children! Your children are your children forever.

I am not encouraging anyone to frivolously end a relationship with a young child, teen, adult child or other family member over minor transgressions or the garden variety, forgivable hurts that occur in all families. Severing ties with a family member is not something to be taken lightly and probably shouldn’t be done until you are either an adult (if you’re the child of an abusive parent) or until your children have reached the age where you can no longer intervene by getting them into effective therapy with an unbiased therapist who recognizes and knows how to treat parental alienation and manage an alienating parent who is hell-bent on poisoning children and destroying your child-parent relationship.

If your child is being alienated from you, you MUST do your best to intervene as soon as possible. The seeds of lifelong alienation can be sown in a very short time – like the time it takes to get a BS restraining order obtained against you under false pretenses dismissed, for instance. Or, while you’re supporting your family at work during the day while you’re still married, again, for instance.

It’s not unusual for otherwise healthy adults to have some bitterness during and shortly after the divorce process, which oftentimes spills out onto the children. Healthy reasonable adults realize that a child deserves both a loving mother and father, set aside their differences and get on with the business of co-parenting their children.

But there are many individuals who do not move past divorce bitterness and embark on lifelong campaigns to deprive their former partners of loving relationships with their children. Approximately 20% to 30% of divorces and custody disputes are considered high-conflict. It’s no surprise that this is approximately the same percentage of the population that suffers from some form of personality disorder. It is also a fact that both men and women engage in parental alienation, but alienation is much more effective when conducted by the custodial parent, of which 82% are mothers.

Parental alienation does not end at the age of 18. Alienated children often become lifelong foot soldiers in the alienating parent’s campaign of hatred and destruction. I suspect that, if some form of personality disorder is at play with the alienating parent, that it may become manifest in the alienated child – either through genetic heritability, modeling or both.

Whatever the underlying causes, it sets up the alienated parent, who is often the father, to become the emotional punching bag/disposable ATM for his ex and his children. There’s a bitter irony that a man, who makes the brave decision to end an abusive relationship with a cruel and sadistic and possibly crazy woman, then has his own children groomed to abuse him by proxy. It’s sick. It’s wrong. And it should be criminal and grounds for a permanent change of custody.

If you are facing this dilemma, whether you’re the parent of an alienated child or the adult child of one of these sadistic sick twists, here are some points and questions for you to consider when contemplating “divorcing” your kids, parents or siblings:

1. Is the family member in question an adult or a minor? If they’re a minor, are they old enough to know right from wrong? For example, a 14-year old should know that it is wrong to be deliberately disrespectful and cruel more so than a 3-year old child.

2. If the child is a minor, have you done your best to get them psychological help to undo the damage of the alienating parent?

3. Have you acknowledged, owned and tried to make amends for any mistakes or hurts that you have made in your relationship with the child or other family member?

4. If the child or family member is an adult, have you explicitly told them that their behavior is hurtful? In other words, have you tried to establish boundaries and rules of acceptable engagement?

5. If you have established clear boundaries, have you specified natural and meaningful consequences when they encroach your boundaries? For example, “I love you. You are my daughter, but it is unacceptable for you to insult me and my new wife, refuse to see me and then expect me to pay for your college tuition.” Or, “I love you. You are my son, but I will not continue to reach out to you if you continue to ignore me or treat me with disrespect.” Or, “You are my mother and I love you, but it is not okay for you to yell and scream at me about what a shitty daughter I am, how ungrateful I am and that no one cares about you. I am going to hang up when you act like that.”

6. Does your adult child, sibling or parent vilify and abuse you further for trying to establish healthy boundaries and limits? For example, do they think you’re being abusive, controlling, over-sensitive, etc., for wanting to be treated with basic kindness, consideration, respect and civility? Do they try to portray you as the “bad dad” or “bad child” or “bad sister or brother” for not wanting to tolerate their abuse?

7. Instead of honoring your reasonable requests to improve their behavior toward you, do they cry to anyone who will listen to them that there’s something wrong with you and that you’re the one who needs help?

If you answered yes to these questions, you probably have ample reason to consider going Low Contact or No Contact with your child, parent or other family member. Again, this is not an easy decision for most people and it may be necessary for you to work with a support professional in order to release yourself from the FOGgy (fear-obligation-guilt), psychological family bondage.

Since not all helping professionals are cut from the same cloth, you may want to screen a potential therapist for his or her views on these matters before you begin working with them. Anyone who encourages you to maintain an ongoing abusive relationship is best avoided and viewed as an abuse apologist and enabler – that goes for whether the person abusing you is an adult child, parent or spouse and whether or not they have a personality disorder. There is no excuse for abuse, including the excuse of a personality disorder.

Ending a relationship with someone who abuses you is often a healthy and necessary choice – even if that person is a family member. It is healthy to disconnect yourself from a family member who abuses you in the name of love and uses their privilege as parent, child, sibling, cousin or grandparent to do so. Although, there are many individuals (usually abuse enablers and apologists or people who are fortunate to have never had an emotional terrorist in their life) who will try to paint you as some kind of heartless, unnatural monster for doing so. In reality, it is the abusers who are unnatural and heartless because they are doing the psychological equivalent of cannibalizing their own flesh and blood.

Abuse is typically generational and cyclical. Abusive personalities rarely stop of their own accord. If you want it to stop, you will have to break the chain. Just remember, if you can put up with their abuse you are strong enough to distance yourself and put an end to it.

Shrink4Men Coaching and Consulting Services:

Dr Tara J. Palmatier provides confidential, fee-for-service, consultation/coaching services to help both men and women work through their relationship issues via telephone and/or Skype chat. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Shrink4Men Services page for professional inquiries.

Obsessing Over an Abusive Ex: Thoughts on Being Stuck

Are you still obsessing about a crazy, abusive ex-girlfriend or ex-wife? Do you still compare the “chemistry” you had with her to every subsequent woman you’ve encountered and find them lacking? Especially women who appear to be kind, loving and stable?

Do you torture yourself with “what if’” and “if only” thinking? Do you hold on to the few good times and minimize the abusive behaviors to which you were subjected? Are you still making excuses for her? Do you still believe she is the “love of your life?” Are your friends and family tired of listening to you talk about her or him?

If so, you are stuck and you don’t need me to tell you it’s an awful place to be. You’re stuck, but odds are, you’re not stuck on her. I frequently work with men and women who are painfully stuck. They grind through the same ruminations over and over and over again and just can’t seem to let go of Crazy.

The discomfort and pain they exhibit while enumerating their obsessions, wishful thinking, longing, shock and awe is palpable. Oftentimes, men and women who have a history of being attracted to abusive partners come from families in which one or both parents were similarly abusive.

This is not always the case. Nice boys and girls from nice families are also targets for abusive, personality disordered partners. This article is primarily for men and women who were groomed during childhood to accept abuse from the people who “love” them, but can also be applied to nice girls and boys who were raised to always turn the other cheek, to always keep the peace and to only see the good in people.

If you’re stuck on an abusive ex or still in a relationship with an abusive partner, but can’t break free because you “love” her, you need to wake up. The abusive ex or partner is not some irreplaceable, special snowflake. She or he is not the end all be all — I don’t care how good the sex is or how good the sex was. She is not your soul mate. She is not the one. She is not your destiny, unless you believe that you’re fated to spend your life in misery. In reality, you’re probably not hung up on her, but on old childhood wounds and the fantasies you have built around her that have nothing to do with who she is in reality. Most likely, she represents a chance at a new outcome to an old hurt.

Crazy is probably nothing more than the embodiment of your unresolved childhood issues and your blind, childish insistence that things work out differently this time. If the descriptions of high-conflict, Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic and Sociopathic women on Shrink4Men resonate with you, your “love” is more than likely nothing more than an incredibly damaged, self-obsessed, emotionally stunted, psychologically immature, entitled, manipulative, selfish, empathy challenged, blame shifting, unaccountable, abusive child or teen in an adult body who is incapable of love.

You have likely constructed a fantasy around this woman or man. It is time to stop the “what if’s” and “if only’s” deconstruct the fantasy. You need to distinguish what is an act from what is fact (thank you, Mell) when it comes to your Crazy ex or partner. Ignore her or his words and emotional performances and really look at her or his behaviors. That is usually where the truth of this person lies — as opposed to their words.

But what if I just try harder to reason with her? No. Logic, facts and reason only anger a woman like this.

But what if I just try to be more patient and understanding? No. Being more patient and understanding only makes you an easier and more submissive victim.

I’m not perfect. There are things I could have done differently. No one’s perfect and becoming angry and hurt in response to being abused is a natural and healthy response. Smiling through the abuse and pretending like everything is okay is not okay. Staying, tolerating more abuse and calling it “love” is supremely unhealthy and only leads to more abuse.

I did everything she wanted. How could she just throw everything away and treat me like she did? Please reread the paragraphs above, take a breath, get off the hamster wheel and stop spinning.

In some ways, the folks who get stuck on Crazy remind me of little kids who want to make house pets out of wild and dangerous animals. But what if I’m really, really, super special sweet to Rhonda Rattlesnake and extra, extra patient and loving? Surely she’ll see what a good boy I am and love me back. If I feed her mice whole, take her out for a slither 3x a day, play with her and let her sleep in my bed, she’ll love me, too, and won’t ever sink her fangs in my jugular and pump venom into my carotid artery!

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This is not how it works. Predators prey. Emotional terrorists terrorize.

If you enforce boundaries, hold them accountable and deliver effective natural consequences for their predations, they will move on to find a new unsuspecting target to feed upon. That’s how it works, no matter how patient, loving and kind you are. It’s the law of the jungle.

Grieving Crazy or grieving your past?

If there are similarities between your abusive partner or ex and one or both of your parents, please understand that you are no more likely to get the love, acceptance and approval you desperately want from this woman or man than you were from your mom or dad. You are trying to obtain an emotionally corrective experience from someone who is no more capable of loving you than your parent(s) who did the original damage.

If you’re torturing yourself with questions like, “What if I try explaining things differently?” or “What if I try harder?” or any other “What-if’s,” please stop and ask yourself if you had similar feelings and thoughts when you were a child? Did you have your parents’ love and approval or were you consistently told “not good enough?” Did you feel you had to work hard to earn your parents’ love while they continually moved the goal post? Did your parent(s) put you in no-win situations? Did you parent(s) parentify you (i.e., make you, the child, responsible for taking care of them emotionally and/or physically?) Did your parents’ blame you for their bad and abusive behavior?

Abusive and/or personality disordered parents make their children feel responsible for their rages, cruelty, and withholding of affection and approval and abusive, personality disordered women and men do the same thing to their partners, exes and children.

In reality, it is the parent who is damaged, but causes the child to believe he or she is flawed or bad and that if only he or she was smarter, faster, more attractive, more quiet, more responsible, more something, then mom or dad would love them and be nicer to him or her. It’s a real mindf—-.

Many of the men and women I work with have similar beliefs and feelings about their abusive partners and exes. They’ve got it backwards. Even if they intellectually understand they’ve got it backwards, the old beliefs, feelings and fears from childhood persist. They also make similar excuses for the abusive partner or ex that they did for their parents. “She had a rough childhood. She was abused. Her father was an alcoholic. She’s really emotional. It’s my fault for doing . . .”

Again, these types of abusive personalities are nothing special. They are uncannily similar right down to their speech and tone of voice. You have probably constructed a fantasy around this woman that has nothing to do with who she is in reality. The fantasy is just that – a fantasy – and it is part of what is keeping you stuck.

There are bad people in the world. Bad things can happen to good people no matter how nice they are. Smart good people understand this and distance themselves from bad people who will do bad things to them if given the opportunity.

If you had shitty parents, it was not your fault. You were not responsible for the way they treated you. They were the adults and their behavior is on them and only them. The same goes for your abusive partner or ex. The difference is that you now have agency and resources that you didn’t have as a child. You can walk. Yes, even if you share children, you can walk.

Typically, the biggest glitches seem to be fear and confusing giving up on and letting go of the abusive partner/ex with giving up on receiving the love and approval you always wanted from the abusive parent. Giving up and letting go of being able to win over your abusive parent/partner/ex then becomes confused with personal failure and blaming yourself for being “unlovable.”

REALITY CHECK: You can’t get someone to love you who is incapable of love and you can’t “fail” at something that’s impossible to “win” — like turning Rhonda/Ricky Rattlesnake into Betty/Bobby Beagle. Not going to happen no matter how wonderful you are.

You can’t love an abusive personality into treating you well because you are not the reason they abuse others and anyone else who gets close enough to them. Just like Crazy isn’t special, you’re not special either. Crazy does the same dance over and over and over again. The only thing that changes is Crazy’s target du jour. Your love is not going to “save” or “fix” Crazy. And again, is this really about “the love of your life” or not being loved the way you needed to be loved by an equally effed up parent?

Mourning and letting go of the Crazy ex will take discipline and effort. It may seem callous, but you basically need to snap out of it, redirect your thoughts when you start ruminating and reliving your relationship with Crazy, get the hell on with it and start sifting through and grieving the original damage from childhood. In many cases, I believe that those who get stuck on Crazy as an adult, are suffering the effects of reopening narcissistic injuries suffered in childhood.

In a nutshell (pun intended), Crazy rips off the old scabs and grinds salt in your wounds. In this respect, your Crazy ex or partner does serve a useful purpose. If you can connect the dots back to the original damage, stare it down, feel the feelings that arise, and release yourself from the fear of looking at and feeling these things, you (hopefully) won’t have to do this phantom dance with Crazy anymore.

First things first, the next time you catch yourself missing Crazy and wistfully ruminating, “but I love her/him,” I want you to stop, give yourself a mental shake and say, “I don’t love her. I am missing the love I never received as a child” and take it from there . . .

My Funny Valentine: Getting Over a Crazy Ex with the CB Patch

On the Shrink4Men Forum, we refer to abusive wives, girlfriends and exes as CBs. CB can stand for CrazyBritches, CrazyB-tch or Cluster B (as in Cluster B personality disorders — Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic and Antisocial).

Valentine’s Day can be a downer if you’re alone or, even worse, if you’re still with your CB. As many of you know, Crazy often implodes on and around holidays and other special occasions.

For those of you who are still with your CB, stay safe and remember, no matter what you do, you can’t win. Therefore, I suggest a modest bouquet of flowers and a card if you must pay tribute to “pharaoh.”

For those of you who are waxing nostalgic and missing your Crazy Ex this Valentine’s Day, Shrink4Men is proud to bring you the CB Patch.

What is the CB Patch?

It is the brainchild of CrazyBuster, Micksbabe. In a nutshell:

I wish they would invent some sort of patch to wean yourself off of a CB. Like, when you are sitting at home, lamenting about how much you miss the “good times,” the patch would jump off your arm, kick you in the crotch and call you a loser.

Happy V-Day, everyone.

The Next Guy: Did your Ex-Girlfriend or Ex-Wife Downgrade?

Grieving the loss of a love relationship can be a painful experience. Grieving and letting go of an abusive relationship and an abusive wife or girlfriend is frequently a far more painful and difficult experience. There are several reasons for this.

At the end of an otherwise healthy relationship between two reasonable, rational adults, the former partners are typically able to give one another closure. Abusive women and men, especially personality disordered women and men (Sociopaths, Narcissists, Borderlines, Histrionics, High-Conflict People – henceforth known as Crazy) do not do closure. Crazy blame shifts, Hoovers and/or disappears.

It is also difficult to let go of Crazy because of the high degree of ambiguity this kind of relationship creates. Did she ever really love you? Was any of it real? Maybe you’re the crazy one? What if you’d tried harder (i.e., withstood more of her abuse)?

This is almost always compounded if Crazy immediately partners up with her next target/sucker/people pleasing knight in shining armor/enabler/accomplice. How could she move on so quickly when you’re still grinding through the loss and trying to make sense of everything? Will she be different with the next guy? What if you had hung in there? Would she be telling her Facebook sycophants how she’s never been so happy and so in love with you instead of him?

This type of woman repeats the same behaviors over and over again in her relationships. She has a script in her head that she force fits new partners into whether they like it or not. She’s the eternal victim and boyfriend/husband du jour is her hero until she decides he’s the villain and presto change-o — he’s a “jerk” like all the other “jerks” before him. This phenomenon is described in Crazy Bitch the Musical! The Abusive Woman’s Script and Why She Won’t Be Different with the Next Guy.

When Crazy seeks to replace you, she will usually:

1. Find another people pleasing, rescuer, Nice Guy type who is eager to prove he’s not like the “bad men” who hurt her in the past. Men like this will take a number and eagerly queue up for their fair share of abuse. If and when they ever wake up and realize they’re being abused, they start looking for answers.

Some find Shrink4Men and other similar resources. They begin to understand that no amount of patience, love and understanding will end their wife’s or girlfriend’s abuse, they cannot “save” or “fix” Crazy, that they have issues of their own to address – particularly their willingness to tolerate abuse in a love relationship – and that it is necessary to have personal boundaries and limits in love. Some men, sadly, will get bad advice from female-biased, enabling/apologist therapists, ministers, family and friends to be even more patient, understanding and vulnerable with their abusers and, essentially, to continue to allow their female abusers to keep abusing them and their children.

2. Downgrade to another professional victim/abuser/loser. Sometimes, this manifests in the classic narcissist-borderline pairing, which actually works. Better to let two disordered people cannibalize each other instead of inflicting their abuse on the rest of the population.

If this is true of your situation, remember, she’s a crazy a-hole and he’s a crazy a-hole. They deserve one another and you deserve much, much better. The only wrinkle is if you share children with Crazy. Then you have two selfish, destructive, immature jerks to contend with while trying to nurture and protect your kids.

Downgrade Boyfriends are the guys who stand by and do nothing when Crazy abuses the children or willingly become her enforcer. These are the guys who step into the role of “newer, better Daddy”and either passively go along with or assist your ex in trying to alienate the children from you. These are the guys who do nothing when your ex denies you custody time. These are the guys who puff out their chests and let you know there’s a “new sheriff” in town, so you’d better toe the line. These are the guys who are unemployed or underemployed and move in with your ex and sponge off of your alimony and child support monies. These are the guys who buy gifts for your kids with your child support money and then tell your kids that you are the deadbeat.

Sociopaths (and people with sociopathic traits such as BPDs/NPDs/HPDs) don’t have friends — they have accomplices and victims. When Crazy downgrades to the type of guy described above, it can be extremely confusing for the Nice Guys who have been killing themselves (sometimes literally) to try to be the best husbands/boyfriends they can be and make Crazy happy (i.e., mission impossible).

She said I didn’t work hard enough or earn enough money, but Mr. Wonderful only has a part-time job.

She used to tell me I was a stupid, pathetic loser, but Mr. Wonderful doesn’t even have a college degree.

She used to accuse me of being an alcoholic because I enjoyed a couple of beers on weekends, but Mr. Wonderful is known as the town bar fly.

It’s confusing when Crazy re-couples with the loser, slacker, drunk, etc., she accused you of being. You did your best to be the man Crazy claims she wants you to be and then she pairs up with the kind of man she claims to not want. This is frequently a post-divorce WTF moment for many men.

Remember, Crazy is crazy and actions speak louder than words.

Nice Guy Mistake # 1

This is one of the biggest and most common mistakes Nice Guys make in their relationships with Crazy – they listen to Crazy’s words and ignore Crazy’s actions. More often than not, the truth lies in what Crazy does, not what she says. If you’re paying close attention, Crazy will sometimes confess/speak the truth, but these moments are fleeting and ephemeral.

The more you improve yourself, the more you act with integrity, the healthier you become, the more Crazy devalues and abuses you. The more you give Crazy what she says she wants, the more vicious, angry and/or withdrawn she becomes. You basically get punished for being a good person and giving Crazy exactly what she says she wants.

Partners act as mirrors for one another. This is one of the reasons water seeks its own level and birds of a feather flock together. When you are a fundamentally decent, kind, hardworking person, you make Crazy look bad in comparison. She resents your good qualities because, on some level, she knows she does possess them — whether she can admit this to herself or not — and she begins to resent and hate you for it.

If Crazy cannot possess your good qualities, then she will try to bring you down to her level by provoking and baiting you (e.g., antagonizing you until you become angry and yell at her) or she will try to destroy you or make you disappear.

Nice Guy Mistake # 2

The second biggest and most common mistake Nice Guys make with Crazy is believing Crazy’s damsel in distress – professional victim shtick. Crazy doesn’t want to be rescued. Crazy wants to be enabled.

Crazy doesn’t want to be rescued. Crazy wants to be enabled.

Crazy doesn’t want to be rescued, she doesn’t want to be better if it means she has to do the work to get there and Crazy definitely doesn’t want you holding her accountable and pointing out how she creates most of her problems herself. Meaning, Crazy doesn’t want you to help her to become a functioning, healthy, mature, responsible, gainfully employed adult. Crazy wants you to put up with her shit and clean up her messes and thank her for the privilege of letting you do so.

Enter Downgrade Boyfriend.

Like two addicts who enable each others’ addictions, Downgrade Boyfriend doesn’t make Crazy feel bad because he’s just as dysfunctional, self-serving and reptilian as she is.

This article was sparked by an online conversation with some of Shrink4Men’s CrazyBusters about the kinds of men their husband’s crazy exes paired up with post-divorce. SW explains:

Crazy truly married the anti-Jack.

She married Jack’s opposite in every single way possible — physically, religious practices, morals, work ethic, education, ambition, fidelity, parenting……

Jack is and was a good honest man. When Crazy met him, he was still a kid, stupid, naive and she made it her full-time job to emasculate him and keep him groveling to her. She was really good at it, but instead of letting her have control of everything, he just disconnected from her emotionally and withdrew. She couldn’t dominate someone who ignored her.

So, she pursued Drunko, a man who was already in many ways broken. Not because he was beaten down by anything, because he chose a life path that was revolting and he liked being a creep. She could be the superior one and, because he came from the same religious background, she could guilt him into almost anything.

She could also be revolting and wicked with him and never be judged. Jack always will be a person to tell others that they need to get right with whatever higher power the believe in. Believe how you want, but live your values. Jack will not participate in things he believes are wrong.

If he were Adam from the garden of Eden, he’d have made a lot of mistakes, but he would not have eaten that apple, just because Eve did. Crazy wanted a man who would not only  eat the apple, but get others to eat it so they could prove that what they did was not wrong.

I personally think Drunko is physically repulsive, he looks worse as the years progress and he buries himself deeper into this mentally ill life he shares with Crazy.

If your ex-Crazy has paired up with Downgrade Boyfriend she is dating or married to the proverbial “bird of a feather.”

Nice Guy Mistake # 3

Nice guys who aren’t quite ready to jump off the Crazy hamster wheel may see Downgrade Boyfriend as yet one more thing they need to rescue Crazy from. If this applies to you, no, you don’t need to rescue Crazy from Downgrade Boyfriend. No, really, you don’t.

By now, you should have learned that Crazy doesn’t do anything or anyone she doesn’t want to do. Nor does she do anything that doesn’t benefit her in some way – especially if it enables her dysfunction and hurts you.

If Crazy actually wanted to be with a good man, she’d be with you. If Crazy actually wanted to be with a good man, she wouldn’t have invested so much time and energy trying to turn you into a male-version of herself.

Many men see Downgrade Boyfriend as evidence that they weren’t “good enough.” If she wants to be with him, then I must be the loser she always said I was. If you’re succumbing to this kind of self-defeating thinking, stop and reality test. Is your behavior consistent in your relationships? If so, do your friends and family think you’re as awful as Crazy thinks you are? 

Downgrade Boyfriend is not evidence that you’re all the rotten things Crazy accused you of being. He’s not better than you. She’s simply found a mirror image of herself to “love” or whatever passes for love in their world. Having integrity, honor and strength of character is a liability with Crazy and so is kindness, generosity and a sense of fair play.

Let go of Crazy’s distorted thinking, mourn the loss of the person you thought you fell in love with when you first met, figure out what attracted you to Crazy and what caused you to tolerate her abuse, heal and when you’re ready, if you’re so inclined, be open to meeting a woman who is an upgrade.

Shrink4Men Coaching and Consulting Services:

Dr Tara J. Palmatier provides confidential, fee-for-service, consultation/coaching services to help both men and women work through their relationship issues via telephone and/or Skype chat. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Shrink4Men Services page for professional inquiries.

 

 

 

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