Life After Abuse

I am a survivor of a very abusive marriage that lasted nearly a decade. But with therapy and support from others, I got out, rebuilt my life, and remarried six years ago. My only sister was my maid of honor. Her partner, on major pain medication following back surgery, consumed ample amounts of liquor, and publicly and viciously verbally abused her. She spent the night with her two children in my honeymoon suite fearing for her safety while my new husband and I spent our wedding night at our home babysitting a drunk and aggressive man-child. This man has never made an effort to apologize. He still drinks and abuses my sister. I have tried to educate her about abuse. Every time I see her partner I am confronted with an abuser I have spent my adult life moving away from. I do not want to carry this burden forever.

Congratulations ON all the work you’ve done to save yourself. You not only escaped from abuse but rebuilt your life. It must be frustrating to find that your hard-earned wisdom can’t save your sister. Still, your concerns suggest three fronts on which you can move to relieve the burdens you now carry.

First, Man-Child occupies a huge chunk of your mental real estate. The irony is, you can move away from preoccupation with him by approaching him—about his behavior toward you, and you only. You can meet in a public place for a conversation in which you state matter of factly, without confrontation or humiliation, how he has wronged you by ruining a big day of your life, offer the opportunity to apologize, and set terms for a relationship. This is constructive, empowering, and the adult way to handle problems. (If you are worried about the potential for harm, ask your husband to be seated nearby but out of earshot.)

But before you approach M-C, take a look at yourself. Your intense reactivity to his presence suggests that you still have some recovery work to do. Yes, you left your abuser behind, but what still has you in thrall are the cues of abuse that M-C embodies.

Yet a third matter needing care is your relationship with your sister. You are learning the hard way that you can’t change anyone else but yourself. Nor can you control the relationship between M-C and your sister.

When I asked New York therapist Susan Birne-Stone what else might help, she pointed to the need for compassion for your sister. After all, you stayed in an abusive relationship for nearly a decade. Your sister “needs to find her own path to realizing that she deserves not to be abused.” Birne-Stone suggested that the two of you might benefit from a few sessions with a family therapist.

She added one more thing: It would be helpful to stop seeing your sister as a “victim”—it’s psychologically defeating—and instead regard her as someone who has issues that are keeping her stuck in a relationship with a person experiencing substance abuse. It’s always difficult to see loved ones struggling, but it’s part of being human—and the subject of much writing from the beginning of recorded history from which to draw wisdom.