Not To People Like Us Quotes

“Consider these traditional theories of domestic abuse:
- Learned helplessness suggest that abused women learn to become helpless under abusive conditions; they are powerless to extricate themselves from such relationships and/or unable to make adaptive choices
- The cycle of violence describes a pattern that includes a contrition or honeymoon phase. The abusive husband becomes contrite and apologetic after a violent episode, making concerted efforts to get back in his wife’s good graces.
- Traumatic bonding attempts to explain the inexplicable bond that is formed between a woman and her abusive partner
- The theory of past reenactments posits that women in abusive relationships are reliving unconscious feelings from early childhood scenarios.
My research results and experience with patients do not conform to these concepts. I have found that the upscale abused wife is not a victim of learned helplessness. Rather, she makes specific decisions along the path to be involved in the abusive marriage, including silent strategizing as she chooses to stay or leave the marriage. Nor does the upscale abused wife experience the classic cycle of violence, replete with the honeymoon stage, in which the husband courts his wife to seek her forgiveness. As in the case of Sally and Ray, the man of means actually does little to seek his wife’s forgiveness after a violent episode.
Further, the upscale abused wife voices more attachment to her lifestyle than the traumatic bonding with her abusive mate. And very few of the abused women I have met over the years experienced abuse in their childhoods or witnessed it between their parents. In fact, it is this lack of experience with violence, rage, and abuse that makes this woman even more overwhelmed and unclear about how to cope with something so alien to her and the people in her universe.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“But if he is angry at the world for doing him harm, why does he take it out on his loving partner? Couldn’t he just as readily express his rage by playing racquetball or pounding pillows. His ideas about her role seem paradoxical. On the one hand, the narcissistic husband has vested his wife with tremendous power. She is necessary for his self-repair, but instead of valuing her and seeking comfort in her arms, he beats and humiliates her. Because he sees her as available to meet any and all of his needs, he releases his rage and any self-hate at her; such an act helps him ultimately feel powerful again, making him realize he is not weak and shattered.
When the narcissistic man eels the terror and rage associated with his own internal fragmentation, his outburst restores his sense of power and control. He turns the anger expanding within him away from himself, toward his wife. He insists that she’s the defective one, she’s to blame, because she has not met his needs. Such acts of externalization are key to the NPD batterer. His violent behavior restores his self-esteem. He believes that his actions are not his fault; he is just trying to take care of himself.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“Once this bubble of self-deception is burst and the mask that shielded her and others from what she wished to ignore is lifted, it is difficult for the woman to return to her life as it was. It has been said that “the discovery of a deceiving principle, a lying activity within us, can furnish an absolutely new view of all conscious life.” This reawakened awareness changes the upscale abused woman’s life forever. Suddenly, new choices stand before her. This can be a frightening and sad phase in therapy, a moment when the woman is grappling with a kaleidoscope of loss and potential future gain. Some women experience this period as the dark night of the soul. It can be sickening to face the truths one has chosen to ignore in hopes of maintaining the status quo. Even if the woman wishes to stay married, she will never perceive her life in the same way again.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“Julia's fears of coming forward with the violence were based on anticipated as well as actual responses from friends and acquaintances. I also recognized Julia's introverted and moody side, but I knew she wasn't capable of inciting her husband to kick, choke, and lock her in her home like an animal. Besides, considering how she was being treated, it was not surprising that she seemed moody, sensitive, even depressed. More important, nothing any woman could do could justify such behavior.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“Canadian researcher Donald Dutton . . has written that marital work with a man who has a history of relationship violence may be a “conflict-generator” and that individual work . . should come first for both husband and wife.
…
Marital therapy does not provide the battered woman the kind of safety she needs for rebuilding her strength and finding her identity. The consequences may be severe if she is truthful in a couple’s session. She may be too afraid. Moreover, many upscale batterers can be charming and persuasive and may convey a far different image of themselves to the therapist than the one that reflects the woman’s reality at home.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“When a woman is convinced that she can stop the violence in her marriage, her stubborn determination feeds her sense of failure each time she sees that she can’t regulate her husband’s demands and abuses. In a perverse type of review, she may then ask herself how she could have been so stupid as to overlook the early warnings. This further diminishes her self-esteem.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“When others witness or comment on abusive behaviors, the little voice that the upscale abused wife once heard inside her and ignored or muffled becomes amplified. Slowly she starts to recognize that she must stop enduring the abuse. . . . each woman comes to grips with her situation at her own pace. However, talking to others is key to her growing capacity to recognize and label her experiences, reclaim herself, target important turning points, and ultimately leave her tormentor.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“As she breaks the silence, the upscale abused wife begins to feel affirmed and validated. The rationalizations she once relied on to sustain her within the marriage and to maintain the marital relationship begin to break down. Soon they become useless and obsolete. She slowly rejects them as she confronts the cognitive dissonance, the contradiction between her own knowledge and what she sees going on. It is remarkable yet not surprising that battered women have the highest tolerance for cognitive dissonance and can square two disparate realities that will never match – hatred and violence in a “loving marriage.” At this point the woman is relieved to step away from her self-deception.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“As the woman grows and changes, she and her therapist may move in and out of the following therapeutic stages.
• The woman recognizes there is a problem, overcomes her reluctance to seek help, and contacts a therapist.
• The therapist ascertains whether the woman is in imminent danger and discusses a safety plan.
• The therapist uses empathic understanding, acceptance, and mirroring to gain the woman’s trust and develop a therapeutic alliance.
• The woman learns the impact of her past, present, and future choices; she comes to understand how she has deceived herself and begins to reconstruct her narrative.
• The woman refocuses on herself, learns to trust her inner voice and perceptions, and reclaims her self.
• The woman mourns the relationship that was (even if she stays in the marriage).
• The woman learns to connect with others in a support network.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“Such behaviors, which can be viewed as various aspects of narcissistic entitlement, take any and all of the following forms:
• Demands that are not necessarily clear, discrete, or consistent about
how the wife should look or behave
• Enforcement of specific requirements as to meal preparation
• Expectations about and imposition of strict domestic roles, especially refusal to help out with childrearing
• Refusal to apologize, even after brutal attacks
• Blaming the wife for any household mishap, whatever the cause
• Creating shifting sands—unpredictable changes in expectations, conflicting and contradictory messages that throw the wife off balance
• Demeaning attacks on the wife’s femininity, sexuality, appearance, and maternal behavior
• Absence of the honeymoon phase after violent episodes or emotionally abusive tirades (or short-lived post-abuse honeymoons)
• Feeling of impunity regarding his behavior
• Interest only in his own sexual gratification and disregard for the wife’s needs, leading sometimes to multiple extramarital affairs, to
which he feels entitled
• Violent reactions to pregnancies; belief that the child is an interloper who threatens his power
• Using money and power as leverage or threat
• Isolating the wife from her friends and family
• Possessiveness and/or jealousy”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“The narcissist, says Gunther,
• expects absolute control over the other’s behavior
• expects the other to respond perfectly
• has an utter incapacity for empathy with the other, the other’s behavior, or the other’s motives
• is unable to distinguish his own issue or problem from the other as a separate entity”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“The decisive Turning points and precipitating events that emerged for the women I studied or counseled fell into one of the following categories:
• The husband’s threats to his wife or children’s well-being have become increasingly severe (and may include death threats).
• There has been yet another episode of public humiliation.
• The husband’s abuses and infidelities—in some cases including having children with other women—have accumulated and worsened.
• There has been a violent incident requiring medical attention.
• The woman’s sense of support from her family, friends, or coworkers has increased.
• The woman’s reasons for staying have been satisfied, as when the last planned child has been born or the youngest child has left for or
graduated from college.
• The woman has an extramarital affair, which reminds her that she is desirable and that not all men are abusive.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“The hardening of an abusive upscale marriage is marked by the following signposts:
• Emotional and physical abuses: The husband’s emotionally and physically abusive behaviors increase and even worsen.
• Coping strategies: The woman’s coping strategies change and intensify to keep up with the husband’s worsening behavior. Her narrative reflects her justifications for staying in her abusive marriage.
• Adapting to the situation: The woman’s denial and rationalizing increases. She uses justification by explanation. She may secretly begin to strategize to leave.
• Mans behaviors that she adapts to: Entitlement, insistence on strict domestic roles, abuse in front of the children or threats to children’s well-being, inadequate or minimal apologies after abusiveness, sexual entitlement and attack on woman’s sexuality.
• Secrecy and isolation: The woman’s need for secrecy increases because there is more to hide and more that she feels would probably be disbelieved.
• Into the fray: The woman’s choices, and her ways of enduring in an abusive marriage and keeping it going, push her that much further into her role as an upscale abused wife.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“From a self psychology perspective, in the beginning and middle phases of the path the abused upscale wife
• makes an unhealthy attempt to get her husband (a significant other who knows her well) to provide selfobject functions and complete her sense of self
• uses the drama of the relationship as a palliative against the emptiness within
• finds herself addicted to the intermittent positive feelings that her partner provides, causing her to remain ever hopeful for more
• focuses on the material benefits and status of the upscale marriage
• stays connected to an abusive partner to ward off the anxiety that losing him might evoke”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“Some of these strategies (many of which are similar to those adopted by abused women of all socioeconomic classes) are brought into play immediately after the first incident; others become most prominent toward the middle and later segments of the path:
• She denies what is happening, burying the reality deep below consciousness or distancing herself from it.
• She blames herself, buying into her husband’s claims that her behavior causes his violent rage.
• She calms herself by thinking that this is what marriage is about.
• She chooses to believe he won’t do it again (by her wish or by his words).
• She reminds herself of the solemnity of her marriage vows.
• She uses alcohol or drugs to soothe herself.
• She becomes very quiet, “plays possum”.
• She watches vigilantly, scanning to predict or anticipate the abusive behaviors.
• She does not discuss the abusive episode with her spouse.
• She explains away his bad behavior—for example, “his rage at me is a reflection of his worry about work”—a practice I call justification by explanation.
• She clings to the idealized view of how the marriage could be.
• She secretly strategizes her escape from the marriage.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“Like Sally, all the women in my study reported that their husbands subjected them to emotional abuse. The most frequent types included:
• neglect
• extreme selfishness (including sexual selfishness)
• secretiveness as to his whereabouts
• rage attacks and criticism, especially about her abilities as a wife and mother
• bullying and controlling behavior
• public humiliation
• threats to her well-being
• destruction of her property or the family’s property (although a physical act, such destruction is meant as an emotional assault)
• shifting sands—the husband sends out conflicting and contradictory messages and changes his mood and emotional positions frequently and unpredictably, so that she has no clear idea of what is coming next or what she has done to evoke such behaviors
• extramarital affairs
• inducing fear, such as angrily driving at high speeds when she is in the car or making death threats”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“These early warning signs included the following behaviors and circumstances on the part of the man:
• The man dominated the woman verbally, criticizing and belittling her, throwing her off balance or causing her to doubt her own worth and abilities.
• He made all plans, neither inquiring as to the woman’s desires nor gathering input from her.
• He alone set the sexual pace, initiating all contacts and rejecting any of the woman’s sexual approaches.
• He made most of the decisions about the future and announced them to the woman instead of including her in planning and decision-making. He refused to compromise on major decisions.
• He was moody, making it difficult for the woman to predict what the next encounter with him would be like. Allison, for instance, constantly wondered what she had done to cause Robert’s foul temper.
• He was chronically late without apology or remorse.
• He determined when the couple could discuss issues, if at all; he repeatedly justified this control by claiming that he “hated conflict.”
• He was hostile toward others as well as his future bride: unjustified rage, arrogance, controlling behavior, pouting and withdrawal of affection, and sudden coldness and rejection.
• His father was abusive to his mother.
• He demanded control over the woman’s contacts with friends and family and over finances.
• He publicly humiliated the woman. This sometimes began as put- down humor, but rather than apologizing when she protested, he urged her to “get a thicker skin” or “lighten up.”
• He slapped, pushed, or hit the woman.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages