Questions/thought on effects on children
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| Tue, 04-25-2006 - 1:06pm |
How have your children been affected?
My son is 4 years old and he seems to be doing fine, he was in the middle of each incident, so he heard and saw everything. He has always been a quiet, shy little boy. He never asks me about his dad or where he is. He never says he misses him or wants to see him. (I filed for divorce in September, husband assaulted me in November and my son has only seen his dad 2-3 times since December. Currently, my husband is in jail till May.) My son doesn’t seem scared, sad or act out. I wonder if he doesn’t know how to verbalize how he feels or if he thinks I will be upset if he talks about it. I am concerned that when he gets older this may turn into a serious problem. I try to talk to him about his feelings in general and he always says he is happy. If I try to talk to him about his dad he usually shuts down.
By leaving your abuser do you think it will actually break the cycle of abuse? Do you think that the behaviors of the abuser are a learned behavior or if there may be something in their DNA? Do you worry your children may become the abuser or the abused?
Just some thoughts I’ve been pondering…

Mercifully, there were no children in my relationship with Loony, but I can tell you how my niece has been affected by the mess SIL was in.
DN, like a lot of the females in DH's family, has abysmal self-esteem, and I can't tell you how much of that is genetic and how much is learned. From what I have heard she tends to be something of a bully in school, but I remember her being a very sweet little girl when she was younger, so I do think that that is learned. She saw the bully in the "power position", and kids tend to want to seek safety by aligning themselves with the person they perceive to have the power. This is why you will so often see the child actually taking the side of the abuser.
She is also somewhat afraid of her father, even though to my knowledge he never laid a hand on either her or her mother. I can remember her telling me on at least one occasion when she was younger, "Sometimes I have to protect Mommy from Daddy." They claimed she was exaggerating; I see no reason why a four-year-old would pull that out of the air, you know? Also, there have been occasions where my DH has had to pick her up from school and take her to her dad's. When he tells her where they are going, she gets a fearful look and clams up. We have talked to CPS about this; they claim they can do nothing absent evidence that he is beating her. (insert eyeroll icon here)
It's also very interesting. There seems to be a division in DN's mind between "bad dad" and "good dad", almost as if they were two different people. When she is talking about something bad he's done, she'll refer to her dad as "Firstname", but then if it's something good he's done, she'll call him Daddy. I think it's her way of coping with the fact that her dad is a creep. :(
In general, she has picked up on the attitude that men can do as they like and there's nothing women can do about it but fasten their seatbelts and hang on. While I would like to believe otherwise, I have a nasty suspicion that she's headed down the teen-pregnancy-etcetera road, because it will not occur to her that she is "allowed" to say no to men.
This is why I tell people with young children that it is so important to get out as soon as you can, before they learn that abuse is normal. SIL didn't get out until DN was almost seven, and Evil was still flitting in and out of their lives for another year after that because he was building a house and conducting his visitation at SIL's, so for all practical intents and purposes she really didn't get out until DN was almost eight.
Your son is young enough that he may have missed the worst of it. If you're concerned, I would get him to see a child psychologist, but I think it's less of a concern if he's not acting out. JMH (non-parent) O, though.
In the end, I don't think we're necessarily slaves to our DNA. DH came from a long line of emotional abusers/ees, and he does no such thing. It's just a question of how badly we want to overcome our DNA/influences, and that's not something that can be predicted while someone is still a child.
I worry, especially since he's still in their lives, wants more time to "influence" them (yup, he said it!), and told Babygirl she needs to take "girl lessons" - from his gf.