Change counsellor - and do it now! Blaming the victim is the hallmark of an unempathic and ignorant mental health professional! You don't need another abuser in your life.
True, it takes two to tango - and an equal number to sustain a long-term abusive relationship. The abuser and the abused form a bond, a dynamic, and a dependence. Expressions such as "follies a deux" and the "Stockholm Syndrome" capture facets - two of a myriad - of this danse macabre. It often ends fatally. It is always an excruciatingly painful affair.
Abuse is closely correlated with alcoholism, drug consumption, intimate-partner homicide, teen pregnancy, infant and child mortality, spontaneous abortion, reckless behaviours, suicide, and the onset of mental health disorders. It doesn't help that society refuses to openly and frankly tackle this pernicious phenomenon and the guilt and shame associated with it.
People - overwhelmingly women - remain in an abusive household for a variety of reasons: economic, parental (to protect the children), and psychological. But the objective obstacles facing the battered spouse cannot be overstated.
The abuser treats his spouse as an object, an extension of himself, devoid of a separate existence and denuded of distinct needs. Thus, typically, the couple's assets are on his name - from real estate to medical insurance policies. The victim has no family or friends because her abusive partner or husband frowns on her initial independence and regards it as a threat. By intimidating, cajoling, charming, and making false promises, the abuser isolates his prey from the rest of society and, thus, makes her dependence on him total. She is often also denied the option to study and acquire marketable skills or augment them.
Abandoning the abusive spouse frequently leads to a prolonged period of destitution and peregrination. Custody is usually denied to parents without a permanent address, a job, income security, and, therefore, stability. Thus, the victim stands to lose not only her mate and nest - but also her off-spring. There is the added menace of violent retribution by the abuser or his proxies - coupled with emphatic contrition on his part and a protracted and irresistible "charm offensive".
Gradually, she is convinced to put up with her spouse's cruelty in order to avoid this harrowing predicament.
But there is more to an abusive dyad than mere pecuniary convenience. The abuser - stealthily but unfailingly - exploits the vulnerabilities in the psychological makeup of his victim. The abused party may have low self-esteem, a fluctuating sense of self-worth, primitive defence mechanisms, phobias, mental health problems, a disability, a history of failure, or a tendency to blame herself, or to feel inadequate (autoplastic neurosis). She may have come from an abusive family or environment - which conditioned her to expect abuse as inevitable and "normal". In extreme and rare cases - the victim is a masochist, possessed of an urge to seek ill-treatment and pain.
The abuser may be functional or dysfunctional, a pillar of society, or a peripatetic con-artist, rich or poor, young or old. There is no universally-applicable profile of the "typical abuser". Yet, abusive behaviour often indicates serious underlying psychopathologies. Absent empathy, the abuser perceives the abused spouse only dimly and partly, as one would an inanimate source of frustration. The abuser, in his mind, interacts only with himself and with "introjects" - representations of outside objects, such as his victims.
you can provoke anger, irritation, love, liking, admiration, respect, sadness, sympathy, etc....
but abuse is action (or inaction) that hurts another. even if you are actually provoking anger (for instance), there are healthy ways of expressing that and working through it which are not abusive.
RE:Can you provoke abuse? I lived with abuse for 25 years.Can you provoke abuse?Yes not and I repeat not intenionally.When a person is provoking an abuse person it may be just a simple jesture or answer to him.This can escalate the abuse.It doesnt take mch to provoke the abuser because they have a distorted personality.But intenionally provoking no.
I believe that you first have to understand the cycle of voilence. It comes in the form something like this.. Woman is married, her husband hits her, calls her names, tells her really ugly things, belittles her, abuses her in every way possible. Then tells her he loves her. She is craving that love, she knew before things were "Bad" in the beginning she doesn't understand why he does this, she just knows that she wants to love him, and him to love her. Pretty soon whether you are conscious of it or not provoking him to do the things you know might lead to the anger... because you know you just want to hear the love. Or hear the nice things after he blows up. It's part of the cycle of voilence. Its always painful, even if you aren't aware your doing it. Subconsciously we do things sometimes we would stop if we even knew we were aware of the behavior. The cycle of voilence is ugly... for everyone involved... kids especially. They are the TRUE victims.
Honey don't you for one second blame yourself. Anything can provoke an abuser. That is what the abuser wants you to think. Then he is not to blame in his mind. And he tries to make you feel like you did something to get this beating. If you have a dog and that dog is lying quietly napping and you start kicking the crap out of it until it is nearly dead who's fault is it yours or the dogs? If you are being abused it is the abusers fault every day of the week. Get out even if you have to go to a womens shelter. I am a survivor of abuse and I can tell you you may have to do things you don't want to but in the end your life is better without the abuser. You may have to live with relatives and expose this ugly story. Be strong and remember God loves you and if you ask he will help. Get out. I look back now and I can't believe I let myself get into that position but it happens. Time will be your friend if you get out.
ANSWER I believe you can provoke abuse. With abuse. I watch it constantly. She pursues him. She puts him down constantly. Tells him he is stupid, and mean. tell him he's a bad father. Follows him from room to room like his counselor told him to do. Traps him in a corner and screams in his face. Tells him that doing what he is supposed to be doing is because he is afraid. Makes him at fault for everything. Then he hits her. What he does is abuse. But what she does is also abuse. Just not physical. I watch her get beat up, and I see her tear him to nothing. Literally. At the end of the fights, after he hits her, he ends up apologizing for all the things that were not his fault. They are both mentally ill. And both are abusers, and victims.
You sure can. If you know what buttons to push, why do you push them?
ANSWER It can certainly be provoked especially with someone that you know has abusive tenedencies, anger managment problems or is short fused. HOWEVER...it is NEVER the provokers' fault for someone else to commit abuse. Everyone has control over themselves.
OMG! I agree with the last answer and want to add to this. As a counselor and a woman who was abused by two husbands for 10 years and 5 years (I walked right back into it ) even though I had taken 4 years of counseling and knew all the signs!
I want to warn you those of you who are BLAMING yourself or blaming others for PROVOKING an ABUSERS WRATH. OMG BACK OFF and SHAME ON YOU!!!!!
ANY man or abuser who will Lash out in anger and hit, strike, punch , poke, scratch, throw something, no matter WHAT caused the anger , is not a man. A person who does this over and over has a problem. AND if the woman is indeed hitting the man FIRST and he is hitting her back then she also is an abuser. But Im talking here about a woman like me who sat and took abuse year after year after year and never ONE SINGLE TIME did i lash out back or retaliate or hit or poke or throw or even scream. I simply put my hands over my eyes and head and took it til he calmed down and I find in counseling other women that the MAJORITY do the same. YES you have a lot that DO hit her man, that DO lash out and scream and provoke but there are the majority that are simply the punching bag to his pent up frustrations of his work day and if she want to unwind ,....too damn bad.
These answers from the people who say YES you can provoke being abused and its ok piss me off!!!
If anyone or your counselor told you that or EVER tells you that, CHANGE YOUR COUNSELOR NOW and report them!!!