Girlfriend was abused... What can I do?

[Filosophize]

My girlfriend and I have been together for 1 1/2 years now.

We live together and are making many long term plans together.

 

Her childhood consisted of a father who was incredibly abusive, physical/verbal/emotional towards her mother, in front of the kids. (Has mentioned that she remembers her dad dragging her mother across the house by her hair).

Her father was in/out of prison & eventually killed in a motorcycle accident. (Not sure what age g/f was at the time, I believe early teens)

Her mother was mostly verbally/emotionally abusive with infrequent physical abuse consisting of hard slaps to the face during arguments.

My g/f was very overweight during her childhood due to her mothers extremely poor choices of food. (Nothing but frozen junk food in the house).

When she got to high school age she had more freedom to choose her food and lost almost all the weight.

My g/f moved away from her mother after high school to be with her Navy boyfriend, they ended up getting married.

They got divorced ~apx 4 years later. The main reason she has given me was that she couldn't handle him being deployed for 1/2 year - 3/4 year at a time.

She has had several (~2) somewhat long term relationships (1-2 years) since the divorce.

Both of these previous relationships she has described as being relatively unhealthy in that she felt like the guys were taking advantage of her. (ie: financially, emotionally)

She did go to therapy for apx 1 year many years ago after leaving her mother. However she describes it as being a waste. She says that she felt like the therapist only told her things she already knew and she felt it wasn't worth the money.

I often listen to FDR podcasts in the house and she has stated that she enjoys them.

I have made sure that I never tell her what to do when it comes to her mother, (they have some phone contact, once every week or two) she used to drive up to see her every few months however since we've been together she has decreased this to the point of almost never, if I had to guess, at this rate, she will only see her once a year.

She has stated that the podcasts have helped her realize that she can't help her mother, that only her mother can help herself. She does have a younger brother and sister that live with her mom (both young adults early 20's) that she keeps in more regular tough with.

Fast forward to today.

I love her very much, I want to do everything that I can to make this relationship work.

We are having some difficulties.

If/when we get into an argument, my g/f has a tendency to get very very defensive & self diminishing,ie: Making statements like "well I am so sorry, I didn't mean to be such a horrible person"

sort of halfway sarcastic/destructive emotional statements that to me show a lot of deep insecurity...

I try my best to keep the argument on track and specific to the particular issue and keep it as calm and localized as possible but this can be very difficult. Even when I succeed in this, the night if often ruined because she will be in such a bad mood for the rest of the night even if the argument is resolved.

I apologize for the length of this post, I am trying to shorten the explanation but there is obviously a lot of relevant context here...

I guess I am just looking for help...

I love her, I really want us to work, I have had several long term relationships and this is the first girl I felt I could marry and have kids with, I know that might sound a little off with everything I just summed up but keep in mind that I am only talking about the bad in this post, and there is tons and tons of good for every ton of bad in our relationship. I don't feel this is a lost cause.

Recently I have been suggesting that she consider trying therapy again, but she doesn't seem very interested, I know that if I really pushed her to do so that she would for me/us but I know that's also not the way to go, I want her to want to go...

Thank you in advance for any help!

[cherapple]

You say a lot about your girlfriend, but very little about you, which says to me that you believe that fixing her will fix the relationship. I can imagine she might feel some resentment about that. Are you in therapy? Would your girlfriend be willing to go to therapy with you? And what is your history with helping others and managing insecurity and defensiveness in others, specifically with siblings and parents?

[Flake]

You've talked a lot about her past, mentioned that you're having some difficulties, but the only difficulty you've listed is that she gets defensive and self-diminishing in arguments which spoils the mood. The easy fix here would be to simply don't argue. It sounds overly simplistic but the only difficulty you mentioned was when you two argue. Now you could enjoy arguing, so this advice might not be what you're looking for, but you need to consider which you enjoy more, arguing or her.

[Filosophize]

 

You say a lot about your girlfriend, but very little about you, which says to me that you believe that fixing her will fix the relationship. I can imagine she might feel some resentment about that. Are you in therapy? Would your girlfriend be willing to go to therapy with you? And what is your history with helping others and managing insecurity and defensiveness in others, specifically with siblings and parents?

 

Hard to say, I don't think she has much if any resentment towards me in terms of helping her and here is why... I realized very quickly in the beggining of our relationship just how independent and strong willed she is (I am the same way) so I have conciously kept myself in a hands off position when it comes to her dealing with her past. My only consistent influence has been my exposing her to the FDR podcasts, and even with these I will ask if she is interested in listening to one before I play one in the house, and I only engage her in discussion on the podcast/her past if she starts the conversation.

As for my being in therapy, I had a pretty decent childhood/upbringing with pretty decent parents, no physical or verbal abuse, having thought a lot about my upbringing while listening to podcasts, I think the most damaging elements of my childhood was that my father was almost stabbed to death by an employee that he fired when I was in third grade. He ended up being okay but it caused me to pull away from him as a kid. I did go to 1 year of therapy after high school after taking a psychology class that peaked my interest, the therapist thought that I had pulled away from a relationship with my father as a self defense mechanism, essentially to make it less painful if I were to loose him. Once an adult I have made good progress in reestablishing a relationship with my father, it seems to be difficult for both of us and is an ongoing effort.

As for therapy with the g/f. I have let her know that I am absolutely willing to go with her if she felt like that is what she wanted to do. We haven't talked about it too much because I don't want her to feel like I am forcing her in any way.

As for my past relationships, I have never been with someone with so much childhood damage, this is uncharted territory for me. I am not typically the person that goes out of my way to help others, I am very independent & self reliant; that said, I believe this relationship is very much worth the effort required to make it work.

[Filosophize]

 

You've talked a lot about her past, mentioned that you're having some difficulties, but the only difficulty you've listed is that she gets defensive and self-diminishing in arguments which spoils the mood. The easy fix here would be to simply don't argue. It sounds overly simplistic but the only difficulty you mentioned was when you two argue. Now you could enjoy arguing, so this advice might not be what you're looking for, but you need to consider which you enjoy more, arguing or her.

 

Yes, I have realized this to an extent, sometimes when she makes a mistake or miscommunication and I catch it, yet it isn't anything serious, I will neglect to point it out or correct it because I know it's not worth it lol I think I have heard this referred to as the key to a happy marriage? lol

Yet of course some arguments will still take place now & then.

[cherapple]

 

I have never been with someone with so much childhood damage, this is uncharted territory for me. I am not typically the person that goes out of my way to help others, I am very independent & self reliant; that said, I believe this relationship is very much worth the effort required to make it work.

 

What about your girlfriend or the relationship is worth the effort? I'm not saying she isn't worth it, but what do you like about her or the relationship that you want to keep or make work?

[Filosophize]

What about her/the relationship is worth it?

Well, I am in love with her...

We spend quite a bit of time together at home in the eveninings, we have both expressed that neither of us are interested in any type of long distance situations, meaning neither of us will take any career paths that would require great distance or great time apart on a regular basis.

What does this mean to me?

I love that she...

Is independent, doesn't "need" me in an unhealthy way (not needy or dependent) she "wants" to be with me, this is a nice change compared to many of my past relationships.

Is able to handle business/life without my constant input/protection, she asserts herself and calls me out when I am wrong.

I feel that we compliment each other's strengths and weakness'. She is very motivated and determined when it comes to getting work done, yet can be overly impulsive when it comes to dealing with day to day problems.

I tend to put a high priority on my free time and prefer to work very hard part time rather than work moderately hard full time, I am very calm and calculating when it comes to dealing with day to day problems.

We both want kids, likely in a few years, we have spoken about my being the primary caretaker, perhaps work part time and focus on raising the children.

These are the first things that come to mind =)

[kirk paolinelli]

What were your feelings that inspired you to ask for help on the board?

You posted your gf's childhood/relationship history leading up to your problem

"I love her very much, I want to do everything that I can to make this relationship work.

We are having some difficulties.

If/when we get into an argument, my g/f has a tendency to get very very defensive & self diminishing,
ie: Making statements like "well I am so sorry, I didn't mean to be such a horrible person"

sort of halfway sarcastic/destructive emotional statements that to me show a lot of deep insecurity...

There was no content to what the argument was about. But I'm guessing since she's using "well I am so sorry, I didn't mean to be such a horrible person".  uThat it was about you having an issue with some of her actions. Maybe you can clarify that. It also feels to me that you have already come to the conclusion that it's what she is doing and your doing everything okay.

She may be feeling diminshed by you in these conversations.  When you say "I try my best to keep the argument on track and specific to the particular issue and keep it as calm and localized as possible but this can be very difficult. Even when I succeed in this, the night if often ruined because she will be in such a bad mood for the rest of the night even if the argument is resolved.

This comes off to me as a little demeaning, that she is inferior to you, and you do all you can to help to this raging women. I felt no empathy from you for her in that statement. You wrote that whole history about her childhood, I'm guessing because you believe it's causing issues for her. But then the feeling I get, is that during arguments you lose the empathy for her and expect her to deal with you like she was raised perfectly. Then your upset and treating her like a burden over (her conflict resolution skills) which you know are damaged/never learned from her childhood. Akin to expecting her to be able to keep up walking with you if she was on crutches. You may need to slow down.

Then you say she is mad all night even though the argument is resolved. I would think that means it's resolved for you but not for her. Maybe you had anxiety about her brought up a conversation about what she was doing that you felt brought it up, transferred the anxiety to her, you felt better.

Hopefully this helps, I have a lot of the same feelings I felt you were trying to convey. ie. I know she has issues and I love her but I have to constantly judge her to see if she is going to meet my expectations, Is she gonna defoo? I won't make her, but she would if she was virtuous so I'm on the lookout to she what she does.  So I hope I'm not projecting. Let me know if any of this connects I could be way off.

 

 

[MysterionMuffles]

Arguments are inevitable either way, but yeah as the guy said above, maybe it's only resolved for you.

That is a horrible history, dragging the mother by her hair?! Man...just wow...

I don't have much to say except a lot of sympathies for her history and your own so I don't want to bog down my post with too many responses to each sentence you've made, instead I'll just say:

Give her space to be herself. And when you get into an argument, focus on practicing RTR. If she has wronged you in some way, you tell her how you feel about it and why. But on the other hand, if it's something you did that causes the argument, open your ears wide as Dumbo's and be very curious as to why she is offended by what you have done. Really take the time to question her like a lawyer and dig deep into the argument to see why she's holding resentment. It won't neccessarily root back to her past, that's usually a given, but most resentments we hold are caused by a heavy fiction we create around one little interaction.

I'd like to go so far as to ask: how DO you guys argue? Is there a lot of name calling, blaming, yelling? etc