Mother love and naughty boys...

I wonder why a lot of women seem to be attracted to men who bully and abuse them?

What makes them stick around, taking verbal and mental abuse, even physical abuse sometimes? How can they respect the man they are with when he belittles them in public, shouting them down when they have an opinion, destroying their relationships with others, simply because he wants to and can.

What makes some women put up with the actions of these petulant, demanding, pulling-the-wings-off-insects, schoolboy men? 

Maybe they are all just naughty boys in the eyes of these misguided women.

Is it some strange type of mothering or perhaps it’s a form of Stockholm syndrome, capture-bonding as it’s sometimes called. Maybe it starts out as an okay relationship only to become over time - with marriage, children and a greater reliance on the man - a hostage type situation.

Of course, Stockholm syndrome doesn’t necessarily require a hostage scenario, all it requires is a “strong emotional tie that develops between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.” I think that describes an awful lot of marriages. I personally know of one at least.

One explanation of Stockholm syndrome suggests that the bonding, let’s call it misplaced love, is a response to the trauma of becoming a victim. It can take years, but eventually the victim completely identifies with their aggressor as their subconscious dumbs down and defends itself. The victim comes to believe in the same values and version of truth as their aggressor and thus ceases to be a threat in the victim’s mind. In this way the victim can love him despite his actions.

Maybe this explains why the likes of Eva Braun, Myra Hindley, Maxine Carr, Rosemary West and all of the others go along with such awful atrocities, joining their very bad men in their terrible acts, covering and lying for them and losing themselves in the process.

What other reason could there be? Oh, I’m sure that these controlling men make their women feel very special and I’m equally as sure that they can be very nice, even charming, when they want to be. But why let their insecurity lead to total control? Of course there are women out there who have been brought up to feel that they don’t deserve any better, or perhaps they really don’t know any better. He’ll scare and manipulate and some women are more afraid of being alone again than of being in a controlling relationship. Some women even believe truly that they can change their man and after a lifetime of trying the realisation that they’ve failed and wasted their lives in the process can only add to their lack of self-identity.

Perhaps in the final analysis these women do what they do simply “because I love him.” But after a lifetime of control that sounds like an excuse, something like the sound of one hand clapping to the other hand’s demands.