A battering relationship can cause an emotional rollercoaster for every member of the family. Margaret’s nineteen-year-old daughter Molly has been seeing William for two years. Margaret says:
We’re walking on eggshells. I’m afraid to tell my husband about her new bruises. I worry about her brothers getting in trouble because they want to beat him up. Molly tells her sister things and makes her swear not to tell me. Then when she gets hurt, her sister feels guilty and I get mad at her for not telling me sooner. When Molly and William are getting along, she invites him over and she wants us to act as if everything is okay. We’ve called the police, we’ve been to the hospital. She breaks up with him. We go through so much, and then she goes back.
If your daughter is in a battering relationship, she probably does the same thing. She feels close to her batterer when he is not being abusive, and she is secretive or angry with you. Then, after he has been violent, she feels hurt and angry, and may seek support from you. Eventually they make up, and she gets close to him again. As her relationship with him goes back and forth, so does her relationship with you.
It is emotionally wrenching for parents to see a child going through this. The usual teenage emotional rollercoaster of drama and moodiness is difficult enough, but dealing with a battering relationship as well can be a nightmare for parents.
Your reactions to your daughter and her boyfriend engage you in their emotional rollercoaster. Everyone in the family—other children or extended family who are close—responds differently, so you not only react to your daughter and her boyfriend, but to one another. The entire family is eventually on the rollercoaster.
Often parents expend considerable effort and hard work to confront the violence. It is a natural response to try to protect your child. The stress and strain of figuring out what to do, and of dealing with your daughter’s unwillingness to cooperate or her resentment of your “interference,” can be exhausting. Adaliz, age nineteen, describes what her parents went through:
My parents found out I was still seeing him. My friends would tell their mothers, who would tell my mom. She would question me, but I would lie about seeing him. My father tried to tell me he’s bad for me. They did everything they could to stop me from seeing him. [They] hunted for a different school for me. My dad would take me and pick me up [from school] every day. I couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t make calls. My parents answered the phone, and wouldn’t let me talk to Richard if he called. All I wanted was to be with Richard. So I ran away from home to be with him. I thought my dad was a mean person. Now I realize that he didn’t… want me to be hurt. I realize what my parents went through.
The communication between spouses/partners can be challenging when so much focus is on their child’s dramatic ups and downs. Conflicts with your spouse about your child’s situation may seriously affect your relationship as a couple. Think about how this is affecting both of you. Do you feel conflicted about your alliances, feeling torn between your spouse and your child? Perhaps you want, or demand of each other, a united stand in dealing with your teen, but disagree about which approach to take. You may be upset with the way your spouse deals with your teen, or your spouse may be upset with your approach. Do you keep secrets from your spouse to protect her or him? For example, you may try to keep her or him from being frightened or worried, and hide information about how serious the violence really is. Or you may hide information to keep your spouse from becoming upset. Do you try to keep your teen from being rejected by your spouse? Are you and your teen’s other parent separated or divorced? Sometimes old conflicts, difficulties communicating, or some other problem from a past relationship interferes with parents being able to understand or empathize with one another, or to work well together to deal with a situation. Divorced or separated parents may be seeing the teen’s relationship or the abuse very differently or may be getting different stories about what is happening. Many parents find themselves in a mediating role, trying to keep trouble from starting between family members.
Don, father of fourteen-year-old Patty, says:
My wife and I are two opposing forces. She talks to Nick, even though he’s so cruel to our daughter, Patty. I feel like we should take a stand. I have no patience with them, and my wife and I end up fighting about what to do. On the other hand, while I can’t talk to Patty or Nick, my wife knows what’s going on. Patty confides in her. I hope my wife and I can make it through this.
Two parents may react very differently to a child’s abusive relationship, and to each incident or situation that arises. One parent (often the father) may be angry and feel betrayed when the child defies rules in order to see her abuser. The other parent (often the mother), afraid of pushing the child away from the family and toward the abuser, may be more willing to compromise on the rules. One parent may refuse to get involved, and the other may be preoccupied with the child’s being in danger. One parent may be working hard to help the child after everyone else in the family has washed their hands of the situation.
Many mothers have told us of their fears about their husband’s violence toward their daughter’s abusive boyfriend—even if their husband had never been violent before. They had never seen him so enraged, explosive, and ready to do harm to another person. Fathers have told us they feel defied, pushed to the limit, betrayed, and unable to cope with the intensity of their anger. However, sometimes it is the father or stepfather who remains calm as the mother becomes enraged.
There may be more than two parents in your family—for example, if parents have divorced and remarried. There may be other adults involved besides parents—for example, if your child is also being raised by grandparents or other extended family members. Parental relationships may not be legally defined as “married”—for example, if the parents are gay men or lesbians in states that don’t legally recognize same-sex marriage, or if a parent is newly involved with someone who participates in the parenting. While a more complicated constellation of family members can make it more difficult to deal with the abusive relationship, it can also offer more sources of support. A teen may find it easier to seek help from a stepparent, a grandparent, or another adult in the family. You, as a parent, may find it easier to get support from an adult who is not the other birth parent of your child. If both birth parents are overwhelmed and blaming themselves and each other, another parenting adult may provide a clearer perspective.
As normal family routines are repeatedly disrupted by an abuse victim’s situation, her sisters and brothers get less attention. Depending on how old they are, siblings may not know much about their sister’s problems, but they cannot avoid being affected by the repeated crises.
Some children begin to act extraordinarily well behaved, as they try to avoid causing further trouble. Other children act in ways that will get parents’ attention, as if they are trying to compete with their sister. And still others seem to go on with their own lives as if nothing is happening—coping well, but covering up their feelings.
If your daughter’s siblings are older than her, they may know a great deal about what is going on, and they may get involved as her confidante, as a witness to her abuse, or as part of her social circle. If they know more than you know, they may feel guilty or conflicted about telling you what they know. They may be trying to help and feel overwhelmed because they are too young to do anything about it. They may not understand the seriousness or the complexity of their sister’s problems. Some siblings might feel angry with their sister and her boyfriend, and not know how to deal with their anger. They might feel protective of her and angry with her at the same time. They might feel confused about how to respond to you and your emotional ups and downs, wanting to be supportive of you at times and finding themselves angry or upset with you at other times.
Siblings who have the urge to be overprotective and restrictive with the abused teen are usually not helpful. This usually leads a victim to hide what is really going on, or to “go underground.” Parents should be careful not to encourage other children, particularly older brothers, to act on their anger by being aggressive to the abuser. Siblings can be encouraged to be alert to danger and actively engage in being part of a safety net for the abused teen without putting anyone in danger or “taking matters into their own hands.”
Parents should pay attention to all the children in a family when a crisis such as relationship abuse is going on. Siblings need support and opportunities to talk about how the situation affects them. They need to know that even if they feel protective and responsible, it is too much of a burden for them, and you, as parents, don’t need them to take on a parental role. They need to be taken care of also.