Not that its any of my business but...its not supposed to be this hard.​

 The links above offer protection from overt forms of abuse, like physical violence, threats & intimidation. However there are many, less obvious forms of abuse.  In my experience, being homeless (especially with children) is a form of hidden abuse that is caused by other forms of hidden abuse. If you have felt that your experience of homelessness is a result of your intimate relationship, & is a violation of your rights or your destiny, or is just wrong in some way that you can't explain- please allow me to validate your feelings. You are not crazy. You are being violated. Something is ​wrong.  It can be embarrassingly difficult to find the words to name the reasons why your experience feels like abuse. Examples from my personal life are below. Perhaps you can't relate to details of my specific experiences- but do any of the words & phrases in bold feel familiar? 

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• My stepfather's drug habit & mental instability made it impossible for him to work a full time job. When my mother became briefly disabled & couldn't work & support the household's finances, my stepfather didn't work either. Then when my mother was forced to borrow money from friends & family to pay her mortgage, my stepfather stole the money. When she asked him to leave, he destroyed her property. This resulted in my mother, my sister & me having to couch surf / bunk up at grandma's. 

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• ​More than once, my ex-husband argued loudly with me in a public place, causing me to feel embarrassed & ashamed. The more I tried to calm him down, the louder he became. Twice, this was in hotels that we needed to stay in, because we were homeless. Once, this resulted in us being banned from the hotel, which forced us to scramble to find new housing

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• ​My ex-husband went months (& sometimes years) without a job, all while pressuring me into handling the bulk of the bills & childcare​

 

• He got into several accidents while driving my car, once even totaling it altogether, which raised my insurance rates & made life harder in every single way

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• We had five children in ten years; eventually our family grew too large to even couch surf or bunk up with family & friends, which meant we had to go to a shelter

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• When we were permitted to stay with my family & my friends, he refused to follow their house rules & respect their boundaries, which strained my relationships with people who otherwise loved & supported me

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• He never hit me, but he did punch holes in the walls from anger; he rarely repaired the things he broke which gave us a bad reputation

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• He was extremely intelligent & capable but could never manage to fill out time sensitive paperwork or fulfill specific requirements, or follow rules, even when the consequences meant we would lose money and/or housing

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• He cheated on me, & used my car & money to do so.

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• When I had plans for myself or the family, he always waited until the last minute to get ready, but would then threaten not to go at all if I got an attitude about it. We were always late for events that were important to me. 

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• No matter where he went, he was always gone longer than he said he'd be; there were constant unexplained absences. 

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• He lied about money- he'd downplay how much money he'd spent or he'd say there was more in the account than was really there.

 

• As the man, he wanted to run the errands & pay for everything. However he didn't have money or a bank account, so he used my debit card for purchases. Therefore my debit cards were always in his wallet & I had to ask him when I wanted to use them. 

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• This last one is hard to explain but iykyk...it felt to me that as soon as I was getting stable, or confident, or independent, he would manufacture an emergency (or pregnancy) that would destabilize us, & then would force me to depend on him for rescue. I appreciated the fact that he was rescuing me from problems, but it took me a long time to see that he was the one causing the problems. This is something I feel but not something I can prove.​

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If you can relate to any of the words in phrases in bold, then you are the victim of hidden abuse. In my experience, this is hard to admit. When you do finally admit it, it's hard to prove it to others with solid examples. And even once you do have solid examples, its hard to hold the thought that you are being abused, because the relationship isn't all bad, right? There are good times, too. There are aspects of this person & relationship that you love, & that your children love. Deciding to get out of a relationship with hidden abuse won't feel like the same kind of life threatening emergency as if someone was physically abusing you. However you need to understand that hidden abuse is still a life threatening emergency. Its like the difference between dying from being poisoned slowly over time, rather than dying from a quick gunshot. Trust your feelings. If you were waiting for a sign, this is your sign.  No, you're not crazy. Yes, something is wrong. No, it won't get better. Yes, you need to leave...

But slowly. When dealing with hidden abuse, gathering the strength & resources to leave must be hidden as well. The situation is like quick sand; the more you flail & struggle, the more stuck you'll be. Instead you must relax, strategize & inch your way out. Leaving takes time. Below are a few tips I've learned about maintaining your sanity in the meantime while planning your escape from hidden abuse: 

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•  (​​Don't Worry About a Plan (Yet). What's Your Process? ​​

​A plan is an external strategy, wherein you decide what you want to happen, & then you outline the steps required to make your desires real. A plan can be interrupted by outside forces. However a process is an internal strategy, wherein you decide what's important, & you remain focused upon that no matter what happens. With practice, a process cannot interrupted by outside forces. Perhaps its too early to strategize your exit; maybe you're not even sure if you want to. And perhaps you don't have the right resources, like moral support, daycare, employment, etc., even if you were 100% sure you did want to. 

So forming a plan might be thinking too far ahead right now, & that's ok. Plans have a way of coming together when the time is right. No pressure. Instead, focus on your process.  There are two ways to think about it: 

• The way you do anything is the way you do everything

or  

• Once I knew my "why," the "how" became easy

In other words, you've got to figure out what is most important to you, & go from there. What matters to you more than anything in the world? Is it your peace of mind? Feeling relaxed at home? Your freedom? The ability to pass on healthy emotional habits & examples to your children? A certain purpose you know you're meant to fulfill in this world? Think about this for a moment. What is your one thing?

Once you know what it is, let that one thing be your north star that guides you out of the life you don't want, into the life you do want. Keep your mind's eye ever fixed upon it, no matter what is happening. Soon you'll notice that more & more of your daily choices & experiences will fall into one of two categories: things that in the direction of your north star, & things that are not. Don't be discouraged if you notice that most of what is familiar to you, lies in the opposite direction of your north star. It is a good thing to notice! The tips below will help with the process of turning around. 

• Get Control of Your Fertility

Women in relationships who get serious about changing their lives for the better, often find themselves pregnant. It makes sense when you think about it; taking care of your own needs makes you glow. Beauty & confidence is attractive. Once you start looking good & caring about your well being & happiness- a nigga gets the urge to put a baby in you, to slow you down & stress you out. Its a tale as old as time. Don't let that happen. I'm not even saying you have to be ready to stop having sex with your partner; the two of you may still be very much... together. All I'm saying is, use condoms and/or birth control. Track your cycle (you can typically get pregnant between 10-16 days after the first day of your period), & try not to have any sex at all during your pregnancy window. If he asks why you're being so protective of your womb, make up an excuse. Say your last birth was painful & you don't think your body could handle it again, or everything is getting so expensive & you don't want the financial strain of a child. The important thing is not to blame him or the relationship for the change; this way you won't have to keep arguing or defending your position. 

• Remember / Find Out Who You Are Outside of This Relationship

​Its easy to lose yourself when stuck in a stressful relationship and/or carrying  an unfair amount of responsibility. Getting so caught up in taking care of the rent, the bills, the problems & the babies, can make you forget that the gift of life is meant to be enjoyed. Can you remember who you were & what you liked to do before this relationship? Maybe you got into the relationship so young that you never got the chance to figure yourself out at all. Maybe you've trained yourself to be agreeable, to only like what your partner likes, so they'll be in a good mood. In any case, figuring out what brings you joy - completely outside your identity as "Neil's" woman or "Jessica's" mom- is an important part of your process. You have to begin the habit of choosing to notice, engage with & seek out the things that brings you joy. Start noticing it with small things- ooh, I love that color, or this comedian was so funny, or I tried a new food & it was delicious!  It sounds silly but our preferences go a long way toward helping us remember that we are our own person. This knowledge makes us easier to self-motivate, & harder to manipulate or control. 

• Start Writing Things Down

Did you know that trauma changes your brain? Did you know that repeated arguments & turmoil is considered traumatic? If you're in cycles of breaking up & making up, you've had to forgive & forget many times. This means that you're likely only dealing with what's happening in the present moment, but for the sake of peace, you are keeping yourself from looking at the situation from a long-term view. In healthy relationships its ok to leave the past in the past because in healthy relationships, the past doesn't continue to repeat itself. The problem arises when you're dealing with the same issues over & over, yet you've trained your brain to forget each instance. You become unaware of how bad things are because you're used to it; because you literally don't see it anymore. This can feel like a helmet of confusion, like brain fog. So, you've got to start writing things down. As best you can, keep track of the interactions between you & your partner.

For example:  "Feb 11: I told him I had to leave for work by 7, but he didn't get home until 730. I was late for work."; Feb 12: He apologized for yesterday.; Feb 13: He was only 15 mins late today instead of a half-hour. I brought up & he said 'I said sorry yesterday & I was barely late today. I guess my best just isn't good enough for you."

This way you'll get to look back over the notes of your interactions & really start to "see" patterns you've been ignoring.  
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• Stop Arguing; Start Paying Attention 

​If you're spending a lot of time & energy arguing with your partner, stop it. This is especially true if you've spent months or years trying to get them to treat you a certain way, or trying to get them to stop doing certain things that harm or bother you, or trying to get them to accept more responsibility so that you can have a better quality of life.  This is also an important part of the process, where you stop trying to force things to be different than what they are, & you pay attention to what's really going on. Does your partner listen to you & honor your feelings? Do they act in a way that aligns with your best interests, or the best interests of your children? If the answer to those questions is 'no,' do you understand you can't argue or force this person to change? Accepting the truth will be painful, because it hurts when anything that is deeply asleep begins to wake up. But its not until you accept the situation as it is, that you become free to do anything about it. 

• The Best Defense is Learning the Offensive's Strategy ​

If you are able to detach emotionally from the arguments & emotional cycles you have with your partner so that you are free to observe them from a logical, curious point of view, you will begin to see a pattern emerge in their attacks. A famous pattern of silent abusers is called DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. Let's use the example from above to see the pattern: 

Situation: Your partner is 15 minutes late bringing you the car so you can go to work, which makes you 15 minutes late for work. You tell your partner this bothers you. Your partner responds that-

1) He was thirty minutes late the day before, & he apologized for it. Being 15 minutes late is an improvement over 30 minutes.  (DENY: Partner is denying that being 15 minutes late is a valid complaint)

2) He then responds that "I guess my best just isn't good enough for you." ATTACK: The implication is that you have unreasonably high standards that are impossible for your partner to meet.)

3) If you are emotionally connected to the scenario instead of observing logically to study your opponent, this is when you'd naturally want to speak up & defend yourself. You'd want to explain that you do appreciate the 15 minute improvement, & you'd want to change the narrative that you are impossible to please. You'd feel guilty by affirming or repeating that you need your partner to do better than being "only" 15 minutes late. You'd feel this way because your partner would have successfully made themselves the wronged party in this scenario, even though you're the one suffering the consequences of being late. (REVERSE VICTIM and OFFENDER)

• Get Outside Therapy / Support

 Now that you've been writing things down, refusing to argue & observing your partner's patterns, you're going to need to talk to someone about the things you are figuring out.  You need someone to affirm your reality, & who can listen to you & confirm that you are not crazy. Make sure the person you turn to is someone who does not know your partner & has no emotions invested in whether you break up or stay together;  otherwise it will be hard for them to give you unbiased advice (either positive or negative).  It's best if you turn to a professional counselor or therapist, because they will be able to provide you with more tools to handle what's going on a home. If you're ready to start thinking about an exit plan, they can help you with that too. If you're not able to find a therapist, or you don't have space in your schedule for consistent appointments, there are hotlines you can call to talk to someone when you need to.  Click here for a list of helplines & resources offered through the California Board of Public Health. 

• Get Control of Your Finances / Be "Bad" At It

​Now that you've observed your partner's patterns, you've got a clearer understanding of what's happening in the relationship, & you've got a support system & an exit plan on the horizon, it's time for some strategies of your own. Even if you don't yet have a "plan," part of your "process" must include gathering your resources & organizing your life so that you can be fully prepared to make better choices for you & your children. 

Did you know that hidden abuse can include finances? For example, if you partner constantly has excuses why they can't contribute financially, & yet you are responsible for their personal expenses & the family's expenses, that is abuse. On the flip side, if your partner earns all the money & controls the finances- & you're unable to earn or save independent income, that is also abuse. 

A strategy to thwart this kind of abuse is something that I like to call "learned incompetence," or pretending to be bad at something you're actually good at, & using it to your advantage. So if you're responsible for all the expenses (including your partner's personal expenses), stop doing it. Pay for the household, but "run out of money," when it comes to their personal needs, like fast food, or drugs & alcohol, or date nights. Say you mis-budgeted, or you spent it all on bills. Say prices are rising & everything is more expensive so you don't have as much left over as you used to. And then make sure to save the extra money  for your exit plan.

If your partner is responsible for the expenses & they control money by keeping it from you, then you need to figure out how to get your own money. Start small, like using cash when you pay for things instead of debit cards. For example, if you use a debit card at the gas pump, your partner can see if you spent $23. But if you go to the ATM & take out $30, & tell your partner you spent $30 on gas, you can really spend $20 & secretly save $10.  Ten dollars here & there won't be enough for you to leave & start a new life but using these strategies will get you to begin thinking more about how to line more things up for your own advantage & get a bit of secret cash in your pockets until you can make bigger moves. Thinking selfishly & practicing radical loyalty to self is an important step toward freedom & independence.

• Lying Doesn't Make You Bad (As Long As Its For a Good Reason)

​​As you move toward exiting the relationship, you might find yourself lying about where you're really going (he thinks I'm at the movies but really I'm at therapy), or what you're spending, or what you're thinking / planning. If you're a moral person who's used to telling the truth all the time, lying can make you feel guilty & wrong. Please remember that sometimes good people have to do "bad" things for the best & highest outcomes. You are creating a better life for you & your children & your partner is not going to give you permission to do so. You'll have to create a better life despite them. In fact if they knew that was your goal, they would try to stop you. Therefore the end (freedom) justifies the means (deception). In fact, feeling guilty about deception is actually proof that you're not a bad person, because if you were, you wouldn't care at all. 

• Don't Fall For It​

​If you've followed the steps on this list, your partner might be getting nervous. From their perspective, you've likely changed a great deal. You're not arguing, not getting upset like you used to. You've found things outside of the relationship to occupy your time, so you're not pouring as much energy into the relationships. You're not reacting the same to issues that used to guaranteed to upset you. You aren't defensive, either. You aren't interested in proving yourself, or forcing the relationship to work. You've stopped begging them to fix certain issues between you; instead, you're allowing them to be broken. Nor are you willing to keep picking up the pieces.

This will be alarming to your partner. They will begin trying to "figure out," why you've changed. They might even ask family & friends what's going on with you. Inevitably, they will begin to remember & reflect upon complaints you've made that they previously ignored. They will begin to make the changes you asked for long ago, in an attempt to get you to care again.

Don't fall for it! If you've gotten this far in the process, then your partner had plenty of time to change. Months at least- perhaps years or even decades. Therefore any changes that are made now, will be because your self-focus threatens their power, not because they actually care. Remember, if they actually cared, they would have changed before now. At this point they will begin doing the things you always wanted, in order to distract you from focusing on yourself, & get you caught up again in "us." Enjoy the changes, but don't let them change your mind about prioritizing yourself & exiting the relationship. If you do fall for it, you'll soon realize your partners sudden realizations & "heartfelt" changes were only temporary. As soon as they get you back into a vulnerable state (hope, appreciation, trust, etc.), they will go back to their old ways. Keep your distance, keep your focus, follow your north star. Don't lose sight of your new self. You're almost there!
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• Do Not Cheat (Act With Integrity)

At this point, your intense self-love & focus is making you more attractive to your own partner, as well as to new potential partners. This attention can be flattering, validating & feel amazing but don't cheat on your partner. Starting a new relationship before you are completely separated & living on your own will only cause a huge distraction. Even if your partner is cheating on you, don't focus on retaliation. It will make thing unnecessarily complicated. It might also open a space for negative karma to enter, which will slow down your momentum on the path to your best & highest self. Remain focused on getting free, not getting attracted to a better looking trap. Focus on yourself & your kids, & making your lives better. There will be plenty of time to date later, when you won't have to sneak to do so. 

• Gather Resources / Documents 

​If you don't have an exit plan at this point, you still need to be prepared (as much as possible) for the inevitable separation. This means that as much as possible, you need to be able to handle your own finances & childcare. You should have your own bank account with debit card (even if its in secret); perhaps even your own credit card; & some kind of way to get your own income, even if its through government assistance. If you aren't able to get your own income, are you able to get a loan or a scholarship so that you can go to school?  Are you able to enroll in a training program? Have you secured housing with a supportive friend or family member so that even if you can't afford rent, you can still leave? Are you able to get childcare independent of your partner so that they have no control over whether you're available to work or go to school? You should have access to all important documents & numbers, the social security numbers/cards for yourself & your kids, as well as original copies of all your birth certificates. You should have your & their health insurance cards. You should have a copy of your rental lease or mortgage, even if your name isn't on them. The same goes for your car title / insurance / loan agreement- basically anything you know you'll be responsible for once you're separated from your partner. Gathering these resources is another vital step towards independence & making sure your freedom can't be controlled any longer.
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• Expect the Unexpected

Now that your partner sees their tactics aren't working & that you aren't going to go back to the way things were, they might act in unpredictable ways to offset your emotional stability. Some examples of this I've seen are: refusing to adhere to agreed upon chores & routines (making life harder for you), leaving for long periods of time without telling you where they're going or have been; increased use of drugs & alcohol; relapses into drugs & alcohol after periods of sobriety; threats of self-harm; threats to harm others; full out tantrums including destruction of home & property. They might start spreading lies about you to destroy your reputation & future opportunities. The point is, these will be tactics that you haven't dealt with before. They will be aimed at ruining your progress & making you miserable. Your partner might have reached the conclusion that if they can't stop you, at least they slow you down, perhaps even discourage you into giving up.

When/if this happens,  try to have your life as organized & stable as possible independently of your partner so that if they suddenly leave, or suddenly try to throw you out, or make it impossible for you to live together in a functional way, that you can pick up the pieces fairly easily & still be ok. This is also the time when helpless anger turns to malicious violence, when folks get desperate with the realization that they have nothing else to lose. If your partner has a history of hitting & breaking things, or destroying your property, or blocking your movements, or threatening you, don't wait for it to escalate. Leave NOW! ​​