In Love with a Monster

In Love with a Monster

Lena Ma

Published by Lena Ma Publishing, 2022.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

IN LOVE WITH A MONSTER

First edition. February 5, 2022.

Copyright © 2022 Lena Ma.

ISBN: 978-1952716492

Written by Lena Ma.

In Love

With A Monster

Life in an Abusive Relationship

In Love

With A Monster

Life in an Abusive Relationship

*Trigger Warning: This book may contain triggering and/or sensitive material to some readers. Violence, sexual assault, and spousal abuse are some topics mentioned in the following chapters. If you feel triggered, please know there are resources available to help you. This book focuses on the perspective of women in abusive relationships. We understand that men are victims of domestic abuse also. In no way are we putting all the blame solely on one gender.

In Love With A Monster

Life in an Abusive Relationship

© Copyright 2022 Lena Ma

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Design by RJ Creatives

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Facts vs. Myths of Domestic Abuse

Chapter Two

What is Domestic Abuse?

Chapter Three

Sexual Abuse

Chapter Four

Psychological vs. Physical

Chapter Five

Male Privilege

Chapter Six

Empty Apologies

Chapter Seven

Are Abusers Born or Created?

Chapter Eight

Red Flags

Chapter Nine

Love Bombing & Lies

Chapter Ten

The Power Struggle

Chapter Eleven

Regret

Chapter Twelve

Guilt & Victim Blaming

Chapter Thirteen

Mental Health Issues Do Not Equal Abuse

Chapter Fourteen

Why Victims Stay & How They Get Trapped

Chapter Fifteen

The Barriers to Getting Free

Chapter Sixteen

Just Let Her Go

Chapter Seventeen

Stockholm or Prisoner Syndrome & Likelihood of Murder

Chapter Eighteen

When to Involve the Police

Chapter Nineteen

The Victim Becomes the Abuser

Chapter Twenty

The Deadly Nature of Continued Mental Abuse

Chapter Twenty-One

Desperation of the Abuser

Chapter Twenty-Two

Inside the Abuser’s Head

Chapter Twenty-Three

Can You Love an Abuser?

Chapter Twenty-Four

Can He Be Forgiven?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Change Isn’t Easy

Chapter Twenty-Six

The Psychological Warfare of Abuse

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It’s Over. Now What?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Premeditated Abuse: Steps Abusers Take to Hurt Others

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Time to Put Our Knowledge to the Test

Chapter One

Facts vs. Myths of Domestic Abuse

I once had a friend who would give everything she had to her husband – her heart, her time, her money, her tears, and eventually, even her life. She never saw it coming. A once fun-loving and compassionate man turned a complete 180 degrees barely two weeks after their promise under the grace of God to swear their lives to each other, to become husband and wife.

The crazy thing is, I knew her husband very well. We were best friends before their engagement and promise of holy matrimony. Sure, there were some anger issues, as there are in all living beings. But other than the occasional temper tantrum, he seemed about as normal as any other man. And she saw that. He treated my friend like a woman deserves to be treated in a relationship. He adored her every step. They were happy together, as happy as any couple could be, spending a year living as committed partners before officially tying the knot.

Judging from his exterior, nobody would have ever known that he was much more violent than anyone would have ever deemed him to be, a true monster hidden beneath a hard, shallow shell of a man. Especially not her. She loved him, so much so that she failed to see the warning signs, even though they were right in front of her face.

Each slap was followed by an excuse for his stress. Each scar was followed by an excuse of an accident. Each bruise was followed by an excuse that she deserved it. She always had a cover up for his heinous behaviors, hiding her sadness and fear behind layers of clothing and overgrown hair. As a recent graduate of an Ivy League university, she was not a foolish girl. She had been careful in her relationships before, seeing signs from men who weren’t right for her and quickly leaving, never turning back. But this man was different. It was as if he had cast some sort of spell over her, a spell she couldn’t break out of even if her life depended on it.

As quickly as he came into her life and swept her off her feet, he grabbed her by the neck and threw her against the wall. But it was too late. She was hooked, trapped in an endless cycle of excuses and torment that she now struggled to remove herself from. A month passed. Then three months. Six months. The violence continued inside the home of Valerie Watson until the beautiful, intelligent girl I once knew met her very death at the young age of 25.

Okay, pause. Domestic abuse is a dark and disturbing topic. Not one to be taken lightly. We know that abusers are manipulators who will lie to get whatever they want. What’s even more concerning is just how much their abnormal ways of thinking and acting towards women has seeped into our collective consciousness at a societal level. In this next chapter, we will see how a victim’s mind gets toyed with until nothing makes sense to her anymore, or until she begins to think she’s the crazy one! Can you separate the facts from fiction? Play along.

Myth: Domestic violence only affects women.

Fact: 1 in 3 women, and 1 in 4 men, are physically abused (in some way) by an intimate partner. 30% to 50% of transgender people will face domestic violence in their lifetime.

Myth: Drugs, alcohol, stress, and mental illness are the causes of domestic violence.

Fact: Although drugs, alcohol, stress, and mental illness can be factors in a life of abuse and can certainly complicate a disgusting situation, they do not lead to domestic violence.

Myth: Abusers are simply out of control and need to control their anger.

Fact: Many abusers use deliberate tactics to maintain power and control in a relationship. Sometimes, these measures can involve physical violence and aggression, but there are many other ways to overcome them.

Myth: Domestic violence is always physical abuse.

Fact: While physical abuse can be a means of maintaining power and control, it is not found in every abusive relationship, and if it does occur, it is usually not just abuse. Emotional exploitation, financial exploitation, sexual exploitation, loneliness, threats, and intimidation are all forms of domestic violence.

Myth: If the prey does not leave the predator, maybe their situation is not so bad, or the victim is being treated well enough.

Fact: It’s hard to break a bad relationship. On average, the victim will try to leave an abusive relationship at least eight times before successfully leaving. Some tricks to make a victim stay can include: creating financial dependence, using children as a tool of oppression, and threatening violence or legal reprisals, even after the judicial system has gotten involved.

Chapter Two

What is Domestic Abuse?

When we hear the words domestic violence, our minds tend to move toward physical abuse and, in particular, physical abuse carried out against women by the hands of men. Despite this commonly held belief, it’s not always the case with violence happening inside a household. Domestic violence can occur in any form. Victims of abuse have the potential to be women, men, LGBTQ+ folks, and sadly, even children or pets. Abuse knows no age or race limits. It occurs all over the world, and no one is immune. Specifically, this book will seek to address domestic violence between men and women.

To start, we need to first talk about how domestic violence isn’t limited to physical violence alone. Domestic violence is any type of abuse where the motivation of the abuser is to victimize their wife, girlfriend, companion, partner, beau, child, or relative. Ultimately, abuse is a choice. It isn’t fair to claim that it is brought about by rage, mental illness, medical issues, or any other singular reason.

While these accompanying issues can certainly play a big part in learning about why someone might choose to abuse another human being, let us be clear: we are not implying causation. Having anger problems doesn’t cause a person to become abusive. They consciously choose to act this way, despite their own emotions or personal demons.

Let’s address another popular misconception. Presently, when the overall population imagines scenarios involving domestic abuse, they, for the most part, think about physical attacks that leave victims with noticeable wounds. This includes: cuts, bruises, broken bones, etc. At work, a colleague might notice dark purple bruising around a female coworkers’ neck. Or during a family holiday dinner, maybe a worried uncle points out that his niece seems to be awfully clumsy around the house, since it seems that every time they get together, she’s sporting a new cast, crutch, or arm sling.

Physical violence is often the most easily recognized by outsiders because it’s just that – visible. But there are other classifications of abusive conduct beyond bodily injury. Regardless, it goes without saying that physical violence can be lethal. A victim who experiences hands-on abuse is at a higher risk of death. In fact, a UN study found that approximately 30,000 women die every year worldwide, thanks to domestic abusers. If this statistic is horrifying and leaves you feeling a ball in the pit of your stomach…good. It should.

Domestic abuse is a crime. But the drawn-out decimation of personhood that comes along with different types of abuse – like psychological – can’t be ignored either.

Below, we are going to investigate the various components of abuse. The signs of domestic violence are sinister…and not always easy to see. The fact of the matter is, men have been responsible for murdering their female partners since the dawn of time. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, it’s still happening at an alarming rate.

As any survivor will attest to, there are many different types of abuse. They range from mental to physical to sexual. Or a horrific combination of all three. No matter how hard a woman fights back against an abusive partner, she is already at a disadvantage because domestic abuse is rooted in male privilege (more on this later). Additional types of abuse include: disengagement, verbal, such as using coercion, threats, or blame, as well as financial abuse. But the first red flag in any abusive relationship is control.

Control is inherently involved in domestic abuse. Men who abuse others are naturally drawn to the feeling of power it gives. Men who are weak – or feel that they are perceived as weak by societal standards – gravitate toward lording power over anyone they can. This lends to a false sense of superiority and inflated importance. Never mind that only bullies prey on those less powerful than themselves.

For the abuser, it doesn’t matter. We know that extremely controlling behavior is one popular path domestic abusers usually follow. Why? Well, because it’s an effective way for an abuser to exert total dominance over their victim. Exercising control isn’t as easy to object to as, say, a slap across the cheek. A woman who is hit by her partner might be so shocked by his actions, she immediately flees.

Controlling behavior, on the other hand, is frequently inconspicuous, tricky to pinpoint, and starts off slow. Over time, the obsessive controlling nature of an abuser builds up and up and up until, finally, a woman no longer recognizes just how bad the situation has become. By then, she’s stuck.

Obsessive control is like a dark shadow. Always there, hovering at a woman’s heels and impossible to get rid of. It might start out as something small. For example, a husband asserting that he is the one responsible for filling up the gas tank for the family vehicle. On one hand, this seems nice. How helpful! The man of the house gets the gas.

However, this oftentimes leads to more concerning control-freak habits. An abusive partner might check the mileage on the odometer after a grocery store run because they are paranoid about where their girlfriend/wife is going or who she’s seeing. It could also look like limiting access to a car by hiding the keys, or withholding money to limit their access to freedom.

In one terrifying case, an abuser even went so far as to install a tracking system. A mechanic in the US posted a video during a routine check of a female client’s car. When he lifted the car up to inspect the bottom, he made a gut-twisting discovery. Her ex-boyfriend had secretly placed a small tracking device by the wheel. The woman had been suspicious that she was being followed, and so this mechanic literally could have saved her life by ripping out the machine.

After this story blew up, another mechanic chimed in to say he finds similar tracking devices on women’s cars all the time. As we can see, abusers go to extreme lengths to control their victims’ movements.

If you think that’s scary, listen to this. Phone usage is the second most common way that abusers exert control. Yes, that’s right. Even something as simple as a phone call can become deadly in a domestic abuse situation.

Abusers have been known to observe phone calls in the background or listen in on private conversations. They might demand the use of speaker phone. When their wife or partner is taking a