Or better said, know your brain – know your life!
This might be a bit of a risk to quote (and then tear apart) well-known and well-liked psychology theories. To ensure the right preface is in place, let me begin with the caveat, I write from an informed and trained point of view. I’m sure every author, blogger, or influencer believes they do the same. As is true in most topics we as humans are interested in, there are many different thought camps. In short, we may write from different ideologies, but we write, believing in what we have to say.
The decision to follow a certain construct belongs to the reader/learner.
Understanding the Brain
I talk a lot about the brain. Why? Well, because we all have brains, and we all have been taught a lot of — wrong ideas about the brain. One of my favorite myths is that men and women have different brains. I want to smack my head against the wall when I hear people talk like this. It is just not true.
The human brain is a powerful source point for the owner of that brain. When we learn things wrong, those false beliefs can cause us a lot of harm.
Take trauma for instance, while abuse is deeply painful for the one experiencing the abuse, it doesn’t damage our brain — it impacts our thoughts and our emotions which make up our life experience.
It does this because we construct meaning of the abuse events during very difficult and uncertain moments. To complicate this — this pattern of experience making is constantly happening when we live with an abuser. This makes it difficult to construct new meaning for the things we are dealing with.
Humans Have a Brain That is Predictive
Humans have brains that function by prediction, not by reaction. It makes sense that we often feel like thoughts and emotions happen to us – thus we react to things in our world. That is not how the brain works structurally.
Human brains construct and categorize our experiences – which become the summary of thoughts, feelings, events in the body (things we sense/see/hear/taste, etc.) and events in the world. In psychology, we would call this memory, more accurately – these are experiences.
These experiences are how the brain predicts action plans – any movement, including emoting – that make up our lives, or how our bodies function to keep us alive. Past experiences inform our future actions, thus creating a present experience. When we live with someone exercising “Targeted Partner Abuse©,” our experiences can be very costly to us, and it can be difficult to regulate ourselves.
What Does this Mean for Victims of “Targeted Partner Abuse©”?
The title of this blog is taken from a pop-science book that has quite a bit of traction (like the infamous body book). It has some helpful and some very wrong science. What we are doing when we make changes is changing the meaning of our experience predictions.
So how does this help you as a wife of someone who exercises “Targeted Partner Abuse©”? It works when we take the time to do the difficult work of changing the meaning of the experience.
Some of you may be saying, “But Coach, that is a big ask when I am so distressed over the constant abuse.” You are spot on with thoughts like this. Which is why a good abuse/trauma professional will not recommend reconstructing or reframing work in the early days of discovery, or after a huge abuse event.
Doing reconstructing work should wait until there is a solid understanding of what you’ve experienced, some safety established, and the wife feels ready to move forward on a path she has chosen.
The More you Understand Your Brain, the Better you can Manage Life
Sometimes no matter how much effort you put into your marriage, your husband may continue to think and behave like an abusive man. He may argue, discount, and defend his position without what appears to be a single care for how you feel or what you need.
At some point, for your well-being, you may need to adjust the effort you put into how you live your life with him. There are options. There are ways to live a happy, peaceful life whether you stay in the marriage or leave. A lot of this can be yours with restructuring techniques we teach at Center for Peace.
Are you Ready to Know Your Brain?
If you are the wife of someone using “Targeted Partner Abuse©” and you want to move forward, navigating your life in the best way possible, schedule a session.
If you have been abusing your wife and are ready to take responsibility for your actions, make amends for the harm caused and correct the thinking patterns that have led you to choose abuse, we’re available for help