Why He Cannot Tell a Story Different than Yours

More on Why Words Matter

At Center for Peace, you often hear us say, “Speak your truth” or “Honor your story” because how you describe your experience matters. 

This is important when we are talking about abuse and betrayal, or any other life experience. 

Every human being’s telling of their experience is known in the clinical field as “meaning-making.”

Meaning-making

Just Google it to determine what the social world thinks about this construct.

  “Meaning-making is a process of understanding and making sense of life events, relationships, and the self. It’s a common concept in psychotherapy and counseling, especially when people are grieving or experiencing other losses.  Meaning-making is important because it’s linked to psychological resilience, emotional well-being, and life satisfaction. People who can make meaning out of their experiences are better able to cope with adversity and maintain a positive outlook” (Google, 2024).

What Happens When the Stories Differ?

Have you ever stopped to consider what happens when the experience you tell and what your abusive spouse tells is different?

When your experiences are discounted, minimized, or dismissed, this can alter the rhythms of your central nervous system. 

 …and as we also say at Center for Peace…we (meaning all humans) regulate or dysregulate one another’s central nervous system. 

Words are one of the quickest ways to regulate or dysregulate one another. This can happen in person or via email or text. It happens in public or in private. It can happen in the same space or even when the person is in a location miles away.

Words are Part of our Whole Human Experience

Both language and life experiences create the concepts that are part of our meaning-making. Meanings are often shared concepts with other human beings with whom we are in relationships. 

We are social creatures having social experiences with one another. We help create meaning for our life experiences with the other humans we share life with. 

All human events are whole events. This means they are both psychological and physical events. Our human brain does not experience life events in parts or segments. Our thoughts and our emotions are part of the same experience. We build the components as we experience life. 

Thoughts and emotions do not happen to us. Thoughts and emotions are the agentic actions of being a thinking and feeling human being. We construct these events as part of our mortal experience. We share these constructions with other human beings.

Consider this month of holiday celebrations. If you do not have peace between you and your partner, this holiday may be painful to navigate with an abusive husband.

For example, what if your abusive husband has been acting like he’s having the time of his life? If your family is around, and it isn’t safe for you, you might be stuffing your feelings and thoughts while your husband acts like the life of the party. 

What happens if you share this experience with him after all the family leaves for the evening? How will that go for you?  

I’m sure many of you have lived through this very experience at some point in your life with an abuser.

This is exactly what I am referring to when I asked the question, “What happens when the stories differ?” 

Experience Conflict

Let’s examine the word, “betrayal.” Before experiencing betrayal, I’m confident you did not have the same meaning for the term as you do now. You may have been exposed to the term through other life experiences, which creates a concept for it. Now that you add your personal experience to the concept, it takes on considerable meaning. 

Some people do not have this experiential concept. It may be difficult for those without this experience to understand what you are going through. A more difficult experience conflict occurs when men who target abuse on their wives, have a completely different experiential concept of the meaning of betrayal than you do – even though you two share this experience.

Conditions like this create experience conflict.

Protecting the Words and Message of “Targeted Partner Abuse©”

An abusive man needs to protect himself from a shared experiential concept of abuse or betrayal to establish the level of innocence he wants to achieve and maintain socially (publicly).

For social creatures like human beings to thrive, we need to learn to negotiate with one another. Abusive men do not negotiate. It is not an option. They will not relinquish anything to their wife unless it buys them something transactional.

They do not negotiate behaviors, words, or the story that connects the shared experience. Doing so is counterproductive to their end goal. 

The consequences of this story discrepancy for the wife might include mental, emotional, and often physical dysregulation. Long-term dysregulation can lead to serious illness.

Story Connections and Dis-connections

An abusive man may follow the social norms of group living, or “relationship” set-ups (I put this in quotes because we are not in a relationship with an abuser. They do not relate with/to their wife in a normal, human manner.) as a social cover. They operate with a different set of rules. The problem is, they keep these rules secret because they are not up for negotiation. If the wife knew the rules, she would not consent to being in a so-called “relationship” with the abusive man. 

If you are trying to create a connection and build experiences with a human being that has a different set of values or operational rules — there will be different meaning development. 

He will not want to admit to his secret sexual lifestyle as betraying to you or as infidelity. Most consumers of pornography will not say that viewing porn is infidelity – even though that is exactly what it is to their wife. 

If at some point in the timing, the abusive man does admit to secret behaviors or viewing pornography as problematic, there still may be a great deal of variation in how the story is told.

         *NOTE: I used the term “story” because there is only one story – and that is the truth. Those who want to say there are two sides to the story will be able to find acceptance of this statement by a wife of “Targeted Partner Abuse©” with the caveat that it would be acceptable if you consider one side the truth and the other a lie manufactured for the benefit of the abuser.”

To create a connection between two human beings there needs to be a shared experience. Part of that shared experience includes the language used to tell the story. Words may vary slightly, but if there is a big discrepancy, there will be issues with the two parties.

Making Sense of Shared Experiences

“Sense-making” is another term for “meaning-making.” As stated above, for life to make sense and for relationships to thrive and be successful, a shared experience needs to occur. Language is part of the experience. It is part of the connection. 

If the husband lies about his behavior, or when any discrepancy about the events is shared privately or publicly, it mars the story and the experience for the wife. It creates deep psychological and physical wounds. 

Now she cannot speak of her experiences with him in a shared truth.

This inability to make sense of the experience is lost. It is marred by lies, manipulation, and power over. This is the essence of “Targeted Partner Abuse©.”  Control of the shared story becomes part of her experience. Any effort on her part to remedy the discrepancy typically leads to more abuse from him.

Words Matter

The words we use to describe a shared experience matter. For our minds and bodies to thrive, we need to be in harmony with those with whom we share life.

When you live with an abusive husband who is altering the context of the experience with a different set of verbal descriptors, he is altering your experience. This will dysregulate you. It is unsettling to your central nervous system for the spoken language to conflict with your lived experience. 

Many women whose husbands will not own and correct their abuse, often find staying married untenable for this very reason. The ability to live in constant verbal conflict weakens the immune system and the health of the wife. 

Healing cannot take place if the stories remain at variance. For healing to occur, for any forward purpose to be established, an abusive man must own his actions. This means he must take full responsibility for the impact of the abuse as expressed by his wife. He must make amends for those behaviors – by changing the character and thought patterns that lead to the hurtful choices he’s made. He must return to a life of alignment with his wife – including sharing the narrative of the events.

Year-long Abuse Correction Program

If you are ready to turn your life around and find congruence in how you live and treat your wife. Center for Peace runs a year-long abuse program. We provide the tools to help re-align the story.