Are you being abused in your relationship and dont know it?In the world of dating and relationships abuse can also happen at a very subtle level. There is no screaming, no shouting, no beating, yet one person is being abused in the relationship by the other person in the relationship. Here journalist Shailaza Singh discusses various forms of abuse with psychotherapist Jyotika Kapur https://anchor.fm/mattersoftheheart01/episodes/The-dating-game-part-2-e2assm2
Category: emotional blackmail
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As a woman, why am I only asked to understand and adjust?
Recently I saw a video where a woman was talking about how the value of a woman is perceived by how much she gives in her various relationships. People consider her a good woman if she is a good daughter or mother or sister or wife. There is no value attached to her relationship with her own self. If she places a premium on her life, her time or her ambitions, she is termed as selfish or self centred or self obsessed.
My brother came to visit us. My brother is a single guy who lives alone with his pet dogs. For him, the world is all about I, me, myself. It is his dogs, his life, his time, his pain. When he came to my house with his three dogs, he asked my daughter to take care of them while he relaxed around or. His dogs have a habit of pooping every now and then and it was my daughter’s job to clean the poop up.
For sometime, she did it but then she grew tired of it and refused. When my brother complained to my mother,my mom rang me up and said that I am not giving the right values to my child. I told her that my daughter was tired of picking up the poop but she insisted that my daughter should not be so ‘selfish’ and take care of her uncle’s dogs. When I protested, she warned me about the consequences of raising a selfish child and how she would not take care of me when I grow older. Interestingly when I go to my brother’s house, there too I am supposed to take care of everything…no reprieve. If I protest, my mother resorts to emotional blackmail. If I express my angst or displeasure in doing something, my family starts saying that I am not grateful for whatever they have done for me. For women love is all about a favour that people bestow on them..but for men love is their right no matter who they are?
Why is it that as a woman I am supposed to give in everytime? I am supposed to understand but not be understood? I am supposed to stand up for everyone but no one to stand up for me and if I stand up for myself then I am reminded of all the ‘favours’ that people have done for me and how I am such an ungrateful person? No one remembers the times I stood up for them or the things that I did for them? I am told to be quiet but they can speak?
#relationships #toxicrelationships #women
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What caused the women to rebel?
Sometimes, when I think of my grandmother or great grandmother or other women before them, I wonder how they were able to live with one person and his family for the rest of their lives. Heck! there wasn’t even some sort of a transition phase or perhaps an internship of sorts where they could understand the environment in their marital home before they settled in for ever. How did they then adjust to such a situation? Why didn’t they think of taking a divorce or something? Were there no problems in their lives? Did they really love their husbands?
I have been closely observing a lot of relationship these days. Especially, the ones where people have grown old with each other. Men and women in these relationships often keep commenting or throwing barbs at each other. In fact, in most, there is nothing lovey dovey left. But it seems that there is a level of patience and tolerance that they have with each other. It is that same tolerance which a parent has when he finds his child with the mic and trying to sing poems and songs in a hall full of guests in an official party. I would call it ‘loving tolerance’.
However, that tolerance does not exist in today’s world in most marriages. Women or men want a perfect, psychic partner who is completely at their beck and command.
I remember an incident where a friend of mine, Anamika was shouting at her younger brother. Her father came and asked her the reason for this shouting. She said, “Every time he hits me, you ask me to forgive him but you never say anything to him.”
Her father said, “He is younger to you.”
“Only by three years. He is nine, I am twelve. He is younger to me at 9 but when I was 9, I was older. I am tired of being the older, more understanding and compassionate sister.”
Perhaps that is what has happened with women. Women have grown tired of being understanding, loving and caring or the better half of the society, while the world says, ‘men will be men.’ Women are expected to do and understand everything about the world as if they have achieved some sort of nirvana but the men have remained the same. The excuse is the same- ‘ He is your husband’ or ‘ You are now married to him. Have patience, he will understand.’ In other words, ‘Wait! He will grow up!’
But men refuse to understand or grow up. The prejudices, the mindsets, the problems have remained the same and perhaps that is why women have rebelled!
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The Almighty Child!
The Almighty Child The Man held his new born Child in his arms and looked at his wife lying on the bed. ‘My Child is my life and I shall do everything to keep him happy. You shall want for nothing my Child,’ he said as he handed his Child to his wife. The wife held her Child and heaved a sigh. She knew she had accomplished her purpose of life. She now had a Child who would raise her status in the world. She would be the envy of all women who were trying hard to get a child but had failed.
Suddenly, the Child started crying. The Man was startled and slapped his wife hard. ‘I never want to hear my Child cry! Do you hear? If I hear him crying, I will punish you!’
The wife looked at him and sobbed quietly. She fed him and put him to sleep. With time, the Child grew into an adult. His parents dotted on him and he could do no wrong. They could not see that he had grown up. In their mind’s eye, he was still a Child. Before he could experience the chill of the winter, they got him the warmest clothes in the country. When summer came, he had the coolest room in the house while his his other siblings sweated in the heat.
The Child did not like the usual food. He liked to bite out small pieces of flesh from his both parents’ belly. Every time, he felt hungry, he would start crying and his mother would come running. She bared her heart and belly to him and he used to take big bites. The mother bled profusely but did not utter a single word of protest. The other siblings watched helplessly. The father had already grown weak because the Child kept taking huge bites out of him. The siblings weren’t also spared. The parents begged the siblings to let the Child take his fill from them so that they could be spared. The Man and wife remembered all the children they had killed to get this Child.
Soon, there was no flesh left on the family because the Child kept inviting his friends to feast on them. The sisters soon realized that the Child did not care about anyone except his own survival. He cried when he needed to feast. They were helpless when he cried and offered him every bit of their flesh. Yet the Child shouted at them because now his hunger could no longer be appeased with mere flesh. He threatened the family that he would die if he did not get what he wanted and the family had no choice but to relent to the Child! He constantly tormented them with words that would cut their hearts to pieces.
Have you met such a Child? Whose fault is it that some children eat up their own family to satisfy their never-ending hunger? Do comment and let me know your thoughts.
This is a work of fiction. It has no resemblance to any person living or dead. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or actual events is purely coincidental!
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