Wednesday

Cheating and Money: He Might Kill Me If I...

The abuser uses his girlfriend's money to buy gas for the car that he drives to meet someone else.  The victim suspects that there is something very wrong in the relationship, yet she says nothing.  She is fearful that if she should approach him with anything that might even look a little bit like she might be starting an argument, he might flip out.

Cheaters don't believe that what they do is wrong.  They justify their cheating ways by saying, "I am just pleasing myself... besides my girlfriend doesn't care about me...She doesn't appreciate me."  Why would a victim care about a cheating man who she is fearful might hurt her?  Abusers don't realize they are to blame when it comes to the brokenness of their victims.  Why doesn't she talk to her man anymore?  Why doesn't she act comfortable around him?  Why doesn't she bother to have sex with him?  These questions and more arise when one feels hurt, abused, and used.  Some women bounce back into the arms of another while others are forever ruined--jumping from one relationship to the next in the hopes that, "This time it will be different."

Sometimes the cheater/abuser has girlfriends that are just as crazy as he.  His victim doesn't want to cause too much of a stink about what she knows because she doesn't want the drama coming to her house, stalking her, or damaging her property.  So she goes along with her abuser's lies for a time.  She tells herself, "I am just over-reacting, he might really be good this time..."  If  he is behaving nicely and honestly, for how long this time?  Maybe until the victim's menstrual cycle starts back up again.  Maybe until she stops giving him money.  Maybe until she has the nerve to approach him.  It is then that the cheating might start back up like a woman getting beat yet again for doing nothing more than bringing up a topic that her abuser doesn't want to hear.

The little voice that says, "He might kill me if I....He might do that if I...He might..." whatever he might do as a result of sharing your concern with him is a voice of caution, but it isn't meant to keep you in a place of stress, worry and fear.  Use that voice to motivate you to do something different!  How much longer will the victim continue to listen to that voice in her head that tells her in so many words, "Stay, it will get better."  But what if it doesn't?

Nicholl McGuire is the blogger who maintains this site and others.  She also wrote Laboring to Love an Abusive Mate and Laboring to Love Myself, Amazon.com

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God didn't put you with an abusive mate. Your flesh did.