"Get him to hit you!"

I've remembered a small thing. I was once with an aggressive man who was frequently verbally and emotionally abusive towards me. This man used his physicality to intimidate me, pushed me once and ran at me to throw his fist in my face - but did not actually hit me. He meant to make me think he was going to. Of course I didn't know that at the time. I thought he was about to punch me in the face and break my nose in front of our toddler. These details are shared for background, not for sympathy. This man and I have put the past way behind us and moved forward for the sake of our shared child (who doesn't seem to remember the above incident).

That act was the last straw for me. I called my father and explained that this man had been bullying me for a very long time. The male parent said, well, if you need to leave, I'll provide you with money. We agreed that having someone else know what was going on would provoke a change, and that I was safer with someone else knowing.

Then we discussed a storyline running in a soap my stepmother watched: an abusive and violent husband beating up his wife. The male parent said, "Yes, we've noticed the parallells between you and the TV show. It wouldn't necessarily be all bad if he hit you. You should provoke him, get him to hit you, then you can get the police to get him out of the house."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is an example of just how manipulative an alienator can be. This parent of mine actively wanted harm to come to me in order to get rid of my partner. To me, this demonstrates a clear opinion of me as an object. I didn't want to be hit in order for my partner to leave! I wanted my partner to go to counselling with me to rebuild our family! I didn't want to provoke him because I WAS scared of him, but also because I'm not like that. It would have been a lie - but my male parent clearly saw nothing wrong with it. I cry when my offspring have hurt feelings - that parent could think about and actually want physical harm to come to me to achieve an aim - to "win" publically.