In 1963, Andy Williams’ song, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” was released.  Can you imagine walking through shopping malls at Christmas time, hearing this and other jolly tunes filling the space, when you know that this is most definitely not the most wonderful time of the year?

For women in abusive relationships, there is additional stress. They are burdened with the task of having to act as though they are living a “normal” life.  They do this for the sake of their young children; wanting their children to not miss out on the joy, excitement and “magic” of Christmas that other little children are experiencing.  And below, I’ll explain the other reason for this acting.

Some people believe that there is a rise in the amount of domestic violence over the holidays.  Whilst it is true that increased alcohol consumption could fuel tempers, “ … data available from the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) shows a decline in the number of calls received during the holidays, including on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day”.  Source: https://nrcdv.org/publications/holiday-toolbox/  Retrieved 12/19/19.  This makes sense to me.

Domestic Violence is primarily a “Behind closed doors” phenomenon.  Holidays are typically times when extended family are around. Victims are expected by their abusive partners to put on a show that presents a picture of a loving, supportive relationship and family unit.  If she were to be witnessed by him, revealing any sort of indication to her family, (from which he usually isolates her), that he is anything less than the perfect partner or father, she would pay the price later once alone with him and out of earshot of potential protectors.  She knows this. She has been threatened. And from experience, she knows that his threats are carried out.

Decrease or increase in Domestic Violence reporting at Christmas time, for women who are in an abusive relationship, there is no one time of year that is exempt from the possibility of being abused.  “Incidents don’t happen on particular days, the abuser and victim are always somewhere in the pattern of abuse.” Source: https://breakthesilencedv.org/debunking-myths-dv-and-the-holidays/  Retrieved 12/19/19.

To trust, or not to trust?  That is the question.  After exiting from a relationship in which one was abused, how ought one best approach the issue of trust?  In my case, possibly unusually, despite having been quite severely abused, both physically and emotionally, I did not struggle to trust future men who entered my life as potential partners.  Am I saying that this is a positive thing?

On the one hand, I believe it is.  For it means that I was not allowing the bad behavior/character of my abusive ex-boyfriend to lead me to automatically distrust other men, therefore giving any new man in my life a fair chance to show me naturally whether he was to be trusted or not.

On the other hand, I am questioning the ease with which I trust men.  Is this innate trust that I seem to have perhaps one of the factors that led me deeper, further, into an abusive relationship?  Trusting when it wasn’t earned, when it wasn’t deserved.  Trusting when to others it would have been obvious that the man cannot be trusted!

In the abusive relationship that I found myself in, and in a subsequent long-term relationship in which my partner was, unbeknownst to me, cheating on me, I most definitely had a habit of giving the man I was with, the benefit of the doubt.  Again, and again, and again.  And that was despite my doubts, my suspicions, the warning signs!  So, given that I did see the “red flags”, we can say that this is not a case of blindly trusting.  So, on what basis has my trust lived?

I have asked myself this question.  My deep well of trust was not born out of naivety.  I saw the signs that pointed towards reasons to either at least suspend judgment as to whether something that he said was true, or to veer towards distrusting his future actions in advance because of so many past let-downs.  Let-downs like the broken promises to change, to do better.  So, why did I keep trusting?  Actually, I think the more pertinent question is: Why did I keep hoping?  Hoping that things would change for the better.  Hoping that he would stop hurting me, in any form.  I think the simple answer to that, although it is actually more complicated, is twofold.  1. Since I find it so difficult to “wrap my head around” the fact that a person can and does hurt another person, especially his/her partner, I struggle to believe, or perhaps to accept, that a person would not want to change his/her behavior and work seriously hard on doing so.  And 2. Because I wanted so very much for him to change, as there were some things about him and our relationship that I loved, I didn’t want to lose those things and I fantasized about his cruel ‘side’ leaving him.

So, when does one give up hoping that things will change?  When is enough, enough?!