Tvisha

“The hardening of an abusive upscale marriage is marked by the following signposts:
• Emotional and physical abuses: The husband’s emotionally and physically abusive behaviors increase and even worsen.
• Coping strategies: The woman’s coping strategies change and intensify to keep up with the husband’s worsening behavior. Her narrative reflects her justifications for staying in her abusive marriage.
• Adapting to the situation: The woman’s denial and rationalizing increases. She uses justification by explanation. She may secretly begin to strategize to leave.
• Mans behaviors that she adapts to: Entitlement, insistence on strict domestic roles, abuse in front of the children or threats to children’s well-being, inadequate or minimal apologies after abusiveness, sexual entitlement and attack on woman’s sexuality.
• Secrecy and isolation: The woman’s need for secrecy increases because there is more to hide and more that she feels would probably be disbelieved.
• Into the fray: The woman’s choices, and her ways of enduring in an abusive marriage and keeping it going, push her that much further into her role as an upscale abused wife.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“The decisive Turning points and precipitating events that emerged for the women I studied or counseled fell into one of the following categories:
• The husband’s threats to his wife or children’s well-being have become increasingly severe (and may include death threats).
• There has been yet another episode of public humiliation.
• The husband’s abuses and infidelities—in some cases including having children with other women—have accumulated and worsened.
• There has been a violent incident requiring medical attention.
• The woman’s sense of support from her family, friends, or coworkers has increased.
• The woman’s reasons for staying have been satisfied, as when the last planned child has been born or the youngest child has left for or
graduated from college.
• The woman has an extramarital affair, which reminds her that she is desirable and that not all men are abusive.”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“Such behaviors, which can be viewed as various aspects of narcissistic entitlement, take any and all of the following forms:
• Demands that are not necessarily clear, discrete, or consistent about
how the wife should look or behave
• Enforcement of specific requirements as to meal preparation
• Expectations about and imposition of strict domestic roles, especially refusal to help out with childrearing
• Refusal to apologize, even after brutal attacks
• Blaming the wife for any household mishap, whatever the cause
• Creating shifting sands—unpredictable changes in expectations, conflicting and contradictory messages that throw the wife off balance
• Demeaning attacks on the wife’s femininity, sexuality, appearance, and maternal behavior
• Absence of the honeymoon phase after violent episodes or emotionally abusive tirades (or short-lived post-abuse honeymoons)
• Feeling of impunity regarding his behavior
• Interest only in his own sexual gratification and disregard for the wife’s needs, leading sometimes to multiple extramarital affairs, to
which he feels entitled
• Violent reactions to pregnancies; belief that the child is an interloper who threatens his power
• Using money and power as leverage or threat
• Isolating the wife from her friends and family
• Possessiveness and/or jealousy”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages

“The narcissist, says Gunther,
• expects absolute control over the other’s behavior
• expects the other to respond perfectly
• has an utter incapacity for empathy with the other, the other’s behavior, or the other’s motives
• is unable to distinguish his own issue or problem from the other as a separate entity”
― Susan Weitzman, Not To People Like Us: Hidden Abuse In Upscale Marriages