How to Live with an Abuser and Thrive: November 2024

It's not about courage; it's about strategy.

Two nights ago, our country signed a four-year contract to enter into what will be a very explicit instantiation of “domestic abuse” in America. It would be great if we had the option to just leave, to “break up,” but we don’t. We’re all living with an abuser now—two of them, actually, about to take the helm of this American ship, and a band of henchmen doing their bidding and carrying out their missions in the dark. Millions of others—many of whom are teaching our children, caring for our loved ones, running our corporations and institutions, and leading our local governments—brokered this contract against the will of the rest of us. A lot of those co-signers are sleeping next to us. What do we do with that?

That you might be able to leave, and I suspect the aftermath of what happened this week will be reflected in dissolution and divorce rates in the coming months and years; it’ll be witnessed in liberal young women’s increasing unwillingness to date conservative young men and those conservative young men in turn becoming increasingly angry and violent and unhinged; it’ll shift the landscape of Big Christianity in America as more and more young men flock to the church, eager to fill up the pews that are being just as rapidly vacated by their female peers.

But what do we do while all those things are happening? How do we live in the interim? How do we survive in a way that preserves our energy and holds our psyches intact? Because living with an abuser is both terrifying and exhausting, and when you combine fear with exhaustion the most likely outcome is surrender, is capitulation. This is why women stay.

And right now, in America, there’s a lot of talk about not giving up, holding onto hope, fighting the good fight, and playing the long game, but how do we live each day? We need a very practical and non-feelings-based plan to survive the next four years (or eight years, or however long it’s going to be); we need to understand the dynamics of abusive relationships so that we can endure this time. Here’s how:

Make the shift.

Many women who have lived with abusers—some for decades—are able to identify the moment they quietly shifted into some other gear. It’s a subtle “click” that can be felt more than heard. Once you feel that shift, it becomes impossible to see the situation as anything other than what it is, which is abuse. It forces you to confront the reality that your partner is not only not on your team but actively engaged as your enemy; he is working against you to hurt you. This is diabolical, to knowingly harm the person you’re supposed to love and support, so it’s difficult to accept, but if you don’t accept it, the only option you have is delusion.

We can’t afford more delusion; delusion paved a path to installing a sociopath in the White House. Twice.

I keep a note on my desktop that says, “In life, the person with the strongest reality wins.” Keep yourself grounded in reality. There’s a dignity in calling a situation what it is, even if that situation really sucks. On a personal level, this prepares you for what you’ll need to do next; on a national level, it renders us able to participate in an eventual restoration of democracy. We’re never going to be able to fix anything if the whole country has a collective case of Stockholm syndrome.

Engage as little as possible with the abuser.

We now have an Abuser-in-Chief, and anyone aligned with him is aiding and abetting that abuse. Abusers want you to interact with them — they need a target . In order to avoid unnecessary engagement, you have to trick them. You have to let them think they’re controlling you when they’re not. The reason you must do this is that you cannot risk expending all your energy arguing with an opponent who’s never going to hear you anyway; instead, you must channel the resources of your one wild and precious life toward yourself and toward those who are aligned with you, those who will support and uphold you.

There’s a trick you can use to do this, and it’s called “grey-rocking.”  The goal of grey-rocking is to render yourself as neutral and uninteresting as possible (become a grey rock) so that abusive behavior is not rewarded/reinforced. It’s not as simple as ignoring your abuser — being ignored enrages abusers, so you have to be craftier about it than that.

Here’s an example:

Abuser: “You’re crazy, you know. You realize you’re being crazy, right?”,

Person living with abuser: “I’m definitely struggling. I should probably get some help.”

What the abuser hears the person saying: “You’re right. I’m the crazy one here.”

What the person actually means: “I recognize that this situation is crazy. I’m going to get some help getting away from it. I’m going to help myself get away from you.”

But you don’t unpack the nuance to the abuser; you let the abuser think they’ve got you so that you can do your work in private and in peace. That’s what we’re going to have to do as a nation for a little bit here: Stop engaging with the abusers — try to mollify them for a while so that we can strategize an end to this vicious situation.

Here’s a humorous example of grey-rocking, in which male boredom becomes the veil for female action:

In the case of both domestic violence and the authoritarian regime we’re probably about to experience, grey-rocking can help keep you safe during the time you must be in an enemy’s presence, and it subtly constructs a boundary wall between them and you so that you can gather your wits and energies toward propelling yourself forward and away from them.

Build and nurture your support circles.

You need safe and quiet places to seek reprieve, even for small moments. If there’s one “good” thing about this particular abusive household we’re all going to live in, it’s that there are plenty of other members who are ready to unite against the abuse. Band together and take shelter in that community.

Support younger women and girls, explicitly.

We’re about to be collectively gaslit for at least the next four years, and even if we can’t get our girls out of this house fast enough, it’s important in an abusive situation to continually “correct the record” of gaslighting with logic and facts. This is exhausting, so you should try to do it as calmly and dispassionately as possible. Here’s another important point: do not squander your energy correcting the gaslighters TO the gaslighters; they already know they’re gaslighting — our job now is to correct it to those who are young, susceptible, confused, and frightened. Our job is to affirm their gut feelings by giving words to the cognitive clashes they will begin to viscerally experience.

Support young men by offering them more authentic examples of masculinity.

What they are going to witness from the national stage, which is currently being transformed into a circus conducted by evil clowns, will be disorienting at best and appealing at worst—there’s something empowering about being given the message that you are not only entitled to everything but welcome to seize it without consent. The adults in the house must continually translate, confront, debunk, and offer healthier messages.

Channel your energy into shoring up your own resources.

This is vitally important, and here’s what it means: save your money ; get a job if you don’t already have one; dedicate yourself to your career in ways that increase your power — work toward the promotion, the raise, the advanced tech skills. If you’ve been wanting to seek further education, and if this is a possible thing for you to do, do it now. And be pragmatic. I hate to say this, but now is not the time to “follow your passion”; it’s the time to seek the types of training and certifications that PAY you and offer you good benefits. You can do more in the world when you’re less dependent upon others. Get less dependent, however you can, and as quickly as you can.

Keep your sense of humor.

Even in really really dark situations, it is possible to look at your abuser and think, “You’re a moron. And you’re not going to live forever.” We are going to outlive this particular moron or set of morons, and there is going to be a world beyond them, and we need to keep ourselves safe and sane and together so that we’re prepared to ascend in that world. I know it seems hidden beyond some distant horizon right now, but it’s still out there.

Do whatever you need to do to feel safe, and don’t feel bad about it.

If you have to humiliate yourself to say safe, if you have to lie, if you have to pretend to believe things you don’t believe, that’s okay. If you need to feign illness to avoid your family at Thanksgiving, then go ahead and do that. If you need to fake “seeing the light” in order to appease your toxic boss and keep your horrible job, then do that, but mock him to others who are on your side so that you can keep yourself grounded in actual reality. Do that while you’re looking for other jobs. Help other people feel safe. There are a lot of women sleeping with the enemy right now, in a more literal way than how the entire nation is symbolically sleeping with the enemy. If those women are looking for an immediate way out, offer them your couch.

Remember that it takes, on average, seven attempts to leave an abuser.

Two failures, or six failures, are still steps on a path to freedom. We were hoping freedom would be initiated in this election, and it wasn’t, but statistically this does not predict our life sentences. Bide your time, build your core strengths, and align yourself with everyone else who’s trapped (we’re all trapped; align yourself with people who recognize the trap for what it is); we need to prepare to emerge from the trap healthy and strong.

I realize there are people who will find this analogy hyperbolic, or histrionic, or—gasp—DRAMATIC. That’s fine. Those are people who’ve never had to figure out how to exist at someone else’s mercy, who have a level of privilege that makes this entire debacle not feel like a threat. We are not engaging with those people (grey-rock them right now); we’re reaching toward each other—toward everyone who “gets it”—and we’re going to try to help everyone else in the reach. Last week, Trump said he would “protect women whether they like it or not,” which is of course insane. Instead, we will protect ourselves; these are some ideas for how to do that in this miserable in-between so that we’re prepared to exit sane and healthy and whole on the other side.