No doubt, many married women have been quietly observing (and hopefully absorbing) the lessons of BHDM. I can’t say for certain that this method would have sped up my divorce decision years ago, but it surely would have made me less able to deny what was happening in my marriage. These are painful but important truths, this one being the truthy-est:
“It’s better to live honestly and consciously in a shitty reality than to gaslight yourself into false narratives that serve others as you destroy yourself from the inside out.“
I feel incredibly lucky to be on the other side of the bridge. The hardest truth for me now is knowing that many women will NOT be able to get there, for reasons that we all understand (and that you discuss here with great care and empathy, Jennie). It feels like a soldier heading to battle - you look around and know that some of your fellow troops will not return home.
What I know for sure is that your work is saving lives, saving sanity, saving multiple generations. Reading BHDM success stories is always wonderful, but witnessing this community crush the patriarchy is truly inspiring. Thank you for what you have created.
I know for sure would have had the recognition of the reality I was living far sooner if I were already married and learned this. But even at the very beginning, there were huge red flags that would have prevented me from going further with the relationship in the first place if I knew the patterns beforehand.
"Denying reality makes people insane—literally. It’s better to live honestly and consciously in a shitty reality than to gaslight yourself into false narratives that serve others as you destroy yourself from the inside out. " That's brilliant. I need this in a shorter version to put on a coffee cup.
Something I've been wondering for a while, I'm in my 40s and feel like I've woken up. Learning to really SEE the world, deprogram myself. Now I see it everywhere.
Have I landed in my own little internet corner of "awakenedness"? Is this a generational thing? GenX women finally having enough and reaching a point where we find our voices? Boundaries, speak up, finally have names for these things?
I totally relate to this! I feel as if I’ve been living in an alternate reality and have woken up also. I started to voice things more in the last 6 months, not abandon myself, have better boundaries and my relationship has exploded. He just couldn’t handle it. His ego couldn’t handle it and he’s conducted himself in the most unkind and disrespectful way. I’m now no longer in a relationship, although I was the last to know, but I know in time I’ll look back with relief that I’m out of it.
What to do about the woman he’s replaced me with so quickly who follows BHDM is another issue.
If it's safe, drop her a note. A factual, unemotional note, naming all the things he did, definitely not referring to her as his replacement..
Make it clear you don't want him back, you want to save her the same pain to a BHDM sister. Explain he had not red flags at first, then what emerged later. Then leave it with her, and detach from the outcome.
I thought I was clear at 60. More clear at 70! Now Im turning 75 this month and my understanding is becoming even more focused. I’m just hanging out with the trees and my dog now!!!! I’ve left it all behind but still enjoying witnessing the expansion of wisdom and freedom in women who get to be more true to themselves every day.
If I’d applied BHDM to my last relationship, I would have seen tons of red flags.
1) Told him I wanted to wait to get to know each other better before we had sex. He agreed and then pushed it on me, anyway. When I brought it up later, he said “We ARE getting to know each other better, SILLY.” Then smirked at me.
2) Unhooked my bra in public. Twice. Giggled both times.
3) Didn’t tell me his side gate was open in his huge yard, my dog escaped numerous times.
4) When I went to close the gate, he said “DON’T touch it, you’ll BREAK it” which was exactly what my narc father would have said.
5) We were in bed and my dog kept growling and getting up and moving. I kept apologizing for her behavior. He finally started giggling and confessed he was following her around with his foot and jabbing her with his toes.
6) Lectured me on the wonders of the free market for 20 minutes at a time.
7) I was not allowed to be right about anything. Picked fights constantly.
8) I’d tell him about something I found interesting and he would dismiss it with a snort and “I’ll remember THAT for about 5 seconds."
9) When I told him about something that was bothering me, he said “OH, another one of THOSE texts” and then refused to let me come over for a couple of days.
10) Told me he’d taken my advice and painted his house gray. When I got up in the morning (I’d come over after dark) he said “Go look at the new paint!” I went outside and it was yellow. He came swaggering out, giggling at his hilarious joke. I felt gut punched.
11) When my dog pulled a baby bunny out of a nest in his yard (she didn’t hurt it) he laid into me, telling me I “should have known” there were nests because I’d seen rabbits in his yard.
I FINALLY dumped him when he said I should sue my HOA over what was essentially a misunderstanding and then sat on my couch in stony silence when I disagreed with him.
He also would do fake emotions, like “bursting into tears” at a moment’s notice or acting like I’d punched him in the stomach, literally doubling over dramatically, when I suggested we not talk about politics.
He also would send texts he’d fat-fingered and then refused to proofread, so a lot of the time my brain would hurt trying to decipher all the typos.
I dumped him 9 years ago and am still traumatized. It was a therapist who talked me into staying with him 2 months in, telling me she “wanted to make sure I wasn’t being avoidant” when I told her about some of his awful behavior. I stayed 8 more months, while the abuse escalated.
He was horrifyingly similar to my narc father, contemptuous, disdainful, dismissive and disrespectful, and I frequently dissociated around him.
I left out the time he told me my touch “felt repetitive and like insects boring holes into his arm” and I literally dissociated so badly that I blacked out for 3 hours. I’m 64 now and can’t even find anyone I want to have a conversation with online, let alone meet. Still better than being with *that*.
My Al-anon sponsor kept telling me I was responsible for my reactions and setting boundaries. Unfortunately, this advice made me feel I needed to stay and try harder. (I doubt that was her intention). With the gas lighting , I no longer trusted my reactions. And I shouldn’t have needed to set up boundaries for basic human decency. I left when I was fearful for my life. I went to a great MFT and I asked her if I was in abusive relationship- she answered “yes” and to block him. I’m 65, and after a lot of help the past 15 months the PTSD is subsiding. Let us all feel peace.
I also had therapists (yes, several) convince me to stay with my ex when I definitely should have just dumped him. I was also traumatised by his behaviour and the whole argument on the therapist side was always „your brain is responding to trauma, you can’t trust that decision, so you have to wait about a year until you’re more clear. Besides, he’s seen the errors of his ways and is trying to change now“.
While it’s not wrong that traumatised people sometimes make rash and irrational decisions, it caused me so much more damage to stay, than it would have caused either of us had I just left. So I don’t know who they were protecting but it sure as hell wasn’t me.
I wish there was more transparency there that warns women about how therapy (whichI generally support) can be harmful and misogynistic.
Ugh, this is awful. Instead of validating our current and completely logical responses to abusive behavior, we get gaslit by therapists. If mine had said “I want to make sure you’re not being avoidant, and that story you told me about that crazy thing he did is certainly not normal behavior. Let’s talk about it more.” Instead, I felt dismissed by her utter lack of validation that his behaviors were a huge red flag. I’ve also come to realize that most therapists became therapists to figure out their own trauma, and are not remotely healed.
Yes, many therapists (and people in general, as our society abhors the expression of genuine emotions) are intellectualizers. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t lend itself to helping their clients navigate difficult, emotionally fraught situations.
This is so upsetting. There are so many things to point out here but perhaps the biggest is your therapist(s) underlying assumption that men are owed more chances. Beyond perhaps the case of a mother to her child, you are not owed a relationship with any other person on this planet. It doesn’t matter if he’s changing or not, it doesn’t matter if he’s a ‘good guy’ or an asshole. It’s irrelevant because relationships are a privilege, not a prison. If you don’t want to be with this person, that is enough to leave! Therapists are there to support your autonomy, growth and most importantly the goals that YOU have for YOUR life.
Thank you for your list, it is so sobering to write it all out and staggering how we’ve been trained to dismiss it.
I also have a list similar to yours about my last relationship. When I actually started writing it out, I was floored by the callousness and ongoing abusive behaviour he displayed.
It helps me when my brain has those moments of weakness and keeps reminding me of the good times we had.
I’m so sorry you went through something similar. It’s shocking how common it is.
The guy I was with was utterly lacking in empathy. I told him once about someone drowning in a rainstorm and he raised his face to the sky. I was stunned. I said “No, she went into her basement to rescue her recording gear and the basement filled up in seconds” and his response was “Well, that was stupid of her.”
Mine was incredibly similar to the abuse I grew up with, so it felt normal. Plus he’d gaslight me with things like “But I’m just being curious” when he’d use questions to criticize and cut me to pieces, which is exactly what my father did.
Ouch. Early in our relationship, my ex literally kicked my cat off the bed that way. Enamored with him, I ignored it. I eventually broke up with him, but I’d give anything to go back and throw him out in that instant.
Try not to hold onto those regrets. It’s hard, I know— but you’re out now and you can revel in that. And keep reminding yourself that you know better now.
Divorcing a toxic coercive control abuser who is currently impeding my access to affordable housing because he's that much of a pr*ck. This path takes a TON of resilience and patience and fortitude, and I would wish it on no woman alive.
Jennie's book helped me see all the asshole's toxic patterns, and boy are there a LOT, starting with disciplinary directive out the wazoo.
I knew I hated him before reading the book, but after reading it I knew I wasn't just some bitter #$&@ myself, but being gaslighted and abused by a misogynistic exploiter.
He's behaving himself since I lawyered up and served his ass (and of course he was "blindsided" 🙄 ), but I have seen beneath the mask and what's there is uglier than sin.
I was new here when I started dating my last boyfriend. During the relationship I realized he was an “I’m the prize”, but the relationship felt good so I continued seeing him. A year later, his life got a little busier/harder, and he completely checked out- I was no longer a priority. I felt completely discarded. Being able to name it (I’m the prize) helped validate my feeling that he was a shitty partner and was treating me poorly, which in turn helped me confront him about it and ultimately leave the relationship. And then i saw his new dating profile- “Im the prize” was very clear, along with other patterns and auto-B2B prompts. This further validated my assessment of him during the relationship and the feeling that he was a bad partner.
This is so good, so true, so humane. The sheer relief and power of seeing, knowing, speaking the truth/reality is what I love most about BH. There's a relationship between truth and justice which is seldom acknowledged, I think. On the individual level, the root of justice is the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. Any right, proper, fair action flows from that true perception. To me, that is the astonishing gift Jennie has given us. ♥️
I started following and learning BHDM while I was in a relationship - and I might add with a person that I saw some narcissistic red flags with in the beginning but didn’t understand the consequences. Silly me. I had a lot to learn!
And I’d already learnt about attachment styles thanks to the bloke I met before that one. BHDM was just the next natural step.
So I was well prepared when I hit the dating apps next. I was able to easily filter out a lot that were unsuitable for me. Found what I thought was a needle. We had a great five months together. He was definitely better quality than any man I had met previously.
Turns out when I laughed at him early on and said oh no, you’re one of those avoidant types - and he assured me that he was not and that he was a secure type lol - that I should have trusted my instincts on that one.
Anyway, we had a good time for a while. And I’m having a break from dating now but always using my BHDM skills in all dealings with men - social and business. I’m working on trusting my instincts more and speaking up against that which doesn’t work for me so I find BHDM to be a good skill to learn no matter what stage you are at in life. I also find myself changing comments I am writing to others to be e.g. less directive and so on. I feel like BHDM can help me be a better person to others too.
Thanks Jenny - I keep going into bookshops here in Australia and asking about your book… looking forward to getting my hands on one in print. I have listened to the audio version many times!
Another great post. I really like the idea of the BHDM being applied to other types of relationships. As I read your post, I started thinking about family dynamics. I just returned from a weekend spent with family. While I’m aware that my family is highly dysfunctional, this post just sparked the connection that my relatives use a lot of toxic rhetorical patterns.
The “discipline/directive” pattern came up quite often. In the moment, it rubbed me the wrong way, but I wasn’t sure how to respond. In hindsight, I realize that I bristled because they were using the same disrespectful and toxic rhetorical patterns that I’m learning to watch out for with the BHDM.
This is relevant because the uncomfortable truth is that the dysfunctional family dynamics I was raised with groomed me to be a people pleaser who tolerated bad behavior in dating, relationships, on the job, etc.
Now, while it’s easier to burn the haystack on dating apps, I can’t exactly swipe left on my aunt or dad.
I’ve limited my communication with all but a few of my relatives over the years. Many of the people in my family are low-effort, and it has recently dawned on me how unfair it is for me to have been the only person upholding many of the relationships with my relatives over the years. So I stepped back. After withdrawing my effort, I don’t see or hear from them nearly as much.
The crazy part is, I’m framed as “being mean” and “abandoning the family” because I no longer bend over backwards to maintain the relationships like I used to. I now require reciprocity from people who want a relationship with me, and apparently that makes me the wicked witch of the west! Make that make sense!
I’m not sure how that’s going to end up. But it would be interesting to see what you have to say about toxic rhetorical patterns and dynamics in other types of relationships and how to handle them when they come up.
Certainly for me, my family is where I learned to accept toxic behaviour long before I was old enough to be independent.
Romantic relationships and how they operate don't occur in a vacuum.
You're right, family is by it's very nature harder to simply step away from. Dealing with relatives' toxic behaviour is often a difficult, complex balancing act. Spotting it is but the first vital step.
Sounds to me like you’re handling the relationships with family members quite well! Our socialization teaches us to feel bad about being known as the wicked witch, accusations of abandonment, being uncaring, etc. If a man decided to do the same, they’d shrug it off!
They’re probably uncomfortable with your change and possibly their loss of control. The guilt and name calling feels like manipulation.
Just as Jennie is teaching us how to be okay with blocking a stranger on the internet with no explanation, I’m learning to be okay with other people’s discomfort —even family. I can still love them, appreciate the good memories, while preferring to love and respect myself by not letting them hurt me, manipulate, trample boundaries, criticize my opinions, etc.
Speaking of the community and gatherings and such, I would love to have a BHDM decal I can put in a car window or bumper sticker, or in any other highly visible location so others can know I am a safe space. This would function much the same way as the various Pride flags signal a safe space to the LGBTQIA+ community.
Pride flags often signal a dangerous place for women when they specify the alphabet soup beyond the LGB. Apply BHDM to most of the output from that section of society.
This does bring up a good point that TERFs are not going to be a safe space for ALL WOMEN, even though BHDM is. It would be difficult to figure out who is actually safe via decal.
LOVE the way you explained all of this. I have been a little slow to get on board completely with the BH method. I'm 66 and started reading about it awhile ago more out of curiosity than anything else in the beginning. I now see the validity of it and agree with most everything you share. I came out of a very religious upbringing and abandoned it all about 10 years ago, as well as my "Christian" marriage, that just wasn't working for me! You expressed the ideas here so well and with compassion and understanding too, for this woman's unique circumstances, realizing everyone's situation may be a little different. Appreciate you!
I’ve been a slow learner too. I’m 61 and left my Christian marriage, and the belief system, 8 years ago. I agree, it takes a lot of unravelling.
Are you in a relationship now?
I’ve been in a healthy relationship with a good man for 5 years but some of his behaviours worry me and I take note and check my alternative options are still good. We keep our finances separate and I know I like single life, whereas during my 30 year marriage I was held by fear of loneliness and uncertainty about finance.
He probably does the same, I also learnt some unhealthy patterns to keep myself safe, so a Plan B seems reasonable. I do think he is open to learning, we discuss Jennie’s videos and the rhetorical patterns, he mostly agrees too. But no one’s perfect and I think it’s really helpful to be aware of that.
No, I’m not in a relationship now. Have a few I casually date. Would like to find a partner or at least someone I can see and do things with consistently. That seems to be my challenge. Finding someone I actually like to do things with consistently. But I continue to search, and block & burn as necessary! Lol.
You mentioned your partner having behaviors that concern you. What are they if you don’t mind sharing?
He can be quite directive. It’s his cultural background, and he is also very definite about his way of doing things. I often let it go, he is quite rational and his views are based on reasoning, but if I think I want to try things my way he can get grumpy. Sometimes I go ahead anyway, just to establish my independence! I’m not sure Directive is necessarily the same as Disciplinary Directive. But if it feels like he’s punishing me with his grumpy mood, or with distancing, I don’t like it and I start checking my plan B.
We are enjoying a massive project together, a permaculture smallholding in France, and we make a very good team and have a lot of fun. But we’re very isolated here, and I can also imagine a different kind of life in my 70s, in a small town back in the UK, with social groups to join. Whereas he’s hoping to keep this going till he drops!
I don’t think it’s possible to find everything in common with one person, I’m too multifaceted. Maybe the same for you?
I belong to several musical groups and also spend a couple of weeks in the winter in the UK, visiting family and friends. The spaces are good. I quite envy you living alone, I think my life would be a lot simpler without all the complex systems we have here for recycling and reusing everything, growing and preserving food etc. But it’s his dream! And I’m ok with it for now.
Yes, being able to see & name the dysfunction was so pivotal & affirming for me in the 26 year marriage I was in. Once I had a name “Verbal Abuse” for what I had been experiencing, it empowered me to move forward in a more validated way.
Thank you so much for your clear & compassionate guidance in answer to this question. Grateful for you.
I did apply what I learned to a relationship. I left a year ago, having joined the community while in our relationship that was amazing, complicated, beautiful and painful and coercive and full of subtle red flags. I would have saved myself much Pain had I recognize them in the beginning and next time, I will.
As someone who has called out redflags in a relationship. I would like to emphasise the importance of having people around you aware of your awareness and approach. Some cultures do not value women to the point of mamining. I would ensure you take the necessary steps to keep yourself safe.
If I would’ve had the information from the book available to me, my life would be different
Basically, I live like chicken little wondering when the sky will fall because I am a financial dependent. I always have been like third generation I’m 57
12 years into menopause
I’m in a 30 year marriage. It’s abusive it’s no longer physically abusive because I’ve removed myself through physical proximity. We live on the same property, but not in the same house well same structure. We don’t actually have a house. For 20 years I thought it was all my fault. I defaulted to his everything. I didn’t trust myself. I came out of a abusive relationship with his help. I mean, I thought I had to change myself. And I did. And I thought when I changed myself enough that I would meet this healthy version of him that already existed, but wasn’t able to fully manifest because I was the toxic one.
Now I’ve quit doing a pluthera of behaviors
And nothing has gotten better
And the behaviors that I have stopped doing, I have asked him to stop doing and he won’t stop doing
Like being emotionally mentally verbally and spiritually abusive
And physically abusive, if challenged in physical proximity
I don’t know when he’ll remove financial support from me
I don’t know if he will
It’s a very strange existence. I have right now and have had increasingly over the last couple of years.
I feel like I live in the twilight zone
There is no easy option
This is negatively impacted my whole entire life and there’s no real way to come out of it. I’m just too old. I’m not saying that I’m doomed to have any kind of a bad life you know, but I recognize that I am just like this enormous cautionary tale, but I am still trying to navigate the best I can with you know trying to address my nervous system. I don’t really see my husband that much but I’m 100% tired to him financially and he threatens on a regular basis like monthly to remove financial support.
And because I don’t feel safe around him because he’s so criticizing and up close and personal like in my space because we haven’t lived under the same roof in five years so in my space it’s two 3-D
So I don’t let him into my space
And it has a result
I have no hot water
I don’t have a woodstove which I need one and I have a lot of firewood I could use, but I don’t have a safe woodstove
I don’t have a freezer a washer, a dryer, a kitchen, a toilet, a shower
Also one other interesting element for the situation is he cut me off from all physical affection
And sex
Because I wanted some amount of agency like once a month I wanted to be able to say what happened to me physically
Now this was somebody I met when I was pretty young, but I met him at my ex-husband‘s house
He had never been married. He was five years older than me so he was in his late 20s and he had had a girlfriend, but not for like five years maybe more because he had been hurt you know this was the story I was told right
And so what he elected to do instead was to frequent ladies of the night
Kathy, this sounds just awful. I'm so sorry you are going through this.
Another thing he has probably done is cut you off from friends and family, right? I would suggest you try to re-establish a few contacts just so you don't feel so alone, as long as you can do it safely. And so there is someone checking in on you from time to time.
Can you stash $5 aside each time he gives you money for something? Hide it somewhere safe where he won't find it. You will then have a least a little cash in case you need to run in the middle of the night (or the middle of the day when he's gone).
Jennie, as a therapist I applaud everything you have said and how you have said it. 10/10, No Notes.
Wow, *thank you*. This means a lot to me 🙏. Thank YOU for the work you do and for lending your time and expertise to this community. ((❤️))
As a mediator, I couldn’t agree more!!
I concur. This article is so helpful already. Thank you so very much.
I was literally going to say the same. Well done and thoughtful, as always, Jennie!
Me too! Beautifully articulated steps to seeing clearly through the fog of patriarchal speech. Thank you for the work you’re doing.
Agreed! And your writing, Jennie 👏 I love the image of flags now as threads in the carpet and drapes and hair.
This is such beautiful, smart, thoughtful and caring advice.
I wish I had these tools, vocabulary and community before I entered into my long, difficult marriage and toxic relationship with my exBF.
The part about community is so important. Women need to be honest with themselves and have safe, supportive sisters.
I couldn’t agree more, about this piece and your comments! 💕👋
So nice to "see" you here, sister!
No doubt, many married women have been quietly observing (and hopefully absorbing) the lessons of BHDM. I can’t say for certain that this method would have sped up my divorce decision years ago, but it surely would have made me less able to deny what was happening in my marriage. These are painful but important truths, this one being the truthy-est:
“It’s better to live honestly and consciously in a shitty reality than to gaslight yourself into false narratives that serve others as you destroy yourself from the inside out.“
I feel incredibly lucky to be on the other side of the bridge. The hardest truth for me now is knowing that many women will NOT be able to get there, for reasons that we all understand (and that you discuss here with great care and empathy, Jennie). It feels like a soldier heading to battle - you look around and know that some of your fellow troops will not return home.
What I know for sure is that your work is saving lives, saving sanity, saving multiple generations. Reading BHDM success stories is always wonderful, but witnessing this community crush the patriarchy is truly inspiring. Thank you for what you have created.
You have said much of what I came to say! I don’t know for sure if I would have left my toxic 15 year marriage earlier, but I think I would have.
I believe Jennie’s work is 💯 saving women from abusive relationships, violence, and sexual assault! Lives are being saved!
I know for sure would have had the recognition of the reality I was living far sooner if I were already married and learned this. But even at the very beginning, there were huge red flags that would have prevented me from going further with the relationship in the first place if I knew the patterns beforehand.
"Denying reality makes people insane—literally. It’s better to live honestly and consciously in a shitty reality than to gaslight yourself into false narratives that serve others as you destroy yourself from the inside out. " That's brilliant. I need this in a shorter version to put on a coffee cup.
Something I've been wondering for a while, I'm in my 40s and feel like I've woken up. Learning to really SEE the world, deprogram myself. Now I see it everywhere.
Have I landed in my own little internet corner of "awakenedness"? Is this a generational thing? GenX women finally having enough and reaching a point where we find our voices? Boundaries, speak up, finally have names for these things?
Just wait until you turn 50, the clarity is insane
60 is even better!!! ❤️
Truth, I don’t even have words for how smart I’ve become without the lust hormones gaslighting my own brain
And it keeps getting clearer and clearer and clearer and then you start to wonder about life and think about the horror of it all.
Turning 50 this year and the clarity is mind boggling❣️
I totally relate to this! I feel as if I’ve been living in an alternate reality and have woken up also. I started to voice things more in the last 6 months, not abandon myself, have better boundaries and my relationship has exploded. He just couldn’t handle it. His ego couldn’t handle it and he’s conducted himself in the most unkind and disrespectful way. I’m now no longer in a relationship, although I was the last to know, but I know in time I’ll look back with relief that I’m out of it.
What to do about the woman he’s replaced me with so quickly who follows BHDM is another issue.
If it's safe, drop her a note. A factual, unemotional note, naming all the things he did, definitely not referring to her as his replacement..
Make it clear you don't want him back, you want to save her the same pain to a BHDM sister. Explain he had not red flags at first, then what emerged later. Then leave it with her, and detach from the outcome.
I’m tempted to send Jennie’s book to my exes daughters and their mother, but I’ve gone no contact with his entire family.
When I have told an ex's family they were lied (in his emails) they told me they believed him. Family loyalty can trump stupidity.
The best response is no response. Go full NO contact and check out ChumpLady.com … Leave a Cheater, Gain a life ❤️
I thought I was clear at 60. More clear at 70! Now Im turning 75 this month and my understanding is becoming even more focused. I’m just hanging out with the trees and my dog now!!!! I’ve left it all behind but still enjoying witnessing the expansion of wisdom and freedom in women who get to be more true to themselves every day.
If I’d applied BHDM to my last relationship, I would have seen tons of red flags.
1) Told him I wanted to wait to get to know each other better before we had sex. He agreed and then pushed it on me, anyway. When I brought it up later, he said “We ARE getting to know each other better, SILLY.” Then smirked at me.
2) Unhooked my bra in public. Twice. Giggled both times.
3) Didn’t tell me his side gate was open in his huge yard, my dog escaped numerous times.
4) When I went to close the gate, he said “DON’T touch it, you’ll BREAK it” which was exactly what my narc father would have said.
5) We were in bed and my dog kept growling and getting up and moving. I kept apologizing for her behavior. He finally started giggling and confessed he was following her around with his foot and jabbing her with his toes.
6) Lectured me on the wonders of the free market for 20 minutes at a time.
7) I was not allowed to be right about anything. Picked fights constantly.
8) I’d tell him about something I found interesting and he would dismiss it with a snort and “I’ll remember THAT for about 5 seconds."
9) When I told him about something that was bothering me, he said “OH, another one of THOSE texts” and then refused to let me come over for a couple of days.
10) Told me he’d taken my advice and painted his house gray. When I got up in the morning (I’d come over after dark) he said “Go look at the new paint!” I went outside and it was yellow. He came swaggering out, giggling at his hilarious joke. I felt gut punched.
11) When my dog pulled a baby bunny out of a nest in his yard (she didn’t hurt it) he laid into me, telling me I “should have known” there were nests because I’d seen rabbits in his yard.
I FINALLY dumped him when he said I should sue my HOA over what was essentially a misunderstanding and then sat on my couch in stony silence when I disagreed with him.
He also would do fake emotions, like “bursting into tears” at a moment’s notice or acting like I’d punched him in the stomach, literally doubling over dramatically, when I suggested we not talk about politics.
He also would send texts he’d fat-fingered and then refused to proofread, so a lot of the time my brain would hurt trying to decipher all the typos.
That actually hurt my heart to read some of those examples 😞
Big hugs for you and your doggie.
Wow. What a hellscape! I hope your life looks completely different and your standards are sky high. It’s incredible what you survived.
I dumped him 9 years ago and am still traumatized. It was a therapist who talked me into staying with him 2 months in, telling me she “wanted to make sure I wasn’t being avoidant” when I told her about some of his awful behavior. I stayed 8 more months, while the abuse escalated.
He was horrifyingly similar to my narc father, contemptuous, disdainful, dismissive and disrespectful, and I frequently dissociated around him.
I left out the time he told me my touch “felt repetitive and like insects boring holes into his arm” and I literally dissociated so badly that I blacked out for 3 hours. I’m 64 now and can’t even find anyone I want to have a conversation with online, let alone meet. Still better than being with *that*.
My Al-anon sponsor kept telling me I was responsible for my reactions and setting boundaries. Unfortunately, this advice made me feel I needed to stay and try harder. (I doubt that was her intention). With the gas lighting , I no longer trusted my reactions. And I shouldn’t have needed to set up boundaries for basic human decency. I left when I was fearful for my life. I went to a great MFT and I asked her if I was in abusive relationship- she answered “yes” and to block him. I’m 65, and after a lot of help the past 15 months the PTSD is subsiding. Let us all feel peace.
I also had therapists (yes, several) convince me to stay with my ex when I definitely should have just dumped him. I was also traumatised by his behaviour and the whole argument on the therapist side was always „your brain is responding to trauma, you can’t trust that decision, so you have to wait about a year until you’re more clear. Besides, he’s seen the errors of his ways and is trying to change now“.
While it’s not wrong that traumatised people sometimes make rash and irrational decisions, it caused me so much more damage to stay, than it would have caused either of us had I just left. So I don’t know who they were protecting but it sure as hell wasn’t me.
I wish there was more transparency there that warns women about how therapy (whichI generally support) can be harmful and misogynistic.
Ugh, this is awful. Instead of validating our current and completely logical responses to abusive behavior, we get gaslit by therapists. If mine had said “I want to make sure you’re not being avoidant, and that story you told me about that crazy thing he did is certainly not normal behavior. Let’s talk about it more.” Instead, I felt dismissed by her utter lack of validation that his behaviors were a huge red flag. I’ve also come to realize that most therapists became therapists to figure out their own trauma, and are not remotely healed.
Yes, many therapists (and people in general, as our society abhors the expression of genuine emotions) are intellectualizers. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t lend itself to helping their clients navigate difficult, emotionally fraught situations.
This is so upsetting. There are so many things to point out here but perhaps the biggest is your therapist(s) underlying assumption that men are owed more chances. Beyond perhaps the case of a mother to her child, you are not owed a relationship with any other person on this planet. It doesn’t matter if he’s changing or not, it doesn’t matter if he’s a ‘good guy’ or an asshole. It’s irrelevant because relationships are a privilege, not a prison. If you don’t want to be with this person, that is enough to leave! Therapists are there to support your autonomy, growth and most importantly the goals that YOU have for YOUR life.
I’m sorry. Far too often therapy can enable further abuse.
So sorry you experienced this but glad you got away.
I admire your bravery and am so glad you picked you!
Thank you for your list, it is so sobering to write it all out and staggering how we’ve been trained to dismiss it.
I also have a list similar to yours about my last relationship. When I actually started writing it out, I was floored by the callousness and ongoing abusive behaviour he displayed.
It helps me when my brain has those moments of weakness and keeps reminding me of the good times we had.
I’m so sorry you went through something similar. It’s shocking how common it is.
The guy I was with was utterly lacking in empathy. I told him once about someone drowning in a rainstorm and he raised his face to the sky. I was stunned. I said “No, she went into her basement to rescue her recording gear and the basement filled up in seconds” and his response was “Well, that was stupid of her.”
Mine was incredibly similar to the abuse I grew up with, so it felt normal. Plus he’d gaslight me with things like “But I’m just being curious” when he’d use questions to criticize and cut me to pieces, which is exactly what my father did.
Ouch. Early in our relationship, my ex literally kicked my cat off the bed that way. Enamored with him, I ignored it. I eventually broke up with him, but I’d give anything to go back and throw him out in that instant.
I have forever regretted not breaking up with him right then and there, and taking my dog and leaving.
Try not to hold onto those regrets. It’s hard, I know— but you’re out now and you can revel in that. And keep reminding yourself that you know better now.
Divorcing a toxic coercive control abuser who is currently impeding my access to affordable housing because he's that much of a pr*ck. This path takes a TON of resilience and patience and fortitude, and I would wish it on no woman alive.
Jennie's book helped me see all the asshole's toxic patterns, and boy are there a LOT, starting with disciplinary directive out the wazoo.
I knew I hated him before reading the book, but after reading it I knew I wasn't just some bitter #$&@ myself, but being gaslighted and abused by a misogynistic exploiter.
He's behaving himself since I lawyered up and served his ass (and of course he was "blindsided" 🙄 ), but I have seen beneath the mask and what's there is uglier than sin.
Tl;dr thank you Jennie for this book.
I was new here when I started dating my last boyfriend. During the relationship I realized he was an “I’m the prize”, but the relationship felt good so I continued seeing him. A year later, his life got a little busier/harder, and he completely checked out- I was no longer a priority. I felt completely discarded. Being able to name it (I’m the prize) helped validate my feeling that he was a shitty partner and was treating me poorly, which in turn helped me confront him about it and ultimately leave the relationship. And then i saw his new dating profile- “Im the prize” was very clear, along with other patterns and auto-B2B prompts. This further validated my assessment of him during the relationship and the feeling that he was a bad partner.
This is so good, so true, so humane. The sheer relief and power of seeing, knowing, speaking the truth/reality is what I love most about BH. There's a relationship between truth and justice which is seldom acknowledged, I think. On the individual level, the root of justice is the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. Any right, proper, fair action flows from that true perception. To me, that is the astonishing gift Jennie has given us. ♥️
Beautifully stated, Sulie. “ The root of justice …” ❤️🫶🏼
I started following and learning BHDM while I was in a relationship - and I might add with a person that I saw some narcissistic red flags with in the beginning but didn’t understand the consequences. Silly me. I had a lot to learn!
And I’d already learnt about attachment styles thanks to the bloke I met before that one. BHDM was just the next natural step.
So I was well prepared when I hit the dating apps next. I was able to easily filter out a lot that were unsuitable for me. Found what I thought was a needle. We had a great five months together. He was definitely better quality than any man I had met previously.
Turns out when I laughed at him early on and said oh no, you’re one of those avoidant types - and he assured me that he was not and that he was a secure type lol - that I should have trusted my instincts on that one.
Anyway, we had a good time for a while. And I’m having a break from dating now but always using my BHDM skills in all dealings with men - social and business. I’m working on trusting my instincts more and speaking up against that which doesn’t work for me so I find BHDM to be a good skill to learn no matter what stage you are at in life. I also find myself changing comments I am writing to others to be e.g. less directive and so on. I feel like BHDM can help me be a better person to others too.
Thanks Jenny - I keep going into bookshops here in Australia and asking about your book… looking forward to getting my hands on one in print. I have listened to the audio version many times!
Another great post. I really like the idea of the BHDM being applied to other types of relationships. As I read your post, I started thinking about family dynamics. I just returned from a weekend spent with family. While I’m aware that my family is highly dysfunctional, this post just sparked the connection that my relatives use a lot of toxic rhetorical patterns.
The “discipline/directive” pattern came up quite often. In the moment, it rubbed me the wrong way, but I wasn’t sure how to respond. In hindsight, I realize that I bristled because they were using the same disrespectful and toxic rhetorical patterns that I’m learning to watch out for with the BHDM.
This is relevant because the uncomfortable truth is that the dysfunctional family dynamics I was raised with groomed me to be a people pleaser who tolerated bad behavior in dating, relationships, on the job, etc.
Now, while it’s easier to burn the haystack on dating apps, I can’t exactly swipe left on my aunt or dad.
I’ve limited my communication with all but a few of my relatives over the years. Many of the people in my family are low-effort, and it has recently dawned on me how unfair it is for me to have been the only person upholding many of the relationships with my relatives over the years. So I stepped back. After withdrawing my effort, I don’t see or hear from them nearly as much.
The crazy part is, I’m framed as “being mean” and “abandoning the family” because I no longer bend over backwards to maintain the relationships like I used to. I now require reciprocity from people who want a relationship with me, and apparently that makes me the wicked witch of the west! Make that make sense!
I’m not sure how that’s going to end up. But it would be interesting to see what you have to say about toxic rhetorical patterns and dynamics in other types of relationships and how to handle them when they come up.
Certainly for me, my family is where I learned to accept toxic behaviour long before I was old enough to be independent.
Romantic relationships and how they operate don't occur in a vacuum.
You're right, family is by it's very nature harder to simply step away from. Dealing with relatives' toxic behaviour is often a difficult, complex balancing act. Spotting it is but the first vital step.
Sounds to me like you’re handling the relationships with family members quite well! Our socialization teaches us to feel bad about being known as the wicked witch, accusations of abandonment, being uncaring, etc. If a man decided to do the same, they’d shrug it off!
They’re probably uncomfortable with your change and possibly their loss of control. The guilt and name calling feels like manipulation.
Just as Jennie is teaching us how to be okay with blocking a stranger on the internet with no explanation, I’m learning to be okay with other people’s discomfort —even family. I can still love them, appreciate the good memories, while preferring to love and respect myself by not letting them hurt me, manipulate, trample boundaries, criticize my opinions, etc.
Speaking of the community and gatherings and such, I would love to have a BHDM decal I can put in a car window or bumper sticker, or in any other highly visible location so others can know I am a safe space. This would function much the same way as the various Pride flags signal a safe space to the LGBTQIA+ community.
What do y'all think?
Ixidro I think this is brilliant!
Dorris, you’re giving TERF vibes.
Pride flags often signal a dangerous place for women when they specify the alphabet soup beyond the LGB. Apply BHDM to most of the output from that section of society.
This is absolutely no place for bigotry and hatred
And yet I am a safe space for ALL of thise letters. Especially the T and enby and Q and I.
*those
This does bring up a good point that TERFs are not going to be a safe space for ALL WOMEN, even though BHDM is. It would be difficult to figure out who is actually safe via decal.
LOVE the way you explained all of this. I have been a little slow to get on board completely with the BH method. I'm 66 and started reading about it awhile ago more out of curiosity than anything else in the beginning. I now see the validity of it and agree with most everything you share. I came out of a very religious upbringing and abandoned it all about 10 years ago, as well as my "Christian" marriage, that just wasn't working for me! You expressed the ideas here so well and with compassion and understanding too, for this woman's unique circumstances, realizing everyone's situation may be a little different. Appreciate you!
I’ve been a slow learner too. I’m 61 and left my Christian marriage, and the belief system, 8 years ago. I agree, it takes a lot of unravelling.
Are you in a relationship now?
I’ve been in a healthy relationship with a good man for 5 years but some of his behaviours worry me and I take note and check my alternative options are still good. We keep our finances separate and I know I like single life, whereas during my 30 year marriage I was held by fear of loneliness and uncertainty about finance.
He probably does the same, I also learnt some unhealthy patterns to keep myself safe, so a Plan B seems reasonable. I do think he is open to learning, we discuss Jennie’s videos and the rhetorical patterns, he mostly agrees too. But no one’s perfect and I think it’s really helpful to be aware of that.
No, I’m not in a relationship now. Have a few I casually date. Would like to find a partner or at least someone I can see and do things with consistently. That seems to be my challenge. Finding someone I actually like to do things with consistently. But I continue to search, and block & burn as necessary! Lol.
You mentioned your partner having behaviors that concern you. What are they if you don’t mind sharing?
He can be quite directive. It’s his cultural background, and he is also very definite about his way of doing things. I often let it go, he is quite rational and his views are based on reasoning, but if I think I want to try things my way he can get grumpy. Sometimes I go ahead anyway, just to establish my independence! I’m not sure Directive is necessarily the same as Disciplinary Directive. But if it feels like he’s punishing me with his grumpy mood, or with distancing, I don’t like it and I start checking my plan B.
We are enjoying a massive project together, a permaculture smallholding in France, and we make a very good team and have a lot of fun. But we’re very isolated here, and I can also imagine a different kind of life in my 70s, in a small town back in the UK, with social groups to join. Whereas he’s hoping to keep this going till he drops!
I don’t think it’s possible to find everything in common with one person, I’m too multifaceted. Maybe the same for you?
I belong to several musical groups and also spend a couple of weeks in the winter in the UK, visiting family and friends. The spaces are good. I quite envy you living alone, I think my life would be a lot simpler without all the complex systems we have here for recycling and reusing everything, growing and preserving food etc. But it’s his dream! And I’m ok with it for now.
Jennie,
Yes, being able to see & name the dysfunction was so pivotal & affirming for me in the 26 year marriage I was in. Once I had a name “Verbal Abuse” for what I had been experiencing, it empowered me to move forward in a more validated way.
Thank you so much for your clear & compassionate guidance in answer to this question. Grateful for you.
I did apply what I learned to a relationship. I left a year ago, having joined the community while in our relationship that was amazing, complicated, beautiful and painful and coercive and full of subtle red flags. I would have saved myself much Pain had I recognize them in the beginning and next time, I will.
As someone who has called out redflags in a relationship. I would like to emphasise the importance of having people around you aware of your awareness and approach. Some cultures do not value women to the point of mamining. I would ensure you take the necessary steps to keep yourself safe.
I’m an extremely cautionary tale
If I would’ve had the information from the book available to me, my life would be different
Basically, I live like chicken little wondering when the sky will fall because I am a financial dependent. I always have been like third generation I’m 57
12 years into menopause
I’m in a 30 year marriage. It’s abusive it’s no longer physically abusive because I’ve removed myself through physical proximity. We live on the same property, but not in the same house well same structure. We don’t actually have a house. For 20 years I thought it was all my fault. I defaulted to his everything. I didn’t trust myself. I came out of a abusive relationship with his help. I mean, I thought I had to change myself. And I did. And I thought when I changed myself enough that I would meet this healthy version of him that already existed, but wasn’t able to fully manifest because I was the toxic one.
Now I’ve quit doing a pluthera of behaviors
And nothing has gotten better
And the behaviors that I have stopped doing, I have asked him to stop doing and he won’t stop doing
Like being emotionally mentally verbally and spiritually abusive
And physically abusive, if challenged in physical proximity
I don’t know when he’ll remove financial support from me
I don’t know if he will
It’s a very strange existence. I have right now and have had increasingly over the last couple of years.
I feel like I live in the twilight zone
There is no easy option
This is negatively impacted my whole entire life and there’s no real way to come out of it. I’m just too old. I’m not saying that I’m doomed to have any kind of a bad life you know, but I recognize that I am just like this enormous cautionary tale, but I am still trying to navigate the best I can with you know trying to address my nervous system. I don’t really see my husband that much but I’m 100% tired to him financially and he threatens on a regular basis like monthly to remove financial support.
And because I don’t feel safe around him because he’s so criticizing and up close and personal like in my space because we haven’t lived under the same roof in five years so in my space it’s two 3-D
So I don’t let him into my space
And it has a result
I have no hot water
I don’t have a woodstove which I need one and I have a lot of firewood I could use, but I don’t have a safe woodstove
I don’t have a freezer a washer, a dryer, a kitchen, a toilet, a shower
My husband is an extremely high paid handyman
The irony of it😂😬😂🙄😞
Also one other interesting element for the situation is he cut me off from all physical affection
And sex
Because I wanted some amount of agency like once a month I wanted to be able to say what happened to me physically
Now this was somebody I met when I was pretty young, but I met him at my ex-husband‘s house
He had never been married. He was five years older than me so he was in his late 20s and he had had a girlfriend, but not for like five years maybe more because he had been hurt you know this was the story I was told right
And so what he elected to do instead was to frequent ladies of the night
And I didn’t have a problem With this
😳😳😳😳😳😳😳
12 years celibacy 😂🤷♀️
Kathy, this sounds just awful. I'm so sorry you are going through this.
Another thing he has probably done is cut you off from friends and family, right? I would suggest you try to re-establish a few contacts just so you don't feel so alone, as long as you can do it safely. And so there is someone checking in on you from time to time.
Can you stash $5 aside each time he gives you money for something? Hide it somewhere safe where he won't find it. You will then have a least a little cash in case you need to run in the middle of the night (or the middle of the day when he's gone).
Again, I am so sorry you are going through this.