Excuses. Trauma can cause aberrant behaviour, true, but unless your moral center is corrupted by toxic belieds, you will recognise those behaviours as wrong and feel bad about it. The types of people who think the dynamic pictured in the OP are standard have either been raised with or have discovered and adopted an ideology of patriarchy, that presents such behaviour as morally good.
So yes, you may have anger issues or problems with violence because of trauma, but you will still feel remorse because you now it’s wrong. Or, on the other hand, you may simply believe that such violence and domination is the natural social order and thus be a toxic scumbag.
The toxic beliefs that are taught are part of the trauma. Certainly not an excuse, no, but good to be aware of if we want to help people break the cycle.
As far as the whole “sleep on the couch” thing, I don’t tend to think grown adults should be telling one another where they’re allowed to sleep just because one of them is upset, but that’s a different topic.
Explanations aren’t excuses, and without explanations we can’t fix the problem. Villainizing can be useful and certainly feels good but it doesn’t accomplish much else.
If you look through my comments in this thread you’ll see that nowhere have I said anything like that. In fact at one point I said that neither adult in a relationship should get to dictate where the other person sleeps.
Excuses. Trauma can cause aberrant behaviour, true, but unless your moral center is corrupted by toxic belieds, you will recognise those behaviours as wrong and feel bad about it. The types of people who think the dynamic pictured in the OP are standard have either been raised with or have discovered and adopted an ideology of patriarchy, that presents such behaviour as morally good.
So yes, you may have anger issues or problems with violence because of trauma, but you will still feel remorse because you now it’s wrong. Or, on the other hand, you may simply believe that such violence and domination is the natural social order and thus be a toxic scumbag.
The toxic beliefs that are taught are part of the trauma. Certainly not an excuse, no, but good to be aware of if we want to help people break the cycle.
As far as the whole “sleep on the couch” thing, I don’t tend to think grown adults should be telling one another where they’re allowed to sleep just because one of them is upset, but that’s a different topic.
Sorry i punched you in the face, i thought it was okay because daddy did it
Pretty much…
Excuses
Explanations aren’t excuses, and without explanations we can’t fix the problem. Villainizing can be useful and certainly feels good but it doesn’t accomplish much else.
If you’re looking at this pic and thinking it describes a normal relationshio dynamic, yeah, it’s being used as an excuse.
If you look through my comments in this thread you’ll see that nowhere have I said anything like that. In fact at one point I said that neither adult in a relationship should get to dictate where the other person sleeps.
I know you didn’t. I’m not accusing you.