SCARRED: Katherine Witnessed and Experienced Abuse as a Child, and This is How It Shaped Her Love Life

Picture this: Katherine, a young woman in her twenties, has been with Wyatt, her partner, for at least three years.

During their relationship, she knows that Wyatt is cheating on her with other women. 

Wyatt later makes it explicitly known to Katherine that in addition to their relationship, he is now committed to another woman, let's call her Cindy.

Regardless of gender, what would be your immediate reaction if you were in Katherine's position?

I don't know about you, but knowing me like I know myself now, I would think my partner has lost his mind, and I would've left him to his new life choice.

Katherine, who is deeply hurt, shares this sadness and objection with Wyatt, who doesn't care; he has already decided that an additional relationship is what he wants. 

However, Katherine didn't leave. Instead, she came to accept her new reality grudgingly.

Throughout their relationship, Wyatt brought Cindy, as his woman, into the home he shared with Katherine, their children, and relatives.

Whenever Cindy visited, Wyatt obliged Katherine to cook and cater to Cindy.

Wyatt, who now seems so in love with his new woman, does all he can to prioritize Cindy's well-being and comfort at the expense of Katherine and their family.

While Katherine, who previously wanted to go to school, worked to support the household, Wyatt spent hours assisting Cindy with her schoolwork and driving her everywhere she wanted.

While Katherine cared for Wyatt's biological child, whom he brought into their relationship along with their other children, he spent his time, energy, and resources on Cindy. 

Whatever Cindy wanted, it seemed that's what Cindy got. Cindy's disrespect and poor treatment of Katherine were not off-limit. 

Knowing how much Katherine earned per hour and how many hours she worked full-time, Wyatt frequently left Katherine financially dry.

You read Katherine's story and think, "Katherine must be stupid," "She must have low self-esteem and not love herself," and "This would never happen to me."  

You may also read her story and think, "Maman must be making up

a crazy scenario to prove a point."

To make you feel comfortable, I wish I could tell you I made up this story to prove a point. 

But, at Stop the Cycle, we're here to tell the stories that get untold. 

We're here to unveil the stories and lives masked with smiles and public laughter. 

People and relationships are the cornerstones of our communities, so we must take the time to learn about people's stories and the more significant impact their lives and stories have on our society.

Katherine is a real woman I know. My knowledge of Katherine's story is not simply because she shared it with me. I know her story well because I witnessed some of it. 

I know a lot of women and some men like Katherine. 

You may not know Katherine, but perhaps you are a Katherine or have a Katherine in your life. Maybe it's not Katherine, but instead, Michael (a man with struggles like Katherine's). 

BUT, 

Why in the world would a woman so young, in the United States, with her whole life ahead of her, "accept" to live such a life? You may wonder.

This, my dear friend, is a case of how a child who witnesses and experiences abuse can be impacted even as an adult years later. 

Katherine's background:

Growing up, Katherine watched her father bring women home with whom he had affairs with while Katherine's mother was present doing chores.

Her mother frequently felt that she couldn't do much about the father's actions except to grieve and try to shy her children away from knowing what was happening.

Katherine's mother may have thought that Katherine was too young to know what was happening, but those observations stuck with Katherine.

Her mother continued to stay with Katherine's father, who not only brought other women home but abused her mother in other ways. 

Katherine was not exempt from her father's physical, verbal, emotional, and mental abuse from her childhood throughout adulthood. 

She not only witnessed abuse, but she began experiencing it at a young age, worst of all, at the hands of her father.

Life after Wyatt:

Years later, Katherine left Wyatt.

Again, I wish that I was sharing this news to let you know that Katherine later met a great man and now has a great love life. But the thing with abuse is that its impact is so powerful that its victims don't always break free from its cycle so easily and immediately.

After leaving Wyatt, she began dating a new man who, upon getting to know Katherine and part of her story, admitted that she was a wonderful person who didn't deserve what she had gone through. 

He promised her better treatments in this new relationship and a better life together. 

Little known to Katherine, her new man was Wyatt, in a different skin. 

It's been over a decade since Katherine began her relationship with her new man after leaving Wyatt. 

At almost forty years old, she is married and raising children in a relationship with an abusive and manipulative partner. 

Sharing Katherine's story is for educational and advocacy purposes. This part of her story isn't pretty; that is life; our stories are not always pretty. 

Regardless of how "unpretty" your story is, you're worth it. Katherine is worthy, and your stories are worth being told. 

Children who witness and experience abuse, especially over a long period, struggle to build healthier, secure relationships because they don't have a framework for it. 

What will likely happen to her children and their love lives as adults? 

Consequently, these victims and survivors become easy targets for abusers, going from one abusive relationship to another, bouncing back and forth in the cycle of abuse.

People like Katherine remain in such abusive relationships for reasons including that bad relationships are all they've genuinely known their whole lives.  

The truth is that there are many people in our communities with their variation of an abusive past and its impact on their lives. 

 People like us, with our variations of Katherine's story, are impacted differently. 

Five Emerging Groups of an Abusive Past:

The group that Katherine falls into is the Guardians of Hope group.

Individuals in this group stay for reasons including fear and hope:

• Fear that others won't support their decision to leave even though their partner is abusive, fear that they won't find another partner and that if they do, the next one might be worse than their current partner, fear of being unable to afford to live without their partner even if the victim is the primary breadwinner of their household, and fear for their lives and safety. 

• Some wait and hope that the abusive partner will change. They pray about it, hope for it, and learn how to become better partners themselves, hoping it will inspire a change in their abusive partner. 

We cover the Guardians of Hope group here because it's the group Katherine falls in. 

However, knowing each of the groups is critical. Knowing them will help you learn which one you or someone you care about falls in. 

Most importantly, it will give you a deeper awareness of how to better support yourself or someone else in their healing journey and to Stop the Cycle they find themselves in. 

Want to learn more about the Guardians of Hope group, and the rest of the groups? Get my free PDF below discussing the five different groups that can emerge from an abusive past.

Love,

Maman, Your Relationship Navigator