Loving Him Without Losing You by Beverly Engel Read Free Book Online Page B

The men in the sample tended toward the opposite viewpoints, considering autonomy and self-suffi- ciency as comfortable but merging or connectedness as less comfortable or less desirable.

    How a Woman’s Childhood History Contributes to the Disappearing Woman Syndrome
    A number of psychological influences contribute to the Disappearing Woman syndrome:
an insufficient bonding experience with the primary caretaker, partic- ularly the mother;
the long-term absence of one or both parents;
the loss of a parent either through death or divorce;
an insufficient, inappropriate, or negative relationship with the father;
parental neglect;
emotional, physical, or sexual abuse;
poor parental modeling (misogyny, domestic violence);
rejection or ridicule from parents, siblings, or peers.
    Any of these factors can cause an adult woman to feel insecure and inad- equate in her relationships and to look to her male partners for the kinds of caring, support, and direction she did not receive from her parents. This makes her more vulnerable and dependent than she might otherwise be. And a history of having been emotionally or physically neglected or abandoned as a child or an adolescent can cause a woman to fear abandonment and cling to her partners even when she is not getting her needs met or is being mis- treated. Having a history that includes any form of abuse also predisposes

    women to become attracted to men who are domineering and/or abusive and to allow the men in their lives to dictate their behavior.
    Although males also suffer from such problems as childhood deprivation and abuse, females react to these experiences in a decidedly different way than males do, internalizing their anger versus acting it out, and building up different types of defenses against their pain. This in turn leads to different types of psychological problems, as we shall now explore.
    Anger in versus Anger Out
    When a boy or a man is hurt by another person, either physically or emo- tionally, he will tend to lash out at that individual, either verbally or physically. “You hurt me so I’ll hurt you.” When a girl or a woman is hurt, however, it is not so simple. By the time they have gone through the acculturation process, most women have long since given up the natural instinct to retaliate directly. (Some researchers believe that females are also biologically wired to avoid anger and to instead work toward peaceful solutions.) Instead, most women immediately shift into either the diplomat mode —asking themselves, “Did he mean to hurt me?”; the victim mode —when they try to elicit sympathy from the person who hurt them; or the self-blame mode, asking themselves, “What did I do to make him hurt me?” Instead of the simple and direct, “You hurt me so I’ll hurt you back,” girls and women tend to think, “You hurt me so I must have done something to deserve it.”
    While boys and men tend to act out their anger, girls and women inter- nalize their anger and tend to become self-effacing or even self-destructive. (This phenomenon further explains why male victims of childhood sexual abuse tend to become abusers themselves, while female victims tend to con- tinue to be victimized or mistreated during their lifetimes.)
    If something goes wrong in his environment, a boy or a man tends to look outside himself first for the cause of the problem. This tendency is partly based on a male’s biological tendency to take action (versus introspection) and partly on the male’s ego, which encourages him to blame others versus tak- ing responsibility for his actions.
    Conversely, if something goes wrong in her environment, a girl or a woman will tend to look inside herself first for the cause of the problem. Most women are far more inclined to blame themselves for a problem than to blame someone else.
    How does this “anger in, anger out” difference relate to a woman losing herself in her relationships? Because a woman is more inclined to question and