Abuse or Consent? A True Case

Dr. Smith, a divorced physician in his late fifties, met his new soul mate Mrs. Brown, a widow, when she came for a consult in his clinic. The two felt very comfortable with each other and very soon it became attraction.

The new couple started a romance and after 3 months Mrs. Brown moved in to Dr. Smith’s apartment.

Dr. Smith was a well-known physician and made a very good living in contrast with Mrs. Brown, whose deceased husband died leaving many debts. The couple had no children.

Mrs. Brown in her late forties developed “an extreme emotional dependency” on Dr. Smith who was by nature a very demanding and controlling person. After a while, Dr. Brown, well aware of her dependency on him, started abusing her in different ways.

In the beginning it was just some excessive requirements concerning the food she prepared and the way in which she arranged the clothes in the closet, but as time went on things got worse and out of control and there was nothing she could do without his consent and approval.

Mrs. Brown became afraid of Dr. Smith but having no one else to rely on she truly believed things would get better and his love for her would suppress his inner need for control, as she told me later. She was wrong, very wrong.

The more dependent she became, the more abusive he became. He took control of every detail of her life claiming “she needed guidance” - even the shopping list had to be pre- approved, “she could not cope with all the day by day problems”, and so on. Mrs. Brown was not “a strong person”, she felt insecure and therefore her dependence on his “protection” increased.

After 3 years in this relationship, Mrs. Brown was a broken woman. She could not use her credit card and she had to stop working in her part-time job because of Dr. Smith’s jealousy.

Not everything was bad in the relationship as Dr. Smith did take care of her; he was very concerned about her physical health and her material needs. They spent a few days every few months enjoying wonderful vacations together. In these times of seclusion with just the two of them, she remembers having “the best days of my life”.

More time went on and now Dr. Smith was not only controlling and emotionally abusive, he was locking her up at home due to his terrible feelings of jealousy.

When Mrs. Brown first personally met me after a few phone conversations I was surprised to see a nice woman, smiling and actually very smart (she told me she finished her B.A in history as first on the Dean’s list), but emotionally she was a wreck.

She asked for help, not only legal help but mainly emotional help. As a professional in the law field I could offer her legal guidance and refer her to a friend who took the case very seriously.

To make it short, we reached a fast agreement with Dr. Smith’s lawyers, who was to pay Mrs. Brown a monthly payment as alimony for 2 years for being in a common-law marriage with her. She moved to a new apartment and Dr. Smith paid her rent for 1 year in advance. All her legal costs were paid by Dr. Smith in addition to a one year series of consults with her new psychologist.

I have never succeed in understanding how Mrs. Brown could have allowed this situation to go on for so long and to such an extreme but from this case I’ve learned a lot. The best definition for abuse I read is in the article below written by Joyce Schur:

Silent Slaughtering of Souls

Abuse is similar to an addiction. Once programmed, the mind is very difficult to reprogram. Patterns set by abuse are hard to reform. Yet, if reformation is the goal, the abused individual must rise each day with the conviction that s/he has been incorrectly programmed and that s/he must be willing to work to correct the incorrect thinking patterns. Fear is the obstacle. It anesthetizes feeling. As the anti-self messages are eliminated, the anesthesia wears off and the process of self-actuation is begun.

If you feel you are in an “abusive” situation of any kind, please look around and you’ll find many people offering a helping hand. Do not despair and don’t give up. There is always hope and solutions for every problem and situation.

 
Sincerely,

 
Tzvi Szajnbrum, Attorney at Law