“My husband and I have been separated for a year because he was physically and emotionally abusive. Since then, I know he’s been working on changing—going to counseling, taking classes, etc. Even though my friends and family think it’s a terrible idea, I miss him and hope we can resume our relationship—minus the abuse. Do you have any advice on how we should proceed? What reconciliation considerations should we keep in mind?”
The note above is like many messages we receive. While the Ananias Foundation’s mission is to help those causing harm to change, we often hear from individuals who have been on the receiving end of hurtful behavior. They’re separated and considering reconciling with their partner, but they don’t want to make a mistake.
Are they being reckless to even think about getting back together? How do they handle pressure from friends and family who are urging them to move on instead? What should they expect the process to look like?
For readers in this situation with similar questions, this blog post if for you. Hopefully, it will also help those who have caused harm to understand the reconciliation considerations their partner is pondering and the dilemmas they face.
Closed and open doors
To be fair, some victims have no intention of continuing a relationship. If you’re one of those people, that’s okay and it’s your choice. You should feel no obligation to stay. No one should force, coerce, or obligate you to reconcile—to do so would be abusive.
For the one who caused harm, this can be disappointing and discouraging, especially if you have worked hard to stop your abuse. There are many reasons why your partner might not recognize your hard work—a topic I wrote about in this blog post. Bottom line is, however, that we must let them go. Desperately hanging on will never lead to a good outcome. And if you haven’t done much work, here is what’s needed for reconciliation to be successful.
Many others, however, want to give their partner and relationship a second chance. They love their mate, want their family to stay together, and view what’s happened as a rough patch in their life’s story. The separation, and even involving law enforcement, was part of necessary boundary-setting to spur changes and stop the hurtful parts of their interactions. For these people, reconciliation considerations are the next step in the process.
Studies show approximately half of all victims remain with or return to the partner that perpetrated domestic violence or abuse on them. There are good and not-so-good reasons for a person to choose this path. Once again, it is your choice. No family member, friend, counselor, or domestic violence advocate should pressure you to leave, either.
Poor reasons for reconciliation considerations
One motivation is they perceive the cost of ending the relationship to be higher than cost of the abuse continuing. The lost companionship, missing co-parent, or limited financial resources weigh heavy into their deliberations. While practical in the short-term, these are terrible reasons to go back. They underestimate the long-term emotional and physical toll created by remaining in an abusive relationship.
Another rationale is, they (rightly) see their partner’s bad behavior as a product of earlier trauma, such as childhood neglect or abuse. They’re compassionate of those wounds and hopeful that healing them will change the behavior. While empathy is good, reuniting without evidence of change may enable their partner to avoid addressing past damage.
Sometimes, time passing starts their reconciliation considerations. It’s been a few weeks, months, or a year or two, so maybe it will be better now, they reason. After all, time heals all wounds—right? Not by itself. While emotional healing does take time, it’s time plus intentional effort to address the root causes.
Cracking the door open to reconciliation considerations
This brings us to a good reason to mull over: you have grounds to believe your relationship dynamics might be different now. Like for the writer of the note above, knowing your partner has taken steps to change might warrant reconciliation considerations. You’re aware that they’ve been working on themselves, and the measures they’ve taken sound like appropriate things to do.
But how do you know if those steps have been effective and your partner will now show up differently in your relationship? The answer is, you don’t. Which is why you should go slowly and verify that the changes you need to see are real. Here’s how that might look:
Keep it real
When you resume seeing your partner, try to make your time together as normal and realistic as possible. Do regular things like childcare, household chores, running errands, paying bills, and making decisions like before. Dates on the town and vacation travel may be okay. However, place yourself and your partner in regular life situations where you’re bound to bump into everyday disappointments and frustrations. You don’t need to create these challenges—life has a way of generating them for us. Just observe your partner when the inevitable trials come up.
Give yourself plenty of observation time
Watch your partner over the course of 6 months or a year. Most of us can be on our best behavior for a few weeks, but it is hard to stuff our bad reactions for months at a time. Let life happen and see how they respond before you commit one way or the other.
Your partner may want the reconciliation to move more quickly. However, pressuring you to accelerate this timeline is a red flag. It shows they have not developed the ability to accept consequences, set aside their own needs, and consider other peoples’ perspectives.
Keep the pause button handy
Create an easy way to take a breather from your relationship if it is not going well. A pause might be necessary to give them more time to keep working. By continuing to live separately, you can more easily slow things down or change course if necessary. However, if you’re both back under one roof, stepping back is going to be more difficult and painful.
A cautionary note here: this uncertainty and your lack of commitment might not feel good to your partner. Once again, consider it a test to see if they are willing to live with reasonable boundaries you set. If not, you’re getting your answer.
Your role
If you decide to resume your relationship, even on a trial basis, understand you, too, have a part to play. How you conduct yourself will have a big influence on your relationship’s success or failure. Here are some things you can do that will make reconciliation difficult, if not impossible:
Set unrealistic expectations
Your partner is not going to be perfect. He or she will likely react too strongly sometimes. They’ll still tend to want to control the things they wanted to control before. Unfortunately, that can sound like the abuse continuing, but it could be different.
What’s important is that they have fewer bad reactions, and that they catch those reactions earlier, before damaging things are said and done. Also, how does your partner respond to their mistakes and backsliding? Do they see these situations and think they can do better, or do they brush them off as “no big deal”? Do they learn from them and practice responding differently? Or do they blame you for “making” them upset?
If you can’t accept these inconsistencies (and I’m not saying you should—that’s your decision), reconciliation will probably not be successful. It will take grace and patience from you both.
Make a big deal of minor infractions
This is related to the first point about realistic expectations. If your partner has been working hard to change, but they mess up, they’re likely already scolding themselves for it. You don’t need to pile on.
It’s natural for you to be particularly sensitive to anything that reminds you of past abuse. It’s a PTSD-type of response. However, layering guilt and shame on top of what they already feel will be discouraging. Part of your partner’s work is to stop being triggered by circumstances that remind them of something hurtful from the past. It might not seem fair, but now it’s your turn to do similar healing.
That’s not to say you must ignore bad behavior—especially if your partner is minimizing it or blaming you. But if they stopped themselves, apologized, and are trying to learn from it, your grace will encourage them to keep working.
Remind them of their past abuse
Similarly, even if they don’t mess up, holding their past over their head when you have a conflict or are upset with them is counterproductive.
Sure, it’s okay for the two of you to talk about what happened in the past. Hearing a heart-felt apology and compassion from the hurt you felt from your partner may help you heal. Have that discussion, then be willing to move on. If you need to talk more, find a friend or counselor for that dialogue.
Consider how it would feel to you to have your mistakes and past shortcomings brought up on a regular basis. Maybe you’ve experienced something like that and remember how much it sucks. Constant reminders of past mistakes are a form of emotional abuse. The inherent message is, “You screwed up, so you owe me,” which is an attempt to exert power and control over another person.
Threaten to leave
Yes, it is appropriate to say you are considering, but not promising, getting back together. Tell your partner you are evaluating them for changes. After that, your position on the relationship should be:
- “I’m still evaluating.”
- “Yes, let’s move forward.”
- “No, I’ve decided this isn’t going to work for me.“
What’s not fair, or healthy, is to play Hokey Pokey (one foot in, one foot out) with your commitment. Threats of abandonment are a form of dirty fighting and can also be abusive.
Keep the evaluation phase open
Staying the in the “I’m evaluating” stage indefinitely is unfair. It’s reasonable for someone to eventually want some certainty around their intimate relationship. Communicate a time frame and try to stick with it. Of course, if your partner’s behavior changes back later, you’re not obligated to stay.
Pressure from others
The decision to reconcile is your choice to make. After all, it’s your life! It’s fine to listen to others’ perspective and advice. At the end of the day, however, you are the one that must live with the consequences—negative or positive.
Part of developing emotional intelligence is learning that we can’t please everyone, nor should we try. No one should pressure you to follow their advice. They should leave it up to you. Otherwise, at best they’re disrespecting your boundaries, or at worst, they’re being controlling (and abusive).
Sometimes, explaining your evaluation process will help assuage their fears. Sharing the evidence you saw that led to reconciliation considerations may help them see your perspective. On the other hand, it might not. It’s not your job to convince them!
Faith note
God commands us to forgive others. Matthew 18:21-22, Ephesians 4:32, and Mark 11:25 are a few of the many places in the Bible we get this message.
Why is God so emphatic that we forgive? Because we are made to be in relationships with others. Without forgiveness, however, relationships are not possible.
Even if we don’t want to continue in a relationship with a particular person, hanging onto the offense means we’ll become resentful. Resentment will carry into our other relationships, our sense of peace, and our wellbeing.
Failure to forgive has other consequences for us, too. Matthew 6:14-15 says, “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” That’s a serious outcome for us if we are hard-hearted!
Some people resist forgiving because they think it means they are letting their offenders off the hook. No. It just means we are giving God the right to administer justice instead of us. Otherwise, we’re saying we don’t trust God to be a fair and honorable judge.
Others misunderstand forgiveness to mean that we are agreeing to resume a relationship with the offender. But God never tells us to put ourselves in a place where we will be hurt. A good God who loves his child (you) would never expect you to endanger yourself. In fact, he gave you the capacity to assess all kinds of situations to determine if they are safe. This is one of those places.
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