And each “role” has rules (which abusers will always write for their benefit).
So you may have someone who is perfectly fine for a girlfriend or boyfriend to be [x], but not their spouse. Once married, they assume you will stop being [x] because you’re married now.
They may use this way of thinking about relationships to coerce or force victims into the ‘role’ they believe they should inhabit, to control how they believe the victim should be.
This is different than seeing the relationship as the result of all the actions within the relationship.
Abusers may also ‘keep the mask on’ until they have a victim ‘locked down’.
This is why abuse can start after major life events such as getting married, pregnancy, having a child, buying a house, or moving in together.
If they were behaving long enough to get the victim emotionally attached and committed, the mask comes off afterward, and with even more resentment for even having to pretend in the first place.
When you combine these elements –
- someone who is hiding who they are,
- hiding their beliefs about what ‘role’ a victim should perform
- that they feel entitled to control/coerce/force a victim into performing that role and to their standard, and
- locking the victim into the relationship
– the victim is blindsided by the abuse, and the abuser’s switch-up, and the trap they’re in.