Jobs: The New Abusive Spouses

Thanks to Women's "Rights", the Sexual Revolution, and other causes implemented by the idiotic Feminazis of the Baby Boomer generation to "improve" women's lives, there is a new breed of abusive husband running amok in the 21st century. With this abusive husband, you get all the detriments of being with an abuser-controller, and none of the benefits that even the worst of marriages have to offer. After five years of this hellish "marriage", I am starting to wish I could stuff Earl in the trunk, so to speak.

Here are the "warning signs" of an abuser, lifted from a women's shelter homepage, and here is how a job meets these criteria:

Jealousy and Controlling Behaviour
Controlling behaviour is often disguised or excused as concern. Concern for your safety, your emotional or mental health, the need to use your time well, or to make sensible decisions. Your abuser may be angry or upset if you are 'late' coming back from work, shopping, visiting friends, etc., even if you told him/her you would be later back than usual. Your abuser may question you closely about where you were, whom you spoke to, the content of every conversation you held, or why you did something he/she was not involved in. As this behaviour gets worse, you may not be allowed to make personal decisions about the house, clothing, going to church or how you spend your time or money or even make you ask for permission to leave the house or room. Alternately, he/she may theoretically allow you your own decisions, but penalise you for making the wrong ones. Concern for our loved ones to a certain extent is normal - trying to control their every move is not.

A job will control your life. I am now accustomed to being called out of town at the last minute, bitched out if I wish to attend the funeral of an immediate family member (at my last job, some fucking whore called me three times in an hour while we were burying a woman I lived with for the better part of 2 decades). Imagine five years of being forced to provide a doctor's note/ court papers/death certificate and obitiuary saying exactly what was wrong with you/that you were in traffic court that morning/that you were burying your family, and did indeed, have obligations besides your goddam job. Imagine being followed to lunch, the bathroom, etc, and finding out later that your coworkers were cross examined about who you were meeting with for lunch, and what you were doing in the bathroom, and why do you have to go so much. Let's not forget the countless lectures I've gotten about how I sure as hell better not marry, have a family, or have outside activities, it would make me a worse employee. Plus, they micromanage me (despite years of stellar performance reviews) and that's just annoying.

Unrealistic Expectations

The abuser may expects you to be the perfect husband, wife, mother, father, lover, and friend. He/she is very dependent on you for all his/her needs, and may tell you he/she can fulfil all your needs as lover, friend, and companion. Statements such as: 'lf you love me, I'm all you need.', 'You are all I need.' are common. Your abuser may expect you to provide everything for him/her emotionally, practically, financially or spiritually, and then blame you for not being perfect or living up to expectation.

And how often have I been told "this job is all you need"... We are expected to be the "perfect employee", wholly and utterly devoted to the firm, the industry, the client, with trivialities such as our families, health, friends, hobbies, home and goals to be totally ignored. The mofos I work for now have no issue calling me out of the blue and telling me to be on a plane in an hour for the next indeterminate amount of days.

Isolation

The abuser may try to curtail your social interaction. He/she may prevent you from spending time with your friends or family and demand that you only go places 'together'. He/she may accuse you of being 'tied to your mother's apron strings', not be committed to the relationship, or view people who are your personal friends as 'causing trouble' or 'trying to put a wedge' between you. He/she may want to live in the country without a phone, not let you use the car, stop you from working or gaining further education or qualifications.

Hmm... I am stranded in a hotel room with no cell phone reception, Internet, or cable in a strange city for days and weeks at a time. At this specific location, if I choose to step outside, I will be immediately killed. The hotel's nice enough, see, but it's the eye of the storm, the business travelers' hotel in the middle of the ghetto. Literally. Not to mention the long ass hours they force us to work (try 75 a week) basically isolate us from the rest of the world.

Blame-shifting for Problems and Feelings

Hey, when does YOUR boss ever admit that it was his fuck up, rather than project it onto you?

Hypersensitivity

Let's face it - at my job, nobody's going to die or even come close if we make a mistake or miss a deadline. National security will not be breached, nothing terrible will happen but some megalomaniac asshole will be annoyed. Imagine spending your 75 hour weeks surounded by megalomaniac assholes for whom everything - from you making a typo in an email to your having a degree from a higher ranked school than they - is the end of the world.

Cruelty to Animals

Not specifically where I worked, but I guess if you worked for a non-treehugger cosmetics company that tests on animals, you could make the argument that yours does.

Cruelty to Children
Since abusers want all your attention themselves, they resent your spending time with the children or any normal demands and needs the children may have. .

Again, my particular job is not cruel towards children. However, if I had a dime for every time I have been told that women are no longer welcome at the company/industry/workforce when they have children, I wouldn't have to flippin' work. Oh, and the women at work who BRAG about having abortions because a baby would get in the way of your career? Congrats, bitch, you murdered your own child so you could get that 3% raise. Don't encourage the rest of us to do the same, the last thing I want is to be in hell with you for all eternity. (not the exact definition of hell, but not too far either).

Rigid Gender Roles
Abusers usually believe in stereotypical gender roles. A man may expect a woman to serve him; stay at home, obey him in all things---even things that are criminal in nature. A male abuser will often see women as inferior to men, more stupid, unable to be a whole person without a relationship. female abusers may expect the man to provide for them entirely, shift the responsibility for her well-being onto him or heckle him as being 'not a real man' if he shows any weakness or emotion.

Again, if I had a dime for every time I worked for a sexist asshole who held the fact that I have a vagina against me, including my SOB former supervisor who demanded to know if I was pregnant every fucking time I went to the bathroom or stepped out of the office for any reason, I wouldn't have to flippin' work again unless I lived past 200. In fact, the maybe 10 women I've ever heard of who've made manager in my industry may as well be men - they're all dried-up, childless, unmarried, bitter old hags. Oh, and supervisors who think women are stupid? Don't have to be men. "It sucked for me to be a twentysomething female worker in the 1970s, now I must make it suck for you!"

Verbal Abuse
In addition to saying things that are meant to be cruel and hurtful, either in public or in private, this can include degrading remarks or running down any accomplishments. Often the abuser will tell you that you are 'stupid', could not manage without him/her. He/she may keep you up all night to 'sort this out once and for all' or even wake you at night to continue to verbally abuse you. The abuser may even say kindly things to your face, but speak badly about you to friends and family.

Again, if I had a dime for every time I have been screamed at for mortal sins like using the wrong color pen to copyedit a document, followed to the bathroom, told I was stupid, told I was never going anywhere, told I would be nowhere without this job, and that the economy is so terrible and I'm so stupid I'll never find another one, told I was a bitch who creates a poor working environment because I do dirty tricks like tell my married coworker to stop asking me out or tell my office stalker that being the partner's nephew does not give him the right to phone me repeatedly at 3AM or harass my boyfriend ... Let's not forget the countless supervisors who have interrupted my work (the last time I was stupid enough to work for a woman, the bitch would follow me into the effin bathroom to yell at me!) to scream at me, insult me, or some such shit --- all clearly designed to eff up whatever it is I'm trying to do.

Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

Very rarely do abusers conform to the stereotypical image of a constantly harsh, nasty or violent person, either in public or in private. More frequently the abuser portrays a perfectly normal and pleasant picture to the outside world (often they have responsible jobs or are respected and important members of the local community or Church) and reserves the abuse for you in the privacy of your own home. Nor are abusers always overtly abusive or cruel, but can display apparent kindness and consideration. This Jeckyll and Hyde tendency of the abuser serves to further confuse the victim, while protecting themselves from any form of suspicion from outsiders. Many victims describe "sudden" changes in mood - one minute nice and the next explosive or hysterical, or one minute happy and the next minute sad. This does not indicate some special "mental problem" but are typical of abusive personalities, and related to other characteristics such as hypersensitivity.

I swear all the abovementioned megalomaniac nutjobs I work with or for are like this - can be very suave and charming in front of clients and when they want something, and complete psychos when it's just you and them. it's just like turning off a lightswitch. "I'll send flowers to your mom's funeral because it'll reflect badly on the firm if we don't, but I swear to God I WILL scream at you for taking the time off work, call you to harass you during the funeral, and make fun of you if I hear of you crying in the bathroom an hour after you found out. I still haven't forgiven you for how angry you made me by taking a day off to go visit her when she had that heart attack."

Drink or Substance Abuse
Everyone in my industry seems to have a drinking problem. You're not part of the in-crowd if you're not skanking around at happy hour every night at 10PM when youleave the office. Don't like the superficiality, married men older than your dad hitting on you, and secondhand smoke of the bar scene? Then you're not "cool." No wonder they drink so freaking much, your life sucks if you work in my industry and you are probably better off dead than staying in your current career.

Threatening Violence

They threaten to fire you... repeatedly. And tell you how screwed you'll be when you're unemployed. Then the ratbastards don't deliver. Fire me! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! I'd be able to sleep past 4 AM (the time concentration camp inmates had to get out of bed) and have a life.


So all in all, thanks to my abusive spouse, I have stomach problems, a messed up heartbeat, too many wrinkles for a woman my age, massive dental problems (not my job's fault, but I have been trying to schedule an appointment to get the root canal, crown and bridge for two flippin months now and they keep putting me on travel at the last second), carpal, a bad back, migrane headaches, and of course a bad attitude towards work and careers. I will never get a masters' degree, which would just shackle me to debt and to more years of this happy marriage.

If I could go back and time, I would tell Susan B. Anthony, Gloria Steinem and all those other stupid whores who screwed the rest of us over by pushing for woman's "rights" to sit down and shut the fuck up. And then I would stop back to my highschool self, and tell her, "Put that stupid book down! Forget college, just find some loser guy who will knock you up before you're old enough to drive and spend the rest of your lives beating the shit out of you! You will save all that tuition money, because your life will just turn out the same anyway!"