To Men on Edge:
The Beatles did a song called, “ You’re Gonna Lose That Girl; ” That song takes on a true and painful meaning when it comes to family violence:
I have worked with men who have committed family violence acts for the past 30 years. I have found that they continue to “push the limits” with their partners, sometimes to the point of no return, whereby they are left by their partners either through separation or divorce. Most of the time, they lose their children as a side effect. All the man wants is another chance…too late, the loss is happening and the END-POINT has been reached and your partner will be moving on…without you.
Why keep testing the limits. Get help NOW, before you have to move into the begging and pleading stage of trying to convince your partner to stay in an unhealthy and aggressive relationship. Partners only take so much…and then they’re gone...poof!
In my 30-year history of working with men, I found that they can make significant changes to effectively have healthy, loving, growth oriented and violent free relationships. It really comes down to looking at patterns that have been playing out for many years, sometimes without thinking about them. Patterns that have only created distress in your family. If you refuse to look at these various patterns, until a loss is staring you in the face and it’s too late, there may come undue suffering for the entire family system...YES, the children will suffer. NOW is the time to LOOK at these damaging PATTERNS . Most men I’ve worked with have stated, after the fact, that they never thought it would happen to them…until they became aware of the lone toothbrush in the toothbrush holder.
Rockingham Family Counseling Clinic will offer men a way out of unhealthy relational patterns by helping them to develop insight into the dynamics of family violence in a non-judgmental environment. The therapeutic intervention will help facilitate change into non-violent relational patterns by way of providing therapeutic expertise and strategies (tools that are actually usable) to help men move toward effective management of sometimes difficult situations that just naturally arise within relationships. Of course, the first step is to admit that there is a problem. Only after having that awareness, and the willingness to take the necessary steps to change, can the real healing begin.
Some of the learning men have experienced include:
1. Recognizing the process of escalation and interrupting that process
2. Learning to be assertive, not passive or aggressive
3. How to effectively communicate with your partner or child
4. How to veer away from power and control tactics
5. The process of down-regulating anger
6. Effective stress management
7. Substance misuse and it's relationship to anger and violence
8. How to take an effective TIME OUT
9. Patterns and forms abusive relationships may take
10. The effect on children
11. Learn relationship-repair strategies