Victim syndrome in a relationship with a man - step-by-step instructions

In the life of a woman with victim syndrome, everything is always bad: her husband doesn’t love her, her children don’t listen, her boss doesn’t appreciate her...

But she will never say to herself, “Get it together, you wimp!” and will not begin to change his life.

The victim will wait, endure, complain, “carry his cross,” but will not correct the situation.

Sacrifice is a state of mind. This is a comfort zone that has nothing to do with comfort. But the woman is in no hurry to leave it, because she doesn’t know how to live any other way.

Who is this article for?

For women who are currently in toxic relationships. Victims often attract tyrants, for whom insults, assault, and disrespect are the norm.

For women who are unhappy with their lives, are used to hiding their feelings, but do not know how to change it.

From this article you will learn:

• Why does a woman become a victim? Let's look at examples
• How to recognize a victim?
• Test yourself: test for the state of the victim
• How to get out of the victim state?
• How to avoid getting into this state?

Who is the victim and what is it eaten with?

Or rather, they devour from the inside, savoring every bite with pleasure. And the victim is only glad - after all, she loves to suffer. In the article we will talk about the victim syndrome in relationships with a man, but people of both sexes tend to be victims, in different situations, under different circumstances. Being a victim is:

• Trying to live up to others' expectations
• Adapt to those around you
• Doing something you don't like
• Spend time with people you don't want around you
• Living with a person who doesn't love you or whom you don't love
• Receive a low salary and be content with it, and also complain about it
• Living a completely different life than you would like

Well, I think you roughly understand. And most likely, they recognized themselves in some way. If yes, read on.

Which people are most likely to become victims?

A victim in psychology is an individual who has suffered from violence or deception for various reasons. A person can get into a difficult situation if he has a certain set of qualities. His character traits to some extent contribute to the fact that he himself becomes the cause of his misfortunes.

Who may become a victim:

• infantile personalities who have a poor understanding of people, suffer from excessive parental care, and judge strangers from books and films;
• self-centered people who love to humiliate others, demonstrating their own superiority to everyone;
• unbalanced people who abuse alcohol and often get into fights;
• individuals who do not have enough knowledge to recognize scammers;
• people who do not have their own opinion, strong convictions, looking for a strict but fair master;
• people experiencing financial problems;
• mentally ill people who derive pleasure from physical pain or moral humiliation.

A ready-made guide to leaving the role of a victim

I made a lot of mistakes when I tried to please others.

Oprah Winfrey

Especially for those who are in the role of a victim and want to get out of it, I wrote the book “From Victim to Hero: The Path of a Strong Man.” It consists of practical tasks and exercises, after completing which you will stop allowing people and circumstances to control you, learn to defend yourself and your opinion, speak out loud about what does not suit you, take responsibility for your life and get out of the role of a victim in relationships. The book is aimed at increasing self-esteem and developing the ability to say and do what you want, and not others.

I included in the book only the most effective and working techniques that were tested on many of my clients during my psychological practice. By completing them, you will step out of the role of victim and take life into your own hands. And then you will be able to become an independent person, an independent adult and build your life the way you want.

You can read the full description and reviews of the book, and also purchase it using the link.

On one side of the scale lies fear - on the other there is always freedom!

My second book is dedicated to building healthy relationships, it is called “Into a happy relationship through self-love.”

After reading it, you will learn to defend yourself and your boundaries, get out of the role of a victim, talk to your partner so that he hears you and listens, and you will be able to get out of love addiction. You will learn how to remain interesting to your partner for many years, create a desire to remain faithful, and resolve conflicts correctly. It's about how to learn to treat yourself so that your relationship with your partner becomes happy.

This book is a real bridge leading to psychologically healthy relationships. It contains a lot of information presented for in-depth work on yourself, and then on relationships. Now you will finally understand what you did wrong and, having worked on your mistakes, you will be able to give yourself a long and happy, and most importantly, a healthy union.

You can read the full description of the book, read reviews and purchase the book using the link.

Prevention of victimization

If an individual does not want to become a victim of violence in the future, he needs to treat other people with respect and demand a similar attitude towards himself. A person should feel like an individual, have his own views on life, and not allow others to offend him.

An individual needs to learn to confront life, cope with problems, and find a way out of difficult situations. The main thing is not the fight against offenders, but the battle with your fears and complexes. As a rule, people cannot change their lives because they are afraid to leave their comfort zone. Such individuals develop acquired helplessness. They are able to change their lives, but they do not consciously do it. Instead of correcting the situation, they are inactive and show aggression towards others. People need to find a purpose in life, develop an optimistic mindset and take action. If you do nothing, the situation will not improve.

It is important to rid your thinking of past grievances. If an individual suffered some kind of trauma in childhood, he needs to correct his attitude towards life, forgive the offenders, and find the positive aspects of what happened.

The position of a victim in psychology is a familiar state for many. It can be difficult for people to realize the problem, find strength in themselves and return to normal life. If a client wants to get rid of complexes, he needs to seek help from a psychologist.

Victim syndrome in a relationship with a man is...

We have looked at the reasons for the emergence of the victim role and come to the main part. How does victim syndrome manifest itself in relationships? Why do we love to suffer so much? Why do we suffer even when parting with a tyrant instead of breathing a sigh of relief? First things first.

So, let's assume that the girl grew up in the absence of unconditional love, constantly hearing criticism addressed to her and not being dearly loved by her father. At the subconscious level, she has the idea that love and suffering are inseparable. And with all her gut, subconsciously, she begins to gravitate towards aggression, choosing men who will give her the opportunity to suffer. The victim does not seek happiness in a relationship. At the subconscious level, she is looking for someone who will give her those childhood memories and sensations.

With her head, of course, she wants happiness, but her unconscious wants aggression. Because love in its understanding always goes along with aggression, with emotional, psychological or physical violence. She grew up in this, this love-suffering is dear to her.

Why do you think you are attracted to some men while you are neutral towards others? Libido is built on this. If a man reminds you of something from your childhood, he hooks you. It can be anything - smell, facial features, voice, intonation, character, demeanor. Otherwise, the man will not evoke any emotions in you.

Once you step out of the victim role in a relationship, you realize that there was almost no happiness in this relationship. You will realize that you suffered most of the time in the relationship. So why did you hold on to them so stubbornly then? Why did you sometimes think that you wouldn't find anyone better than him?

The whole point is that you put your resentment into it. The resentment that you have nurtured within yourself since childhood. The resentment that was eating you from the inside. With his appearance, words, actions or smell (whatever) he evoked those childhood feelings in you. And you mentally, subconsciously transferred these sensations into him. He is the culprit that makes you feel so bad. But now that you have broken up, you have lost the person who helped you live in the way you were used to living since childhood.

How to stop enjoying suffering and get out of the role of a victim? How do you understand that what happened in childhood is abnormal, and that another, healthy love is normal? Read on.

Distinctive features of victim psychology

People with a loser mentality often suffer from victim syndrome. They are fixated on their own failures and blame others for all the troubles that happen to them. Individuals with victim syndrome feel that they are the only ones so unhappy and unlucky. They see the solution to their problems in only one thing - in complaints about their life and the desire to evoke a feeling of compassion for themselves in others.

What traits do people with a victim mentality have:

• denying one's own mistakes, shifting the blame to others;
• egocentrism, unwillingness to take into account other people's opinions;
• pessimism, excessive suspicion;
• envy of other people's happiness, other people's achievements;
• the need for praise, dependence on the opinions of others;
• the desire to talk about your difficult fate;
• a constant need to make others feel sorry for themselves;
• unwillingness to take responsibility;
• infantilism;
• exaggeration of possible negative consequences;
• the desire to please everyone, the inability to refuse people their requests;
• showing independence in new endeavors, denying any help;
• excessive arrogance;
• self-deprecation for the sake of gratitude.

People suffering from victim syndrome are sometimes not so unhappy. They deliberately demonstrate their suffering to others in order to evoke a feeling of pity in them. This is one of the methods of neutralizing the enemy and a way for them to achieve their intended goals. In this way, you can avoid responsibility and shift the blame to other people. However, if a person accidentally turns out to be a victim of violence, then he, most likely, possessing some trait characteristic of a loser, simply could not cope with the problem and failed to identify the danger in time.

How to get out of the role of a victim - step-by-step instructions

If you ask the victim if he likes to suffer, he will deny it because everything we talk about in this article is unconscious. It takes wisdom and courage to take off your rose-colored glasses and fully realize that you are the victim. So, step-by-step instructions for getting out of the role of a victim in a relationship:

• Admit to yourself that you are a victim. The fact that you like being her. I like to suffer and be offended. It’s so convenient to be weaker than someone, to complain and not take responsibility. But sooner or later you need to become an adult. Learn to build adult relationships. Accept the victim within you, and then you will be able to free yourself from this role. Recognizing and accepting a problem is the first step to solving it. To win the game, you must first accept its terms

• No matter what happens, always keep your focus on yourself. Several times a day, ask yourself the question: “How am I feeling now?” If the answer is repeatedly charged with a negative emotion, do everything to change it to a positive one. If this is not possible, leave. From this person, from this situation, from this job. Don't allow yourself to live a life you don't like
• If possible, don't do anything you don't want to do. Don’t be impatient, speak up right away if something doesn’t suit you. Learn to say “No.” Don't be afraid to be bad. People with low self-esteem are afraid of being bad, out of fear that they will be rejected. But nothing will happen to you if you refuse a person. Even if after this he leaves your life, this will only mean that the person who tried to lure you into the victim’s trap has left you. And your task is to get out of it and start living a psychologically healthy, happy life
• Especially for those who want to get out of the role of a victim, I wrote the book “From Victim to Hero: The Path of a Strong Man,” which is a ready-made step-by-step instruction for getting out of the role of a victim and becoming a strong and independent person. You can read its full description and purchase it using the link

• Don't be afraid of what people might think of you. If you notice that there are a lot of people around you who criticize you, this only means that you are almost out of the role of a victim. You stopped pleasing everyone. People will always try to change you to suit themselves, to make you “comfortable”

• Remember the golden rule: people treat you the way you treat yourself. You will never be made a victim if you love yourself and meet your needs instead of satisfying others.
• Being in the role of a victim, you were in a codependent relationship. Now you need to learn how to build healthy, mature partnerships. The kind in which you and the man will be equal

Don't be a victim. Answers from Mikhail Labkovsky

Photo: Varvara Lozenko

How to recognize the victim in yourself and others

Victim psychology is a certain behavioral stereotype developed under the influence of fear. Fear can become entrenched as a result of psychological trauma from any situation experienced in childhood; it is not necessarily a consequence of parental upbringing.

How does the victim behave? Let’s say that if a girl walks alone in a quiet courtyard at night and is afraid and hears steps behind her that are clearly not women’s, then she begins to turn around and speed up her pace. Our “animal mind,” often, regardless of our upbringing, perceives such a gesture as a signal to “catch up with me.” When you are asked to sit down and you respond, “Thank you, I’ll stand,” you are behaving like a victim. When a woman lives with a boyfriend who not only does not intend to get married, but is not even eager to take her to the cinema, and only comes at night, and she does not like it, but she tolerates it - she is a victim. For this reason, he does not want to marry her. When you are yelled at at work, and you have a loan, three small children and an unemployed wife, so you remain silent, clinging to work with all your might, you behave like a victim. The victim’s behavior consists of unconscious, practically uncontrollable little things that provoke the opponent to aggression.

Photo: Varvara Lozenko

If you delve into the childhood of a person with the psychology of a victim, then, most likely, it will turn out that they did not take him into account, did not pay attention to his merits and achievements, but pointed at his shortcomings. In addition to fear, a person with a victim mentality feels resentment and humiliation. Sometimes this leads to the fact that he can behave quite harshly with weaker people: he needs to get even on someone, to get satisfaction. The main problem of the victim is that she lives without enjoying life: she has a survivalist philosophy, she constantly thinks about how not to run into problems. But when a person thinks about possible problems, he “attracts” them to himself. At school, they usually pester those children whose insecurity is revealed by their gestures and posture; they walk hunched over, with their toes inward, and clutch their briefcase to themselves. Another distinctive feature of a victim is that she often tries to please everyone, never refuses anyone, and does a lot to her own detriment.

I will tell you one scene in which the victims recognize themselves. You are a young, healthy man, and you are traveling on the subway. You are very tired, it’s a long drive, and you want to sit. You sit down, but a grandmother stands in front of you and literally starts poking you in the face with her bag. After a while you give way to her. “Why am I the victim in this case? - you object. “I might want to give up my seat to her, because I’m decent and that’s how I was brought up - to give way to the elderly.” If you really want to give in to your grandmother, then you are not a victim, I won’t even argue. The victim is the one who doesn’t want to give in because he’s tired, but eventually got up. The first thing that woke up in you was a feeling of guilt for the fact that you are sitting and she is standing. Secondly, being dependent on the opinions of other people, you begin to look at yourself through the eyes of these people traveling with you, and think: “What a bastard, I, young, am sitting, and a poor woman is dying right before our eyes.” You feel shame. And so you give way to her. How could it have been done differently? - you ask. That's how. The old lady is unlikely to be deaf and mute, and if she needs to sit down, she will say: “Make room for me.” But the old woman does not ask, she is proud and believes that they themselves should give in to her. However, no one owes anyone anything. Therefore, she should have asked - after asking, few people refuse. But if, without waiting for this, you yourself run ahead of the locomotive and, even being mortally tired, fly out of your place like a traffic jam, catching the eye of a disgruntled old woman, then you are a victim, that’s a fact.

Photo: Varvara Lozenko

How to communicate with the victim

— How to behave with a person who is clearly a victim in order to help him?

- You need to behave the way you want. There is no need to help him. If you start doing something to the detriment of yourself, then you have the same problem as him. It is worth accepting a person as he is. Don't criticize. You can support him. It is worth remembering that people are animals. They often provoke behavior towards them in a certain way. You've probably heard the story about the tiger Amur and the goat Timur: the goat, who was thrown into the tiger's enclosure as live food, was not used to being afraid of anyone and calmly went to meet the predator, and then took over his house. That is, he behaved like a leader. And the tiger did not touch him for several days. Victim's vocabulary: “Oh, I'm sorry, please, I won't bother you? Is it okay, will you be comfortable? Am I not taking up a lot of space? It is these constant apologies from victims that encourage people to behave aggressively towards them.

Photo: Varvara Lozenko

How not to raise a child to be a victim

— How to behave with a child if you notice signs of victim behavior in him? For example, does he apologize too much and is embarrassed to take the last candy from the table? How to explain that there is polite behavior, and there are excesses?

— The line between polite behavior and victim behavior is easy to detect: the second begins when a person does something against his will. For example, when a child wants the last candy but refuses, this is bad. If a child has normal self-esteem and considers himself good, he sees nothing wrong with taking candy. He considers himself right. It is important to be right for yourself, and not in comparison with the norm of social behavior to evaluate other people. Parents do not have to indulge him at the table; they can correct his behavior, say that no more sweets today or that he could share this candy - this is normal. The main thing, again, is that the child does not run ahead of the locomotive and does not give up in advance what he wants. This is the psychology of the victim, and you must explain this to him. Once I was visiting a relative from Canada, there were three children at the table, and there was just the last candy left. The father of the family, without a twinge of conscience, took it and said the golden words: “They will eat theirs, we will die first.”

You can’t scare children with a policeman who will take them away and other nonsense. There is no need to pull them back in the spirit of “oh, what have you done, because of this such horror can happen!” You should always take their side, even when they are wrong. But the most important and most difficult thing is not to be a victim yourself. Children transmit the fears of adults, so if you do not want your child to become a victim, behave confidently around him. Imagine what the children of people who complain constantly see and hear. After all, they listen to telephone conversations, see how parents communicate with other people in public places, and believe that this is how it should be.

My daughter once wanted to go to Disneyland, I promised her, and we went. There I saw a huge, scary “roller coaster”, on which the carriage hangs in a loop for several seconds and passengers find themselves upside down. I looked at him and thought: “Why did I even come...”, then I decided that we should definitely take a ride since we came, because if my daughter understands that dad is afraid of something, she will also begin to be afraid.

Don't let fear take hold of you. If you are involved in an accident, be sure to get behind the wheel as soon as you can and go to the scene of the accident. Was there an emergency landing of the plane? Immediately take a new ticket and fly. In Israel, when a bus is blown up again, after a while a huge crowd of people gathers at the bus stop - they all want to ride the bus again to overcome panic.

Photo: Varvara Lozenko

— My daughter is 14 years old. I was probably too categorical with her, and I see the traits of a victim in her, she lacks self-confidence. But I raised her the same way my mother raised me. When I asked my mother to evaluate my work, she said that I could do better, and I notice the same thing in myself. Is there anything that can be fixed now?

- You behaved as best you could. You make mistakes in communicating with children not because you didn’t go to my lectures before giving birth, but because you are such a person and you have such a psychology. And your mother is also not to blame for her parenting style.

As for this “you could do better” - keep in mind: a parent criticizes a child, a husband, a wife, and so on for only one reason: when we belittle the successes of our neighbor, we strive to raise our self-esteem. When we say “you can do better,” we position ourselves as if we definitely can do better.

The problem is not how to behave with a child, but how to change your psychology so as not to behave like that anymore. This is a separate complex topic. Everyone wants a quick recipe, but there is none. Getting rid of your neuroses, your insecurities, ambitions and complexes that force you to tell your child that he can do better is not so easy. We must strive for a state of unconditional love, that is, one when you love your child regardless of his success at school, what he is like and how he behaves. So that the child is not attached to your grade, so that there is no situation in which if he gets a D, he is bad and you don’t seem to love him, but if he gets an A, then everything is fine. Because this addiction is reinforced and leads to problems in adulthood. You can be happy or worried about his grades and tell your child about it, but grades should not be the measure of your relationship. In general, take care of yourself first, break the behavioral stereotype that your mother developed in you as a child.

Photo: Varvara Lozenko

What to do if you are a victim

— Since early childhood, I have had a difficult relationship with my parents, and although now communication with them is reduced to a minimum, when interacting with them I immediately begin to behave like a victim. That is, I try to do whatever it takes to be good. I also experience similar behavior when communicating with other people. How to get rid of this?

— The most important thing is to solve the problem with the parents. Once you do this, it will be much easier to correct communication with others. First, you must outgrow your parents. Because while you communicate with them the way a child communicates with an adult, you carry children’s stereotypes with you and react to your mother’s call as if you were five years old and the events were taking place in the senior group of kindergarten. No matter how much time passes, these stereotypes will persist. And if you meet a man who evokes “childish” emotions in you, he will also evoke childish behavior in you. The same will happen with colleagues and superiors at work. In order for your parents to begin to take you into account and perceive you as an adult, you must begin to communicate with them as an adult - with older people, and not as a child with his mother and grandmother. It is not simple. We need to force them to communicate on their own terms: “I love you, but I won’t talk to you about this and that.”

— When I try to control my behavior and not “slide” into a victim, I notice that I can’t control it for a long time. What should I do?

“It’s useless to control, because a person has two hemispheres, and they don’t function together: you either worry or think. Victim behavior is behavior brought to the point of automaticity. An example from school: when a rabbit sees a boa constrictor, it has a muscle spasm, it becomes numb, and the boa constrictor eats it. This happens because the rabbit's ancestors passed on the brain's response to the shape of a snake. If someone at that moment could stick a needle into the rabbit’s leg, it would freeze and run, but there’s no one in the forest. Likewise, no one can stick a needle into a person when he begins to behave like a victim, so he practices a childish behavioral stereotype from beginning to end. Trying to control it means trying to rationally solve emotional problems.

There are several rules that help overcome the victim mentality: try to do only what you want, don't do what you don't want, and you should speak up immediately if you don't like something. Because victims never speak right away, they really like to cherish this feeling of resentment inside in order to explode in a year. If you start following at least the first rule, your behavior will already begin to change. But for this you will have to stop thinking, for example, about what people will think, whether you will lose loved ones if you start doing what you want, but this is your life and it’s up to you to decide.

Photo: Varvara Lozenko

— If a person was raised as a child as a “model” victim, what can help him? Psychotherapy, auto-training, pills?

— You can try to help yourself on your own, if it doesn’t work out, then you should consult a psychotherapist. I am skeptical about auto-training, because, as you know, no matter how much you say “halva”, it doesn’t make your mouth any sweeter. Tablets should be used only when psychosomatic symptoms appear: hand tremors, sweating, skin flushing, arrhythmia, tachycardia, hypertension, gastritis, pancreatitis and other problems with the pancreas and stomach, irritable bowel syndrome, hormonal changes, problems with neurotransmitters, etc. Further. In such cases, when your behavior is already pathological, that is, it begins to interfere with the functioning of internal organs, you should go to a psychiatrist for pills.

While the problems are only at the behavioral level, you can train yourself to overcome your fear. For example, at one time I accustomed myself to walking through dark courtyards at night. My daughter served in the Israeli army, and one time they had an encounter with a woman who had gone through the camps. She began to tell them about gas stoves, and suddenly the soldiers who were listening to this interrupted her and began to say: “Why did you behave like sheep - they slaughtered you, and you yourself fell into the ravine? You dug your own graves, undressed yourself and went into these gas chambers - why are you telling us all this?” To be honest, I was taken aback, because I am a Soviet person, this topic is sacred to me, and I did not understand how one could enter into an argument with such a woman. But Israeli youth, unlike this European Jew from Germany, have a different psychology: they do not know fear. They said that if this had happened to them, they would certainly have taken two or three fascists with them on the way to the gas chambers, because even with your bare hands you can kill several people before you yourself are killed. These people have a completely different psychology than those who meekly went to their death. When you live and are not afraid, you free up a lot of emotional resources, because the victim spends 90% of his emotions guessing whether to expect an attack by a potential executioner, and trying to figure out how to avoid possible problems. Many people not only have their will paralyzed, they don’t even have the thought that something can be fixed.

Photo: Varvara Lozenko

— What should those in whom the victim psychology is expressed through authoritarian, aggressive behavior do? I was born in a small Siberian town, where everyone fought, even girls, and I was always afraid of being beaten. My childhood passed, and I began to notice that during business negotiations, God forbid, anyone gets into an argument with me - I immediately have a desire to bite and crush my opponent. I worry that I have many chances to marry a henpecked man or raise a henpecked child.

“Many people take a defensive position, worrying in advance that they will be humiliated. In Russia, in principle, that’s why people don’t smile on the streets: everyone is accustomed to aggression from childhood and, just in case, they make a “brick face” so that no one bothers them. Although people experienced in street fights, on the contrary, believe that such a facial expression is a sign of weakness, self-confident people behave relaxed and very calm. People who are aggressive in advance also try to control everyone. To get rid of this, you need to again get rid of fear, learn to let go of the situation and not speak unless asked. It’s hard to remain silent during the same negotiations until they give you the floor, but as a result they will let you go. Try, as athletes say, to miss a blow to which you may not respond. The more you can skip, the longer you pause, the more confident you will be in answering. We yell at our children out of fear that they will stop obeying, and we yell at them at work because until you grab all your subordinates by the throat, they won’t start working, right? People who are not afraid of anything, do not try to build anyone up, know that the situation is under control, and if something does not go according to plan, they will be able to deal with it.

Photo: Varvara Lozenko

Sacrifice and family relationships

— A man only raises his hand against a woman if she behaves like a victim?

- Not necessary. But if the woman is not a victim, this will be her last experience with this man.

- Over the past few years, I have been meeting the same type of men who tell me the same thing - about how their wife nags them, how hard it is at work and how she eats up their time, how everyone around them offends them, but, Having met me, they realized that this was fate, now their problems would be solved and I would save them. Moreover, such a man can be quite successful, look good, and his name in society can be significant. What's the catch here?

- Many boys had a cruel authoritarian, or cold authoritarian, or controlling mother. Growing up, men are drawn to women who remind them of their mother - this does not mean that you are like that, but men definitely read something in you. Such men suffer because they need a “hard female hand,” but the women they like need a partner with whom they can be weak, this does not happen, and it is unnerving. The only way to protect yourself from a relationship with an unsuitable partner is to disappear after the first alarming phrase like “I feel so bad...”.

— My husband tells me that I have the behavior of a victim: I am constantly trying to get attention and get care. Am I a victim?

- If you constantly complain, then your husband is absolutely right. This method of communication also aggravates the situation. Some neurotics have a big problem: for them, love is combined with a feeling of self-pity. Let's say a little girl loves her dad, and he behaves aggressively, always comes home drunk, but she still loves him and at the same time is afraid. She feels sorry for herself because her beloved dad communicates with her like that, and this self-pity for her is love. When such a child grows up, he builds relationships with other people in such a way that as a result of their behavior he can feel offended and complain - and complaints are the essence of the relationship with his husband.

— You say you need to do only what you want, so as not to be a victim. But how then can you not turn your family into a sports school in which everyone is fighting for the last piece of candy? Where is the line between generosity and conformism and the moment when you begin to give in to another, not because he has the right to protect his interests, but because you have begun to behave like a victim?

- Maybe I’m a maximalist, but I’m in favor of you doing this based on your own needs. For example, there is one candy, and I adore my wife so much that I really want her to eat it - in this situation there is simply no line beyond which victim behavior begins. Either you want her to eat it, and you give in to her, or you just got married unsuccessfully. Another example: there is a mountain of unwashed dishes at home, you both return from work tired. You can agree in advance about who will wash the dishes, or you can love your husband so much that your hands will reach out to these dishes. Of course, no one wants to wash the dishes - I want my husband not to wash them. You will say that this does not happen. It happens if your family is an equal relationship between two adults. Another thing is that the victim is very rarely in such a relationship, because she will look for her “soul mate.” In fact, when a person is self-sufficient, he understands that independence is also happiness, only without love. When both partners feel absolutely complete, they don’t need anything from each other, and they understand that they just have a good life with each other. Then the dishes are washed together. But when a person has psychological problems, the relationship with the spouse is skewed.

Photo: Varvara Lozenko

— A man has a wife and children, but he is not very comfortable in marriage, and has relationships on the side. But he doesn't leave because of the children. Is the decision to stay a fulfillment of a father's duty or a gesture of sacrifice? If you act as “not a victim,” that is, only as you want, then won’t all families fall apart?

- This rule - to live as you want - applies to any area of ​​​​life. I feel sorry for my wife, I feel sorry for my children - people with neuroses always try to rationalize their ideological choice and come up with explanations for themselves. The tragedy is that children live in a family in which mom and dad do not hug or kiss, and the situation in the house is tense. This situation is humiliating for everyone: for a man who stays in the family only out of an ephemeral sense of duty, for a woman living with a man who does not love her. So psychological trauma awaits children in any case. It’s not for me to decide for you, but after a divorce, the condition of the children may be different. They may feel relieved, because their parents are no longer spouses, but just mom and dad, and now they have nothing to share.

“I have a beloved woman, and during the time that we have been together, we have accumulated a certain number of claims against each other and a feeling of mutual fatigue. I don’t know whether I should break up with her or stay, because I really love her very much. How can I solve this problem by removing the fear of losing a loved one from the equation and understanding what I really want?

- You need to strictly follow the following scheme for three months: do not have sex (with others - please, with each other - no), do not discuss relationships - neither past, nor present, nor future - and do not discuss each other. Everything else can be done: go on vacation together, go to the cinema, take a walk, and so on. A period of three months is given so that you can feel whether you are better off together or apart. So you can tell your girlfriend that you went to a psychologist and he gave you a prescription that can solve the problem. If we talk about your situation in more detail, then your psychological instability is obvious. You are structured psychologically in such a way that, as Lenin wrote, you take one step forward and two steps back. Therefore, in order to get rid of problems in relationships globally and forever, you need to attend to the issue of your mental stability.

If you can't get out of the victim role...

You and I have already understood that the role of the victim is tied to childhood problems - you unconsciously fall in love with something that reminds you of the behavior (or other characteristics) of your “problem” parent - rejecting, dependent or completely absent. This is difficult to generalize and express in specific words - absolutely everyone has their own individual story, and to fully understand your specific situation, you need a specialist.

Getting out of the victim role on your own is not an easy task, because sacrificial behavior often manifests itself unconsciously. I am a psychologist and provide consultations via Skype. Together with you during a consultation, we can identify your personal reasons that shaped the situation in which you find yourself today. When you can recognize what it was that made you behave like a victim as a child or teenager, you will have a choice.

Strength, opportunities and awareness will appear that were not there before. When you become aware of the processes that have been driving you to create your sacrificial behavior, you will be able to change them.

Sacrificial behavior is one of the main areas of my work. You can contact me for psychological advice on Skype, I will help you learn to live the way you want and allow yourself to be happy. We will work with both the external manifestations of the victim syndrome and the reasons that gave rise to it (relationships with parents and self-love). Step by step, together we will go through the path of emerging from the role of a victim, and your life will sparkle with completely new colors.

You can sign up for a consultation with me through VKontakte, Instagram or the form on the website. You can view the cost of services here. You can read or leave reviews about me and my work using the link.

I also made a video for you about victim syndrome in relationships:

Classification

People who become victims are divided into the following types:

• victims of sexual violence;
• women suffering from domestic terror at the hands of their husbands;
• innocent children who become targets of violence due to their unwillingness to stand up for themselves;
• persons suffering from bullying by narcissistic individuals;
• people suffering from Stockholm syndrome (who acquit criminals);
• individuals provoking the attack;
• imaginary victims (persons with a mental disorder who attribute to themselves the qualities of sufferers).

Which categories of the population may become victims:

• children - they are weak, gullible, do not have enough experience and knowledge;
• women - their physical characteristics are inferior to men’s;
• old people - their state of health does not allow them to repel attacks;
• mentally ill people;
• representatives of minorities, immigrants.

Treason and the Karpman Triangle

Each of us has probably heard sad stories about dysfunctional couples in which the husband continually runs from his wife to his mistresses, then returns again, and the “holy woman” accepts this scoundrel, because she loves him madly. Personally, I believe more in the power of the victim scenario than the proverb “Love is evil...”. And this is what it looks like:

• the wife, playing the role of a tyrant, nags her husband day and night;
• the husband (victim), naturally, needs to find a deliverer, so he finds a mistress;
• but now the wife becomes the victim, the mistress the tyrant, and the husband remains to become the savior for his wife;
• then he returns, filled with pity and “love” for his keeper of the hearth and simply a holy woman;
• the husband himself begins to blame his mistress, now he plays the role of a tyrant, the mistress - the victim, and the wife - the savior (after all, she forgave her unlucky husband).

What do you think will happen next? Right. Everything is new, everything is in a circle, until someone gets tired of it.

The Karpman triangle does not necessarily occur only within interpersonal relationships. The third party may be illness, work (workaholism), alcoholism. For example, the wife of an alcoholic very often actually plays and has chosen the role of the victim. And yes, she will not part with her alcoholic until she herself admits her own game and decides to stop it.

Is it possible to improve the quality of relationships?

Of course, you can try. The result in this case depends on two factors:

1. How tired the girl is of being a victim;
2. Does the guy value his relationship with her in principle?

The only thing that can affect the relationship in this case is an ultimatum like “If you do this again, we will break up.” Words must come from the heart, and they will be heard only if the girl is really ready to put them into action.

There is no point in begging a guy to start behaving differently and talking about his love - he is aware of his own actions and understands that he is hurting his girlfriend. If he realizes that she is not joking when she talks about her readiness to end a toxic relationship, he may begin to behave differently, but that is not a fact.

"Inner child" without projections

How to get out of the shackles of codependency? Berry and Janey Weinhold suggest analyzing our situation and reconsidering our views on many things that seem obvious to us. To begin with, you can take a test to identify signs of unfinished processes in childhood on the codependency scale.

The Wineholds represent the so-called evolutionary approach to the problem.

“Painful and distressing events can be viewed as developmental crises rather than emotional disorders or mental illnesses. Here are key principles to help you understand the causes of codependency:

• Human development is a continuous process, from the moment of conception until death. This process is sequential: one stage helps to form the next;
• any developmental task that could not be overcome at the appropriate age becomes “additional baggage” later. If many tasks are not solved in the required sequence, human development is overloaded and disrupted;
• incomplete stages of development will strive for completion at every opportunity. Any situation that reminds you of some past event at an unfinished stage of development will bring this unfinished process to the fore. People say they are filled with old feelings or memories of the past. They feel like they are rubber-banded to the original emotional experience when they first tried to complete this stage...”

General concepts

A person who has chosen the position of a victim is firmly convinced that no matter what work he takes on, nothing good will come of it. You want to convince him, to prove that he will succeed, that the main thing is to believe in himself, but any statements run into a stone wall. He is not confident in his abilities and is not able to make decisions on his own. He is happy to shift responsibility to another person. This transfer of responsibility helps avoid having to make choices. It seems like he has given up on being happy forever.

He explains quite logically why this happened. He proves to everyone and himself that he is simply doomed to suffer, that nothing can be fixed. Gradually, he develops a similar social circle. There are people around him who use him or try to convince him. The efforts of both the first and the second only strengthen the confidence in the doom of torment and suffering. A vicious circle is formed.

This is how the psychological position of the victim is formed.

Reasons for this behavior

The behavior of a victim person resembles the behavior of an offended child. An adult feels dependent and helpless.

Most often, the reasons for this behavior lie in childhood:

1. Raising a child on the ideals of suffering and sacrifice. The main heroes of a child in childhood are people who gave their lives for others. Such examples can cultivate better qualities: love for people, determination, fortitude. But at the same time, sacrifice can play a negative role, emphasizing the suffering, doom, and guilt of the survivors at the cost of the suffering of the heroes - this creates a psychological attitude that recognition and love can only be earned through suffering.
2. An example of close people and relatives who are in the position of a victim. Very often, adults play the role of the victim, they tend to take this position, and unconsciously pass this model of behavior on to their children. For a child, the behavior of parents or close relatives is very important; he often copies it.
3. Experience of early childhood trauma. If a child experienced a situation in childhood in which he found himself helpless and lacked adult support, he may also experience stressful situations in adulthood.

Awareness of one's behavior will allow a person to regain freedom of choice, and at the same time take responsibility for his life. But he will have to face anger, despair, sadness, fear. There is resistance in the way of change. That is, a person understands everything, makes a decision to change his life, but at the most crucial moment he is visited by anxiety, tension, and the usual pattern of behavior is triggered. In such cases, the help of a psychologist is needed to help deal with unconscious attitudes.

It all starts from childhood

In early childhood, every child strives to stand up for himself and solve small problems on his own - learn to walk without outside help, taste the contents of his mother’s cosmetic bag, or try to cope with a difficult situation. However, when faced with an insurmountable obstacle or punishment from adults, the child feels like a victim for the first time. And, depending on the resolution of such a situation, he may choose victim behavior for himself as a method of self-defense, which is gradually strengthened. Most often, the psychological victim complex is formed in the following circumstances :

• If the child was often sick, was physically weak or was in the hospital. Frequent illnesses and bed rest prevented him from developing; adults demanded that he move little, lie down more and follow the doctor’s recommendations, which slowed down his development. Ultimately, having recovered, the child begins to believe in his own helplessness and considers himself weak, unable to achieve his goals.
• If he managed to achieve attention and love through illness, difficulties that were associated with the behavior of adults, or the child was paid attention to when he had a cold, he also begins to feel like a victim.
• With a melancholic temperament or if the cult of physical strength dominates in the family. When a child does not meet the family’s personal characteristics, he begins to feel like a victim.
• If he could not protect himself from bullies or there was pressure on him in the family that he could not resist. He was offended by his older brother, sister, or his parents chose authoritarian methods of education.
• Forms of abuse in the family, violence, rudeness, rudeness, lack of respect.
• If the child was constantly frightened or protected from everything, protecting him from the slightest obstacles.
• If during failures he was constantly consoled, pampered, given attention, but at other times this was not the case.
• If adults in a family are used to constantly complaining about life and fate, they shift responsibility to others instead of solving problems on their own.
• If the child was considered responsible for the troubles of adults.

It is worth considering that the victim complex is more often fixed in children of asthenic complexion and melancholic temperament. Especially if through suffering they manage to achieve the love and attention of loved ones, and then it is projected onto further relationships in adult life.

How not to become a savior

To avoid being drawn into victim games and becoming a deliverer, control your feelings and emotions. Do not offer help or give advice when you are not asked to do so. Do not impose your help and kindness. Otherwise, there is a high chance that some victim will find you. Well, when you hone the role of a deliverer, it won’t be long before you become a victim yourself.

Characteristics of the child victim

A child growing up in a family in which he is treated very demandingly and strictly, and is constantly compared with other children, develops the following traits:

• He skillfully plays on feelings of pity, wanting to attract attention.
• Painful reaction to criticism.
• Constant feeling of shame and guilt.
• The desire not to enter into conflict.
• Dissatisfaction with your life.
• Inability to stand up for oneself, to fight back.
• The desire to shift responsibility to others.
• Frequent depression.

Victim complex in women

A woman's victim complex begins in childhood. If her father did not show enough attention, but she sincerely loved him, she experiences a confusion of feelings. As a result, for a girl to be happy, her partner must be a tyrant and a romantic at the same time.

There are many men who like it if a woman plays the role of the victim. Such partners fulfill any whim. However, they do not think about the reasons why they do it. This happens unconsciously. Over time, claims and questions for her husband begin to accumulate. If he cannot convince the lady that he is right, she will get angry and start quarrels and scandals.

There are women who deliberately choose men with problems (alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling, etc.). Such girls think that their goal in life is related to correcting a person and returning him to a normal life. As a result, they are bad at correcting their partner, and they become victims forever.

If a woman is a victim, she does not take any action to solve the problem. There are no difficulties for her. She believes that bullying, beatings, betrayals and other unpleasant situations are the norm. The man doesn’t even think about changing. He uses the girl for his own purposes. As a result, such relationships experience a cycle that repeats itself over and over again: the man uses, the woman tolerates.