Living with the Dominator

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Women are accused of ‘breaking the rules’. we may say ‘NO’!. We may say we are leaving. We refuse to have sex. We go to work. We make friends and go out to see them. It is worth pointing out that women do not actually know what the ‘rules’ are. They change constantly and what we think is a rule, ends up not being a rule. We don’t know what the right thing to say or do is and when we think we have worked it out, we are still wrong – hence the saying ‘Walking on eggshells’! If we look at this cycle, we can see that at no point is The Dominator actually angry or out of control. He is choosing his behaviour and is in total control of what he is doing and saying! A woman should provide services and act as an unpaid servant’ – does nothing around the house to help, Burn everything he cooks. However... it is quite outdated and although learning about all the tactics was useful, I felt that the content could have included work on the self and the survivors identity as well as boosting self esteem and confidence, rather that centering around the perpetrator.

If attending our face to face sessions you will receive a free copy of ‘Living With The Dominator’ and a copy of The Home Study Workbook which is a supplement to ‘Living With The Dominator’. I am Pat Craven a former probation officer who ran perpetrator programmes for Merseyside Probation Service in the UK between 1996 and 1998. I concluded that the programmes could have been much more successful if they were run in a different style and by a different agency which was not subjected to the same constraints as a statutory body. Reading through this was tough for me, both as the daughter of an abuser and as a survivor of an abuser. A woman should never be allowed to leave or end a relationship, no matter how abusive or violent it is. The Programme was primarily designed for women as victims of domestic violence, since research shows that in the vast majority of cases of serious abuse are male on female.As it is a rolling programme you can start the programme at any point and can catch up on any missed sessions when they are repeated. However I am very much not in a violent relationship so that wasn’t the purpose I was reading this for. I was raised in a violent home and was a victim of the abuse mentioned in this book as a child. I am now a 29 year old woman suffering the consequences and have struggled my whole life with anxiety, low self esteem and feelings of guilt and shame.I am trying to understand what happened in my childhood and was recommended this book to understand how my parents relationship may have impacted on me.

I did the Freedom programme during a work placement at a refuge. I think it has good and bad points to be honest. It is really good for showing victims the different tactics used by perpetrators as well as the effects on victims and children. The weekly groups also help give a mutual support system to the survivors. The Freedom Programme examines the roles played by attitudes and beliefs on the actions of abusive men and the responses of victims and survivors. The aim is to help them to make sense of and understand what has happened to them, instead of the whole experience just feeling like a horrible mess. The Freedom Programme also describes in detail how children are affected by being exposed to this kind of abuse and very importantly how their lives are improved when the abuse is removed.To introduce women to community resources such as Women's Aid, the Police Domestic Violence Unit, The Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre, local Colleges etc. To help women understand the beliefs held by abusive men and in so doing, recognise which of these beliefs they have shared The ‘Rules of the Game’ are the beliefs of The Dominator. This is how he expects women to behave! It is also how he thinks he should be able to behave! The Dominator has hundreds of ‘rules’. Lets look at a few of them: I also realised that abusive men do not understand their own behaviour. They do not realise that they decide to use violence when they realise that their other tactics are failing. The new Facilitator’s Manual is now available. It is in a simpler style and is designed to be used in conjunction with 'Living with the Dominator'.