Victim blaming is an insidious form of abuse in and of itself. In the betrayal trauma community, abusers, clergy, therapists, and others blame victims for “their part” in the betrayal and abuse they experience at the hands of their partners. Recognizing victim blaming is an essential skill in the toolkit of every victim. 

Our BTR.ORG Group Sessions meet daily in every time zone and offers women the unique opportunity to process trauma, share their stories, ask important questions, and express hard feelings in a safe place.  

Victim Blaming Is Harmful To Women

“We see time and time again women thinking: If I would have done something differently, if I looked different this wouldn’t have happened to me.”

Anne Blythe, founder of Betrayal Trauma Recovery

When women are blamed by abusive partners, family, friends, and professionals for their partner’s abusive and compulsive behaviors, there can be deeply harmful effects.

Because victims are conditioned to be compliant, many internalize false and harmful claims and begin to blame themselves. Furthermore, those close to the victim have the unique opportunity to help and support her. When they choose to blame her, overtly or covertly, they are enabling the abuser and putting the victim into harm’s way.

What Does Victim Blaming Look Like?

Wonder if you have experienced victim blaming? Here are some common statements that indicate that others are blaming you for the abuse and betrayal.

1. How have you contributed to your husband’s infidelity?
2. If you make yourself more available, he wouldn’t need to act out.
3. If you take care of yourself a little more, he would be more interested.
4. You need to be a safe person, so he won’t lie to you.
5. You should forgive him and move on.
6. How can you ever stay with him after this?

Transcript: How To Recognize Victim Blaming

Anne: I have Jennifer on today’s episode, she’s a member of our community. And she follows us on social media. We have accounts on Instagram @btr.org_ we’re on Facebook. You can see our page if you search betrayal trauma recovery. We’re also on YouTube at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, and TikTok @btr.org.

Jennifer’s Encounter with Misogynistic Advice

Anne: Jennifer has been seeing a lot of misogynistic advice. That’s actually common, and people don’t realize it’s misogynistic. She’s not seeing it on our social media accounts, of course, but other therapists or so-called experts. Also from family and friends, so she contacted me because she wanted to talk about this harmful advice. That she hears both on social media and in real life. Welcome Jennifer.

Can you talk about how this topic became important to you?

Realization of Victim Blaming Language

Jennifer: I had never noticed it before, because it was so normal.

I had heard these phrases or words. terminology used quite often. So I never stopped to think about the way words are used, or how we talked about women in our everyday language was actually very damaging to women.

I had a friend point it out, so I thought it would make a good conversation, because maybe there are other people who haven’t realized that yet.

Anne: I think it’s interesting that it’s not just men who use this type of language. It’s women too.

Jennifer: Right. I mean, I still catch myself using terms or phrases or making assumptions about other women. I’m catching myself and trying to shift how I speak.

Anne: Can you state the specific example that brought this to your attention on Facebook?

Jennifer: There were a couple.

Personal Experience: Happy Wife, Happy Life

Jennifer: One of them was, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” The one that was personal to me was, “A happy wife. Happy life.” Because that one was actually shared the night before my wedding. At the rehearsal dinner. My then father in law gave a toast, and he shared his advice to my then husband. The only thing he had to share was “Happy wife, happy life”.

That was it. At the time, I laughed, and everyone kind of laughed. And I never stopped to think that just seemed off. Throughout our marriage. I felt like my husband had that mindset, but it wasn’t authentic. Of I want to live in a way that we can both be happy, comfortable, and safe, but it was like whatever I can get away with as long as you’re happy is okay.

If I can just fake it, if I can just put on this facade, if we can just keep women placated and hide these things that we’re doing, then it’s okay to do them.

Anne: Wow. That’s so good. Absolutely. Sort of like what a woman doesn’t know won’t hurt her kind of idea, as long as she’s happy.

As long as she’s happy, I can do whatever I want. Like, I know what I’m doing would make her miserable. So I need to make sure to hide it from her.

Heaven forbid she is justifiably angry about my betrayal of her. Before we go back to hell, hath no fury like a woman’s scorn. Cause I want to talk about that.

Misogynistic Victim Blaming Statements

Anne: I just want to list the misogynistic victim blaming that many women hear when they find out their husband has been using porn, or when they find out he’s been lying or having an affair. So I’m just going to list some of them out really quick. “What did you do to cause your husband to seek love and comfort outside your marriage?”

So that’s blaming her for his affair or his. Untoward behavior. Something like “if you make yourself more available sexually, he wouldn’t need to get it somewhere else.”

“If you take care of yourself a little more, he wouldn’t need to get stimulated elsewhere.”

“You need to be a safe person, so he won’t lie to you.” As if it’s your fault that he’s lying to you. “If you would forgive him and stop being so angry, everything would be fine. You’re the reason things are falling apart,” instead of his abuse, is the reason things are falling apart. And. “Why did you stay? If he’s abusive?” You’re like, because I didn’t know he was abusive. I was trying to figure it out. Or “I would have never put up with that.”

You don’t want to put up with abuse either, you are resisting every way you know how you’ve been resisting since day one. You just didn’t know what you were dealing with.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned

Anne: So those are some pretty common victim blaming statements, so now let’s get back to “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Is that Shakespeare?

Jennifer: William Congreve, an English playwright and poet, the quote reads, “No hell hath fury like a woman scorned.”

Anne: Let’s talk about this.

Anne: Apparently there’s no justification for a woman’s anger. I would argue that if a woman wasn’t angry, sad, or upset, her husband lied to her and cheated on her, and used pornography when she thought he didn’t. That’s sexual coercion. So it would be strange if she didn’t have a pretty intense reaction to that. Because women are humans.

They’re not robots. And so a logical, absolutely justifiable reaction would be feeling extremely upset. Angry. Ecetera Anyone would feel that way. He severely harmed her, she thought he cared about her.

In this case, she’s the one feeling the bowels of hell gave after her. Hell hath no fury, like what a woman feels when her husband betrays her is how the saying should go. I mean, do people expect women to be robots and not to feel justifiable, anger, and rage? When their husband made choices that he knows will hurt her. And that’s why he’s kept it hidden.

Jennifer: Right. There’s no room for women to be human.

Double Standards in Anger

Anne: Think about a man. If he told a story where a business partner lied to him and manipulated him. If he’d been showing anger, everyone would think his anger was justified.

In fact, I told a therapist in the pornography addiction recovery industrial complex. I said, “Imagine if your business partner cheated and lied and you were telling the story, would anyone ask you, were you safe enough for him to tell you the truth that he was embezzling money?”

You got angry with him, no wonder he was embezzling money. You weren’t safe enough. He was like, that’s a completely different thing. And I was like, uh, no, it’s not. It’s the same thing, only with a wife, it’s worse. I thought like, okay, so you are a misogynist.

Jennifer: Right.

Victim Blaming Phrases and Their Impact

Jennifer: I hear it a lot of times, almost used sarcastically to provoke humor, you know, used maybe facetiously or in a way that mocks women, as it implies that women are emotional and that’s not acceptable or appropriate.

It’s almost like their pain or anger is mocked, as women, in general, like emotion that women feel is comical in some way.

Anne: It’s overreacting, it’s nonsensical, their expectation of women being robots is the nonsensical thing. That is nonsensical. That is what should be mocked. Like, Oh, so you think women should just sit still and look pretty. So in your thinking about this, did you come up with some other things that you’ve seen?

Jennifer: I did. I started to make a list of things that came to mind, and I just jotted a few of them down, and I’ll just read them off.

Common Misogynistic Statements

Jennifer: “Boys will be boys.” “Wear the pants in the relationship.” I think that one’s often used when people talk about a woman with a strong personality, or who just has opinions and speaks them, and is not quiet all the time. I’ve heard “She wears the pants in the relationship.” “She’s crazy.”

“You’re too intense, too loud, too bossy. Women are impossible to understand. If mama ain’t happy, no one is.”

Expectations of Respect and Accountability

Jennifer: And this is just a general observation, but I’ve noticed that when we as women want or even demand accountability and respect. We often get the label that we’re man haters or bitter women, when in reality we’re not.

Men take responsibility for their actions, and that we are treated with respect.

Anne: Yeah, it’s not that much to ask. To say that a woman expects respect and fidelity in her marriage, and not be lied to, manipulated and abused, that’s a pretty low bar.

Jennifer: It is. And it’s common. I mean, if you think about how often people mock Have you even seen on the BTR posts people mocking the idea of fidelity or expecting a husband to not use pornography? That is so often just people almost think it’s a joke. Like wait, you’re asking your husband not to use porn, like who do you think you are or you know all men do this. You would think it would be basic, but it’s not

Before I married. In my late twenties, I was still single. I remember my mom saying, “You have these super high expectations”. What do you want from a man? As if like, I couldn’t, there’s no, man. That could fill your expectations. And I remember telling her mom. It’s pretty simple. I just want someone I want to call.

When they call me, I’m happy they called. It’s not that complex. This is before I understood sex addiction or abuse or anything like that. I feel the same way about this. Men are trying to say. Men and some women are trying to say. That women’s reasonable, normal expectations are too much.

Jennifer: Right?

Victim Blaming By Lowering the Bar for Women’s Treatment

Jennifer: We’ve really lowered the bar. I feel like the bar for how women are treated has been lowered in so many ways.

Anne: To the point where it’s like, you can’t expect them to be faithful. You can’t expect them to tell the truth unless apparently you’re perfect. You have to be a Stepford Wife robot to merit a man to be faithful to you. Otherwise, if you do or say anything that someone could construe as not the right thing, then you could get blamed for this.

Jennifer: Right. It’s like it gives the man permission to act in abusive ways. If you’re not that robot.

Anne: I think the most common is when men say, yeah, she was controlling, she was crazy. She just asked me a ton of questions. That seems like a very red flag for an abuser. Anytime a man claims he was abused, it is a red flag that he was an abuser himself. Why do you think that is?

Jennifer: Well, abusers. In their very nature, they are always trying to put on a show, on a face for other people. They always want to be perceived as the victim, and they’re good at manipulating the situation to, you know, deny, attack, reverse the victim and the offender. So they use truth and twist it. They are pros at victim blaming.

Abusers Use DARVO To Blame The Victim

They turn it against the victim to confuse the victim. They try to put the victim and the offender on the same even playing ground. I feel like they do that to try to minimize their abuse. Then create this illusion that the reaction of the victim is abuse. When it’s not.

Anne: Right. If a woman is concerned and worried, and she’s just found out her husband is using porn, and she’s wondering if he is having an affair. Her motivation is safety, peace, and truth. So if she’s trying to look and see what he’s got going on on his phone, it’s because she’s desperate for safety.

She’s desperate for truth. Whereas if an abuser is going through his victim’s phone, he is looking for ways to manipulate her or harm her.

Jennifer: Yeah, so you described it exactly how it is.

Victim Blaming By Calling Her Controlling

Jennifer: In my marriage, I used to do lots of those safety seeking behaviors, like looking through his phone or trying to drill him with questions or monitor his behavior. All those kind of, you know, controlling behaviors.

And they were, they were, you know, why are you so controlling? I got that a lot. It’s one of those victim blaming statements. But the reality was, I was doing those things to try to create. safety for myself to exist in a safe way. It was not, my intent was not to gain power over anyone. It was just to feel comfortable and safe in my own home.

Whereas, he used that against me to hide his own behaviors and deceive me.

Anne: This is something we talk about in The Living Free Workshop.

Misinterpretation of Narcissistic Traits

I think this is where many victims of emotional and psychological abuse and sexual coercion get tripped up. They might watch like a popular narcissist. YouTube channel, for example.

In that YouTube channel, somebody might say, okay, here are seven things that narcissists do. And as you listen to them, you might think, Oh, I’ve done that. I have tried to isolate my abuser from his flying monkey family, because every time we get around his family, I end up more abused.

Because they believe him and they end up putting me down, and so am I the narcissist or the abuser? In one popular narcissist video that I recently saw, the Youtuber was suggesting that a narcissist can never answer this question. Why is it so difficult for you to admit your flaws?

Abusers Manipulating the Narrative To Blame The Victim

And supposedly, if you ask a narcissist this question, and they can’t answer it, then it’s proof that they’re a narcissist.

And that might be the case. But in an abuse situation, if an abuser asks his victim, why is it so hard for you to admit your flaws? He’s gas lighting her, so what I looked at porn, but why is it so hard for you to admit your flaws?

That would be a question an abuser would ask a victim to trip her up, and many of these YouTube channels on narcissists. If you don’t interpret what they’re saying correctly, then you might think, well, am I the narcissist? I don’t think I would answer that question, because he’s asked me that.

And I’m like, uh, what are you talking about? Like you just cheated on me and you just lied to me for 20 years. Now you’re asking me what my flaws are, excuse me. In that moment, a victim shouldn’t play into that. A victim should not say, “Oh, you’re right. You’re right. I didn’t do the dishes. So I deserve to be lied to.”

Like no, no, no, no. Jennifer wrote down a few more questions from those types of YouTube channels.

Jennifer: Yeah, this one stood out to me. “Why do my differences threaten you?” I think maybe it’s not worded like that, but I think that general sentiment is often used. Like, why do my hobbies, you know, maybe like porn or these inappropriate games or books or whatever it may be, comics, video games. It’s totally victim blaming.

Seeking Safety and Truth

“Why do my hobbies or why do the things I like to do, why do they threaten you? Why do you feel threatened by me looking at this photo?” I think one’s really misused against victims often.

Anne: Yeah, so if you have watched some of these, I would say popular narcissist videos on YouTube, and you’re thinking, am I the narcissist?

Anne: Take a step back, take a deep breath. Think about your intention for safety, peace, and truth. The other thing is, look at your behaviors. So if your behaviors are in line or consistent with known abusive tactics. So for example, isolation, look at your own behavior. If you’re like, “Man, I have been trying to isolate him from his abusive family, because I’ve thought if I could separate him from his flying monkeys, maybe we would have a chance.

Maybe he would stop being abusive to me and things would be okay.” The problem is trying to control an abuser’s. The only thing you’ve done there is that you have now isolated yourself with your abuser in your house. You’ve perhaps separated him from his flying monkeys that are enabling him, but now you’re still with an abuser.

You’re not away from him. So I want women to think about things like, if your desire is for peace, if your desire is for safety, if your desire is for truth, then you’ll have to detach and walk away from the harm, rather than barricade yourself in with the harm.

Jennifer: That’s a good point. Another thing that I think is important to note is if you’re looking at these questions or hearing these things on these videos. And you’re reflecting on yourself and asking yourself, Am I doing these things?

Reflecting on Narcissistic Behaviors

Jennifer: That’s probably a sign that you’re not a narcissist. Because narcissists don’t have that awareness.

They don’t reflect on themselves. They don’t internally process, you know, things that they can do to improve themselves and how they treat other people. So I think the fact alone that you’re reflecting or that we can, you know, ask ourselves these questions is a sign that we’re not a narcissist, hopefully.

Anne: Hopefully. Right. I heard a story from a woman in our community who said her husband, who has exhibited serious abusive tendencies, including physical violence, actually went to a therapist. Asked the therapist, am I a narcissist? And manipulated the therapist? And the therapist said, the fact that you’re here asking this question means you’re not.

Then he went back and said, “I went to therapy”. The therapist said I was not a narcissist and used that to manipulate his victim. So is so complex and difficult, and the most important thing is standing in your own truth and getting to safety regardless of what other people are saying all around you, which can be daunting when.

Victim Blaming From Clergy And Family

Your clergy, maybe your family, maybe people around you are like, what is wrong with you? Why are you saying these things or doing these things? Chill out.

Jennifer: Yeah, that’s a good point. And it also reminds me of everything you talk about on the podcast. I think it always comes back to establishing safety.

So establishing safety before you make big decisions, establishing safety before making decisions about progressing in the marriage or not, but also establishing safety before you assess whether you’re a narcissist. Just interesting how it always comes back to safety. I think that’s just the take home message, which is safety first.

When I was pondering about this, I did have a funny scene that came up in my mind from the office. There’s an episode called Women’s Appreciation, so Michael, the office manager, says lots of sexist comments and is unaware.

And Angela, one of the employees, says, “And when we get mad, you always ask us if we’re on our periods.” And he says, “I know, I have to know whether you’re serious or not.” It’s funny and comical, but it just reflects the reality that women are not taken seriously in general. Their emotions are not taken seriously.

They’re expected to suppress them, or if they’re expressing them, there must be an underlying reason other than them actually having valid concerns, you know?

Victim Blaming Women For Having Emotions

Anne: Right. So you don’t have a valid concern. It’s not concerning. You’re not justified in being angry about your husband using porn. So you must be on your period.

Jennifer: In the industry I work in, I work with many men, as my peers and colleagues. I noticed that I started to suppress some of my natural emotions, or just the way I express myself or whatever.

Thoughts that I had maybe weren’t in line with what a man would want to hear. Like I just started to like try to filter myself so that I was acceptable to what men wanted to see or hear. I’m a single mom, so I had lots of stress trying to work a full time job.

Then my son would get sick, and I didn’t have anyone to help me take care of him. I wanted to be perceived as smart, I wanted to be taken seriously. Because I felt like if I had any emotion and showed any weakness, and that it’s not even a weakness, there I go again.

If I had shown any emotion, I assumed it would be seen as a weakness by my colleagues. So I noticed that I’ve just started to shift myself and how I interact with other people, how I present myself at work. I wanted to be seen like a man who can be taken seriously, instead of a woman, because I felt like ingrained in myself and ingrained in them. I thought that to be taken seriously, I must look like a man.

Pressure On Women Not To Threaten Men By Being Competent

Anne: It reminds me of the book How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings, Non Threatening Leadership Strategies for Women by Sarah Cooper. Have you ever heard of that book?

Jennifer: I haven’t, but I clearly need to read that.

Anne: I just want to read the Amazon description. In this fast-paced business world, female leaders need to make sure they’re not perceived as pushy, aggressive, or competent.

Sarah Cooper illustrates how women can achieve their dreams, succeed in their careers, and become leaders without harming the fragile male ego. Chapters include, among others, nine non-threatening leadership strategies for women. How to ace your job interview without over acing it, you choose your own adventure. I love it, it’s a great victim blaming satire.

Do you want to be likable or successful? It includes several pages to doodle on while men finish what they’re saying. Each chapter also features an exercise with a set of in action items designed to challenge women to be less challenging.

The reason why we bring this up and perhaps get accused of being man haters is not that we hate men or not that we don’t appreciate men.

Healthy Men Who Respect Women

I would like to share that now that I know what emotional safety looks like, amazing healthy men have come into my life. Excuse me, who I trust, who care about me, who respect my opinion and respect me. They think I’m incredible. And it’s been so amazing to be around good men.

I have several of them in my life now, and interact with them frequently. And it is a delight. So I actually have more faith now in men than ever. Which is cool. That being said, the reason why we bring misogyny into this is because when women try to escape an abusive situation, this misogynistic scripting they hear from perhaps a therapist, even a female therapist or clergy or friends or family. It’s misogynistic, as well as victim blaming.

It keeps them stuck in the abuse, and they don’t see that it’s this fog of misogyny and abuse that is harming them. So the reason we have to talk about misogyny is because if they don’t start seeing what it is, it will not help them get to safety. Can you talk about how misogyny kept you in your abusive situation?

Victim Blaming In Faith Communities

Jennifer: In my marriage, we were active in our religion and faith community. I would like to have this marriage that I had learned about and wanted for so long that was based on equality, and I wanted this positive, happy relationship. But I got a lot of messages about a woman being like a helper to keep her husband from acting out using pornography or other behaviors.

I felt like I bore some responsibility, whether it was in how I maintained our home, how I spoke and interacted with my husband, or in my sexuality. I wanted to help him in so many ways, but wanted to make it better because I thought that was my job. Like part of me, I felt like I had this duty as a woman, had this duty to prevent this man from these behaviors or acting out in certain ways.

On top of that, I was just getting a lot of. Messages from my in laws who casually share these like stories about how, you know, if a woman doesn’t keep her man happy, he’s gonna find it somewhere else or go somewhere else. Even though part of me knew that that wasn’t true, there was a part of me who believed that was true, so I just continued to try to fix myself so that I could fix our relationship. Victim blaming seems to be the default.

I Want Women To Be Safe

But in reality, like we’ve talked about, the most important thing I needed to do at the time was get to safety. Because safety allowed me to have the clarity that I needed to see what was actually happening in our situation. Which was, I was emotionally abused and manipulated.

Once I was at, in a safe place, I could wait and see what he was going to do, whether he was going to make changes or not, and I could have the clarity to make decisions.

Whereas when I was in an unsafe situation, I just felt confused. I just felt like we were going in these cycles of turmoil and chaos, and it was going nowhere.

Anne: In the faith community of the like, “A faithful woman can bring to pass miracles. So have you prayed? Pray for your husband, are you reading your scriptures? Are you filling your home with spiritual things? Because if you did that, he wouldn’t be acting this way.” It’s spot on victim blaming.

Victim Blaming In Standard Religious Advice

Anne: I talked to a man whose wife had several affairs, and he told his faith leader this, and the faith leader did not say, “Are you having sex with her?”

Are you, have you lost weight? Like, um, are you being a man of God? They didn’t ask him any of those questions. They said, Oh, that can’t happen. Uh, you should probably file for divorce if she continues to have affairs and won’t stop. Isn’t that interesting?

Jennifer: That is so like backwards. I just, it is that, see that, that is a perfect example of how the standard that the world has for women as like, we have a higher expectation. There’s a higher expectation for us that we have to carry the weight of a man. Whereas men get off so easily. It’s so victim blaming.

Yeah. Like, well, that can’t happen. You shouldn’t be treated like that, you don’t deserve that. You need to get out. Like that’s how women should be too. You need to get to safety.

Jennifer: I think it should, that should be the normal. That needs to be the new normal of that. Women should be expected to be treated with respect.

Women Speaking Their Minds

Mind blowing with that, but also that women should speak their mind. They should be able to tell their opinions. They should hold boundaries without people saying they are an abuser or the problem too. Exactly, I’m done with this victim blaming stuff.

Jennifer: Absolutely. Have you ever seen that Nike commercial? I think it’s Serena Williams who’s narrating it, and she says, “If we show emotion, we’re called dramatic.” If we want to play against men, we’re nuts. If we dream of equal opportunity, delusional.

When we stand for something, we’re unhinged. When we’re too good, there’s something wrong with us. If we get angry, we’re hysterical or irrational or just being crazy. But a woman running a marathon was crazy. A woman boxing was crazy. A woman dunking? Crazy. Coaching an NBA team? Crazy. A woman competing in a hijab, changing her sport, landing a double cork 1080, or winning 23 grand slams, having a baby and then coming back for more?

Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, and crazy. So if they want to call you crazy, fine. Show them what crazy can do. And I just love that quote.

Anne: Oh, that is an awesome quote. I love that. I couldn’t agree with her more. Let’s let everybody call us crazy. We can get to safety, where we’re not emotionally and psychologically abused, and we’re not in his fog.

Then we can see straight and then. We can be a lawyer. We can be whatever we want. This world is open to us. There are so many options. Even though the situation seems daunting and impossible. And in so many ways, it is.

Hope and Strength for Victims

Anne: I just want victims to have a sliver of hope, because hope is what helps us take the next step towards safety. You’re brave, you’re strong, and you can do it. You can accomplish amazing things. Thank you for coming on to talk about victim blaming statements.

Thank you so much, Jennifer, for coming on today’s episode.