There’s No Place Like Home Season Two Episode Seven: Blame

INTRO: This series comes with a content note – some of what you’ll hear is distressing. Please check the show notes for phone numbers you can contact to receive confidential support.

In this series abuse perpetrated by an intimate partner is described as “family violence”, “domestic abuse” or “domestic violence”. We acknowledge that production took place on what always has been, and always will be, Aboriginal land. 

TOMAS: It’s a way of keeping you in your place… that you know you’re worthless, that you can’t do anything right. You’re not a good person.

TARANG CHAWLA: My name is Tarang Chawla and my sister Niki was killed by her partner in 2015. I’m a writer, broadcaster and anti-violence activist. I’m also the host of There’s No Place Like Home.

BRIAN SULLIVAN: Men will criticise and blame their partners, for not being a good lover, a good partner, a good person.

TARANG CHAWLA: In this episode, we’re unpacking the role that criticising and blame shifting play in domestic violence.

You just heard from Brian Sullivan. He’s the founder of Sicura DV, which provides domestic violence intervention, education and training, and works with abusive men. Because of his line of work, Brian will refer to abuse perpetrated by men, against women. 

And while that is the most common dynamic, we know that anyone can experience – or perpetrate – abuse. Brian says relentless blame and criticism of another person’s appearance, parenting, cleaning or wok will break down their confidence and identity.

BRIAN SULLIVAN: He will actually direct his focus at her sense of self. And he will drag her sense of self worth down. 

TARANG CHAWLA: At the beginning of a relationship, this starts with ever-so-small and occasional slights. The kind that are easy to mask and therefore hard to call out.

TOMAS: It would start with things like, ‘You can’t load the dishwasher correctly’ or ‘you can’t turn on the washing machine properly’.

TARANG CHAWLA: Tomas*, who you’ve already met, was subject to a barrage of criticism from his then-partner Jim* that began with the relationship itself. And again, those aren’t their real names.

TOMAS: It came down to every facet of my life, I can’t do a good job, or you can’t get the train in time. It’s quite subtle, and it’s quite innocuous in how they go about blaming you. It’s a way of keeping you in your place… that you’re worthless, that you can’t do anything right. You’re not a good person.

TARANG CHAWLA: Stacey experienced something similar at the hands of her abusive partner Oliver*. Those aren’t their real names. Oliver targeted his cruelty towards Stacey’s weight, interests and intelligence.

STACEY: He was trying to tear down my sense of self, you know, just the belittling of my intelligence and the pop culture that I used to consume.

TARANG CHAWLA: In the beginning, those criticisms were sprinkled in amongst grand romantic declarations about Stacey and Oliver’s unparalleled connection. The criticisms were framed as a way of showing care, and love.

JADE BLAKKERLY: Often people find the things that they know people are a bit self-critical about already. So for women victim-survivors, it’s often the way you look, the way you dress, the way you present to the world.

TARANG CHAWLA: Jade Blakkarly is CEO of WIRE – the Women’s Information Referral Exchange in Victoria. She says women are socially conditioned to believe their appearance is the source of their value and power. And because they are held to a different societal standard than most men – criticism of a woman’s appearance can be particularly impactful.

JADE BLAKKERLY: Most women, whatever kind of relationships they’re in, feel a lot of societal pressure about it. And so you’re more likely to hear and listen to the criticism about it.

That’s often one that people will use, you know, why are you dressing like that, or your hair looks much better when it’s long, or I want you to dress this way and again, being able to then say that’s because, you know, I’m trying to help you.

TARANG CHAWLA: The way Oliver criticised Stacey changed after they had children.

STACEY: My children and my mothering ability were a big one for him. He would criticise my lack of milk production, because I was starving our child. I didn’t play with the kids enough. I didn’t read them enough bedtime stories. I didn’t feed them enough nutritious food.

TARANG CHAWLA: Jade Blakkerly says this isn’t uncommon. 

JADE BLAKKERLY: Again, women in society are taught that it’s their responsibility to be perfect parents and perfect mothers and to make sure that everything is perfect for their children all the time.

So that’s a great one to criticise, isn’t it, because we’re already starting from a point of a bit of self doubt, or a bit of self criticism. And so if I then start to criticise the way you parent or what you feed the children, or how you dress them, or what you let them do, or you don’t let them do, because we’re already questioning that in ourselves. 

TARANG CHAWLA: Women, both stereotypically and statistically, are more likely to take on a caretaker role in heterosexual partnerships. And this is a reality that Brian Sullivan says can further facilitate criticising and blame shifting. 

BRIAN SULLIVAN: When we assume the role of a caretaker in a relationship and we feel responsible for healing that other person’s pain, we’re really taking on an impossible task. Because we take away accountability from that other person. And I’m accountable for myself, the only one I can control in a relationship is myself.

TARANG CHAWLA: But criticism and blaming behaviours aren’t unique to male perpetrators, nor are they only seen in hetrosexual relationships. This was Tomas’ lived experience when he was in an abusive relationship with Jim.  

TOMAS: It’s been like five, six years since I left this person, but it keeps going. I will get messages saying that my son’s skin is very dry when he’s in the care of this other person, that I’m not putting moisturiser on them, all these things which I instigated, you know, it just constantly happens.

TARANG CHAWLA: For Tomas, there was an added barrier – his sexuality. Moo Baulch, a frontline worker and the Chair of Our Watch, says unhealthy and unfair gender norms mean members of the LGBTQIA+ community like Tomas are disbelieved or dismissed. 

MOO BAULCH: People go, Oh, yeah, that’s okay. That’s just two men physically fighting in a relationship, because that’s what men do. Or, you know, it’s okay for him to shout and yell at her when he’s frustrated, because that’s the way that men process, you know, anger, frustration, sadness, depression, whatever it is, you put the gendered lens over, and you get actually, a lot of this is because women are not supposed to act like that women are not supposed to be angry, women are not supposed to express rage, women are not supposed to, you know, yell at their kids or yell at their partner or, you know, physically fight back all of those sorts of kind of social myths around what it is to be a man or a woman. We need to deconstruct a bit. And we need to think about how that manifests when there are unhealthy things going on in that relationship.

TARANG CHAWLA: When addressing abusers, Brian says we should not look at the criticism and blaming as a “relationship problem”. It is a problem that the perpetrator is causing. 

BRIAN SULLIVAN: I think it’s a warning sign, though, if a woman in a relationship very early on has to be the caretaker, and has to make sure this man’s moods are calm and balanced, and make sure this man’s pain is assuaged and comforted at all times by her.

TARANG CHAWLA: That brings us to Eloise*. Eloise was young and vulnerable and seeking love when she met her ex-partner, who we’ll call Josh. We’ve changed both their names. At first Josh made Eloise feel like the most important person in the world. But then his language began to change.

ELOISE: Looking back on it now, I think the first thing that started to shift was my sense of feeling special. And the decisions he was making around me feeling special became me feeling like a burden. Or like, I wasn’t good enough.

TARANG CHAWLA: Things Josh had once done to show Eloise how much he cared were suddenly things she was “forcing” him to do.

ELOISE: The ‘oh I missed a lecture, to be here with you. And that’s how much I care about you’ became, ‘you expect me to miss lectures, I’m missing out on my life, because of you. You are the reason I’m not getting to do these things that I want to do. You’re so lucky, I will miss this thing for you, you’re so lucky that I like you enough that I will do this.’ 

TARANG CHAWLA: The attention devolved into blame and Josh began to treat Eloise like a liability. Someone who got in the way of him living his life, someone who stopped him from doing the things he cared about.

ELOISE: Everything started becoming framed as I was a problem. And I needed to solve it for him. And that I should feel grateful every moment for this relationship and to be in this relationship. 

TARANG CHAWLA: When Eloise met Josh, she confided in him about her difficult home life. Her sibling who was seriously ill and her parents were spending most of their time taking care of them. When this information was first shared, Josh had been understanding, but as their relationship progressed Josh became cruel and dismissive.

ELOISE: I remember my sibling was going into hospital unexpectedly. And I called him and I said, Hey, this is what’s going on, can we please meet. I don’t want to be alone in the house right now, this is really upsetting. And I remember him saying, Well, I’m actually at the pub with my mates at the moment, you knew that. So how dare you call me to ask for my support right now. 

TARANG CHAWLA: When Eloise pushed back, Josh claimed she was being needy and attempting to take him away from his friends.

ELOISE: He said, ‘Okay, if that’s the way you want to behave, then you don’t deserve to see me at all.’ It was this sort of instant punishment really for trying to assert myself and trying to say no, I do need this support.

TARANG CHAWLA: Josh ignored Eloise for three days. 

ELOISE: I spent that time sitting there thinking, ‘I’m the problem. I’m at fault.’ And so when I saw him, he expected an apology and I apologised. I thought that was what I was meant to do. And I thought that I was in the wrong. When I apologised, he was like ‘I’ll forgive you this time, but you need to understand that you are so lucky that I’m with you.’

TARANG CHAWLA: Rules and so-called punishments are a hallmark of abusive relationships – and certainly a warning sign to be aware of. Deliberately withholding words of love and affection can also be used as a tool for control. Josh never said the words “I love you” to Eloise. He told her he just wasn’t sure if she was good enough.

ELOISE: It was always, ‘maybe if you do this, maybe if you’re better, I could love you or I will love you’ It was always this promise that I was on the brink of. And simultaneously it was always ‘I would love you if you didn’t do this’. It was always a punishment or a reason why I wasn’t enough. And there were often times where it would be ‘this is why I can’t love you. This is why you’re unlovable.’ 

It felt like I have to keep trying and I have to keep doing better. And by being better in his books is to not fight back. And to not say that he’s not caring enough for me or doing enough for me. It is to accept what’s going on and to treat him well and be easygoing, and to do what he wants when he wants.

TARANG CHAWLA: Brian Sullivan says blame shifting stems from an abuser’s sense of entitlement. Nothing is ever the abuser’s fault. They can behave however they wish and then justify appalling acts or words by maintaining that their partner provoked it.

BRIAN SULLIVAN: Their narratives will always be about denial, minimising, blaming, excusing, justifying the violence.

TARANG CHAWLA: A couple of years into their relationship, Tomas learned that Jim was gambling. The couple were already living together. 

But when Tomas would bring up questions about their finances – which was in fact financial abuse being perpetrated against him – Jim would deflect and transfer the blame.

TOMAS: Sometimes he would frame it with an apology, like, you know, ‘I am sorry about this situation. But you’re being too emotional about this.’ And it would always go back to me. That glimmer of him being sorry was momentary. And it was my issue going forward.

TARANG CHAWLA: Instead of having an open and honest conversation with Jim, Tomas had no choice but to tiptoe around the fact that he paid for everything – and later, around Jim’s gambling addiction.

TOMAS: I nearly always saw him as a broken child, as in how I would go about it. I would say, ‘Look, I’m terribly sorry to bring this up. I know, it’s not an easy conversation, but we’re in debt up to our eyeballs.

TARANG CHAWLA: In her book The Blame Changer, psychologist Carmel O’Brien describes a person’s refusal to take responsibility for their behaviour as a key characteristic of abuse. This can look like someone not owning mistakes by giving long explanations, or making excuses, by never apologising or pseudo-apologising. For example, saying ‘sorry you are upset’ while not actually apologising for the action that caused the upset. 

Abuse can also look like blaming a partner for whatever goes wrong… even if it has nothing to do with them.  Or blaming others, when it is the abuser who is in the wrong.

BRIAN SULLIVAN: When a person starts to blame everyone else, they take away their own power to change. I’ll always say to men when I’ve ever tried to blame someone in my life, it’s when I’m trying to shift responsibility, or shift accountability, and not look at myself, and my own role in this situation. In some way, deep down, if I’m blaming someone else, I kind of know I’m at fault, but I’m not willing to admit it to myself.

TARANG CHAWLA: If you’re in a relationship, and are concerned something more serious is going on, consider how your partner responds when you ask them to be accountable for their actions. Do they minimise or excuse what they’ve done? Do they come up with excuses that don’t make sense?

Are they unable to change because they are too busy at work? Too depressed? Too damaged by their parents? Do they say they can only change if you promise to do the same? Psychologist Carmel O’Brien says these are warning signs of behaviour that is unlikely to change. It’s exactly what happened to Stacey. In fact, once she left her abusive partner, the abuse escalated.

STACEY*: The bad mother business really ramped up during our separation. And he would tell me how selfish I was, depriving the kids of their father, that my claims of abuse were trumped up, and that it was parental alienation. And that I was an evil and disgusting mother, who the kids would hate when he told them what I’d done.

TARANG CHAWLA: Parental alienation is defined as one parent deliberately preventing the other from having a relationship with their children. However, it’s also a term that is frequently weaponised by perpetrators – like Stacey*’s ex – who argue that allegations of domestic abuse are actually “parental alienation” – stories made up by a vindictive woman to keep a loving father from their kids, for no other reason than spite.

But in reality, that’s far from the truth. A US study found that 28 percent of mothers who alleged that a father was abusive lost custody of her children to him. And when a father who’d allegedly been abusive to his family, accused the mother who’d made those claims of parental alienation, the rate at which he got custody of the children… rose to 50 percent.

STACEY*: He knew he could hurt me by using our kids and that became a central theme in his abuse. So, when he wasn’t telling me directly what a horrible mother I was, he’d be indoctrinating the children. He blamed me for breaking up the family, told them that I didn’t love them as much as he did and hid literal notes in the pockets of their clothing saying that I was a liar.

TARANG CHAWLA: Introducing a third party into the conflict is a tactic called triangulation. According to Healthline, this can involve intentionally denigrating someone to create a wedge in their relationship with others.

Triangulation is a form of manipulation. It is designed to tip the scales in the perpetrator’s favour and reinforce their control. It can involve friends, family, or in Stacey’s case, children.

STACEY: The kids asked me why I was “spying” on their father. I couldn’t believe he was accusing me of doing what he was. Particularly when I’m notoriously rubbish with technology. It was so preposterous, it was almost funny. But that sentiment quickly moved to distress when I was having to defend hacking allegations in court.

TARANG CHAWLA: Tomas experienced it too.

TOMAS: It’s even going so far now that last week, my kids came home and said, Dad, are you only looking after us because my ex partner gives me money. So he’s using the fact that he has to now pay child support, because this is what he wanted to be a parent.

TARANG CHAWLA: What happened to Stacey and Tomas, actually has a name. It’s called DARVO. A tactic first defined by Jennifer Freyed. First the perpetrator denies their behaviour. This is the ‘D’. Next, they’ll attack their partner for confronting them about it. This is the ‘A’. Then they reverse the traditional roles of victim and offender. This makes up the ‘R.. V.. O’. This means the perpetrator behaves in a wounded fashion, accusing the victim of having treated them unfairly. Both Stacey and Thomas’ partners threatened suicide.

STACEY: He sent me a photo of his intended suicide method with the caption ‘You win, the kids lose’. He’d threatened it before but that night he was hospitalised for an overdose. I don’t know if it was a genuine attempt to end his life or not, but it was very clear whom he intended to blame if he did.

TOMAS: There was so many times when I would say, This doesn’t seem right. And I would ask, should we maybe separate? You know, could I move out on my own? Which I would say but and once I said that, he would say I can’t live without you. And then there was sort of the suggestions that he would kill himself or, you know, harm himself.

TARANG CHAWLA: In a recent study examining suicides in Australia, six percent were linked to domestic violence in heterosexual relationships. Threats of self-harm and suicide were found to be a tactic of coercive control and often took place during separation, divorce, and custody battles. 

Believing that threats of self-harm would force women into changing their minds, men’s suicide became the final act by which they could punish their partner. 

In many cases, these men also damaged their former partner’s belongings and left spiteful messages by email, text or voicemail, before their death.

BRIAN SULLIVAN: Most men will be in denial, blaming the courts, the police, blaming women’s rights, feminism, blaming their partner, blaming drugs and alcohol, blaming his own history of trauma and his family of origin.

TARANG CHAWLA: People who use violence often make excuses for their behaviour and that can include blaming drugs and alcohol. While alcohol and drug use may well be a problem for these perpetrators, that doesn’t render them blameless. Many people who drink alcohol and use drugs are not violent. And many people who are violent do not drink alcohol or use drugs.

If a person already has an entrenched belief system that devalues women and justifies their abuse, drugs and alcohol may compound it. But in these circumstances, the drugs and alcohol are aggravating factors – not the root cause.

KATE FITZ-GIBBON: Domestic and family violence is critically a national crisis at present. But it doesn’t have to be.

TARANG CHAWLA: That was Dr Kate Fitzgibbon, Director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre.

KATE FITZ-GIBBON: What I’d really encourage everyone no matter where in your lives this pops up, or doesn’t pop up, you may be someone who’s completely been unaffected by the national crisis of domestic and family violence. But I bet there’s a way in which you could make your world a little bit more respectful, that you could make the people in your life feel valued, respected.

TARANG CHAWLA: If you think a loved one is being subjected to family violence then Dr Fitz-Gibbon says there is a simple and powerful thing you can do for them.

KATE FITZ-GIBBON: There’s so much power in just saying, ‘I believe you. And I’m sorry, that happened to you.’

Just acknowledge the harm, sit in the discomfort of not knowing how to immediately solve it. But validate that person’s experience and acknowledge what’s happened to them. Because you might be the first person that does so.

TARANG CHAWLA: Dr FItz-Gibbon says that it takes a lot for a victim-survivor to disclose abuse. So remember this, and understand your reaction can make a big difference. 

KATE FITZ-GIBBON: The trusted friend or family member, work colleague, student… you should come with the assumption that you’re the first person they’ve told, and just saying ‘I believe you’ might be all they need on that day.

If you don’t do that, you might be the last person that a victim survivor ever discloses to.

TARANG CHAWLA: After affirming that you believe your loved one, she says you need to check whether they feel safe. Remember that your supportive presence is what matters most in this moment.

KATE FITZ-GIBBON: You don’t have to feel that suddenly everyone’s asking you to be a specialist family violence counsellor, that’s not expected of you. It’s absolutely not.

I think this is where workplaces get worried, or where schools get worried. They’re thinking, well, what if we don’t know all the services to refer to, we don’t know how to assess risk. You know, the trusted friend or family member in your life isn’t asking you to do that. But they do want support, they want to feel believed, they want to feel validated.

TARANG CHAWLA: Tomas left his partner six years ago and he is often met with suspicious or disbelieving looks when he discloses abuse. At the time, he wasn’t able to get the support he needed from police, or from support services. He believes that this is, in large part, because he is a tall, confident gay man. 

TOMAS: It’s the hardest thing to say, as a person, as a human, that this happened to you, constantly over and over and over again. And then to say it and to be sort of looked up and down. As if this couldn’t happen to someone like you because of your gender or your size or how confident you seem today. It just makes you stop, you go, I better not ever say this again, because they’ll think I’m lying. 

TARANG CHAWLA: Years after leaving… the abuse still affects him.

TOMAS: The criticising and transferring of issues have stayed with me for so long. I still get anxious that I don’t build the dishwasher correctly, or that I haven’t put on a load of washing correctly.

TARANG CHAWLA: Next week will be our final episode of season 2 of There’s No Place Like Home and we will talk about hope.

KATE FITZ-GIBBON: Domestic and Family Violence is a national crisis. So we know that to tackle it, to drive down those prevalence rates, we will need every single Australian to play a role. 

TARANG CHAWLA: See you then.

OUTRO: There’s No Place Like Home is a Future Women podcast in collaboration with our proud partner, Commonwealth Bank, who are committed to helping end financial abuse through CommBank Next Chapter.

No matter who you bank with, if you are worried about your finances because of domestic and family violence, you can contact CommBank’s Next Chapter Team.

Contact the team on 1800 222 387, within Australia or visit commbank.com.au/nextchapter. If you need help or advice, please check the shownotes for phone numbers for confidential support. 

If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review. It will help these important stories to reach more people’s ears. For more information about There’s No Place Like Home, or to join the movement, please head to futurewomen.com.

This episode was produced by Jamila Rizvi, Emily Brooks, Mel Fulton, Sally Spicer, Hannah Fahour and Tarang Chawla. Editing by Bad Producer Productions. Artwork by Patti Andrews.