Long Term Suffering

Stockholm Syndrome is a coping mechanism to a captive or abusive situation. People develop positive feelings toward their captors or abusers over time.

From what I learn about the situation in this country, there seems to be many who suffer from this syndrome. There are many in the city and elsewhere who go through different forms of abuse on a daily basis but yet carry on with their marriage since they are made to feel that they would be unworthy, looked down upon and segregated from society if they leave their spouses. Their parents also advise them to hang on as divorce would be shameful and, by extension, stigmatise their reputations as well.  Such parents, who would rather have their daughter or son suffer instead of being happy, are incomprehensible. Additionally, the 

majority of parents believe that their children should marry as it will reflect on them if their children are single.  

The possible suffering in a bad marriage is not even considered, especially when there is a proposal or a relationship where the potential partner is loaded with wealth. Many with different sexual orientations are also forced into marriages to live tormented lives.  A few agree to marry and produce an offspring or two and thereafter lead separate lives as long as it is not in public.  Such situations, in recent times, have led to blackmail and even murder.

The independent women who have made a career for themselves have been brave and dumped their husbands who abuse them in different forms as they can manage with their own finances, educate their children and are not dependent on their husbands. There are husbands who are victims of abuse too.  In such instances, if it is the wife with pots of money they suffer the abuse and remain. The victims are the children of such marriages who, in time, may themselves become abusers like their parents or worse. Children growing up in an abusive environment develop PTSD, including learning difficulties, poor behaviour at school, depression and anxiety, aggression, risk-taking and criminal behaviour, drug addiction, emotional numbness and a range of physical issues such as poor sleep and headaches.

There are many children in Colombo who go through hell at home, I have been told. There are instances where mothers too are devils and cannot be understood.  They are beaten by their husbands and children, leave their homes for safe shelter and then decide to go back to the husband and children.  Such occurrences are repetitive and very hard to break, exhausting those who dedicate their time to counselling and finding alternative arrangements.    

Recently, a mother who was a professional, with two boys, used to be beaten by the husband every day.  She had visited a Counsellor seeking help and guidance to leave the marriage as the husband had broken a son’s leg.  Social Services (SS) were contacted and they had agreed to find the children a school and a safe house for the family to live in provided somebody would pay the house rent. The Counsellor found the money for a year’s rent and the mother and sons moved in.  Following up on the case with the SS two months’ later, the Counsellor was told that the mother and sons were doing well and, in fact, divorce proceedings had been initiated.   Sadly, such good news stories are few and far between because the majority of the abused move back into the abusive relationship.