‘You’re a menace.’ I clean him up and return to attack the mess, as he jumps on my back, doing the kneading thing that kittens do. Cass told me this is a sign that a cat has taken to you, feels comfortable, views you as akin to a parent. I do not feel paternal, I feel hungry. I scoop him up and place him on the floor. He defiantly makes eye contact. ‘You need to behave yourself, this is important!’ I say and waggle my finger. He attacks it.
Of course he does.
I should’ve anticipated that. I’m beginning to see why Cassie asked me to take him, he’s an absolute menace. For all Jasmine’s let’s-teach-the-world-to-sing mentality, I can imagine there is no way she’s putting up with this level of terrorism in her flat. Dim should be pleased she didn’t have him skinned. Now I’m thinking about it, I can totally see her as Cruella de Vil but in a more Bristol hippy way. The two sound incompatible but trust me when I say Jasmine is capable, she is a woman of great juxtapositions.
I give Dim one more firm look, just so he knows the score, and resume the podcast. The Love Doctor’s first words do not bring joy to my heart.
The first, slightly pessimistic answer is not much. The more you try and get involved, the more you ram your opinions down your loved one’s throat, then the greater the chance of them running to the hills and cutting you out entirely. And this is the last thing you want to happen. What you need to do is stick around, try to be non-judgemental and do all you can to stay in your sister’s life. Now that is going to mean biting your tongue and biting it hard. No one needs to be told repeatedly that their choices are bad and it sounds like your sister and you have a great relationship. My guess is she already knows what you think.
I suspected this, of course I did, but hearing it said with authority reinforces it a bit. I’ve been worrying about whether holding back is the right thing to do, that maybe I should be speaking out more than I am.
The Love Doctor continues to speak sense, states that coercive control is domestic abuse and legally recognised as such and reiterates that I need to recognise Jas is probably trying to isolate Cass, and repeated nagging on my part will make it far easier for Cass to cut me out.
Don’t force her to choose between the two of you. The important thing to do is to leave the door open, make it easy for her to communicate with you when she needs to, provide that non-judgemental ear so she has a safe space for the things she needs to say. There’s a good chance she is already keeping things from you, so all you can do at this point is to gently boost her self-esteem, make her know how loved she is and that she is not alone or at fault for any of this. And this is often done best in less obvious ways. Show her you care without suffocating her. Just listen.
I know she’s right, that I need to be building Cassie up, supporting her rather than dragging at her choices, this needs to be my number one priority now.
Understanding the emotional investment in this relationship will help you to be patient. The truth is people often get caught in these relationships because at the very beginning, in the first romantic flushes, this person was remarkably adept at identifying and meeting your sister’s needs and making her feel secure, whether that be emotionally, physically or even financially. With these needs being met then your sister will have invested herself in this relationship and will want to continue to do so...
This bit is important, I’m always asking why Cassie is with Jas, why won’t she just leave? It’s a simple binary decision as far as I’m concerned, but this woman is breaking it down, making it clear.
...As these relationships deteriorate the victim usually feels they are at fault for the changes, they are somehow displeasing their partner, and they need to get back to that place of security, of feeling loved. They then try to do whatever they can to keep their relationship going, the hope being that it will return any moment to what they were first attracted to. Hope is an amazing thing to have and is very powerful. Normally we should cling to hope but in some cases it can be destructive. The trouble, of course, is that giving up hope in the context of a relationship is hard to do. It means accepting an end to all the hopes and dreams that flourished and got this relationship to the commitment stage in the first place. Not to mention the practical consequences of ending a relationship, moving out, finding a new place to live and ensuring that you are safe from this person once you do so.
I’m so engrossed that I realise the kitten hasn’t attacked me for a good few minutes... where is he? Still listening to the podcast, I scan the room. The Love Doctor starts to talk of the need for self-care and protection for me and the benefits of boundaries to keep myself strong for the day that Cass does reach out for help.
I can’t see the cat anywhere. Where is he? Boundaries for self-protection are what I need with Dim, but how do you fix boundaries with a kitten... Oh.
‘Hey, what you doing up there, little guy?’
The podcast is still playing as my eye is now on the curtain rail, practically the highest point in the room, where Dim is tentatively balancing. It’s the first time I’ve seen anything relating to fear or uncertainty on the kitten’s face and my heart immediately melts.
‘Everything’s going to be okay,’ I say as I head into the kitchen and grab a chair. Climbing up on it I reach over to the kitten and try to coax him across to my hands. The kitten takes a look at them and looks down at the curtain as if weighing up the two options.
One of the biggest things you can do is to try and help raise her self-esteem, make her see that she is good at things and is worthy of love and respect. Are there activities you can do together which can be pleasurable for her?The Love Doctor asks and I pause for a minute to try and have a think, but Dim senses my concentration is broken and lets out a plaintive miaow, I turn back to him as the podcast continues.
If you do, that could strengthen your bond even further and provide opportunities for her to talk to you should she wish to. Create space in your lives where she can have fun, achieve things, feel like herself and not be forced to put her relationship under the microscope when she’s with you.
Dim suddenly takes a flying jump at my hands, scratching as he wobbles, and I tilt my hands up to right the angle for him. Then as I try to steady him he scurries down my arm and leaps back at the curtain, and climbs down in a tumbling, I’m-going-so-fast-I’m-not-sure-I-like-it way. It reminds me of that scary hill when you’re on a bike as a kid and you’re never quite sure if you’re going to get to the bottom in one piece but there’s no way you can stop without making a tit of yourself so you kind of just give it up to God and see where the speed takes you.
I tumbled a few times, but nowhere near as often as Cassie. I would at least try and put the brakes on whereas she would take her hands off the handlebars and scream with joy as she hurtled down. Dim is, as I’ve said before, very Cassie.
Meanwhile, I’m left standing on the chair, hands scratched to buggery, and Dim is on the floor looking up at me. He gives me a look, scrambles across to the other curtain and if kittens could laugh, I swear he would as he races up it to the curtain pole again. Seeing as I’m still there I reach out again. No one warns you about the levels of sadism in a kitten, oh no, it’s all cute pics and YouTube videos, but I’m beginning to think Dim is here solely to mess with my head. He swipes at my hand and then gleefully begins his tumbledown descent.
I give up. I get down from the chair, reassure myself that the whole cats-have-nine-lives thing is a saying for a reason and turn my attention back to The Love Doctor.
Now I know the temptation is to tell her all about the forms that abusive relationships take, educate her as to why what she is living through is not healthy and not her fault, that just because she’s not being knocked into next week with a frying pan every other day does not mean that her relationship is not defined as abusive. But, as I have already made clear, don’t! If she opens a conversation about it then by all means use the opportunity to gently point out how these behaviours are not normal, ask her how she would feel if she heard someone was doing this to you, and you’ll find she’ll probably feel very different about the behaviour when the context is changed and she is not at the centre of it.The Love Doctor continues, talking about how popular culture, soap operas and the like can often open a conversation, and then she moves on to the importance of positive role models, all the things I know from work but have had trouble applying to this situation.
You don’t say whether or not you are in a relationship and I can see why this might not be pertinent but if you are or the two of you are close to people who are in healthy functional relationships, expose her to this, use them as examples without directly addressing it.... Okay, this is Malcolm and Sue in a nutshell. They have been role models for a long time. As for my relationship history, not so much.
Cassie is always bitching at me to slow down, be me for a bit. She seems to think I’m on a constant quest to find Miss Perfect so I can start life, and she may have a point. I date a lot and am open about how I want to build a family, maybe foster, give children the best start I can.
I am aware that time is not static. I need to make sure I am with the right person if I want a family and I need to get a move on. I don’t want to be parenting teenagers at sixty. She fails to see the sense of this and claims I have a wish-list of qualities that no human on earth can live up to. Surely there is no harm in knowing what you want, knowing it has to be with the right person and not being prepared to settle?
I know the qualities I want my partner to have, things that make good mother material, and if the women I date don’t meet them then I move on quickly – it stops everyone wasting their time. Cassie doesn’t understand this is a kindness in the long run and thinks I should live in the now, but why would I, if I already know what I want?
I switch my focus back to The Love Doctor. This evening is about Cassie, not me.
...Surround her with love and respect, demonstrate how you value her opinion, how others value what she has to say and what she has to give. Over time she will become increasingly aware of how flawed her relationship is and the more she realises that what she is experiencing isn’t normal, isn’t healthy and isn’t her fault then the greater chance you have of her leaving.This woman hasn’t said anything that doesn’t make utter sense. I feel relief that I have some guidance from someone who seems to know what they’re talking about and has given me a clear action plan. I don’t feel quite so adrift. I listen to the end as The Love Doctor reminds listeners of the importance of reporting suspected violence and signposts to organisations that help victims of domestic abuse.
