50 Shades of Domestic Violence: Recognizing Patterns of Abuse

50 Shades of Domestic Violence: Recognizing Patterns of Abuse50 Shades of Domestic Violence: Recognizing Patterns of Abuse50 Shades of Domestic Violence: Recognizing Patterns of Abuse
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50 Shades of Domestic Violence: Recognizing Patterns of Abuse

50 Shades of Domestic Violence: Recognizing Patterns of Abuse50 Shades of Domestic Violence: Recognizing Patterns of Abuse50 Shades of Domestic Violence: Recognizing Patterns of Abuse

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In children, sustained family conflict leads to struggles with self-esteem, mental health, academics, and future relationships. No one wants to divorce, but sometimes divorce is the only option.


Dr. Suparna

HIGH CONFLICT DIVORCE MIMICS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Sometimes Divorce is the Only Option

Sometimes Divorce is the Only Option

Sometimes Divorce is the Only Option

Companionship, comfort, love, affection, validation, and emotional intimacy are things we all seek as human beings. Not only do we seek love, but most of us also tend to seek unconditional love from our partners and family members. No one enters into a marriage expecting to divorce, and no one enjoys the process of divorce because it’s messy, ugly, and we lose a part of ourselves in the process. The animosity harbored during high-conflict divorce can quickly escalate to physical violence, and it’s important to respect your safety in these situations and remove yourself from the situation.

Psychology of High Conflict Divorce

Sometimes Divorce is the Only Option

Sometimes Divorce is the Only Option

Resentment can build up for many reasons when we think we are seeking things we cannot attain, and sometimes we blame our unfulfilled desires on the confines of our physical reality and on our partner. When there is abuse at home and you have tried counseling and all other avenues of support and behavior modification, sometimes divorce is the best option, ESPECIALLY when there are children involved. The coercive control tactics that surface in physical and non-physical domestic violence also present during high-conflict divorce in which there are toxic relations between the spouses. 

Parental Alienation Syndrome

Sometimes Divorce is the Only Option

Parental Alienation Syndrome

 Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is when parents actively exploit their own children to engage in psychological warfare with their partner. PAS is a recognized medical illness and can be brought to the attention of a trusted advocate and/or attorney because proper documentation of the symptoms in your spouse can be very helpful during a custody hearing.


PAS is child abuse and it is a form of domestic violence. Domestic violence does not require the presence of any physical or sexual abuse-only emotional. As a result of the toxic relationship between them, alienating parents develop deficits in emotional resilience, and lack the ability to recover after feeling frustrated or disappointed in a healthy way. When unable to cope with the stress of a failing relationship, parents going through a high conflict divorce or time in their marriage become high risk for developing victim mentality and they start blaming everyone else for their problems: “I’m a victim; therefore, I have a right to make your life hell.”

When going through a bitter divorce, parents GASLIGHT. They begin to twist reality and make exaggerated accusations against the other parent. Most often, these accusations are actually projections of their own negative qualities. For example, often times when going through a high conflict divorce, one parent will call the other “selfish”, when it is themself that actually demonstrates more selfish behavior. Some alienating parents engage in a behavior that therapists call “splitting”. Splitting is when an alienating parent tries to convince other family members that another member is “evil”, thus splitting the family into “us against them”.


Parents who engage in severe alienation also lie a lot, and they are good at it. They also carry out actions that harm others, including their child, without feeling guilt. These alienating parents have developed traits and habits similar to those present in antisocial personality disorder. 

Parent alienation behaviors are driven primarily by 1 of 4 reasons:

1)Jealousy: If their spouse finds someone new

2)The Need for Revenge: If a divorce occurred, then this parent now feels abandoned and is unable to cope in a healthy way and acts out in anger instead. This parent is unable to realize that it was their own inability to form a healthy, loving, and collaborative partnership that drove away their partner in the first place. 

3)Money: If the child lives primarily with them, they may try to extort their ex for additional child support.

4)Those who start alienating the child early on during the marriage, may want to have the child for themselves alone 

It may be time to get help if you are:

  1. Feeling depressed about the situation
  2. Feeling angry at your spouse or ex all the time
  3. Feeling anxious about co-parenting with this person

Children and Divorce

Stress Management Coaching

Parental Alienation Syndrome

When a child grows up in a home where the parents are in a dysfunctional relationship behind closed doors, and parents refuse to divorce, or engage in a long drawn-out high conflict divorce…Then often, a child grows up in a home where their emotions are ignored, punished, and manipulated.


A high conflict divorce may bring out borderline personality features in some. For example, a parent may become mad when someone important to them won’t give them what they want. This could be a daughter who chooses to spend her time with friends or a spouse who has decided to leave the marriage. Often these situations occur because the alienating partner was not capable of forming a healthy, loving, and collaborative partnership. The goal of the angry parent then becomes to destroy of the other parent’s relationship with the children. They often encourage their children to choose sides and they do all they can to deprive the other parent, who they now see as their enemy, of the ability to continue spending time with the children.

Stress Management Coaching

Stress Management Coaching

Stress Management Coaching

Are you feeling overwhelmed by stress and struggling to manage it effectively? My stress management coaching services can help you develop coping strategies and build resilience to stress.

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Helpful tips for navigating divorce by 50 Shades of Domestic Violence

Achieve Your Full Potential with 50 Shades of Domestic Violence: Recognizing Patterns of Abuse

A Perspective on Divorce in Indian-American Culture

In Indian culture and also Indian-American culture, it remains taboo to get divorced.   There is a stigma of shame surrounding Indian divorcees and whispers in the community in the context of there being something “wrong” with individuals who do choose to divorce.  Not only does this cultural barrier promote domestic violence to exist in many Indian homes, but it forces people to often put up a front of “toxic positivity” - pretending to others and often themselves that everything is ok when in reality the basic needs and desires of the individuals in the marriage are not being met.  Growing up in Indian culture we are conditioned as children to have the mindset that marriage lasts forever, even beyond this lifetime and extending into 7 lifetimes as symbolized by the 7 circles a husband and wife walk around a fire in traditional Hindu wedding ceremonies.  


During the social isolation of the pandemic, I heard personal stories of several married members of the Indian-American community complaining of their toxic home environments and instances of spousal abuse.  Sometimes it was women complaining, but oftentimes it was the men complaining of constant put downs by their wives in front of the children, and how helpless and inadequate it made them feel as fathers and providers.  When I asked some of these men why they chose to remain in this marriage if they were so unhappy, they all answered that it was for the children.  I think Indian-Americans in general need to re-evaluate what they consider to be an optimal environment in which for children to grow up.  If a wife is cheated on once or in some cases repeatedly, and she chooses to ignore the issue and portray the facade of a happy homelife to other members in the community, what message does this send to her kids? That it’s ok to let your husband disrespect you and your personal happiness is not that important?     When children grow up in an environment steeped in emotional abuse and putdowns of a parent, what message does that send?  It conditions children to feel that it’s ok to disrespect your partner or conversely, that it’s ok to be disrespected in relationships they enter as adults.  It is for these reasons I feel that the whole culture of marriage as an institution needs to be re-examined in the context of Indian-American society.

doctor, domestic violence, survivor, human trafficking

Dr. Suparna: Domestic Violence & Human Trafficking Survivor

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