In this month's blog post, I wanted to share an article from Dr Emma Katz. You can view the full article at:
It makes perfect sense that an abuser gets worse during pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding… if you understand the perpetrating father’s mindset. If you are a victim-survivor mother, the perpetrating father wants your life to completely revolve around pleasing them and serving them and their needs. They want themselves to be the absolute center of your life, attention and resources. The arrival of a newborn baby disturbs this. When a pregnancy happens, and a baby is born and breastfed (if breastfeeding happens), these are major responsibilities for a mother. Perpetrating fathers tend to become more abusive at this time.
This is because they want the victim-survivor mother to continue to be completely devoted to pleasing them and serving them and their needs. They therefore try to scare, confuse and overwhelm the victim-survivor mother into continuing to center them, rather than centering the baby. The behaviour of the perpetrating father gets worse at this time as they attempt to maintain control. They will be escalating their punishments against the mother to new levels of severity, all while claiming they are not abusive and that everything is the mother's fault.'
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