Silent Voices International
  • Home
  • Contact
  • Services
  • Calendar/Events
  • Volunteer
  • Donate Now
  • Going Mobile!
  • Birth Control
  • Post Abortion Healing & Recovery
  • Natural Family Planning
  • Life Advocates
  • Making Life Disciples
  • Sharon's Testimony
  • Delaiah Luna's Testimony
  • Photo Gallery
  • International
  • Blog

Can Relationships Survive After an Abortion?

12/13/2016

3 Comments

 
For some women, abortion is the result of an outright threat of abandonment if the woman won’t “do the right thing” and abort. Other times, the pressure is more subtle: “It’s your decision, but….”


Unfortunately, all the evidence shows that abortion to “save a relationship” almost never works. Many relationships between couples come apart shortly after an abortion. Others survive only because the partners are still bound together by grief. These relationships often turn into prolonged, mutually destructive mourning rituals.(1) Even married couples are often driven apart by an abortion unless they can find a way to complete the grieving process together.


Abortion breeds anger, resentment, and bitterness toward the partner who was not supportive or who ignored their partner’s desire to keep the baby.


At the same time, there is often tremendous pressure in the relationship to conceal one’s true feelings of grief or guilt. This can especially be a problem for men, who are often taught to hide their emotions. Men may also feel obligated to appear “strong” so as not to upset the woman any further.
Men can be affected by abortion in many of the same ways as women. Many men have reported post-abortion problems such as feelings of grief, helplessness and guilt; sexual dysfunction; substance abuse; self-hatred; fear of relationships; risk-taking and suicidal behavior; depression; greater tendencies toward becoming angry and violent; and a sense of lost manhood.(2)


When either women or men carry the emotional baggage of an unresolved abortion into a subsequent relationship, it can cause trouble in subtle and even dramatic ways.


This is especially a problem when they keep the abortion a secret from their spouses, who are then unable to understand their emotional cycles. The distortions in behavior that result when spouses keep secrets from each other can be devastating to a marriage.


At the very least, the “need” to keep a past abortion secret prevents couples from giving and receiving unconditional love. This deprives the relationship of the opportunity to reach its full potential.
It is no coincidence that the abortion rate and the domestic violence rate have risen almost side by side. Abortion, for both women and men, is associated with self-hatred, self-punishing behavior, and an increased tendency to act out anger and rage toward others.


A woman who is self-destructive or suicidal, but afraid to deliberately harm herself, may be more likely to become involved with a violent man. A violent relationship may allow her both to express her own rage and to experience what she unconsciously feels is the “punishment I deserve.” Because of self-hatred and low self-esteem, she may remain in the relationship because she thinks she doesn’t deserve anything better.
Certainly, there are many other causes of domestic violence. But substantial statistical evidence and many case studies show that abortion is contributing to this national tragedy.


Until these women and men are provided with an environment that promotes post-abortion healing, they are likely to remain trapped in these cycles of violence.

~~~
Dr. Theresa Karminski Burke is a psychotherapist and director of the Center for Post-Abortion Healing and author of Forbidden Grief: The Unspoken Pain of Abortion.

Notes
1. Franke, L. Bird, The Ambivalence of Abortion (New York: Random House Inc., 1978) p. 63. See also Reardon, Aborted Women, 45.
2. Strahan, T., “Portraits of Post-Abortive Fathers Devastated by the Abortion Experience,” Assoc. for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change, Nov./Dec. 1994.

​Source:  Elliot Institute
3 Comments
Chioma
1/21/2019 07:26:17 am

I will love to learn

Reply
emotional link
7/14/2020 08:11:18 pm

Wonderful blog post. This is absolute magic from you! I have never seen a more wonderful post than this one.

Reply
husband link
7/14/2020 10:59:27 pm

Emotional regulation requires us to put self-awareness into practice in our lives. Trying out the 5, 10 or 15-minute exercise is a great way to better regulate our emotions and learn from them rather than divert, deflect, or push them away.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author/Editor

    Sharon Pearce has served as the Director of Silent Voices since 1984, and has dedicated her life to speaking up for the unborn - and for the women who have been hurt by abortion.

    Picture

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly