Another characteristic phase of relationship abuse is the smear campaign intended to destroy the victim’s credibility and to isolate her immediately after separation.

If the character assassination is artful and extensive, it can be necessary to start life over again without much or any loving support network. With the right coaching support, with the knowledge that the immense demands of this process are fully understood, it is possible to do this.

Abusers use the smear campaign to spread lies mixed with lurid misrepresentations in order to shame you into silence and to destroy your personal and professional reputation.

“He said he had been recording my voice for years.”

These actions can all be viewed as signs of the abuser’s own disordered thinking, but reputational destruction and blackmail can be petrifying.

“Soon everyone will know all your secrets.”

Even if you have been discredited to the extent that you are largely not believed/viewed as mentally unstable, it is possible to find a way to live outside the small, broken role assigned to you.

This role was assigned in order that your ex partner could evade accountability, manage the repression of his own shame, and to mitigate any social consequences he might otherwise face, by creating a victim narrative for himself.

“He told people I was violent. I couldn’t defend myself without seeming crazy. Everyone thought there must be truth in it because it was too extreme to be a lie.”

A scenario like this can make the victim feel they are caught in a trap from which there is no escape except suicide.

It is important to recognise that unconscious group process plays a big role in your shunning.

Scapegoating of the victim is an aspect of this shunning and it especially applies if acknowledging the abuser’s actions would diminish the perceived status of the group or if it might fragment the group irretrievably.

A group or family may also choose to shun you if they have wider, historic issues of domestic abuse, bullying and narcissism which might be forced to the surface by acknowledging the abuser’s actions.

If your friends and family have been elaborately lied to and groomed by the abuser, it may be too painful for some to admit to themselves that they were deceived and that they may have enabled or even contributed to your abuse. They may double down if challenged. Seeing this can be profoundly demoralising.

A controlling, high-functioning abuser will also have a carefully constructed social persona. Many people may believe they are professionally or socially indebted to the abuser and they may be fearful of losing these advantages if doubts about the abuser’s conduct are raised. In miniature, this is the way cult leaders manage dissent. This type of control over others is a major factor in the success of a smear campaign.

Post-separation smear campaign

“He made sure no one would speak to me again so I would never cast doubt on his version of events.”

“He called and emailed my friends to tell them I had a psychiatric disorder and was an unfit mother. The fact I would cry about this was taken as evidence of how crazy I am. For a while, I wanted to die.”

“He told so many lies about me it was like trying to live in an avalanche. I watched as all but my oldest relationships were destroyed. I even lost one of those.”

“I live in terror that he will destroy my professional life so I can’t earn money.”

“The lies were clever because a few of them had a slight basis in reality but they got twisted into anything he wanted to say about me to get me isolated.”