Love and Abuse

When an affair surfaces alongside claims of past emotional abuse, you have two separate crises on the table. That's exactly what happened to someone who shared this challenge with me. Is one justification for the other? When you don't know whether to feel angry or ashamed, you might feel completely stuck instead.

This is a follow-up episode for 191: "You learned you're being emotionally abused. Now what?" Take time to reflect on 10 self-assessment questions based on the key themes from that episode. Pause between each question and be honest with yourself as you consider how these patterns show up in your life and relationships.

Should you come right out and say, "Hey, you're abusing me, and you need to stop"? Hmm, that might work for a very small percentage of people. But what if it's been going on for years? What if it has become normal in the relationship? Is there a way to approach an abusive person without things going sideways?

This is a follow-up episode for episode 190 - When anger is used to keep you compliant. Take time to reflect on 10 self-assessment questions based on the key themes from that episode. Pause between each question and be honest with yourself as you consider how these patterns show up in your life and relationships

Anger in an emotionally abusive relationship raises the emotional and physical stakes. The risks are higher, and often, so is the submission and compliance.

Is one lie too many? Is honesty important in your relationship? Is it so important that if they lied once, you could forgive. If they lied twice, perhaps you could get past it. But what if they simply don't stop lying? What's after that?

Are there early warning signs that signal the strong possibility of a relationship becoming abusive? Yes. Absolutely. And you should know them. There are many, unfortunately. Knowledge is power - and this episode is all about your power.

Every single thing you do is not only not good enough, but on top of that, you're insulted, belittled, put down, and shamed in front of others. There is absolutely no reprieve from some people. It's like they don't even like you, let alone love you.

When you're exposed to toxic behavior day after day, you get stuck in a rut with walls so high that you feel like you can never get out. Sometimes a slight shift in mindset allows you to find the first stepping stone toward the top. It may take a while, but there is a path out of the in-the-rut thinking.

Physical abuse is the totality of all abuse in one package. It's violent and extremely damaging. And the victim of such aggressive behavior can literally be scarred for life. I hope you never experience anything like it. But if you have, this episode may be helpful to you.

It can feel amazing when someone focuses entirely on you, supporting you, helping you achieve whatever makes you happy... until it turns into a nightmare.

Isolation is one of the more destructive forms of emotional abuse, yet many people don't realize it's happening. They simply notice they no longer feel happy or fulfilled. Understanding how isolation works gives you the foundation to make decisions from a place of empowered knowledge instead of from a place someone else has put you in.

Are you the problem if nothing you do is ever right or good enough? Could they possibly be right about everything they're saying? If you believe this, please listen to this episode. It might just save you a lot of doubt and confusion.

When someone wants to control who you see by giving you an ultimatum between them and "me", you might have a hard choice to make. Or, maybe it's an easy choice, but it might be hard to get there from here.

You realize the relationship isn't going to work out and want to leave, but you're worried about being called a bad parent. Not only that, you are guaranteed to be called a bad parent by an abusive partner. Are you stuck in this relationship forever?

Your heart is big. And your kindness and compassion, though amazing qualities, can also keep you in situations that are unhealthy for you. When you're afraid you're going to hurt someone by leaving them, there's a bigger picture to keep in mind.

It's hard enough to be in a difficult relationship, but when your boundaries are shot, your adrenals are through the roof, and lots of years have passed, you might be wondering if this entire relationship was a giant waste of time, thinking about all the things you could have or should have done instead.

It can be hard to be in an emotionally abusive relationship. The challenge is real! But what about leaving one? It might be just as hard or harder because of the unknown of what happens next.

A trauma bond is like being addicted to both the highs and lows, just waiting for your next fix. It's not impossible to break a trauma bond, but it can be hard as hell.

Can the victim of emotional abuse accept the former abuser as a friend after a lot of time has passed? I received this question from someone who used to be emotionally abusive, feels awful about it, but has been out of that relationship for years. Then she met up with her ex again, and things are different, but not in the way she expected.

You're watching your child mirror a narcissistic parent and it feels like you're losing ground. Arguing with the lies they're being told feels pointless, but asking the right questions might just be what helps you keep your connection to your children, helping them choose empathy over manipulation.

How much mistreatment is too much? When your boundaries are violated over and over again, there will be a point where you have none and the sky will be the limit on someone else's hurtful and controlling behaviors.

There's got to be a reason someone becomes abusive, right? All abusers abused as children... is that it? Maybe it's a mental health issue. Maybe it's none, some, or all of the above. Or maybe it's something else.

They've changed! They've really seemed to change. They seem like a new person so you take them back. Then you find out they were just playing the long game. Emotionally abusive people can heal if they want to. Those who don't may just come back to fool you again.

Sometimes both people in the relationship are hurtful, controlling and manipulative. When that's the case, it's going to take more than one person stopping the behaviors, and that presents a few challenges in itself.

A unique episode about the superiority complex that drives mysogny in abusive relationships, why abusive people target those they perceive as weaker, and how their insecurity fuels the need to control and dominate.

You can't fix what's unwilling to be fixed. And when someone would rather you and the relationship suffer and crumble than work on improving themselves, you might have only one choice left.

If you feel trapped in a maze of emotional manipulation, hoping for a change that never comes, you might realize you've signed up for something you didn't expect and certainly don't want. There's a history lesson in this episode that may give you all you need to know for what the future holds for your relationship.

Some people seem to care but then do awful things. When they do, it's hard not to question if they love you at all.

Sometimes emotionally abusive people heal and change. Sometimes they just... change. Either way, when the victim of their behavior gets a "break", they might discover a lot of buried emotions that are just itching to come out.

I've seen emotionally abusive people heal and become completely different people. You wouldn't even recognize them! And when you no longer recognize the person who's hurt you over and over again, that might be a very good thing.

When you've decided to leave the emotionally abusive relationship, when is the best time to bring it up? During the storm or the calm?

Some behaviors are unacceptable. Some people are unacceptable. Just what should you accept and what should you do when you can't? Emotional abuse has a tendency to make you feel completely powerless, unable to make such decisions.

Some relationships end but continue leaving destruction in their wake. Some don't end and you suffer through the daily drip-feeding of emotionally abusive behaviors until you lose your sanity. When there's no way away from all the toxicity, what can you do?

Calling a duck a duck makes sense. But this logic works against you in the emotionally abusive relationship. Calling out an abusive person for who they are might just turn the whole thing around on you.

Every relationship should have stopping points when you feel yourself slipping away. Emotional abuse operates as a slow drip-feeding of toxic behaviors that gradually erode boundaries.

The endless monologue of some emotionally abusive people is a tactic that keeps you silent and submissive. It's designed to wear you down until you finally give in.

Some emotionally abusive people do heal. And once they do, they might feel the relationship will be great from that point on. What they don't consider is that the victim of their abusive behavior is only starting their healing process.

The emotionally abusive relationship is confusing and draining. If you don't get a grip on what's going on, you may start to believe perhaps you are the problem and they are a saint. Let's fix that faulty thinking.

If you've ever questioned how to forgive yourself for choosing your own well-being over an abusive partner, you're not alone. If you're feeling guilt or shame for leaving an abusive person, this is an important episode to listen to.

If you find yourself obsessively attached to someone who hurts you, is it a sign of a trauma bond? I'll tackle this challenging subject, shedding light on why you might stay in a relationship despite enduring hurtful behavior and what this could mean for your sense of self-worth and emotional well-being.

Some people will deflect blame and make you feel like the problem. In this episode, I dive into this subject by examining a heart-wrenching story from a listener whose partner's jealousy turned violent, leaving her questioning the future of their relationship and her path to healing.

The emotionally abusive relationship can sometimes be hard to define. How long must abusive behavior go on before actually admit that what's really happening is abuse?

How do you know when it's time to instigate a split? If your partner's behavior leaves you feeling oppressed and defeated, and they refuse to change, and they also don't want to end the relationship, then what?

Breadcrumbing can be a manipulative way to keep someone in your mind so that you can't fully move forward, keeping you as a pawn in another person's game. In this episode, a person wrote to me talking about their ex, a 13-year breadcrumber!

The way someone talks about their relationship reveals a lot. Abuse victims and perpetrators each have their own language patterns. Knowing these language patterns will help you understand on which side of the fence you're on.

In abusive relationships it might be difficult or even impossible to discern which parts of yourself are truly you and which are shaped by the abuse. Let's talk about what it takes to start building or rebuilding your identity.

You walk into an emotionally abusive relationship as one person, but where do you go after you're in one for a while? Is the person you're with trying to change you into someone you're not?

Love can feel like a double-edged sword, cutting deep despite the tender moments. Or is that really love? Caring and kindness mixed with toxic, controlling behaviors create a dangerous emotional cocktail of bonding and trauma.

They did the worst thing imaginable and now want you to stay in their life. Is it possible they can change? Should you give them a chance?

What does it take for an abusive person to change? A whole lot (if they even want to change), but this one component of healing is often one of the hardest for them to stop. Their consistent focus on you can make their healing and change much more difficult, let alone having no time and space to heal yourself.

The one-off difficulties in relationships are perfectly normal for everyone. They're not welcome, necessarily, but normal. But what happens when the "one-offs" become systemic? What happens when they are non-stop? That's when changes are inevitable.

When they threaten to leave or take something away from you, but they never follow through, expect them to repeat that behavior indefinitely. Empty threats are effective on those who fear them coming true. There is a way to stop the empty threats (but you probably won't like it).

You'd think it'd be easy to figure out: The hurtful one is the abusive one. But what happens when the victim gets convinced they are the abuser? Determining that while in the abuse cycle can sometimes be very difficult. However, I make it very clear in this episode.

"Everything's great with me," they say, as you sit there staring, confused, wondering what the hell you're missing because you're having a completely different experience as them. When is a relationship not an actual relationship anymore?

When you get into an emotionally abusive relationship, you have no idea what you're walking into. When you figure it out, you might have to make some tough choices. One of those choices might lead to getting deeper into something you know is bad for you.

Some people just won't stop being hurtful. Why won't they stop? Are they just terrible people we have to accept and move on? Power and control is their M.O. and it's important you know why. For some there is hope. For others, well, it may take a lot more than hope to see change. https://loveandabuse.com

Hurt people hurt people, so we should have compassion when they hurt us, right? You know the answer and I know the answer. How does the person who is hurting you start to change and heal, though? Lots to unpack here.

The person you were before the difficult relationship almost always looks and feels different than the person you became while inthe difficult relationship. And losing that part of yourself may make you think there's no way back. Sometimes, you can't even remember who you used to be.

When someone keeps hurting you, you might blame yourself and think if you were only better, they'd stop. But as their hurtful behavior continues, resentment builds and you start questioning everything about yourself.

What is the cause of mistreatment in a relationship? Do you think it's possible you are reason someone is hurting you or trying to change you? If so, you need to listen to this episode. There are many reasons this is happening, but...

What do you do when someone shatters something that brought you joy? In this episode, I talk about understanding your limits in relationships and recognizing when resilience becomes a liability rather than a strength. It's important you know how to navigate toward making the right decisions for you and those you love.

Is there a path out of being stuck in the whirlwind of a toxic relationship? Maybe taking a step back and out of the situation a while will help you gain clarity and reconnect with yourself. What happens when you never get away from the toxicity, though? Can you ever get a clear mind?

What if you're doing all you can to maintain your own health and well-being but you have someone in your life who a consistent drain on your mental and emotional health? Can you rebuild your energy or do you have to accept that it may never stop and you may have to make tougher choices about the relationship?

How can you tell if your partner's affection is genuine or a manipulation tactic? Love bombing usually takes place at the beginning of a relationship to create a strong bond between an abusive person and their victim. But it can also be used to get away with bad behavior in long-term relationships as well.

The victim of abusive behavior will eventually reach their breaking point. In that moment, they finally feel like they can take their life back. But they may still not be out of the woods yet during the transition from victim to empowered.

The healed former emotional abuser looks a lot different than the person they used to be. If you've ever accepted a hurtful person back into your life after they said they've changed but notice after a short while that their old behaviors are creeping back in, you might have missed an important clue that they haven't changed at all.

Why does it seem so easy for some people to leave a relationship, get into another one, and act as if the one they were in didn't mean anything?

If you've felt discarded and can't stop thinking about what you did wrong, this episode is a good reminder of everything you were doing right.

When the emotional abuser apologizes and tries to make amends with their ex-partner after they've done a lot of personal growth and development, should they expect a response from their ex? Is that expecting too much? Or is it time for all to move on and start anew?

You give, you adapt, and you change who you are almost to your very core... to what end? When you are overly compassionate to others, you might actually be taking away from yourself. This is as harmful to your mind as a lack of sleep is to your body.

Victims of emotional abuse can experience physical pain from all the trauma, potentially leading to increased tolerance and resilience of harm. They can gradually lose their identity due to the abuser's actions, becoming a shell of their former selves.

Some emotionally abusive people don't change, no matter how much the victim of their hurtful behavior changes for them. Is there ever a point where they will be the person you want them to be? Or does anything you do really matter at all?

There's a clever manipulation that can happen in some emotionally abusive relationships. It starts with superficial kindness and vague promises and leads to blameshifting and avoiding true accountability. This very subtle form of gaslighting will drive you crazy. I'll share with you how to spot it.

When you reach your breaking point with someone, you might make the decision to leave. During that time, you can regain your confidence and feel your power again. You might even decide to give the relationship a second chance, knowing that if you see any warning signs, you can address them right away.

That is until you are once again coerced into staying in a situation that seems destined to go down the exact same path as before. Now what?

Sometimes, you can't see the red flags before you're hurt. Emotional abuse can be like an infection that enters your body. You may not know it's there until a lot of time has passed, and you've invested a lot into the relationship.

In this episode, I share how emotional abuse acts like an infection entering your body and mind and help you understand the environment in which such an emotional infection thrives.

It can be hard to draw a line in a toxic relationship. Don't make your emotional resilience a prison of your own making. Your personal boundaries are there for a reason. Often, the only way things will change is if you do something because they won't

When the emotionally abusive person goes silent in order to make you feel guilty and give them the attention they want, do they have a deeper motive of self-preservation? When abusers use silence to control you, there's a lot going on under the hood. In this episode, I share my personal history of using the silent treatment to control the people I claimed to love.

Some people are so wrapped up in their need to control you that they completely overlook your worth and importance. They can be so busy keeping you focused on yourself and everything you're doing "wrong," that you might actually start to believe what they're saying about you.

The emotionally abusive person can have a traumatic past. Their abusive behaviors can have an abusive origin. Is it better to help them address their past to stop their behaviors toward you? It's an important question that you should definitely want to know the answer to.

The victim of hurtful or emotionally abusive behavior has a threshold. When they reach that threshold, their heart can seal permanently, never letting the hurtful person back in again.

In this episode, I help identify when your heart is sealed permanently. Before that happens, there's always a chance to repair a relationship that's been damaged. After that, however, the relationship may never get another chance.

The thought of breaking up or separating from a toxic person can be a difficult decision to make. But taking a break before a breakup can bring clarity and perspective in a problematic relationship, helping you rediscover something you lost and even help decide if you really want to make that difficult decision or take a different path.

The language you use to describe your relationship and how you're getting along with the other person says a lot. If you've ever wondered if you are the hurtful one or they are, the words you use can reveal just what role you play in the dynamic of an emotionally abusive relationship.

What would happen if you decided to write them a loving, supportive letter outlining all of their hurtful behaviors in hopes they'll read it and finally realize they need to change?

Will it backfire on you? I talk about that in this episode.

The cycle of high ups and deep downs in a relationship is like being trapped in an emotional prison. There are moments of freedom and happiness, followed by a constant underlying fear or worry of being trapped again.

The emotional prison is created by the manipulative and controlling behavior of the person who wants to keep the person in a disempowered state. This cycle of ups and downs often forms a trauma bond, where the person seeks love and support from the same person who is causing them emotional harm.

Sometimes an abusive relationship changes into a non-abusive one. Sometimes the abusive person has an epiphany and stops the behavior. Often that happens when the other person reaches their breaking point, which may be too late. But if there's still love, there's a chance. The questions are, what are the chances that the healing emotional abuser will stop the behaviors? And can the relationship heal?

Why do people who claim to care about us hurt us when they see that we're suffering? Shouldn't our suffering be enough for them to stop the behaviors? It's one of the most common questions I receive: If they really love me, why do they hurt me?

Dealing with a hurtful person is often hard enough. When they have hurtful parents, however, it gets even harder. Especially when you thought you had a somewhat good relationship with them. When their parents can't see their own child being hurtful toward you, you may not get the compassion and support you're looking for.

Your religious or spiritual beliefs are supposed to help uplift and inspire you, not make you feel oppressed and exhausted. Religious abuse happens when people who claim to love you use your own beliefs against you to keep their power over you.

I get messages from those who are with someone who claims to have changed, but something doesn't feel right to them. What they feel is usually accurate. There are specific thoughts and feelings inside you that can help you tell if someone has actually changed and healed from being emotionally abusive, or if they still have a ways to go.

When you've realized enough is enough but you're afraid that the kids will get a boatload of abusive behavior from a soon to be ex, knowing what to expect and how to respond to what happens next is the key to trying to maintain the healthiest relationship with your children.

Why can't they just change? Why don't they just stop hurting you?

Sometimes they've built such a huge wall of protection around themselves that nothing can penetrate it. They keep doing what they're doing because they don't want you to see what's behind the wall. It's too vulnerable, and it might require them to express a part of themselves they've hidden away all their life.

The emotionally abusive relationship can be a battle. In fact, it can be a series of battles that wear you down and eventually wear you out. But at what point are you so worn out that you do something different? Some toxic relationships last for decades and there is no end in sight. There's a point in time when something has to change, or nothing ever will. And that can be a hard pill to swallow.

The person that hurts the one they love can do the behavior indefinitely unless someone is there to stop it. Usually, that someone has to be you. Stopping it however doesn't always come easy. Sometimes the person hurting you needs a wake-up call they can't ignore, shaking their foundation so much they have to pay attention.

Relationships can survive even when things are bad, but what about when things are never good but just functional? Is just functioning together good enough? Can you make it work?

Functioning together can make some of life easier, but not necessarily happier. I explore that topic today.

Why do we return to toxic people over and over again? It's certainly not because we love to suffer. But maybe there's more going on that should be considered. Sometimes knowing the reasons can help you stop the round trips back to someone that doesn't seem to care if you're happy or not.

Can low self-worth attract someone that makes you feel lower? Can people-pleasing attract a taker that never stops taking?

There are many ways to become attracted to someone. But there are attractions that aren't always positive. It's important to know what about them makes them appealing when some qualities can be downright abusive.

LAA Insights is an addendum to the regular show that you'll find scattered in between full episodes. On Insights, I pick random emails that I haven't addressed yet and do my best to provide my insights and opinions.

A special episode answering a question from someone who isn't sure if they are the abuser and if they need to work on their own abusive behavior, even though there are clear signs they are being abused as well.

LAA Insights is an addendum to the regular show that you'll find scattered in between full episodes. On Insights, I pick random emails that I haven't addressed yet and do my best to provide my insights and opinions.