What increases the risks of getting into an emotionally abusive relationship?

• Jumping into a relationship too quickly before you know the person, because it feels good or helps you get over your ex.   e.g Swept up in the charm and need to be wanted.
• Ignoring the warning signs and red flags that something isn’t right. Not listening to your ‘self’.
• Feeling pressure to go against your ‘self’.
• Going along with your partners needs and giving up your friends, plans and pursuits to spend time with your partner.
• Feeling lucky someone wants you and want to keep them happy so they do not leave.
• Leaving your decisions up to them and then feel controlled by them telling you what to do.
• Making your partner the person who guides your thoughts, decisions, friends.  Letting them think for you.
• Let them take responsibility for you, so you feel dependent on them and scared to leave
• Not allowed to have a mind of your own, to think or act in accordance to your real self. Giving up your mind of your own.
• Not feeling worthy on the inside, so rely on a partner to make you feel good. Allowing your ‘self’ worth to be determined by your partner, not yourself.
• Giving up the things that make you happy and relying on your relationship to make you happy.
• No boundaries or limits on what you will put up with – putting up with too much and wondering why you’re always angry or frustrated.
• The relationship starts off as all loving to all hating, where your ‘self’ is lost.
• Not  listen to your ‘self’ – (thoughts and feelings) and letting your concerns slide, making excuses for the things  that your partner does that bother you. “It must be my fault”
• Self doubt and not believing in your ‘self’  – letting your partner tell you what to do or control you, instead of listen to yourself. “he knows better”
• Bringing up their behaviour causes them to turn on you, so you’re wrong, crazy and so on.
• Feel guilty going out with friends because your partners makes you feel bad about going out, so he controls your behavior.
• Stop going out because your partner gets angry, asking  about who you’re with. Letting his insecurities control you.
• Have a strong sense your partner is lying to you or leading a double life, but tells you you’re insecure
• He will not commit to you, so you’re left holding on waiting for more.
• Your partner makes you feel lucky he has you because he can get better, so you feel more desperate to keep him. Yet, left feeling more worthless  and insecure that you better make him happy.
• Your partner indirectly puts you down, so you feel pressure to meet his expectations.
• Avoidance and denial when your partner is abusive, controlling, has addictions & affairs. Enabling it to continue
• Not Raise issues until it’s too late when their behaviour  is out of control and too hard to address.
• Raise issues in the heat of the moment, when you’ve had enough so you are perceived as attacking.
• Too afraid to assert your ‘self’ or express yourself  – your partner is too sensitive or gets angry.
• Placate your partners anger by giving into them, rather than stand up to them – allowing yourself to be bullied  into doing things you do not want to do or feeling pressured to agree with them
• When raising issues, you feel unheard or the issue gets turned around, so you back down or give up
• Co-dependency or mutual reliance on each other for things you should be able to do yourself.
• Relying on your partner for happiness or confidence, not meeting your own needs or being independent.
• Evolve yourself around your partners needs, fitting in with them

Ignoring your ‘self’ makes you more vulnerable to abuse in relationships

Wonder why you let others control you or mistreat you? Why you attract toxic relationships? How you constantly end up in relationships where you’re evolving your whole life around your partner, to find they never respect your needs or give you what you need in a relationship? Many, who are vulnerable are clingy for love and jump in quickly. The more you cater and accommodate other peoples needs, the more rope you give them to take as much as they want or do what ever they want. So your needs never get fulfilled, it becomes about them, never about you. Partners  will push the envelope or keep pushing the boundaries, to test how much they can get away with. Without limits or boundaries, small things eventually become big issues and harder to control, if they keep getting away with it. So how does one end up in a controlling, toxic or abusive relationship?

Many will say, “I didn’t want to cause a fight or say anything at first….I ignored it and pretended it didn’t bother me..I just did everything around the house hoping he will start….I did everything for him, to help him but when I needed help he couldn’t help me”.

Sometimes love blinds us. Many mistakenly think that if they get their happiness from their partner they will in turn  be happy. Wrong. Making others happy doesn’t guarantee your happiness, in fact, it often ends up the opposite.   When you’ve given up the things that made you happy and go along with your partners needs, then you will be unhappy because your not living your life.

Many bitter, resentful and heart broken women say they thought they were doing the right thing by meeting someone else’s needs. Yet, they gave up their self for their relationship. We teach people how we want to be treated. If we put up with something destructive to ourselves, then we enable our partner to treat us this way, by letting them get away with it. The more they get away with it, the more they do it. The more we let others take over, the less we have control of our lives.

“I didn’t confront his drug use because he got angry, now his drug use is out of control and he is in denial about it….”. If you cannot resolve  an issue with communication, then why put up with it? Why settle, if your needs cannot be met? You cannot blame others for your unhappiness if you let them get away with it. The problem is people try to change their partner, not themselves. Therapy works on the self, so you can meet your own needs and define them in your relationship. So a relationship becomes a two way street. The more we  ignore addressing the things that are aversive to our self, the  more these behaviours take over the relationship, unable to be managed until the relationship breaks down.

Break free from toxic relationships

In a healthy relationship, we must meet our own needs first or define what we want, not let others determine things for us. So we must register our self ( thoughts, feelings, needs, concerns, boundaries).The more we can say “No” or set limits on others behaviours, we tell them what we are prepared to put up with and not. So our partners have to work within our boundaries or guidelines, so we take control of our self, by meeting our needs and letting others know our boundaries. If a behaviour violates us, we do not have to put up with that. The more we make a stand for our self, the more others stand by us, rather then violate us.

Click here for signs of relationship a narcissist, relationships with narcissists, the origins of narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder and ending a relationship with a narcissist.

Relationship Counsellor 

Nancy Carbone