It’s (Not) Complicated. You Should Feel Safe in an Intimate Relationship.

And what it means if you don’t

Abuse is oftentimes non-physical (emotional, verbal, financial, psychological, sexual) and is defined as a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship.

For those of us who have the misfortune of coming from a home with an abusive parent(s), especially if that parent was a narcissist, the odds that we ourselves will enter into abusive relationships are, unfortunately, pretty good.

The simple reason is that we become conditioned at a young age to accept behavior that is otherwise unacceptable. Our perspective is skewed. We don’t have healthy models of what a loving relationship should look like, so we often mistake abuse for love because of underlying feelings of inadequacy and low levels of self-worth.

Because emotional abuse can be ever so subtle (and ever more damaging because of that subtlety), we can spend years, decades even, in relationships that are slowly killing us without even recognizing that we are, in fact, victims of abuse.

We make our relationships and lives far more complicated than necessary due to the constant rationalizing of our situation. We make excuses for the one we love. We justify and make allowances and explain away the reasons why our partner acts the way they do. We ignore red flags and put our hand over the mouth of our intuition, which is screaming at us to wake up and pay attention.

In an Abusive Relationship, There Are Not Two Sides to the Story

Though it actually does take two to tango…

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The truth is always there for us to see, and yet the truth becomes muddled in our own desperate attempt to resist looking at the way things really are in our relationship in exchange for focusing on how we want it to be.

There are several obvious signs of abuse, such as physical harm inflicted by an intimate partner, to let us know the relationship is unhealthy. But most signs are not so obvious.

Thus, it becomes complicated from a victim’s standpoint. Especially since the absence of physical abuse (black eyes, bruises, broken bones) perpetuates the complication of accurately assessing whether or not abuse is even taking place.

But there is one surefire way to tell if the relationship you’re in is unhealthy. One way to tell whether it’s toxic. One way to tell if you’re in a relationship that is built on real love or abuse disguised as love.

Safety.

Your safety.

The extreme of this is having a strong sense that your life may be in danger. But we don’t even have to go nearly that far to prove that you’re in an otherwise abusive relationship that is still dangerous, if not for your life then for your emotional health and well-being.

A simple way to find the answer is by asking yourself these hard questions. I say hard because the truth is never easy after spending so much time avoiding it. But wouldn’t you rather find out the truth now and then spend the rest of your time hereafter recovering and healing from it so you can move on toward a life you deserve? Or does wasting more years excusing someone else’s horrible treatment of you sound like a better option?

The truth is actually your most beloved friend, so do yourself and your future a favor by listening to it, accepting it, and then doing something about it.

Here are the hard questions to ask yourself:

Do you walk on eggshells or solid ground?

In a loving relationship with a healthy person, the ground beneath your feet will be secure and stable and you won’t have any doubt as to where you stand. In an abusive relationship that is dependent on one person being in control and the other one being controlled, the ground is unstable and untrustworthy. You’re afraid to make a wrong move, to make a sound, to make yourself known. Eggshells are fragile and break easily, much like the way you feel inside. Do you hold your breath in order not to be seen or heard?