Healthy Boundaries & Therapy Speak: Early Signs of Emotional Abuse

The Mind of an Abuser & Not Letting Them Harden Your Heart

An emotionally abusive relationship isn’t something you choose, it is something you fall into. I explain below and in this video.

I am a BIG advocate for choosing in life. Every single thing we do, we choose and are fully responsible for. As they say, ‘What you’re not changing, you’re choosing.’

But love can truly be blinding.
When we choose a partner, we decide to trust them. We cross the threshold & install the belief in our subconscious mind (programming that acts without further permission from the conscious) that our partner has our best interests at heart & whatever they choose will be for our common good.

We fall into a state of safety where we see our partner as an extension of ourselves. Especially women. We want the man to lead. So we let him.

Imagine our surprise when months down the road he stops treating us with the love he had for us when we fell in love with him. The infamous terms of love bombing, double standards, manipulation, gaslighting, punishment, victimisation, blame shifting… they all come out of nowhere and are recognised only after leaving the abusive partner, and once the bubble of illusion of who they were is burst. Because manipulation is subtle and it creeps in. Like the devil will always use half truths to tell you lies, otherwise you wouldn’t believe him at all!

Ana Psychology’s video ‘Early Red Flags of Abuse’ alerted me to see how this was playing out my first emotionally abusive relationship. In both emotionally abusive relationships, (yes, I learned this twice) I waited for the night it became hell on earth before leaving at the break of dawn the next morning.

And I thank God for the hard lessons. I have learned to walk away at the first sign of disrespect. Here’s what I correlated between them:

1. The mind of an abuser is not self-aware.
   They resort to the secondary emotion of anger because it masks another emotion and trigger that they struggle to examine. They cannot recognise, understand and regulate their own emotion. They externalise instead of internalise strong emotions. They have outbursts to scare you into backing down.
2. The mind of an abuser is not empowered.
   They cannot compliment or celebrate you because they see you as a threat just for being yourself. They’re intimidated by your strength of character and are deeply afraid of the day you will see their weakness of mind and will leave them. They’re afraid to lose you and because they can’t stand up and become the man you need who is your equal, they will try to make you agree to the conditions of their painful existence.
3. The mind of an abuser is not clear.
   Rather than influence you in an endearing, caring and soft way by expressing their concerns in a healthy manner, they will try to suppress you into listening by admonishment.

Open communication is where love lives.

You want to have the space in which to express a desire to compromise in order to improve the treatment between you two in your relationship!

As we’ve seen in recent news with the Jonah Hill & Sarah Brady breakup, therapy speak can be weaponised — used to hurt rather than to heal.

Healthy boundaries are about the shared treatment in the relationship between you and the person in question. A boundary, by definition, is where you end and they begin. A limit.

So it is not fair, or in fact possible, to ‘extend a boundary’ beyond your will of desired treatment and into their will of desires in their own lives. That is manipulation.

To put it simply:

1. What they choose to do makes up who they are.
2. You can only control how you act according to what they do.
3. You cannot change what they do beyond what they want to do, because that means you do not love them for who they are.

Any person’s character is determined by their intention: the wholeheartedness or callousness with which they show up. Nothing else, but who they are being right now. In other words, you make people feel how you feel, when the receiver does not misinterpret your intent.

It isn’t how you’re asking your loved one that matters, as the use of structure can increase clarity, but what you’re asking of them that does. The content of the request.

Are we fulfilling our purpose on this earth of becoming more loving & serving others when we impose our will upon theirs?

When we love our partner and he stops showing up, we make excuses for him, like ‘Relationships are for healing. This is his trauma. Let me love him through it’, but it’s important to ask:

1. in loving him, do I stop loving myself?
2. in loving him, does he appreciate and nurture me in return?
3. or has that love rewinded in him so entirely that the relationship drains us both?

Do not fall into the trap of thinking that because you chose him once you are destined to keep doing so.

WOMAN, YOU’RE ALLOWED TO CHANGE YOUR MIND.

After all, his behaviour changed and you chose to have him lead by example. And as reciprocity is the natural state of things, you are allowed to change your mind, because you always receive your lowest standard.
Read that twice.

None of us enter a relationship wanting to leave it, but if you’re going to leave anyway, why not now?

It is IMPERATIVE that you become faithless in what is not unconditionally loving. This is why Christ (unconditional love) comes before the Holy Spirit (faith).

If your partner does not wish for your happiness with or without you, is it truly a healthy relationship?

Do not let them harden your heart!

1. Fall in love with your life. You’ll notice more clearly the subtleties of who adds to and who subtracts from your energy. You’ll automatically only choose the joy.
2. Don’t invest too much too quickly. Take your time, slowly, at the start of dating. get to know the whole man for who he is, in business, with his friends, when you catch him off-guard & up against adversity, how he handles your emotions, how he speaks to the waitress, or to his mom. After all ‘how you do anything is how you do everything’.
3. Hold on tightly to God’s plan for you. If you then decide to go into relationship, know down to your bones how he has his own head, hands and heart, and that the only constant in life is change. Do not allow your partner’s ill choices to reflect on your value as a person. Stick with sovereignty & discernment of what serves you in your daily life.

If this article has helped you, share it with a friend who you know has been through similar.

Also know that if she stopped responding to your messages during her abusive relationship, she stopped responding to herself first. Forgive her. We can all do with more love.