Do you feel like you have to “walk on eggshells” around your partner?  Are you afraid a lot of the time in your relationship?  Is your self esteem being slowly eroded?  It’s possible you’re in an emotionally abusive relationship.

Emotional abuse can sometimes be a tricky thing to identify for those in the situation because often the abuser employs tactics that make the other person feel like they’re going crazy.  Abusive people will dominate conversations so that the other has little time to decide if the behavior is harmful. 

There’s often a pervasive sense of being off balance for the person being emotionally abused.  They start to question their own thinking and eventually believe that they must have it wrong and in fact, they’re the bad ones for daring to believe such a thing about the abuser!  We call this “crazy-making” because that’s precisely the impact it has on the receiver.

In my own practice I’ve seen couples come in where it’s pretty obvious this is going on.  I’ve seen men and women in emotionally abusive dynamics with their partners.  I’ve witnessed people literally verbally “shut down” their partner – and the other one shrink away right before my eyes. 

Part of the problem for people who are being emotionally abused is they often don’t realize it.  Their self-confidence has been whittled down to a nub. 

Could you be in an emotionally abusive relationship? 

Ask yourself the following five questions – which are also signs you might be in an emotionally abusive relationship:

1)  Does your partner frequently criticize or humiliate you?

2)  Does your partner isolate you from your family and friends?

3)  Has your partner ever limited or controlled your access to money?

4)  Do you feel trapped in your relationship?

5)  Are you afraid of your partner?

The Cycle of Abuse

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Take an office romance, add infidelity, and throw in an abusive relationship… and you have a potentially very dangerous love triangle. 

Fact is, many people don’t get out much, and they meet their friends and lovers at work, at the gym, or somewhere in between. Office romances are a very common occurence, though potentially complicated and unpleasant if it goes bad.

It’s one thing to have a fling with someone at work. But it’s an entirely different thing to get involved with a married co-worker. 

Courting a married woman 

If the lady is married or engaged, things get a lot more complicated. 

A surprisingly common scenario is an unhappily married man or woman looking for a way out, an escape from their unhappy relationship. Co-workers tend to spend more time together these days than do married partners, so it’s only natural for a relationship to blossom and grow, particularly in the case of someone with an unhappy home life.

But beware the complications and implied promises. She may be clinging to you as her way out, in a "grass is greener on the other side" sort of way, not in a "I want to be with you forever" sort of way. The closeness doesn’t necessarily mean you’re "destined to be together", or that you’ll even stay together once she leaves her relationship. Remember this isn’t necessarily malicious on her part in any way, it’s just the mind’s way of escaping a bad situation.

Abusive relationships… how to break the cycle

To take this up another notch, let’s throw in an abusive relationship. Not only is she unhappy with her partner, but he’s also abusive with her. So at home she’s emotionally and sometimes physically abused.

All of a sudden, your relationship with her is blossoming and growing more than before. You’re not only her friend and confidant, but in contrast to her spouse, you’re warm, loving, and kind – and she seeks and feels the promise of a better life.

This can be a good thing, but as you get close, you start wanting to help her escape her abusive relationship. You want her to be with you, and you want her to be safe, comforted, and happy.

But SHE is the only one who can break the cycle of abuse. She has to decide if and when she’s had enough, and she has to ask for help – or accept help. Until that time, until she has made up her mind that it’s time to leave, there’s no chance of making the abusive situation go away.

Are you in danger? 

The other man is generally not too happy to see his replacement showing up… especially if he’s still engaged or otherwise in a relationship with the lady in question, and doesn’t yet know he’s going to out in the cold. 

And when you’re talking about someone who is capable of violence, as in "an abusive spouse", this is a recipe for bad things to happen…

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A couple has been married for 5 years or more, they have 2.5 kids, and live in a suburban wonderland.

All of a sudden, they realize they’re not "a couple" anymore, just roommates. The spark has vanished without a trace. Gone are the days or love, romance, excitement, happiness. It’s just dreary, boring, playing house with a roommate you can no longer stand.

Remember those days you couldn’t let each other go to sleep at night, and couldn’t wait to wake up and be together? Yeah, they’re gone. You don’t know why, but they’re long gone.

And suddenly, you meet someone new, fun, and exciting. Maybe even an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend from college. And suddenly you feel alive again, like you’ve been woken from a bad dream.

With one minor detail of course… your spouse and the 2.5 kids.

So what do you do? Stay with your spouse and continue the unhappy marriage, seek counseling, or divorce? 

You decide. Be sure to read the question, then watch the video and leave your thoughts below. 

Here’s the full story…  

Dear Dan and Jennifer,

Hi, I’ve been married to my husband for 5 years and with him for a total of 9 years. We have three kids together. For a long time now we have not gotten along, there have been fights, some physical, he was arrested for trying to push me out of a car, there is emotional abuse, and I am just not happy. I told him I want a divorce.

Well, we are in financial ruin with debt a lot of debt and cannot afford a separate residence – which is a criterion for divorce in our state. You must live in separate places for a year.

In addition the financial aspect of it scares me, but I honestly don’t think I’m in love with him anymore, and I am quite certain that if we didn’t have children together I would leave and probably wouldn’t have married him in the first place. He is on the other hand a wonderful dad, and we have a great "community image" with lots of friends, etc. and he’s a teacher.

To complicate things I began speaking to a male friend of mine from college again and it began as friends, and has escalated into an affair. He lives 600 miles away but has come up to visit me and I am planning on visiting him as well. He is divorced and has a son and on the bad side he is a drunk.

But, when I speak to him, I am just completely and totally in love. I have known him for about 13 years and we were even roommates at one time, but involved with other people.

I just feel like for the first time in my life I have found true love and happiness, except for the fact that I am married to someone else. I don’t know what to do, I feel that by staying in my current marriage (I have told my husband of my feelings for this other person, but he still wants to try to make things work) it is unfair to me, and to my husband who should have someone who is in love with him.

I also think of my children and that I may possibly screw up their lives with my own selfishness….any advice is greatly appreciated.  

- Tanya

Watch this short video for the answer…

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Then, be sure to chime in and tell us your thoughts - leave a comment below.

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