July 17, 2025 • 18 mins
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?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Love and Abuse, the show about navigating the difficult relationship. You deserve respect and kindness.
(00:07):
All the information on this show is meant for educational purposes only.
Always seek a professional for your mental health and well-being, and always pick your battles wisely. I'm your host, Paul Colaianni.
Honestly, I am terrible at Instagram. I just start the show with that. I'm terrible at it.
(00:30):
Even though I have an account, Love and Abuse Podcast, Instagram account.
But every now and then I'll try to post something.
So if you're on Instagram and you want to follow me, I do try. I try to post things.
But the reason I brought that up is because I posted, one of the last things I posted was when someone tells you who you are,
(00:54):
instead of asking who you are, they reveal more about themselves than you.
And someone commented on it and said, hey, this should be an episode. And so this is the episode.
It might only be five minutes long.
It is the episode because it is 100% true.
(01:17):
If somebody tells you who you are, instead of asking who you are, or even better, if they don't accept who you are, it reveals everything about them.
It reveals more about them than you.
And the reason I say that, and the reason it's so important, and the reason I want you to burn it into your brain, is so that you don't feel unlovable, unworthy, unimportant.
(01:44):
You don't feel less than you really are.
I don't want you to feel that way.
If that's going through your mind, if that's in your heart, like you don't feel lovable and it hurts, certain people do not
know how to love in a healthy way.
They do not do my definition of love, which is supporting the other person's path to happiness, supporting their decisions,
(02:13):
supporting who they are, and not trying to change them or control them.
It is accepting another person as they are.
I think that is a very valid and true statement about love.
I think it's a true definition about love.
When someone loves you, they accept you.
(02:34):
Even when you say something they disagree with, they still accept you.
They don't try to change or control you.
And if they do try change or control you, I would call that abusive.
I would call that someone wanting what they want, regardless of what you want.
(02:56):
Someone wanting what they want, regardless of how you feel about it.
I would call it someone wanting you to be who they want you to be, even if you don't want to that person.
The challenge that often comes is that many victims of emotional abuse will try to adapt, will try to change, will try to
(03:20):
meet someone else's standards, so that the other person is happy.
And the belief is if you make the emotional abuser happy, that you will in turn be because the relationship will go so much smoother after that. But the truth is, unfortunately, twofold.
(03:43):
One part is that you become someone you're not, or you change in a way that you're not exactly comfortable with because it's not you.
So you start changing things about yourself so that you can accommodate somebody who wants you to change.
And now the other part of this, the second fold, I guess, is that the abusive person, even if they were happy with the changes they saw, it won't be enough.
(04:14):
Or there'll be something else you have to change, or something else that you have to do differently, or something that bothers them that didn't bother them before.
Like the change led to something else that now bothers them because you are doing this, or saying this, or whatever.
And so you might be with someone who's never happy, no matter how much you try to accommodate, no matter how much you try to adapt and change.
(04:43):
In fact, if you burn that into your brain, that someone who is hard to please will never be pleased, then you'll know what
happens if you continue trying to change.
Let alone the third fold that I didn't even add, threefold here, is that you will have an underlying or maybe overt resentment.
(05:06):
Because as you change who you are and who you want to continue being, as that changes, you will feel resentment.
You will feel a resentment toward the person who can't accept you as you are.
And I'm not saying that we don't do this ourselves.
(05:27):
Even people with good intentions who might want somebody else to change, and they don't want to control or change them.
They don't want to emotionally abuse, you know, anything like that.
But they sort of expect the changes anyway.
They sort of expect that person to be different as the relationship goes on.
(05:50):
And I've seen this, and you probably have too with your friends or even yourself, when we get married, maybe things will get better.
And quite often that's not the because I look at marriage as amplifying what's already going on.
So what's already going on in your relationship, if you're engaged right now, if there are difficulties right now, those same
(06:15):
difficulties will be in the marriage, but amplified.
Because now there's that locked in feeling.
There's that, there's that commitment that we've made to each other. And now we're in it forever.
This is the feeling we have when we get into a marriage. Now we're in it forever.
(06:36):
So if nothing changes, this is the way it's going to be. And it'll probably get worse.
And that's why I look at an engagement.
And if there's something going on while you're engaged or while you're thinking about getting married or thinking about getting
engaged, whatever's happening, if it's not resolved, if you can't work through it, and you bring it into the next level of your relationship, it will get worse.
(07:03):
And if I'm wrong, you got lucky.
But I'm usually not wrong with that.
Whatever is happening today will happen tomorrow, will happen when you get married, will happen when you have kids, will happen when you get a house.
And I know I'm preaching to the choir, to some people listening right now.
(07:24):
And I'm sorry, I'm echoing what you already know.
But to those who don't know, you need to know that whatever's happening now will be carried forward into the future.
And especially into the next level of the relationship where it will usually increase in intensity.
So if things are going great and they're only getting better, that's typically where it goes. Well, there's a caveat there.
(07:51):
Some people are charming until you get married. And those are harder to spot. I agree. Those are harder to spot.
There are people out there that will put on their best face.
They are the ones showing up, acting as if they are wonderful and supportive and loving.
And then you get married and suddenly they're not. They're just a different person.
(08:15):
And that's terrible when it happens because it blindsides you. It's totally unexpected.
Which is why conversation, communication, very good to have before you get married.
And also look for the flags, the red flags, the orange flags.
Like I talk to my ex every now and then and they have a problem with it, but it's no big deal. Hmm.
(08:41):
It is a big deal because if they have a problem with it, it's a big deal.
Why are you talking to your ex?
You don't need to talk to your ex.
And then somebody might say, well, why do you care? What's the problem?
We don't have anything at all anymore.
We're just exes and it's no big deal.
And maybe we share a kid together and we have to talk about the kid or whatever.
(09:03):
But if there's a problem in the relationship today about that one little thing, maybe it's not a big deal, but it becomes
a big deal when you take the relationship to the next level.
Because unless it's resolved, especially things that aren't necessarily talked about, but they're always kind of an issue.
Why do you leave the sink full? Why do you do that?
(09:26):
And then you think, okay, it's no big deal. We just had this little spat. It becomes an issue.
We know it does, unless it gets resolved.
How about I do this and it's never full again. Okay, great. All right. That sounds good. And are you cool with that? I'm cool. Are you cool? I'm cool. Okay. That would be great. That would be nice.
That would be a wonderful balanced relationship.
(09:48):
But, um, if it ends, if a conversation like that ends with, yeah, whatever, something is still there.
Something is still in the other person's mind or in your mind.
And there might be that resentment that I'm talking about, or just a trigger that comes up for them whenever the dishes are mentioned.
What are we bringing forward with us?
(10:11):
We started off talking about when someone tells you who you are, instead of asking who you are, I look at that as accepting
the person who leaves the dishes in the sink and being okay with it.
If that person leaves the dishes in the sink and it, it bothers you, but you're okay with it. I think that's okay.
(10:34):
I wish they didn't do that, but I'm okay with it because, uh, they do other is how I see things.
They do other things in the house. They clean the floors.
They deal with the dishes. No big deal.
That's what I had to do actually in my relationship with Asha.
Um, for years, I just did the dishes and I felt like, um, why isn't she doing them?
(10:58):
She says she loves a clean kitchen, but I'm the one who washes all the dishes all the time. And I wasn't angry.
It was just a little bothersome to me.
And so I really thought about it. Am I accepting her as is?
Am I letting her be a person who doesn't like to do the dishes? It was a good question.
It was a good thing to reflect on because in the past she lived alone and she had to do them, but they were still piled up
(11:24):
and it took her many days to get to them.
So I stepped into the relationship knowing who she was.
And after many, many months of doing the dishes and thinking like, why doesn't she do them too? I thought like that.
It wasn't really affecting our relationship, but that came into my mind.
(11:46):
I had to reflect on it and ask myself, okay, what does she do that I appreciate?
And I turned my thinking around and I realized that she makes the calls that I don't want to make. She takes care of the bills.
She works on the things that I don't want to work on.
She does the outside, the landscaping and stuff for our house.
(12:09):
I mean, she does the gardening and takes care of that kind of stuff.
I do the mowing and the heavier stuff, but she does a lot.
And all I'm focused on is her not doing the dishes.
And that really, that really highlighted where my attention was going and where it needs to be.
(12:29):
Because as soon as I realized I don't want to make those calls, I'm glad she makes those calls.
That was like her doing the dishes and me not doing them.
I'm doing the dishes and she's not doing them, but her making the calls is me not making those calls. Whoa, that's fine with me. That changed.
(12:52):
That changed how I felt about things.
I was focused on the dishes when I should have been focused on all the other stuff she does that I don't want to and I'm glad she does.
Now, this may not be your case.
You may do everything and they do nothing.
You may do some things and they do some things, but they are being hurtful or controlling or manipulative.
(13:16):
And you don't like that, of course. And you want that to stop.
All you want them to do is accept you as you are.
And if somebody isn't accepting you as you are, that has nothing to do, again, this has nothing to do with your worth, with
your lovability, with your significance in the world, or how other people see you.
(13:43):
Because I guarantee you, the people that you care about most in your life see you as a wonderful, worthy, lovable person.
And if this one person can't accept you as you are and they want you to change, then what they're showing you isn't about you.
(14:03):
It's about how they want to control you and have power over you and for you to show up in a way that makes them comfortable
so that they don't have to be uncomfortable dealing with their own crap. It really comes down to that.
Emotionally abusive people haven't dealt with their stuff.
(14:24):
The way they deal with challenges is to push their inability to deal with challenges onto you to make you change, to make
you feel bad so that they don't have to.
And if that's what they're doing, that's not a very loving thing to do.
That's a very unloving thing to do.
(14:45):
That shows that they are unloving, not that you are unlovable.
It shows that they are unable to see your worth, not that you are not worthy.
You are worthy of kindness and respect and love and compassion.
You are worthy of somebody caring about you.
(15:07):
And if somebody doesn't care about you, that's not because you're not worth caring for.
It's because they have an inability to care for you in a healthy way.
And that shift in perspective is vital if you're going to make it through any relationship where you are slowly becoming a shell of your former self.
(15:29):
Because that's what happens as you get convinced that you are not unlovable, you are not worthy, and that you aren't good
enough as is, you start disintegrating from the inside out.
Your passion, your zest for life gets ripped out of you because you put a lot of faith into the words and the actions of somebody
(15:53):
who never learned to love in a healthy way. That's not your fault. They need to deal with it. They need to work on it.
They need to figure it out so that they don't push their unhealed stuff onto you.
They need to work on their own healing.
And that may involve going to therapy, reading books, joining the program that I run, Healed Being, doing anything it takes
(16:18):
to show that you care about someone or they care about someone so strongly that they are willing to step into humility and
vulnerability and admit that they've been wrong and admit that they've been hurtful and that they need to work on themselves
because they don't want to hurt the person they say they love.
(16:43):
Just remember, when somebody tells you who you are and who they want you to be, instead of asking who you are or letting you
be the person you are, it reveals more about themselves than you. Share this with others.
Love and Abuse is the official podcast of The Mean Workbook, an assessment and healing guide for difficult relationships.
(17:06):
The workbook contains a 200-point assessment to tell you exactly what's causing you to leave so many interactions feeling bad. Gain clarity on your relationship today. Visit loveandabuse.com for more information.
If you've discovered that you are doing the hurtful behaviors to someone that you care about and you want to change that sign
(17:26):
up for the only program that walks you through the entire process of healing from being emotionally abusive.
Thousands of lives and relationships have changed and yours can change too.
Visit healedbeing.com to start with some free lessons right away.
And if you're looking for a safer way to listen to this show where all the titles to the episodes are changed, click on the
safe listening button on the podcast page over at loveandabuse.com.
(17:51):
This show exists to remind you that you are not alone and you're not going crazy.
You are worthy of respect, kindness, and love and you deserve to be accepted exactly as you are.
(18:20):
We'll talk again soon.
Welcome to Love and Abuse, the show about navigating the difficult relationship. You deserve respect and kindness.
(00:07):
All the information on this show is meant for educational purposes only.
Always seek a professional for your mental health and well-being, and always pick your battles wisely. I'm your host, Paul Colaianni.
Honestly, I am terrible at Instagram. I just start the show with that. I'm terrible at it.
(00:30):
Even though I have an account, Love and Abuse Podcast, Instagram account.
But every now and then I'll try to post something.
So if you're on Instagram and you want to follow me, I do try. I try to post things.
But the reason I brought that up is because I posted, one of the last things I posted was when someone tells you who you are,
(00:54):
instead of asking who you are, they reveal more about themselves than you.
And someone commented on it and said, hey, this should be an episode. And so this is the episode.
It might only be five minutes long.
It is the episode because it is 100% true.
(01:17):
If somebody tells you who you are, instead of asking who you are, or even better, if they don't accept who you are, it reveals everything about them.
It reveals more about them than you.
And the reason I say that, and the reason it's so important, and the reason I want you to burn it into your brain, is so that you don't feel unlovable, unworthy, unimportant.
(01:44):
You don't feel less than you really are.
I don't want you to feel that way.
If that's going through your mind, if that's in your heart, like you don't feel lovable and it hurts, certain people do not
know how to love in a healthy way.
They do not do my definition of love, which is supporting the other person's path to happiness, supporting their decisions,
(02:13):
supporting who they are, and not trying to change them or control them.
It is accepting another person as they are.
I think that is a very valid and true statement about love.
I think it's a true definition about love.
When someone loves you, they accept you.
(02:34):
Even when you say something they disagree with, they still accept you.
They don't try to change or control you.
And if they do try change or control you, I would call that abusive.
I would call that someone wanting what they want, regardless of what you want.
(02:56):
Someone wanting what they want, regardless of how you feel about it.
I would call it someone wanting you to be who they want you to be, even if you don't want to that person.
The challenge that often comes is that many victims of emotional abuse will try to adapt, will try to change, will try to
(03:20):
meet someone else's standards, so that the other person is happy.
And the belief is if you make the emotional abuser happy, that you will in turn be because the relationship will go so much smoother after that. But the truth is, unfortunately, twofold.
(03:43):
One part is that you become someone you're not, or you change in a way that you're not exactly comfortable with because it's not you.
So you start changing things about yourself so that you can accommodate somebody who wants you to change.
And now the other part of this, the second fold, I guess, is that the abusive person, even if they were happy with the changes they saw, it won't be enough.
(04:14):
Or there'll be something else you have to change, or something else that you have to do differently, or something that bothers them that didn't bother them before.
Like the change led to something else that now bothers them because you are doing this, or saying this, or whatever.
And so you might be with someone who's never happy, no matter how much you try to accommodate, no matter how much you try to adapt and change.
(04:43):
In fact, if you burn that into your brain, that someone who is hard to please will never be pleased, then you'll know what
happens if you continue trying to change.
Let alone the third fold that I didn't even add, threefold here, is that you will have an underlying or maybe overt resentment.
(05:06):
Because as you change who you are and who you want to continue being, as that changes, you will feel resentment.
You will feel a resentment toward the person who can't accept you as you are.
And I'm not saying that we don't do this ourselves.
(05:27):
Even people with good intentions who might want somebody else to change, and they don't want to control or change them.
They don't want to emotionally abuse, you know, anything like that.
But they sort of expect the changes anyway.
They sort of expect that person to be different as the relationship goes on.
(05:50):
And I've seen this, and you probably have too with your friends or even yourself, when we get married, maybe things will get better.
And quite often that's not the because I look at marriage as amplifying what's already going on.
So what's already going on in your relationship, if you're engaged right now, if there are difficulties right now, those same
(06:15):
difficulties will be in the marriage, but amplified.
Because now there's that locked in feeling.
There's that, there's that commitment that we've made to each other. And now we're in it forever.
This is the feeling we have when we get into a marriage. Now we're in it forever.
(06:36):
So if nothing changes, this is the way it's going to be. And it'll probably get worse.
And that's why I look at an engagement.
And if there's something going on while you're engaged or while you're thinking about getting married or thinking about getting
engaged, whatever's happening, if it's not resolved, if you can't work through it, and you bring it into the next level of your relationship, it will get worse.
(07:03):
And if I'm wrong, you got lucky.
But I'm usually not wrong with that.
Whatever is happening today will happen tomorrow, will happen when you get married, will happen when you have kids, will happen when you get a house.
And I know I'm preaching to the choir, to some people listening right now.
(07:24):
And I'm sorry, I'm echoing what you already know.
But to those who don't know, you need to know that whatever's happening now will be carried forward into the future.
And especially into the next level of the relationship where it will usually increase in intensity.
So if things are going great and they're only getting better, that's typically where it goes. Well, there's a caveat there.
(07:51):
Some people are charming until you get married. And those are harder to spot. I agree. Those are harder to spot.
There are people out there that will put on their best face.
They are the ones showing up, acting as if they are wonderful and supportive and loving.
And then you get married and suddenly they're not. They're just a different person.
(08:15):
And that's terrible when it happens because it blindsides you. It's totally unexpected.
Which is why conversation, communication, very good to have before you get married.
And also look for the flags, the red flags, the orange flags.
Like I talk to my ex every now and then and they have a problem with it, but it's no big deal. Hmm.
(08:41):
It is a big deal because if they have a problem with it, it's a big deal.
Why are you talking to your ex?
You don't need to talk to your ex.
And then somebody might say, well, why do you care? What's the problem?
We don't have anything at all anymore.
We're just exes and it's no big deal.
And maybe we share a kid together and we have to talk about the kid or whatever.
(09:03):
But if there's a problem in the relationship today about that one little thing, maybe it's not a big deal, but it becomes
a big deal when you take the relationship to the next level.
Because unless it's resolved, especially things that aren't necessarily talked about, but they're always kind of an issue.
Why do you leave the sink full? Why do you do that?
(09:26):
And then you think, okay, it's no big deal. We just had this little spat. It becomes an issue.
We know it does, unless it gets resolved.
How about I do this and it's never full again. Okay, great. All right. That sounds good. And are you cool with that? I'm cool. Are you cool? I'm cool. Okay. That would be great. That would be nice.
That would be a wonderful balanced relationship.
(09:48):
But, um, if it ends, if a conversation like that ends with, yeah, whatever, something is still there.
Something is still in the other person's mind or in your mind.
And there might be that resentment that I'm talking about, or just a trigger that comes up for them whenever the dishes are mentioned.
What are we bringing forward with us?
(10:11):
We started off talking about when someone tells you who you are, instead of asking who you are, I look at that as accepting
the person who leaves the dishes in the sink and being okay with it.
If that person leaves the dishes in the sink and it, it bothers you, but you're okay with it. I think that's okay.
(10:34):
I wish they didn't do that, but I'm okay with it because, uh, they do other is how I see things.
They do other things in the house. They clean the floors.
They deal with the dishes. No big deal.
That's what I had to do actually in my relationship with Asha.
Um, for years, I just did the dishes and I felt like, um, why isn't she doing them?
(10:58):
She says she loves a clean kitchen, but I'm the one who washes all the dishes all the time. And I wasn't angry.
It was just a little bothersome to me.
And so I really thought about it. Am I accepting her as is?
Am I letting her be a person who doesn't like to do the dishes? It was a good question.
It was a good thing to reflect on because in the past she lived alone and she had to do them, but they were still piled up
(11:24):
and it took her many days to get to them.
So I stepped into the relationship knowing who she was.
And after many, many months of doing the dishes and thinking like, why doesn't she do them too? I thought like that.
It wasn't really affecting our relationship, but that came into my mind.
(11:46):
I had to reflect on it and ask myself, okay, what does she do that I appreciate?
And I turned my thinking around and I realized that she makes the calls that I don't want to make. She takes care of the bills.
She works on the things that I don't want to work on.
She does the outside, the landscaping and stuff for our house.
(12:09):
I mean, she does the gardening and takes care of that kind of stuff.
I do the mowing and the heavier stuff, but she does a lot.
And all I'm focused on is her not doing the dishes.
And that really, that really highlighted where my attention was going and where it needs to be.
(12:29):
Because as soon as I realized I don't want to make those calls, I'm glad she makes those calls.
That was like her doing the dishes and me not doing them.
I'm doing the dishes and she's not doing them, but her making the calls is me not making those calls. Whoa, that's fine with me. That changed.
(12:52):
That changed how I felt about things.
I was focused on the dishes when I should have been focused on all the other stuff she does that I don't want to and I'm glad she does.
Now, this may not be your case.
You may do everything and they do nothing.
You may do some things and they do some things, but they are being hurtful or controlling or manipulative.
(13:16):
And you don't like that, of course. And you want that to stop.
All you want them to do is accept you as you are.
And if somebody isn't accepting you as you are, that has nothing to do, again, this has nothing to do with your worth, with
your lovability, with your significance in the world, or how other people see you.
(13:43):
Because I guarantee you, the people that you care about most in your life see you as a wonderful, worthy, lovable person.
And if this one person can't accept you as you are and they want you to change, then what they're showing you isn't about you.
(14:03):
It's about how they want to control you and have power over you and for you to show up in a way that makes them comfortable
so that they don't have to be uncomfortable dealing with their own crap. It really comes down to that.
Emotionally abusive people haven't dealt with their stuff.
(14:24):
The way they deal with challenges is to push their inability to deal with challenges onto you to make you change, to make
you feel bad so that they don't have to.
And if that's what they're doing, that's not a very loving thing to do.
That's a very unloving thing to do.
(14:45):
That shows that they are unloving, not that you are unlovable.
It shows that they are unable to see your worth, not that you are not worthy.
You are worthy of kindness and respect and love and compassion.
You are worthy of somebody caring about you.
(15:07):
And if somebody doesn't care about you, that's not because you're not worth caring for.
It's because they have an inability to care for you in a healthy way.
And that shift in perspective is vital if you're going to make it through any relationship where you are slowly becoming a shell of your former self.
(15:29):
Because that's what happens as you get convinced that you are not unlovable, you are not worthy, and that you aren't good
enough as is, you start disintegrating from the inside out.
Your passion, your zest for life gets ripped out of you because you put a lot of faith into the words and the actions of somebody
(15:53):
who never learned to love in a healthy way. That's not your fault. They need to deal with it. They need to work on it.
They need to figure it out so that they don't push their unhealed stuff onto you.
They need to work on their own healing.
And that may involve going to therapy, reading books, joining the program that I run, Healed Being, doing anything it takes
(16:18):
to show that you care about someone or they care about someone so strongly that they are willing to step into humility and
vulnerability and admit that they've been wrong and admit that they've been hurtful and that they need to work on themselves
because they don't want to hurt the person they say they love.
(16:43):
Just remember, when somebody tells you who you are and who they want you to be, instead of asking who you are or letting you
be the person you are, it reveals more about themselves than you. Share this with others.
Love and Abuse is the official podcast of The Mean Workbook, an assessment and healing guide for difficult relationships.
(17:06):
The workbook contains a 200-point assessment to tell you exactly what's causing you to leave so many interactions feeling bad. Gain clarity on your relationship today. Visit loveandabuse.com for more information.
If you've discovered that you are doing the hurtful behaviors to someone that you care about and you want to change that sign
(17:26):
up for the only program that walks you through the entire process of healing from being emotionally abusive.
Thousands of lives and relationships have changed and yours can change too.
Visit healedbeing.com to start with some free lessons right away.
And if you're looking for a safer way to listen to this show where all the titles to the episodes are changed, click on the
safe listening button on the podcast page over at loveandabuse.com.
(17:51):
This show exists to remind you that you are not alone and you're not going crazy.
You are worthy of respect, kindness, and love and you deserve to be accepted exactly as you are.
(18:20):
We'll talk again soon.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.