August 12, 2025 • 24 mins
The way someone talks about their relationship reveals a lot. Abuse victims and perpetrators each have their own language patterns. Knowing these language patterns will help you understand on which side of the fence you're on.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Love and Abuse, the show about navigating the difficult relationship.
(00:05):
From simple disagreements to emotionally abusive behaviors, you deserve respect and kindness.
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.
(00:26):
Hurtful, manipulative, controlling, emotionally abusive people explain their problem with you differently than you explain your problem with them.
If you've been listening a while, you have heard me talk about people who write in to me and ask, I don't know if I'm the
(00:47):
abusive one, I don't know if I'm the hurtful, the And I usually have the same response to most people that write to me, I
usually answer it on the show, and that is that if you are trying to change for someone else, to accommodate, to please, to
make things better, to please them, to make the relationship better, and you're questioning, who is the abusive one?
(01:14):
Who is the toxic one in the relationship?
Because I get that question a lot.
I don't know if I'm the toxic one, I don't know if I'm the abusive one, because they say I am abusive.
If I point something out that they're doing, they say that I'm doing that.
And so I get that question a lot, and I just read a question today, I'm not going to read it on the air, but it had to do
(01:38):
with somebody in an emotionally abusive relationship who finally can't take it anymore and starts becoming reactively abusive, or reactive abuse.
They start doing abusive behaviors just to get their needs met, just to be heard and understood so that the abusive person will stop.
(01:59):
Because most abusive people only talk one language, their own.
And so that's why reactive abuse can start and linger in a relationship.
So you have an abusive person in a relationship who is pushing the victim of that abuse to the edge, to the point where the
victim doesn't know what to do, or how to handle it, or how to get them to stop.
(02:26):
So after they've tried everything, typically, they will start doing behaviors that in any normal healthy relationship would definitely appear abusive. But it's in response. It's reactive abuse.
It is in response to the abusive behaviors they're receiving.
And so they will become, quote, abusive back.
(02:50):
And then sometimes the abuse actually stops because now they are head to head.
The abuse does tend to stop more often than not when that happens because now the abuser, and I'm just using the terms abuser
and victim for brevity here, because quite often that's the case.
There's an abusive person and a victim of that abuse.
(03:13):
So as I was describing, there is an abuser and a victim and the victim can get pushed to the edge where they don't know how
to show up in any other way.
So they can't satisfy the abuser what they want and what else do they do? So they may become abusive themselves.
And now the abuser faces either an aggression or an assertiveness that they're not used to.
(03:39):
So they may actually stop doing the behavior, at least the specific request to stop doing the behavior.
Meaning they won't stop it indefinitely typically, but if their abuse is met with resistance like aggressiveness or assertiveness,
(04:00):
then that is going to make them see that they pushed the person over the edge, the person that they want to keep their power over.
And that person now has some power.
That doesn't mean I suggest reactive abuse.
I'm just sharing why an abusive person might stop a certain behavior when the person they're abusing is suddenly resistant, assertive, or aggressive.
(04:29):
Most if not all abusive people have levels of insecurity inside them, which is why they are abusive in the first place, because
revealing those insecurities is too scary and painful sometimes and they don't want to do that.
So they push all their fears and insecurities onto others in the form of abusive behavior.
And so now we have a victim who decides, Hey, I've had enough, I'm going to abuse back.
(04:54):
They don't use those words, but they do behaviors that might seem highly assertive or aggressive for them.
And then the abuser experiences that high assertiveness or aggressiveness and they think, Whoa, I don't want that to happen
because now they'll have power over me and I don't want that to happen.
(05:15):
So I'm just going to back off.
I'm making up a scenario and it's going to be different in a lot of different relationships, but that's how I visualize something
like that playing out is that when the reactive abuse occurs, it, uh, it scares the abuser in a way, maybe again, this is
(05:36):
just a playing out of a scenario so that they pull back and decide not to do the behavior for that specific thing. And that's what I mean.
I was going to say earlier is that they are doing something specifically that the victim of that behavior wants them to stop doing.
So the victim then reacts to that behavior, reactive abuse, and, uh, the abuser says, Whoa, I don't want that to happen.
(06:03):
So I'll stop doing that today and then tomorrow I'll do it again.
And hopefully I'll wear the victim down to the point where they are powerless again so I can keep my power over them and we
can move forward in the relationship the way I want it to go.
So there's a scenario that I visualize in my head happening and, you know, it's based on people I've worked with, it's based
(06:28):
on my own history and everything I've learned.
That's how I see it playing out though.
Reactive abuse can and sometimes will stop the, uh, other person's behavior, but it's usually temporary.
And in my opinion, it's because the abuser does not want to feel powerless themselves.
(06:49):
They don't want that table to turn on them.
They want to make sure the spotlight stays on you, constantly draining you of your power.
So if you become their version of power, which is abusive, then they experience it.
They don't like it and they will usually back off, but then they will come back again and sometimes worse. They will come back worse.
(07:15):
So this is why I do not recommend ever reactive abuse.
I would rather have you say, I don't want this in my life, therefore I will either get them to stop by asking them to stop or I'll leave. You know, that's not easy.
I'm not saying that this is what you should do, but I would rather have you have that mindset than to change who you are to
(07:43):
get someone to stop treating you in a way that you don't deserve.
I would rather you not change who you are.
I would rather you absolutely strengthen how you feel about yourself so that you can honor and protect yourself so that when
anyone, not just the person in your life, anyone decides to violate your boundaries, make you feel less than you are, make you feel worthless.
(08:12):
If anyone does that to you, you can say, uh-uh, that's not for me.
That's not who I want in my life, or at least that's not the behavior I want in my life.
So either that has to stop or I'm going to get out of this situation. Again, not easy.
There are many complicated relationships and sometimes there are kids and houses and businesses involved and it's very difficult
(08:37):
to do that, but I just, I would rather you have the mindset of that instead of the mindset, I need to be abusive in order for this to stop.
Because that means changing who you are.
And if you change who you are, you will grow resentful unless you want to change.
(08:57):
And if you want to change into who they want you to be, that's great, but that's rare.
It's rare to meet someone who says, I want you to change into this so I'll be happier.
And you think to yourself, oh, that's a good idea.
I will change into that so you'll be happier. So I'll be happier too. It's rare.
I don't think I've actually ever heard that, at least in an abusive relationship with somebody who wants to control you and
(09:25):
make you do what they want you to do.
So as far as I'm concerned, that's usually not an option.
It's usually not an option to think about, well, they want me to change into this.
So if I do that, maybe I will have a better life. That's not usually how it works.
By the time you get into any adult relationship, you know yourself pretty well.
(09:47):
And yes, you're probably still learning about yourself and you have more to learn and maybe you have some stuff to heal from
your past, but that doesn't mean you change for someone because they want you to change. There are little compromises maybe.
They make a change, you make a change, and you try to accommodate each other, but it's a balance.
(10:10):
Now, one of the things that I see unbalanced and what I want to talk about today is how the abuser talks about the victim
and how the victim talks about the abuser and how you can tell by the language they use who is truly being victimized.
The victim almost always sounds like this, I don't like when they say this about me.
(10:37):
It hurts me when they say those things about me or do those things.
They want me to do X, Y, Z.
They want me to call me as soon as I get there and call them as soon as I'm leaving.
They're always keeping track of where I am and I can't really talk to anybody without telling them what I talked about, so
I feel like my life is monitored.
(10:57):
I feel like that every move I make and every word I say is somehow monitored and criticized and if not criticized, questioned. Like why did you do that? Why did you say that? What's going on?
They always want to know something going on with me.
(11:19):
And then when they find out what's going on with me, they always have something to say about it.
They're always pushing for more information and getting me to or trying to get me to say something that will implicate me
so that they can point the finger at me, blame me for something or tell me how to do something better.
Tell me how to do it, quote, right. That's the language of a victim.
(11:45):
Now, the language of an abuser might sound like this.
All I want them to do is change.
All I want them to do is do these things differently or say these things differently or call me when they get there and call me when they leave.
And when they don't, I get upset.
(12:05):
And the reason I'm upset is because they don't do what I tell them to do.
They don't act in a way that works for me.
And you can hear the difference in the language.
Just imagine you have a friend in a relationship that is describing their relationship to you and they are using these patterns
of language or one of these patterns of language.
(12:27):
And then you can hear what's really going on under the surface.
One person wants to change the other person.
The other person wants to change for that person. And it's in their language. It's in your language.
When you describe your relationship to a friend, you're probably saying things like, I just don't know what to do to make that person happy. I do this, they get angry. I do this, they say this. I eat this, they criticize me.
(12:55):
I don't exercise one day or I never exercise and they criticize me.
They're always wanting me to do something and I don't know how to make them happy.
I can't do this every day and I can't make the decisions they want me to make every day.
I'm doing my best but there's nothing I can do to make them happy.
That sounds like a victim to me.
(13:17):
And then you have the abuser that says, they just won't do what I want them to do. They just won't change. They just won't stop doing this.
I tell them to stop and they won't and I get angry.
So I tell them that if they don't stop, I'm going to X, Y, Z.
(13:37):
For the abuser, it's how can I change them?
For the victim, it's what can I do to change? So just listen to the language.
Listen to your own language when you describe what's going on in your relationship.
Now there are gray areas, of course. There are gray areas. There are many gray areas.
(13:58):
Those are the primary areas or at least angles to view a relationship like that. One angle is one person. The other angle is the other. But then what's the gray area?
Sometimes the gray area is that both people are hurtful. Both people are abusive. It can happen.
It can also happen where one person is abusive and the other isn't but then the other person does reactive abuse and now you have two abusers in the relationship.
(14:26):
But there is an origin for that abuse.
And that's what I look at when there is a partnership, like a romantic partnership, where there's abuse in the relationship
and I ask, when did the abuse start? How did it start? What did it look like?
And almost always I'll get, well, this person started saying this.
(14:48):
This person started saying that and they talk about one person, that one person's behavior.
And then let's just say I'm talking to the victim of abuse and they say, and so I couldn't take it anymore and so I started doing this behavior myself.
And then months or years down the road, they're both doing the abusive behaviors and then suddenly we don't know who started it. And that's important.
(15:13):
It's important to know who started it, not so you can point the finger and blame, but so you can understand that if you are
doing reactive abuse, it probably started because you were being abused.
Now the gray areas that I'm talking about is yes, both people can be abusive and yes, they can both bring that abusive behavior into the relationship.
(15:33):
It doesn't have to be one does it and then the other reacts. Both can bring it in.
But the gray areas are when typically the abuser will use the words of a victim and they will say pretty much the same things the victim will say.
So they will act like the victim when they are not really the victim, but they think they're the victim because the other
(15:54):
person's not doing what they want them to do.
So they assign themselves as the victim.
It's like saying, um, if, if you don't light yourself on fire, I'm going to be angry and that'll be your fault that I'm angry. It doesn't make sense.
It's a cruel, it's a cruel thing to do because I'm manipulating you in this example, I'm manipulating you to hurt yourself
(16:16):
or if you don't do that, you're hurting me.
That's a manipulation that is somebody coercing you into doing something for themselves and not for you, but to control you.
They are trying to get their own wants and needs met by saying or doing something that makes you feel bad if you don't meet their wants and needs.
(16:39):
So the gray area is that the abuser can play the victim.
And here's the thing is that the patterns tell all.
The pattern is one person, the abuser, will want the other person to change. That's the pattern.
And what you look for is a daily drip feeding of that pattern, meaning it happens throughout the day, every day.
(17:04):
And if you don't do what they want you to do, you'll hear it, you'll feel it, you'll feel bad, you'll feel guilty, you'll
feel responsible for everything that they want you to do, but you're not doing or you're not doing right according to them.
And you'll feel like that every day because of that drip feeding effect.
(17:25):
Emotional abuse is really just the drip feeding of bad behavior in order to control and change you and make you feel bad and
especially make you feel bad about yourself because that keeps you in a powerless state so that they can keep their control over you.
And if you feel powerless, who are you going to turn to, to feel any type of power or energy or worth or love?
(17:50):
It'll typically be the person who is abusive because they have conditioned you into believing that you need them even though they're hurting you.
And so they can create a dynamic where you believe you need the person who hurts you. That's the dynamic.
But it's important that you recognize the patterns, the language, and make sure that you don't lose any more power if you've lost it.
(18:16):
And what I mean by that is when you're empowered, you have the ability to make decisions that are right for you.
When you're not empowered or disempowered, you don't believe you can make decisions that work for you or are right for you
and you believe that you need to follow someone else's direction in order to make sure everything is copacetic and have a good relationship. That is powerlessness.
(18:43):
My wife has power to say anything she wants to me and do anything she wants and even divorce me and leave me and I have the
power to do the same thing which makes us equal partners who trust each other and want each other to be happy and support
(19:06):
each other's happiness and do whatever we can to make sure that she knows that I care for her and don't want her to hurt and
she cares for me and doesn't want me to hurt.
And that is a balanced and, in my opinion, healthy relationship where you can look at the other person and say, I want you
to be happy and if I'm causing any pain or suffering, that will make me feel bad so I better stop doing it.
(19:32):
And if both people look at each other that way and treat each other that way, then you have a strong relationship because
you want each other to succeed emotionally.
You want each other to feel powerful.
That's in one of the messages that I send out in my Healed Being program.
(19:55):
I said, if you are trying to stop being emotionally abusive, all you need to do is make your partner feel powerful. That's it. That will stop emotional abuse.
Problem is, emotionally abusive people have a lifelong history of poor coping mechanisms and controlling behaviors and they
(20:16):
believe that it's better to control and change other people than have to face their own deficits and dysfunctions and toxic behaviors.
And because of that, many never heal.
So I can say all day long, all you have to do is make the other person feel powerful, but what's going to happen is they can
do that once or twice or three times and then they revert back to an old behavior because they become emotionally triggered
(20:41):
because they haven't dealt with that emotional trigger yet and they haven't dealt with their poor coping mechanisms yet.
And because of that, they are now back to being abusive.
But that's why I have the program.
That's what I do in Healed Being.
I talk about that every time I end the show, so I'll tell you about that in a moment.
But I wanted to share this today because it's important that you understand your own language, how you describe a relationship
(21:08):
you have with somebody, what words you're using, and if they are coming from a place of trying to do better and feeling like
no matter what you do, it's never good enough.
Whereas the abusive person will come from a place of wanting the other person to do better, trying to change them to do better.
(21:30):
And if they don't do better, making them feel terrible, making them feel like they're wrong, making them feel like they're bad.
And this message is especially for those who are still questioning, because I still get these questions all the time.
They're still questioning if they themselves are abusive or the other person is.
And of course I have other episodes.
(21:51):
You can go to loveandabuse.com and just type in the word.
I think it's an abuser, like am I the abuser, am I the manipulative one, am I the controlling one?
Just type in those search words and you'll see a few episodes come up about determining who really is the abusive one and such.
But I wanted to share this today because some people are still kind of questioning that and it's helpful to have another angle to look at this from.
(22:18):
Because I know there are probably couples listening to this right now, or at least maybe one at a time.
When they hear it, they think, aha, that's them, or that's me, I better change.
And hopefully if you hear something that's you, that is not very supportive of the other person, and in fact doesn't mind
(22:42):
seeing the other person in pain and suffering, that's probably the victim talking.
Because the person who doesn't want to see the other person in pain or suffering is probably the victim talking because the
abuser doesn't seem to have the same perspective when the person they've hurt is feeling pain or any type of suffering.
(23:07):
In fact, the abuser thinks, well, it's their fault that they're in pain and suffering.
Because if they would only do what I'd say, then we'd both be happy.
I'm just trying to expose the BS here.
I hope this is helpful to you.
Thank you for listening today and share this with somebody who might benefit.
Love and Abuse is the official podcast of The Mean Workbook, an assessment and healing guide for difficult relationships.
(23:31):
The workbook contains a 200-point assessment to tell you exactly what's going on in your relationship and what's causing you
to leave so many interactions feeling bad. Gain clarity on your relationship today. Visit loveandabuse.com for more information.
And if you've discovered that you are doing the hurtful behaviors to someone that you care about or you believe you are, and
(23:52):
you want to change that about yourself, sign up for the only program that walks you through the entire process of healing
from being emotionally abusive and creating the strongest relationship possible.
It has changed thousands of lives and relationships and can change yours 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
(24:16):
safe listening button on the podcast page over at loveandabuse.com.
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. Stay strong. We'll talk again soon.
Welcome to Love and Abuse, the show about navigating the difficult relationship.
(00:05):
From simple disagreements to emotionally abusive behaviors, you deserve respect and kindness.
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.
(00:26):
Hurtful, manipulative, controlling, emotionally abusive people explain their problem with you differently than you explain your problem with them.
If you've been listening a while, you have heard me talk about people who write in to me and ask, I don't know if I'm the
(00:47):
abusive one, I don't know if I'm the hurtful, the And I usually have the same response to most people that write to me, I
usually answer it on the show, and that is that if you are trying to change for someone else, to accommodate, to please, to
make things better, to please them, to make the relationship better, and you're questioning, who is the abusive one?
(01:14):
Who is the toxic one in the relationship?
Because I get that question a lot.
I don't know if I'm the toxic one, I don't know if I'm the abusive one, because they say I am abusive.
If I point something out that they're doing, they say that I'm doing that.
And so I get that question a lot, and I just read a question today, I'm not going to read it on the air, but it had to do
(01:38):
with somebody in an emotionally abusive relationship who finally can't take it anymore and starts becoming reactively abusive, or reactive abuse.
They start doing abusive behaviors just to get their needs met, just to be heard and understood so that the abusive person will stop.
(01:59):
Because most abusive people only talk one language, their own.
And so that's why reactive abuse can start and linger in a relationship.
So you have an abusive person in a relationship who is pushing the victim of that abuse to the edge, to the point where the
victim doesn't know what to do, or how to handle it, or how to get them to stop.
(02:26):
So after they've tried everything, typically, they will start doing behaviors that in any normal healthy relationship would definitely appear abusive. But it's in response. It's reactive abuse.
It is in response to the abusive behaviors they're receiving.
And so they will become, quote, abusive back.
(02:50):
And then sometimes the abuse actually stops because now they are head to head.
The abuse does tend to stop more often than not when that happens because now the abuser, and I'm just using the terms abuser
and victim for brevity here, because quite often that's the case.
There's an abusive person and a victim of that abuse.
(03:13):
So as I was describing, there is an abuser and a victim and the victim can get pushed to the edge where they don't know how
to show up in any other way.
So they can't satisfy the abuser what they want and what else do they do? So they may become abusive themselves.
And now the abuser faces either an aggression or an assertiveness that they're not used to.
(03:39):
So they may actually stop doing the behavior, at least the specific request to stop doing the behavior.
Meaning they won't stop it indefinitely typically, but if their abuse is met with resistance like aggressiveness or assertiveness,
(04:00):
then that is going to make them see that they pushed the person over the edge, the person that they want to keep their power over.
And that person now has some power.
That doesn't mean I suggest reactive abuse.
I'm just sharing why an abusive person might stop a certain behavior when the person they're abusing is suddenly resistant, assertive, or aggressive.
(04:29):
Most if not all abusive people have levels of insecurity inside them, which is why they are abusive in the first place, because
revealing those insecurities is too scary and painful sometimes and they don't want to do that.
So they push all their fears and insecurities onto others in the form of abusive behavior.
And so now we have a victim who decides, Hey, I've had enough, I'm going to abuse back.
(04:54):
They don't use those words, but they do behaviors that might seem highly assertive or aggressive for them.
And then the abuser experiences that high assertiveness or aggressiveness and they think, Whoa, I don't want that to happen
because now they'll have power over me and I don't want that to happen.
(05:15):
So I'm just going to back off.
I'm making up a scenario and it's going to be different in a lot of different relationships, but that's how I visualize something
like that playing out is that when the reactive abuse occurs, it, uh, it scares the abuser in a way, maybe again, this is
(05:36):
just a playing out of a scenario so that they pull back and decide not to do the behavior for that specific thing. And that's what I mean.
I was going to say earlier is that they are doing something specifically that the victim of that behavior wants them to stop doing.
So the victim then reacts to that behavior, reactive abuse, and, uh, the abuser says, Whoa, I don't want that to happen.
(06:03):
So I'll stop doing that today and then tomorrow I'll do it again.
And hopefully I'll wear the victim down to the point where they are powerless again so I can keep my power over them and we
can move forward in the relationship the way I want it to go.
So there's a scenario that I visualize in my head happening and, you know, it's based on people I've worked with, it's based
(06:28):
on my own history and everything I've learned.
That's how I see it playing out though.
Reactive abuse can and sometimes will stop the, uh, other person's behavior, but it's usually temporary.
And in my opinion, it's because the abuser does not want to feel powerless themselves.
(06:49):
They don't want that table to turn on them.
They want to make sure the spotlight stays on you, constantly draining you of your power.
So if you become their version of power, which is abusive, then they experience it.
They don't like it and they will usually back off, but then they will come back again and sometimes worse. They will come back worse.
(07:15):
So this is why I do not recommend ever reactive abuse.
I would rather have you say, I don't want this in my life, therefore I will either get them to stop by asking them to stop or I'll leave. You know, that's not easy.
I'm not saying that this is what you should do, but I would rather have you have that mindset than to change who you are to
(07:43):
get someone to stop treating you in a way that you don't deserve.
I would rather you not change who you are.
I would rather you absolutely strengthen how you feel about yourself so that you can honor and protect yourself so that when
anyone, not just the person in your life, anyone decides to violate your boundaries, make you feel less than you are, make you feel worthless.
(08:12):
If anyone does that to you, you can say, uh-uh, that's not for me.
That's not who I want in my life, or at least that's not the behavior I want in my life.
So either that has to stop or I'm going to get out of this situation. Again, not easy.
There are many complicated relationships and sometimes there are kids and houses and businesses involved and it's very difficult
(08:37):
to do that, but I just, I would rather you have the mindset of that instead of the mindset, I need to be abusive in order for this to stop.
Because that means changing who you are.
And if you change who you are, you will grow resentful unless you want to change.
(08:57):
And if you want to change into who they want you to be, that's great, but that's rare.
It's rare to meet someone who says, I want you to change into this so I'll be happier.
And you think to yourself, oh, that's a good idea.
I will change into that so you'll be happier. So I'll be happier too. It's rare.
I don't think I've actually ever heard that, at least in an abusive relationship with somebody who wants to control you and
(09:25):
make you do what they want you to do.
So as far as I'm concerned, that's usually not an option.
It's usually not an option to think about, well, they want me to change into this.
So if I do that, maybe I will have a better life. That's not usually how it works.
By the time you get into any adult relationship, you know yourself pretty well.
(09:47):
And yes, you're probably still learning about yourself and you have more to learn and maybe you have some stuff to heal from
your past, but that doesn't mean you change for someone because they want you to change. There are little compromises maybe.
They make a change, you make a change, and you try to accommodate each other, but it's a balance.
(10:10):
Now, one of the things that I see unbalanced and what I want to talk about today is how the abuser talks about the victim
and how the victim talks about the abuser and how you can tell by the language they use who is truly being victimized.
The victim almost always sounds like this, I don't like when they say this about me.
(10:37):
It hurts me when they say those things about me or do those things.
They want me to do X, Y, Z.
They want me to call me as soon as I get there and call them as soon as I'm leaving.
They're always keeping track of where I am and I can't really talk to anybody without telling them what I talked about, so
I feel like my life is monitored.
(10:57):
I feel like that every move I make and every word I say is somehow monitored and criticized and if not criticized, questioned. Like why did you do that? Why did you say that? What's going on?
They always want to know something going on with me.
(11:19):
And then when they find out what's going on with me, they always have something to say about it.
They're always pushing for more information and getting me to or trying to get me to say something that will implicate me
so that they can point the finger at me, blame me for something or tell me how to do something better.
Tell me how to do it, quote, right. That's the language of a victim.
(11:45):
Now, the language of an abuser might sound like this.
All I want them to do is change.
All I want them to do is do these things differently or say these things differently or call me when they get there and call me when they leave.
And when they don't, I get upset.
(12:05):
And the reason I'm upset is because they don't do what I tell them to do.
They don't act in a way that works for me.
And you can hear the difference in the language.
Just imagine you have a friend in a relationship that is describing their relationship to you and they are using these patterns
of language or one of these patterns of language.
(12:27):
And then you can hear what's really going on under the surface.
One person wants to change the other person.
The other person wants to change for that person. And it's in their language. It's in your language.
When you describe your relationship to a friend, you're probably saying things like, I just don't know what to do to make that person happy. I do this, they get angry. I do this, they say this. I eat this, they criticize me.
(12:55):
I don't exercise one day or I never exercise and they criticize me.
They're always wanting me to do something and I don't know how to make them happy.
I can't do this every day and I can't make the decisions they want me to make every day.
I'm doing my best but there's nothing I can do to make them happy.
That sounds like a victim to me.
(13:17):
And then you have the abuser that says, they just won't do what I want them to do. They just won't change. They just won't stop doing this.
I tell them to stop and they won't and I get angry.
So I tell them that if they don't stop, I'm going to X, Y, Z.
(13:37):
For the abuser, it's how can I change them?
For the victim, it's what can I do to change? So just listen to the language.
Listen to your own language when you describe what's going on in your relationship.
Now there are gray areas, of course. There are gray areas. There are many gray areas.
(13:58):
Those are the primary areas or at least angles to view a relationship like that. One angle is one person. The other angle is the other. But then what's the gray area?
Sometimes the gray area is that both people are hurtful. Both people are abusive. It can happen.
It can also happen where one person is abusive and the other isn't but then the other person does reactive abuse and now you have two abusers in the relationship.
(14:26):
But there is an origin for that abuse.
And that's what I look at when there is a partnership, like a romantic partnership, where there's abuse in the relationship
and I ask, when did the abuse start? How did it start? What did it look like?
And almost always I'll get, well, this person started saying this.
(14:48):
This person started saying that and they talk about one person, that one person's behavior.
And then let's just say I'm talking to the victim of abuse and they say, and so I couldn't take it anymore and so I started doing this behavior myself.
And then months or years down the road, they're both doing the abusive behaviors and then suddenly we don't know who started it. And that's important.
(15:13):
It's important to know who started it, not so you can point the finger and blame, but so you can understand that if you are
doing reactive abuse, it probably started because you were being abused.
Now the gray areas that I'm talking about is yes, both people can be abusive and yes, they can both bring that abusive behavior into the relationship.
(15:33):
It doesn't have to be one does it and then the other reacts. Both can bring it in.
But the gray areas are when typically the abuser will use the words of a victim and they will say pretty much the same things the victim will say.
So they will act like the victim when they are not really the victim, but they think they're the victim because the other
(15:54):
person's not doing what they want them to do.
So they assign themselves as the victim.
It's like saying, um, if, if you don't light yourself on fire, I'm going to be angry and that'll be your fault that I'm angry. It doesn't make sense.
It's a cruel, it's a cruel thing to do because I'm manipulating you in this example, I'm manipulating you to hurt yourself
(16:16):
or if you don't do that, you're hurting me.
That's a manipulation that is somebody coercing you into doing something for themselves and not for you, but to control you.
They are trying to get their own wants and needs met by saying or doing something that makes you feel bad if you don't meet their wants and needs.
(16:39):
So the gray area is that the abuser can play the victim.
And here's the thing is that the patterns tell all.
The pattern is one person, the abuser, will want the other person to change. That's the pattern.
And what you look for is a daily drip feeding of that pattern, meaning it happens throughout the day, every day.
(17:04):
And if you don't do what they want you to do, you'll hear it, you'll feel it, you'll feel bad, you'll feel guilty, you'll
feel responsible for everything that they want you to do, but you're not doing or you're not doing right according to them.
And you'll feel like that every day because of that drip feeding effect.
(17:25):
Emotional abuse is really just the drip feeding of bad behavior in order to control and change you and make you feel bad and
especially make you feel bad about yourself because that keeps you in a powerless state so that they can keep their control over you.
And if you feel powerless, who are you going to turn to, to feel any type of power or energy or worth or love?
(17:50):
It'll typically be the person who is abusive because they have conditioned you into believing that you need them even though they're hurting you.
And so they can create a dynamic where you believe you need the person who hurts you. That's the dynamic.
But it's important that you recognize the patterns, the language, and make sure that you don't lose any more power if you've lost it.
(18:16):
And what I mean by that is when you're empowered, you have the ability to make decisions that are right for you.
When you're not empowered or disempowered, you don't believe you can make decisions that work for you or are right for you
and you believe that you need to follow someone else's direction in order to make sure everything is copacetic and have a good relationship. That is powerlessness.
(18:43):
My wife has power to say anything she wants to me and do anything she wants and even divorce me and leave me and I have the
power to do the same thing which makes us equal partners who trust each other and want each other to be happy and support
(19:06):
each other's happiness and do whatever we can to make sure that she knows that I care for her and don't want her to hurt and
she cares for me and doesn't want me to hurt.
And that is a balanced and, in my opinion, healthy relationship where you can look at the other person and say, I want you
to be happy and if I'm causing any pain or suffering, that will make me feel bad so I better stop doing it.
(19:32):
And if both people look at each other that way and treat each other that way, then you have a strong relationship because
you want each other to succeed emotionally.
You want each other to feel powerful.
That's in one of the messages that I send out in my Healed Being program.
(19:55):
I said, if you are trying to stop being emotionally abusive, all you need to do is make your partner feel powerful. That's it. That will stop emotional abuse.
Problem is, emotionally abusive people have a lifelong history of poor coping mechanisms and controlling behaviors and they
(20:16):
believe that it's better to control and change other people than have to face their own deficits and dysfunctions and toxic behaviors.
And because of that, many never heal.
So I can say all day long, all you have to do is make the other person feel powerful, but what's going to happen is they can
do that once or twice or three times and then they revert back to an old behavior because they become emotionally triggered
(20:41):
because they haven't dealt with that emotional trigger yet and they haven't dealt with their poor coping mechanisms yet.
And because of that, they are now back to being abusive.
But that's why I have the program.
That's what I do in Healed Being.
I talk about that every time I end the show, so I'll tell you about that in a moment.
But I wanted to share this today because it's important that you understand your own language, how you describe a relationship
(21:08):
you have with somebody, what words you're using, and if they are coming from a place of trying to do better and feeling like
no matter what you do, it's never good enough.
Whereas the abusive person will come from a place of wanting the other person to do better, trying to change them to do better.
(21:30):
And if they don't do better, making them feel terrible, making them feel like they're wrong, making them feel like they're bad.
And this message is especially for those who are still questioning, because I still get these questions all the time.
They're still questioning if they themselves are abusive or the other person is.
And of course I have other episodes.
(21:51):
You can go to loveandabuse.com and just type in the word.
I think it's an abuser, like am I the abuser, am I the manipulative one, am I the controlling one?
Just type in those search words and you'll see a few episodes come up about determining who really is the abusive one and such.
But I wanted to share this today because some people are still kind of questioning that and it's helpful to have another angle to look at this from.
(22:18):
Because I know there are probably couples listening to this right now, or at least maybe one at a time.
When they hear it, they think, aha, that's them, or that's me, I better change.
And hopefully if you hear something that's you, that is not very supportive of the other person, and in fact doesn't mind
(22:42):
seeing the other person in pain and suffering, that's probably the victim talking.
Because the person who doesn't want to see the other person in pain or suffering is probably the victim talking because the
abuser doesn't seem to have the same perspective when the person they've hurt is feeling pain or any type of suffering.
(23:07):
In fact, the abuser thinks, well, it's their fault that they're in pain and suffering.
Because if they would only do what I'd say, then we'd both be happy.
I'm just trying to expose the BS here.
I hope this is helpful to you.
Thank you for listening today and share this with somebody who might benefit.
Love and Abuse is the official podcast of The Mean Workbook, an assessment and healing guide for difficult relationships.
(23:31):
The workbook contains a 200-point assessment to tell you exactly what's going on in your relationship and what's causing you
to leave so many interactions feeling bad. Gain clarity on your relationship today. Visit loveandabuse.com for more information.
And if you've discovered that you are doing the hurtful behaviors to someone that you care about or you believe you are, and
(23:52):
you want to change that about yourself, sign up for the only program that walks you through the entire process of healing
from being emotionally abusive and creating the strongest relationship possible.
It has changed thousands of lives and relationships and can change yours 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
(24:16):
safe listening button on the podcast page over at loveandabuse.com.
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. Stay strong. We'll talk again soon.
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