May 20, 2025 • 35 mins
The one-off difficulties in relationships are perfectly normal for everyone. They're not welcome, necessarily, but normal. But what happens when the "one-offs" become systemic? What happens when they are non-stop? That's when changes are inevitable.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Love and Abuse, the show about navigating the difficult relationship. You deserve respect and kindness.
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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.
Thanks for joining me today. I'm going to read you a couple of messages that I received.
I don't normally read these kinds of messages on the air, because I like to get straight to certain questions about relationships,
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and the difficulties that we have in relationships. But there are success stories.
They don't always succeed the way you want them to succeed, but there are success stories, and every now and then I like to read the messages that I get.
When somebody has gone through something and gotten out of it, maybe not unscathed, but they're in a better place. And sometimes that's in the relationship.
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Sometimes they're in a better place in the relationship.
The majority of messages that I get are from people who are in a relationship with someone who refuses to see that they are
the problem, and refuses to make any changes.
And even if they say, okay, I'll make a change, they revert right back to who they were.
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And to anybody out there who has a partner, or a friend, or a family member that always seems to be unhappy with you, no matter
what you do, no matter how you show up, they just seem unhappy.
And you seem to be blaming them all the time, and making them feel bad, and making them feel bad about themselves, and making
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them feel guilty, and responsible for all the problems.
If that's you, then you may need to make some changes.
And if you're emotionally abusive, and you're hearing this, you're probably going to say, that's not me. I'm not emotionally abusive.
They just won't do what I want them to do.
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And anytime somebody uses words like that, where they say, why won't you do what I want you to do, and you wouldn't have a
problem if you just did what I wanted you to do.
If you listen to the intent behind that, the intent is, I want to control and change who you are.
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Most people that listen to this show are the victims of that type of intent.
If their intent is to control and change who you are, meaning they can't accept you as you are, you know, you buy a used car,
you kind of have to accept it as is.
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I'm not comparing you to a used car, but I sort of am, in a way that we are the people we are. We are people with flaws, imperfections.
We do some things great, we do some things terribly.
We are the totality of who we've been our whole lives.
And so when we get into a relationship, I believe if both people can the other person is 100%, there would be no issues.
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And what I see over and over again is someone receiving, controlling, and manipulative behaviors, and the other person doing the controlling and manipulative behaviors.
I mean, at least the people who write to me on this show.
There are many, many relationships out there that don't have this issue, or if they have this issue, those things are one-offs.
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And if you haven't heard many of my episodes, I talk about emotional abuse as not the one-offs. They are the systemic issues.
They are the issues that continue to come up over and over again, or the behaviors that continue to come up over and over
again, because the one-offs are what every single relationship in the world can and will experience.
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There might be a point in time in my own marriage where I make my partner feel guilty, intentionally or not, but it won't be intentional, but it's gonna happen.
And when it does, I consider that a one-off, unless I want to do it again and again, and chip away at her spirit, her happiness,
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her very emotional soul that is being disintegrated slowly, day after day, sometimes multiple times a day.
And when we do that to someone, or when somebody does that to you, that's abusive.
You can have these one-offs many times a day, and they're no longer one-offs, they are a pattern.
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And so I look for those patterns in relationships.
Emotionally abusive behaviors are almost always a pattern.
And you can see these patterns play out if you step out of the negative emotions that you're feeling and look at what's happening from a third-party perspective.
Very difficult to do, I know, when you're in it, but if you can step out of that for a moment and just see that pattern play out over and over again. Oh, they made me feel guilty.
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Oh, they made me feel guilty again.
Oh, they made me feel guilty again. Hmm, there's something going on here.
They're making me feel responsible for what happened, and they did it again, and they did it again. Hmm. It's systemic. It's a pattern. It's over and over again.
It's cyclical, abusive behavior that continues to, again, wear away at your very emotional soul. Your soul in general.
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I mean, it's not just about emotions.
It's about your psyche or mental health.
Everything is affected because when somebody can exploit your emotions and use them against you, like feeling guilty is a
perfectly normal thing to do when you actually do something wrong.
And when you hurt someone, it's normal to feel guilty. It is a moral compass.
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It is an emotionally intelligent compass that says, oh, that was wrong. I shouldn't do that again.
Emotionally abusive people, a lot of them don't use that moral compass. Some of them do. Some of them don't.
A lot of them may not be using their emotional intelligence compass. Maybe they don't have one.
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And if they don't have one, they keep doing the same things over and over again, and they expect you to conform.
They expect you to be submissive to what they want.
One of the things I see over and over again from emotionally abusive people is that they want the person they're with to change regardless of how they feel.
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If someone wants you to change, if somebody wants to control what you do and the decisions that you make and how you seek
joy and fulfillment and happiness in life, if somebody wants you to do something different than how you do those things currently,
or how you stepped into the relationship, you know, the way you stepped into the relationship, the how that you did things
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before, if somebody has changed that in you or wants you to change those things, wants you to find different ways to find
joy and fulfillment and satisfaction, then you're looking at someone who wants to control who you are.
And if somebody wants to control who you are, that's when the degradation of who you are starts.
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And when that starts, it is a continuous snowball that rolls down the hill and gets bigger and bigger and it gets heavy. It gets heavy. It hurts. It gets confusing.
It causes a big issue in your life because now you're wondering how to show up without, what's the term, knocking over the apple cart, rocking the boat.
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You're trying to think of the best way to show up.
You're walking on and when you are in that state of mind and that emotional state all the time, that's when you lose that
part of yourself or you're losing parts of yourself that the person you were is now slipping away.
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You won't lose yourself because you're going to be there.
You're in there because there's a conflict inside of you.
I mean, it's going to feel like you're losing yourself, but you're still there. You're still in there.
Even if it's been years and years, my mom suffered a physically and emotionally abusive relationship for 40 years and she was still in there. She couldn't get out of it.
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There were mental blocks, there were emotional blocks, there were fears.
But when she finally did, what happened is that person she's always been, that person that's always been in there, finally had a chance to break free.
All these blocks, all these obstacles inside of her, all these conflicts, all these resistances, all these fears and insecurities
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and everything else that stops us from being who we really are, still in there.
And I know this for a fact, even if you don't feel it, I'm not trying to negate or invalidate your experience, but I know
you're still in there even if you don't feel it because I know that anyone that feels conflict or resistance inside them wants something better for themselves.
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And if you want something better for yourself, that means you are still in there.
And it's hard to see that sometimes, but you are still in there and that part of you wants out.
That part of you wants to live.
That part of you wants to feel some peace.
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It doesn't mean you're going to be joyful and blissful and happy because I don't know how many people really are.
They're happy at times, they're joyful at times, but there are challenges in life and we have to deal with those challenges,
but they should not be this difficult.
The challenges in life and relationships should not be as difficult as some people design them to be.
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It shouldn't be difficult to relate to a partner.
I shouldn't have difficulty going to my wife and saying, I have a problem and I would like to talk about it. That shouldn't be difficult. I mean, it's not easy.
If I have a problem, especially with her, hey, you know, the way you wash the dishes really upsets me.
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Just a minor example, but it could be a conversation that we have.
And I don't want to hurt her feelings, but we need to have that conversation.
If it's really bothering me, I want to be transparent.
I want to be honest and I want to talk about what's bothering me.
She could say, well, that's too bad.
She could say, well, if you don't like the way I wash the dishes, you do it. You do, you wash the dishes. That could be how it goes.
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And if that's the way it goes, that's the way it needs to go.
But it shouldn't be difficult to approach and actually have an honest conversation about almost anything.
What I've found is that emotionally abusive people, they don't like to have these conversations. They just want to change you.
They want to control who you are and how you show up so that you do what they want you to do in your life.
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First of all, doesn't want to change.
Second of all, doesn't want to be vulnerable.
Third of all, doesn't want to look stupid or weak, or, you know, making some assumptions here because not everyone follows
this pattern, but often times, often abusive behavior comes from not wanting to look bad, look weak, look less than they are.
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I often see the emotional abuse coming from or stemming from fear and desperation.
If somebody is fearful and desperate and they have a propensity to want to control and change another person, that's the magic formula.
That's when emotionally abusive behavior comes out. And what do bullies do? Bullies intimidate out of insecurity.
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Of course, some bullies are sociopathic and will bully because they like the feeling. They like that feeling of power.
Deep inside, however, why does somebody seek power?
Because they might feel powerless or they do feel powerless.
Someone who seeks to have power over someone must feel powerless inside and they don't want to feel any more powerless. So they seek power.
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That's another topic for another day, but I wanted to bring up that bully analogy because that can be a good way to look at it.
A bully will often seek the power that they don't feel they have for whatever reason and make you feel powerless so they have control over you.
There are bullies in emotionally passive bullies, the overt bullies.
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You can tell them, you can tell who they are because they're quite overt about their behaviors.
And then there are the ones who dominate control and get their power in a passive way.
They're not all bullies, but that is again, an analogy, just a way to look at someone's awful behavior comes from something
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they feel inside, which is typically reminiscent of an awful feeling inside them.
Their awful feeling might be, I don't want to feel powerless.
I don't want to feel out of control.
So I need to have power and have control over this person in my life.
And they usually choose the closest people in their life because why do they do that?
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Well, first of all, you're the closest available person.
Second of all, they know all your they know all your buttons. They know everything about you.
And because you have a connection to them, because you are emotionally attached to someone like that, they know this to be true.
And they know that if they exert more control and power, that you're not just going to pack your bags and leave because of that emotional connection.
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Emotionally abusive behavior is exploiting your emotional state. Your emotion might be compassion.
An emotionally abusive person will use that compassion against you.
They'll make you feel guilty for not taking care of your kids.
They'll say something like that, even though you thought you were doing fine.
And then they bring up something that they point out some minute thing that they make a big thing.
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And they say, you don't care about your kids.
Otherwise you would have done it this way, or you would have done this and you didn't.
So if you are a compassionate person, which I'm going to assume that you are, a person like this will use that compassion against you. I'm not saying it's all conscious.
I'm not saying they're doing it on purpose and waiting for you to have a compassionate moment.
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It's just some people are wired this way.
They're conditioned from childhood to be this way.
And so you just have to be aware of the behaviors that can come out of somebody like that.
And also be aware of the patterns instead of the one-offs.
A one-off is a normal, healthy relationship that everyone experiences.
And I say the one-offs versus the systemic behaviors that often occur in abusive relationships, because you can try to explain
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an abusive or emotionally abusive relationship to someone who's not in one of those or hasn't been in one of those.
And you have a 50-50 chance that they'll say, that doesn't sound so bad. How does that hit you? I mean, it hits me. How does that hit you?
It hits like a ton of bricks on my chest. That doesn't sound so bad. I experience this all the time. It hurts.
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What they're doing to me is terrible.
And I don't know what to think. I don't know how to think. I'm on eggshells.
And again, 50% of the time they'll say, yeah, but maybe you're just taking it wrong. Maybe you're just taking it personally. And now what? You can't convince them. And sometimes you can't.
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Sometimes you can't convince people because they're going to think, well, you know, my partner or whoever does that to me too. Really?
Do they do it 50 times a day?
Do they do it to the point where you feel your soul so drained that you can't even move without feeling like you're being watched?
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You can't even say something without feeling like they're going to go off or give you the silent treatment and make you feel
bad and guilty for something that you never did.
I mean, I can look at this. This is what happens.
We need to look at our relationships objectively.
We need to step out of the emotions, see the patterns, understand what's happening, even label them in our head.
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That time they made me feel guilty.
That time they made me feel guilty.
That time they made me responsible for something I didn't do.
That time they skirted their own responsibility.
They deflected then, they deflected then, and a thousand times they deflected, deflected. There's the pattern.
When we see the pattern, we know there's emotionally abusive behavior going on. Are there exceptions?
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Probably, but I don't ever see them because somebody might hear this and go, well, if it happens a thousand times, there might be something else going on too. Could be. It always takes two. That's the line I always hear. It always takes two.
Well, yeah, I mean, there can be two abusive people in a relationship and they can be doing it to each other.
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Most of the time I see one person who comes in as the difficult one, hurtful, harmful, abusive, whatever.
And then I see the other person adjust to their awful behaviors, adjust to their control and manipulation and their quest for power over the other person.
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So when I see that dynamic play out where one person is experiencing the control and manipulation and the other person is
exerting that control and manipulation, that is sort of an it takes two perspective.
But yes, it takes two, one to be a victim, one to be a perpetrator.
But yes, it can also take two abusive people, butting heads all the time.
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And then somebody can turn into a reactive abuser, one who reacts to abuse by being abusive back in order to be heard in order to get their message across.
I've seen that many times where somebody does reactive abuse, which means they're just reacting to the abusive behavior in
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a way that the other person will finally listen.
And that's what happens a lot is that they finally listen when you become abusive like them.
I don't recommend it because now what kind of dynamic is that?
Even the person doing reactive abuse is still the victim.
They might be trying to get their needs met and to be understood and to be heard, to get their message across by being abusive, but they're still a victim.
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And I've learned that kind, caring, compassionate, supportive people who become reactive abusers, they can't sustain it.
They can't sustain continuing being who they aren't.
That's why when you're in an abusive relationship and you're trying to be who you are, it's so difficult. It wears you down. That's the conflict. That's the resistance inside of you.
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Anyone who's resisting who they don't want to be is definitely unhappy.
When you're unhappy, how do you find happiness? You try to be yourself.
I mean, there's more to it, but that's the direction that we typically go. What do I like? What do I want to do?
I want to do those things because those things make me happy, but I can't.
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And if I can't, where am I?
What am I going to do now?
I want to break free of all these blocks and obstacles and I want to get away from these patterns, this behavior because it
oppresses me and I don't wish to be oppressed anymore.
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And this leads to the very messages that I received that I started to talk about at the beginning of the episode.
I'm just going to read them and make a comment. One person wrote, Thank you. Thank you.
I recently divorced my class D manipulator. I'll explain that in a minute.
What I didn't realize until I found your podcast was that as we navigated our co-parenting after the divorce, he was still manipulating me.
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Now I need to learn a new way of communicating with him so that he can't continue to abuse me with him out of my life. Thank you for your help.
Yeah, that's a tough situation where you do get divorced or separated, but you still have a tie.
You still have a connection and now you have to deal with it.
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When it comes to that, I mean, I don't have time to get into it in this episode, but I always say as much as you can keep
everything in text email in written form so that they can't hear your inflection in your voice.
They can't interrupt you when you're talking.
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They can't sense your emotional state if you're in person, because remember, emotions are used against you. They are exploited. They are abused.
And that's how they get back at you.
They know where to dig inside you.
So any inflection in your voice, the change in your posture when you're in person, the way they can interrupt you and upset
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you is how they can abuse you if somebody is doing that to you.
And so the more you can do things via text, via email, not only does that keep more of your emotions out or all of your emotions
out if you aren't using emotional words and such, but it's also documentation.
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It's helpful to continue building something in case you ever need it.
Hopefully you don't, but if everything is in text or email, then at least you have a history, a paper trail. So she said that, thank you.
I recently divorced my class D manipulator. She's talking about the mean workbook.
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When you take the 200 point assessment, it's going to give you a category or class of manipulation and control that you are experiencing. It goes from zero to 200.
And the closer you are to 200, the higher it is. And class D is the top.
There's A, B, C, and that is the most that you can experience that you are definitely in a dangerous, emotionally dangerous,
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and maybe physically dangerous, but definitely an emotionally dangerous situation that when you are checking off that many
behaviors and symptoms of what's going on in your relationship, what's going on inside of you, then you're in the danger zone.
So she was in the danger zone.
She took the assessment in the workbook and that's the score she got. And that's why she shared that.
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And I'm so glad that she is moving toward a better life for herself and her children, even though she's still dealing with
what's going on, but in a different way, at a different level, she has more options.
But I always look at it this way.
You can either stay and be miserable or leave and be miserable. Your choice.
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And I'm not saying you should leave.
Sometimes you can work this stuff out, but with class D manipulation, when there are so many behaviors and manipulations and
control mechanisms in place, it's more difficult to heal a relationship like that. It's not impossible.
I've seen it happen, but it's more difficult and it should be addressed sooner than later.
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And so I talk about that in the workbook. That's why she mentioned that.
And thank you so much for sharing that. Stay strong.
I actually have an custody with a narcissist at theoverwhelmedbrain.com.
If you're interested in that, look up the word.
I think it's narcissist or just type in N-A-R-C in the search field at theoverwhelmedbrain.com and you should see that article
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pop up and I'll make sure it does after my recording here, but that might be helpful to you. Thanks again. And please stay strong. You're halfway there. You're getting there. You're so close.
Somebody else wrote and said, thank you so much.
I began suspecting something was wrong in my relationship with my high school sweetheart only a couple years in, but I stayed
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with him for a few more years.
He began accusinging me of being a gaslighter and manipulator, though I couldn't understand how or why.
Then I found your podcast in an attempt to discover the pitfalls in my emotional immaturity so that I could show up as a better partner to him.
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Dozens of episodes later, my eyes were opened to the fact that I was being very emotionally abused and manipulated by him.
Your words gave me the strength and wherewithal to speak up for myself in a way I could not be talked out of.
He couldn't even argue with me once he realized I was now informed, educated, and would no longer tolerate his abuse and mistreatment. I decided to leave him.
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I now live in a house all by myself.
I don't miss his presence or the roller coaster I could not get off of for years.
I found my own strength, but I owe it to you. Thank you so much.
I will remember you for the rest of my life. That brings tears to my eyes.
Thank you so much for sharing that. You are the strong one. You are the brave one.
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You are the courageous one to stand up for yourself, to love yourself so much that you are willing to take such a huge, scary
step into the life that you want, into how you know you deserve to be treated. Thank you for sharing that.
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I wanted to share this with everyone listening, with you out there who might be in a similar relationship or having similar difficulties, that people find a way.
Like Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum, you know, life finds a way. Well, people find a way.
When you're in the most difficult situation, you will find a way because you will reach a level of toleration that will no longer be sustainable.
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You will no longer be able to accept what's happening to you because the person inside you is finally wanting to do something
about it, finally wanting to break free.
And that person has unbelievable courage and will find the resources no matter what it takes. You may not be there. You may not believe it.
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You will find the resources because that person inside of you wants to break free.
And when they want to break free, it's hard to stop them.
And I'm going to give you an analogy that will make probably a little sense.
But I remember when I got, when I was a teenager, I got this piece of metal in my eye and I was, I was doing something stupid.
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I wasn't wearing safety glasses and I was drilling metal or scraping it with a drill and a wire attached, a wire brush attachment.
And this little piece of metal, this tiny little piece of metal just flung into my eye and I couldn't get it out.
And I was suddenly feeling very afraid, like, what if I can't get it out?
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Oh no, I don't even know how to get it out.
And I was so afraid of that metal staying in my eye, becoming a problem and maybe even becoming blind because it was infected or whatever.
And I thought I had to go to the hospital, all these fearful thoughts of what could happen if that metal wasn't removed. I wanted it out so bad.
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I told my sister, my older sister, I want you to, I'm going to lay down on the bed on my back and I want you to, it's going
to sound weird, but straddle me, put your knees on my arms so that I can't move.
Put all your weight on me and put your knees on my arms so that I can't resist, so I can't fight back.
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And I want you to take these, what do they say? Not a Q-tip.
I want you to take this Q-tip and I want you to see if you can get this piece of metal out of my eye.
A very weird analogy, I know, but what that proves is that when you are so committed to something not continuing, something
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that you don't want to happen, if you don't want it to happen bad enough that you're going to do whatever it takes to stop it.
I didn't want that metal sliver in my eye at all.
And I was so certain that I was willing to risk somebody holding a Q-tip going right at my eyeball.
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Sorry if this is creepy or freaking someone out, but this is what happens is I don't want things in my, most of us don't want something near our eye.
And I didn't want somebody poking at my eye with a Q-tip, but I also realized I needed it out no matter what. That's the point I got to. I had to stop this. I had to finish this.
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I had to remove this from my life no matter what, no matter what it took.
And so I set up the scenario that I had no choice but to let her do her thing.
Let her take that Q-tip, put it in my eye, dig around for it, pull it out. And damn it, she did it.
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She took it out of my eye, felt so much better right away.
And I was so grateful for her to do that for me.
If you say, why didn't you just go to the doctor? I wanted it out right away. I wanted it out.
Sometimes that's what we need to do.
We just want it so bad that we just do it.
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Whatever that is, we just do it because our toleration level is at its maximum. We can't do any more.
So when you get to that point, when your toleration level is at the maximum, it won't be a matter of thinking, oh gee, what am I going to do?
It'll be a matter of I'm taking action now. It doesn't matter.
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I'm doing what I need to do today.
That could be just saying, this needs to stop or else. That could be it.
Or if they're dangerous or violent, you don't want to pick that battle.
So you just take care of yourself and do what you need to do and you make it happen.
Whatever you need to happen, you make happen because we have a built-in toleration system.
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It's a really fight or flight or freeze mechanism typically.
But if our fight or flight activates it, if it engages, we're going to do whatever it takes.
There are people, including myself, who if they see a child being hurt and there's a risk to our own life, if we go over and
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help or save that child, we're going to do it. We're not even going to think.
We're just going to go grab them and save them.
It's just, it's going to be automatic.
And then later we can say, oh my God, I can't believe I did that. I could have gotten hurt.
I could have gotten burned in the house fire.
You know, that's what happens is we activate and do things that we might have been afraid to do had we thought about it.
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But when you reach that level of toleration and you have no more toleration left, you're no longer resilient to the bad behavior.
You get to the point where you will take action. That's who's in there. That's who you are. That's who we all are.
And you can and will get through whatever you're going through. Thanks for listening.
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Share this with others who might benefit.
Love and Abuse is the official podcast of The Mean Workbook, an assessment and healing guide for difficult relationships.
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 about
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yourself, sign up for the only program that walks you through the entire process of healing from being emotionally abusive.
It has changed thousands of lives and relationships and can change yours too. Visit healedbeing.com to start right away.
And if you're looking for a safer way to listen to the show where all the titles to the episodes are changed, click on the
safe listening button on the podcast page over at loveandabuse.com.
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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.
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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.
Thanks for joining me today. I'm going to read you a couple of messages that I received.
I don't normally read these kinds of messages on the air, because I like to get straight to certain questions about relationships,
(00:36):
and the difficulties that we have in relationships. But there are success stories.
They don't always succeed the way you want them to succeed, but there are success stories, and every now and then I like to read the messages that I get.
When somebody has gone through something and gotten out of it, maybe not unscathed, but they're in a better place. And sometimes that's in the relationship.
(01:06):
Sometimes they're in a better place in the relationship.
The majority of messages that I get are from people who are in a relationship with someone who refuses to see that they are
the problem, and refuses to make any changes.
And even if they say, okay, I'll make a change, they revert right back to who they were.
(01:30):
And to anybody out there who has a partner, or a friend, or a family member that always seems to be unhappy with you, no matter
what you do, no matter how you show up, they just seem unhappy.
And you seem to be blaming them all the time, and making them feel bad, and making them feel bad about themselves, and making
(01:52):
them feel guilty, and responsible for all the problems.
If that's you, then you may need to make some changes.
And if you're emotionally abusive, and you're hearing this, you're probably going to say, that's not me. I'm not emotionally abusive.
They just won't do what I want them to do.
(02:15):
And anytime somebody uses words like that, where they say, why won't you do what I want you to do, and you wouldn't have a
problem if you just did what I wanted you to do.
If you listen to the intent behind that, the intent is, I want to control and change who you are.
(02:39):
Most people that listen to this show are the victims of that type of intent.
If their intent is to control and change who you are, meaning they can't accept you as you are, you know, you buy a used car,
you kind of have to accept it as is.
(03:00):
I'm not comparing you to a used car, but I sort of am, in a way that we are the people we are. We are people with flaws, imperfections.
We do some things great, we do some things terribly.
We are the totality of who we've been our whole lives.
And so when we get into a relationship, I believe if both people can the other person is 100%, there would be no issues.
(03:30):
And what I see over and over again is someone receiving, controlling, and manipulative behaviors, and the other person doing the controlling and manipulative behaviors.
I mean, at least the people who write to me on this show.
There are many, many relationships out there that don't have this issue, or if they have this issue, those things are one-offs.
(03:56):
And if you haven't heard many of my episodes, I talk about emotional abuse as not the one-offs. They are the systemic issues.
They are the issues that continue to come up over and over again, or the behaviors that continue to come up over and over
again, because the one-offs are what every single relationship in the world can and will experience.
(04:20):
There might be a point in time in my own marriage where I make my partner feel guilty, intentionally or not, but it won't be intentional, but it's gonna happen.
And when it does, I consider that a one-off, unless I want to do it again and again, and chip away at her spirit, her happiness,
(04:42):
her very emotional soul that is being disintegrated slowly, day after day, sometimes multiple times a day.
And when we do that to someone, or when somebody does that to you, that's abusive.
You can have these one-offs many times a day, and they're no longer one-offs, they are a pattern.
(05:08):
And so I look for those patterns in relationships.
Emotionally abusive behaviors are almost always a pattern.
And you can see these patterns play out if you step out of the negative emotions that you're feeling and look at what's happening from a third-party perspective.
Very difficult to do, I know, when you're in it, but if you can step out of that for a moment and just see that pattern play out over and over again. Oh, they made me feel guilty.
(05:38):
Oh, they made me feel guilty again.
Oh, they made me feel guilty again. Hmm, there's something going on here.
They're making me feel responsible for what happened, and they did it again, and they did it again. Hmm. It's systemic. It's a pattern. It's over and over again.
It's cyclical, abusive behavior that continues to, again, wear away at your very emotional soul. Your soul in general.
(06:05):
I mean, it's not just about emotions.
It's about your psyche or mental health.
Everything is affected because when somebody can exploit your emotions and use them against you, like feeling guilty is a
perfectly normal thing to do when you actually do something wrong.
And when you hurt someone, it's normal to feel guilty. It is a moral compass.
(06:31):
It is an emotionally intelligent compass that says, oh, that was wrong. I shouldn't do that again.
Emotionally abusive people, a lot of them don't use that moral compass. Some of them do. Some of them don't.
A lot of them may not be using their emotional intelligence compass. Maybe they don't have one.
(06:52):
And if they don't have one, they keep doing the same things over and over again, and they expect you to conform.
They expect you to be submissive to what they want.
One of the things I see over and over again from emotionally abusive people is that they want the person they're with to change regardless of how they feel.
(07:16):
If someone wants you to change, if somebody wants to control what you do and the decisions that you make and how you seek
joy and fulfillment and happiness in life, if somebody wants you to do something different than how you do those things currently,
or how you stepped into the relationship, you know, the way you stepped into the relationship, the how that you did things
(07:44):
before, if somebody has changed that in you or wants you to change those things, wants you to find different ways to find
joy and fulfillment and satisfaction, then you're looking at someone who wants to control who you are.
And if somebody wants to control who you are, that's when the degradation of who you are starts.
(08:10):
And when that starts, it is a continuous snowball that rolls down the hill and gets bigger and bigger and it gets heavy. It gets heavy. It hurts. It gets confusing.
It causes a big issue in your life because now you're wondering how to show up without, what's the term, knocking over the apple cart, rocking the boat.
(08:35):
You're trying to think of the best way to show up.
You're walking on and when you are in that state of mind and that emotional state all the time, that's when you lose that
part of yourself or you're losing parts of yourself that the person you were is now slipping away.
(08:56):
You won't lose yourself because you're going to be there.
You're in there because there's a conflict inside of you.
I mean, it's going to feel like you're losing yourself, but you're still there. You're still in there.
Even if it's been years and years, my mom suffered a physically and emotionally abusive relationship for 40 years and she was still in there. She couldn't get out of it.
(09:20):
There were mental blocks, there were emotional blocks, there were fears.
But when she finally did, what happened is that person she's always been, that person that's always been in there, finally had a chance to break free.
All these blocks, all these obstacles inside of her, all these conflicts, all these resistances, all these fears and insecurities
(09:44):
and everything else that stops us from being who we really are, still in there.
And I know this for a fact, even if you don't feel it, I'm not trying to negate or invalidate your experience, but I know
you're still in there even if you don't feel it because I know that anyone that feels conflict or resistance inside them wants something better for themselves.
(10:09):
And if you want something better for yourself, that means you are still in there.
And it's hard to see that sometimes, but you are still in there and that part of you wants out.
That part of you wants to live.
That part of you wants to feel some peace.
(10:31):
It doesn't mean you're going to be joyful and blissful and happy because I don't know how many people really are.
They're happy at times, they're joyful at times, but there are challenges in life and we have to deal with those challenges,
but they should not be this difficult.
The challenges in life and relationships should not be as difficult as some people design them to be.
(10:55):
It shouldn't be difficult to relate to a partner.
I shouldn't have difficulty going to my wife and saying, I have a problem and I would like to talk about it. That shouldn't be difficult. I mean, it's not easy.
If I have a problem, especially with her, hey, you know, the way you wash the dishes really upsets me.
(11:18):
Just a minor example, but it could be a conversation that we have.
And I don't want to hurt her feelings, but we need to have that conversation.
If it's really bothering me, I want to be transparent.
I want to be honest and I want to talk about what's bothering me.
She could say, well, that's too bad.
She could say, well, if you don't like the way I wash the dishes, you do it. You do, you wash the dishes. That could be how it goes.
(11:42):
And if that's the way it goes, that's the way it needs to go.
But it shouldn't be difficult to approach and actually have an honest conversation about almost anything.
What I've found is that emotionally abusive people, they don't like to have these conversations. They just want to change you.
They want to control who you are and how you show up so that you do what they want you to do in your life.
(12:14):
First of all, doesn't want to change.
Second of all, doesn't want to be vulnerable.
Third of all, doesn't want to look stupid or weak, or, you know, making some assumptions here because not everyone follows
this pattern, but often times, often abusive behavior comes from not wanting to look bad, look weak, look less than they are.
(12:39):
I often see the emotional abuse coming from or stemming from fear and desperation.
If somebody is fearful and desperate and they have a propensity to want to control and change another person, that's the magic formula.
That's when emotionally abusive behavior comes out. And what do bullies do? Bullies intimidate out of insecurity.
(13:05):
Of course, some bullies are sociopathic and will bully because they like the feeling. They like that feeling of power.
Deep inside, however, why does somebody seek power?
Because they might feel powerless or they do feel powerless.
Someone who seeks to have power over someone must feel powerless inside and they don't want to feel any more powerless. So they seek power.
(13:37):
That's another topic for another day, but I wanted to bring up that bully analogy because that can be a good way to look at it.
A bully will often seek the power that they don't feel they have for whatever reason and make you feel powerless so they have control over you.
There are bullies in emotionally passive bullies, the overt bullies.
(14:04):
You can tell them, you can tell who they are because they're quite overt about their behaviors.
And then there are the ones who dominate control and get their power in a passive way.
They're not all bullies, but that is again, an analogy, just a way to look at someone's awful behavior comes from something
(14:25):
they feel inside, which is typically reminiscent of an awful feeling inside them.
Their awful feeling might be, I don't want to feel powerless.
I don't want to feel out of control.
So I need to have power and have control over this person in my life.
And they usually choose the closest people in their life because why do they do that?
(14:48):
Well, first of all, you're the closest available person.
Second of all, they know all your they know all your buttons. They know everything about you.
And because you have a connection to them, because you are emotionally attached to someone like that, they know this to be true.
And they know that if they exert more control and power, that you're not just going to pack your bags and leave because of that emotional connection.
(15:18):
Emotionally abusive behavior is exploiting your emotional state. Your emotion might be compassion.
An emotionally abusive person will use that compassion against you.
They'll make you feel guilty for not taking care of your kids.
They'll say something like that, even though you thought you were doing fine.
And then they bring up something that they point out some minute thing that they make a big thing.
(15:44):
And they say, you don't care about your kids.
Otherwise you would have done it this way, or you would have done this and you didn't.
So if you are a compassionate person, which I'm going to assume that you are, a person like this will use that compassion against you. I'm not saying it's all conscious.
I'm not saying they're doing it on purpose and waiting for you to have a compassionate moment.
(16:07):
It's just some people are wired this way.
They're conditioned from childhood to be this way.
And so you just have to be aware of the behaviors that can come out of somebody like that.
And also be aware of the patterns instead of the one-offs.
A one-off is a normal, healthy relationship that everyone experiences.
And I say the one-offs versus the systemic behaviors that often occur in abusive relationships, because you can try to explain
(16:37):
an abusive or emotionally abusive relationship to someone who's not in one of those or hasn't been in one of those.
And you have a 50-50 chance that they'll say, that doesn't sound so bad. How does that hit you? I mean, it hits me. How does that hit you?
It hits like a ton of bricks on my chest. That doesn't sound so bad. I experience this all the time. It hurts.
(17:03):
What they're doing to me is terrible.
And I don't know what to think. I don't know how to think. I'm on eggshells.
And again, 50% of the time they'll say, yeah, but maybe you're just taking it wrong. Maybe you're just taking it personally. And now what? You can't convince them. And sometimes you can't.
(17:25):
Sometimes you can't convince people because they're going to think, well, you know, my partner or whoever does that to me too. Really?
Do they do it 50 times a day?
Do they do it to the point where you feel your soul so drained that you can't even move without feeling like you're being watched?
(17:49):
You can't even say something without feeling like they're going to go off or give you the silent treatment and make you feel
bad and guilty for something that you never did.
I mean, I can look at this. This is what happens.
We need to look at our relationships objectively.
We need to step out of the emotions, see the patterns, understand what's happening, even label them in our head.
(18:15):
That time they made me feel guilty.
That time they made me feel guilty.
That time they made me responsible for something I didn't do.
That time they skirted their own responsibility.
They deflected then, they deflected then, and a thousand times they deflected, deflected. There's the pattern.
When we see the pattern, we know there's emotionally abusive behavior going on. Are there exceptions?
(18:38):
Probably, but I don't ever see them because somebody might hear this and go, well, if it happens a thousand times, there might be something else going on too. Could be. It always takes two. That's the line I always hear. It always takes two.
Well, yeah, I mean, there can be two abusive people in a relationship and they can be doing it to each other.
(18:59):
Most of the time I see one person who comes in as the difficult one, hurtful, harmful, abusive, whatever.
And then I see the other person adjust to their awful behaviors, adjust to their control and manipulation and their quest for power over the other person.
(19:22):
So when I see that dynamic play out where one person is experiencing the control and manipulation and the other person is
exerting that control and manipulation, that is sort of an it takes two perspective.
But yes, it takes two, one to be a victim, one to be a perpetrator.
But yes, it can also take two abusive people, butting heads all the time.
(19:47):
And then somebody can turn into a reactive abuser, one who reacts to abuse by being abusive back in order to be heard in order to get their message across.
I've seen that many times where somebody does reactive abuse, which means they're just reacting to the abusive behavior in
(20:08):
a way that the other person will finally listen.
And that's what happens a lot is that they finally listen when you become abusive like them.
I don't recommend it because now what kind of dynamic is that?
Even the person doing reactive abuse is still the victim.
They might be trying to get their needs met and to be understood and to be heard, to get their message across by being abusive, but they're still a victim.
(20:35):
And I've learned that kind, caring, compassionate, supportive people who become reactive abusers, they can't sustain it.
They can't sustain continuing being who they aren't.
That's why when you're in an abusive relationship and you're trying to be who you are, it's so difficult. It wears you down. That's the conflict. That's the resistance inside of you.
(21:01):
Anyone who's resisting who they don't want to be is definitely unhappy.
When you're unhappy, how do you find happiness? You try to be yourself.
I mean, there's more to it, but that's the direction that we typically go. What do I like? What do I want to do?
I want to do those things because those things make me happy, but I can't.
(21:24):
And if I can't, where am I?
What am I going to do now?
I want to break free of all these blocks and obstacles and I want to get away from these patterns, this behavior because it
oppresses me and I don't wish to be oppressed anymore.
(21:45):
And this leads to the very messages that I received that I started to talk about at the beginning of the episode.
I'm just going to read them and make a comment. One person wrote, Thank you. Thank you.
I recently divorced my class D manipulator. I'll explain that in a minute.
What I didn't realize until I found your podcast was that as we navigated our co-parenting after the divorce, he was still manipulating me.
(22:12):
Now I need to learn a new way of communicating with him so that he can't continue to abuse me with him out of my life. Thank you for your help.
Yeah, that's a tough situation where you do get divorced or separated, but you still have a tie.
You still have a connection and now you have to deal with it.
(22:32):
When it comes to that, I mean, I don't have time to get into it in this episode, but I always say as much as you can keep
everything in text email in written form so that they can't hear your inflection in your voice.
They can't interrupt you when you're talking.
(22:55):
They can't sense your emotional state if you're in person, because remember, emotions are used against you. They are exploited. They are abused.
And that's how they get back at you.
They know where to dig inside you.
So any inflection in your voice, the change in your posture when you're in person, the way they can interrupt you and upset
(23:20):
you is how they can abuse you if somebody is doing that to you.
And so the more you can do things via text, via email, not only does that keep more of your emotions out or all of your emotions
out if you aren't using emotional words and such, but it's also documentation.
(23:42):
It's helpful to continue building something in case you ever need it.
Hopefully you don't, but if everything is in text or email, then at least you have a history, a paper trail. So she said that, thank you.
I recently divorced my class D manipulator. She's talking about the mean workbook.
(24:02):
When you take the 200 point assessment, it's going to give you a category or class of manipulation and control that you are experiencing. It goes from zero to 200.
And the closer you are to 200, the higher it is. And class D is the top.
There's A, B, C, and that is the most that you can experience that you are definitely in a dangerous, emotionally dangerous,
(24:31):
and maybe physically dangerous, but definitely an emotionally dangerous situation that when you are checking off that many
behaviors and symptoms of what's going on in your relationship, what's going on inside of you, then you're in the danger zone.
So she was in the danger zone.
She took the assessment in the workbook and that's the score she got. And that's why she shared that.
(24:53):
And I'm so glad that she is moving toward a better life for herself and her children, even though she's still dealing with
what's going on, but in a different way, at a different level, she has more options.
But I always look at it this way.
You can either stay and be miserable or leave and be miserable. Your choice.
(25:17):
And I'm not saying you should leave.
Sometimes you can work this stuff out, but with class D manipulation, when there are so many behaviors and manipulations and
control mechanisms in place, it's more difficult to heal a relationship like that. It's not impossible.
I've seen it happen, but it's more difficult and it should be addressed sooner than later.
(25:39):
And so I talk about that in the workbook. That's why she mentioned that.
And thank you so much for sharing that. Stay strong.
I actually have an custody with a narcissist at theoverwhelmedbrain.com.
If you're interested in that, look up the word.
I think it's narcissist or just type in N-A-R-C in the search field at theoverwhelmedbrain.com and you should see that article
(26:01):
pop up and I'll make sure it does after my recording here, but that might be helpful to you. Thanks again. And please stay strong. You're halfway there. You're getting there. You're so close.
Somebody else wrote and said, thank you so much.
I began suspecting something was wrong in my relationship with my high school sweetheart only a couple years in, but I stayed
(26:23):
with him for a few more years.
He began accusinging me of being a gaslighter and manipulator, though I couldn't understand how or why.
Then I found your podcast in an attempt to discover the pitfalls in my emotional immaturity so that I could show up as a better partner to him.
(26:44):
Dozens of episodes later, my eyes were opened to the fact that I was being very emotionally abused and manipulated by him.
Your words gave me the strength and wherewithal to speak up for myself in a way I could not be talked out of.
He couldn't even argue with me once he realized I was now informed, educated, and would no longer tolerate his abuse and mistreatment. I decided to leave him.
(27:08):
I now live in a house all by myself.
I don't miss his presence or the roller coaster I could not get off of for years.
I found my own strength, but I owe it to you. Thank you so much.
I will remember you for the rest of my life. That brings tears to my eyes.
Thank you so much for sharing that. You are the strong one. You are the brave one.
(27:28):
You are the courageous one to stand up for yourself, to love yourself so much that you are willing to take such a huge, scary
step into the life that you want, into how you know you deserve to be treated. Thank you for sharing that.
(27:49):
I wanted to share this with everyone listening, with you out there who might be in a similar relationship or having similar difficulties, that people find a way.
Like Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum, you know, life finds a way. Well, people find a way.
When you're in the most difficult situation, you will find a way because you will reach a level of toleration that will no longer be sustainable.
(28:17):
You will no longer be able to accept what's happening to you because the person inside you is finally wanting to do something
about it, finally wanting to break free.
And that person has unbelievable courage and will find the resources no matter what it takes. You may not be there. You may not believe it.
(28:40):
You will find the resources because that person inside of you wants to break free.
And when they want to break free, it's hard to stop them.
And I'm going to give you an analogy that will make probably a little sense.
But I remember when I got, when I was a teenager, I got this piece of metal in my eye and I was, I was doing something stupid.
(29:03):
I wasn't wearing safety glasses and I was drilling metal or scraping it with a drill and a wire attached, a wire brush attachment.
And this little piece of metal, this tiny little piece of metal just flung into my eye and I couldn't get it out.
And I was suddenly feeling very afraid, like, what if I can't get it out?
(29:23):
Oh no, I don't even know how to get it out.
And I was so afraid of that metal staying in my eye, becoming a problem and maybe even becoming blind because it was infected or whatever.
And I thought I had to go to the hospital, all these fearful thoughts of what could happen if that metal wasn't removed. I wanted it out so bad.
(29:46):
I told my sister, my older sister, I want you to, I'm going to lay down on the bed on my back and I want you to, it's going
to sound weird, but straddle me, put your knees on my arms so that I can't move.
Put all your weight on me and put your knees on my arms so that I can't resist, so I can't fight back.
(30:09):
And I want you to take these, what do they say? Not a Q-tip.
I want you to take this Q-tip and I want you to see if you can get this piece of metal out of my eye.
A very weird analogy, I know, but what that proves is that when you are so committed to something not continuing, something
(30:30):
that you don't want to happen, if you don't want it to happen bad enough that you're going to do whatever it takes to stop it.
I didn't want that metal sliver in my eye at all.
And I was so certain that I was willing to risk somebody holding a Q-tip going right at my eyeball.
(30:53):
Sorry if this is creepy or freaking someone out, but this is what happens is I don't want things in my, most of us don't want something near our eye.
And I didn't want somebody poking at my eye with a Q-tip, but I also realized I needed it out no matter what. That's the point I got to. I had to stop this. I had to finish this.
(31:14):
I had to remove this from my life no matter what, no matter what it took.
And so I set up the scenario that I had no choice but to let her do her thing.
Let her take that Q-tip, put it in my eye, dig around for it, pull it out. And damn it, she did it.
(31:36):
She took it out of my eye, felt so much better right away.
And I was so grateful for her to do that for me.
If you say, why didn't you just go to the doctor? I wanted it out right away. I wanted it out.
Sometimes that's what we need to do.
We just want it so bad that we just do it.
(32:00):
Whatever that is, we just do it because our toleration level is at its maximum. We can't do any more.
So when you get to that point, when your toleration level is at the maximum, it won't be a matter of thinking, oh gee, what am I going to do?
It'll be a matter of I'm taking action now. It doesn't matter.
(32:21):
I'm doing what I need to do today.
That could be just saying, this needs to stop or else. That could be it.
Or if they're dangerous or violent, you don't want to pick that battle.
So you just take care of yourself and do what you need to do and you make it happen.
Whatever you need to happen, you make happen because we have a built-in toleration system.
(32:46):
It's a really fight or flight or freeze mechanism typically.
But if our fight or flight activates it, if it engages, we're going to do whatever it takes.
There are people, including myself, who if they see a child being hurt and there's a risk to our own life, if we go over and
(33:08):
help or save that child, we're going to do it. We're not even going to think.
We're just going to go grab them and save them.
It's just, it's going to be automatic.
And then later we can say, oh my God, I can't believe I did that. I could have gotten hurt.
I could have gotten burned in the house fire.
You know, that's what happens is we activate and do things that we might have been afraid to do had we thought about it.
(33:31):
But when you reach that level of toleration and you have no more toleration left, you're no longer resilient to the bad behavior.
You get to the point where you will take action. That's who's in there. That's who you are. That's who we all are.
And you can and will get through whatever you're going through. Thanks for listening.
(33:54):
Share this with others who might benefit.
Love and Abuse is the official podcast of The Mean Workbook, an assessment and healing guide for difficult relationships.
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 about
(34:19):
yourself, sign up for the only program that walks you through the entire process of healing from being emotionally abusive.
It has changed thousands of lives and relationships and can change yours too. Visit healedbeing.com to start right away.
And if you're looking for a safer way to listen to the show where all the titles to the episodes are changed, click on the
safe listening button on the podcast page over at loveandabuse.com.
(34:42):
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.
(35:06):
We'll talk again soon.
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