February 21, 2025 • 42 mins
Some people just won't stop being hurtful. Why won't they stop? Are they just terrible people we have to accept and move on? Power and control is their M.O. and it's important you know why. For some there is hope. For others, well, it may take a lot more than hope to see change. https://loveandabuse.com
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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):
Thanks for joining me for another episode of Love and Abuse, and I'm going to say this right out. I hear you. I can hear your words. I can hear your thoughts.
Not really, but you know what I mean. I understand what you're going through.
For those that needed to hear that, that's what I wanted to tell you, because I hear from a lot of people, and they say I feel alone. I feel alone in my struggles.
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I feel like no one understands what's going on, and it's so great that they write to me, and they say it's so great that you
put into words what I'm going through, and it touches me.
I received a really long letter, and I wanted to acknowledge that person, that I hear you.
(01:14):
I validate your experience, and you are not going crazy.
I say it at the end of every show. You're not going crazy.
You are experiencing this, and to that person who wrote and shared her thoughts and her struggles, I understand what you're going through. I hear your struggle.
(01:37):
I feel it when you share, and I also want to validate that your experience is not unique, because that was her question at the end. Is my experience unique?
Have others endured similar, and I didn't read you any of this, but just assume that whatever she's experiencing is very difficult,
(01:59):
and it's been going on a long time.
She asked if there were others that have endured similar long-term manipulation and abuse. Way too many.
Way too many people have endured it.
She described so many aspects of abuse, including financial and even health abuse. Her health is in jeopardy.
(02:25):
When you're with somebody who controls you to the point where you can't do anything without feeling the threat of that abusive
behavior, then you're in a very dangerous situation.
You probably don't need to hear that from me, but in case you do, that's dangerous. That's very dangerous.
(02:48):
She is taking steps, or she's going to start taking steps, she said, toward getting out of that relationship, looking at divorce,
looking at hiring an attorney, which is fantastic, because you need somebody on your side.
You need somebody that helps you get through what you may not be able to do on your own.
(03:14):
I believe you can do it all on your own, but it can be damn hard with some people. They will make it hard.
You have to be careful who you're dealing with, and that just means planning better.
It doesn't mean that you can't do it. It just means planning better.
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Also, planning to be hurt, and I hate to say that, but you should plan ahead so that you know what's coming.
One thing that happens sometimes is the smear campaign, where they will smear your good name, your good reputation, and make
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you look the bad guy, make you look like you're the problem, make you look like you are the reason for all that's happened
in the relationship, all the bad stuff, and they're the fragile victim.
When you're in a relationship with somebody who believes they're the fragile victim, they will spread that word like wildfire.
(04:18):
Just believe that's coming, and know it's coming, and plan for it. How do you plan for it? It's all mental preparation, really.
This is the first half of it.
The first half is mental preparation when you are ready or getting ready to leave a relationship like that.
You have to prepare mentally that they're going to try, not everyone, but some people are going to try to hurt you, to crush
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you, to take your power away, the rest of it, take what's left of your power away, so that as long as you don't have any power,
you stay exactly where they want you to stay, which is so weird when you think about it.
Why would somebody who wants to hurt you, want you to stay there so they can continue hurting you?
(05:04):
Because isn't the point that if they're hurting you, they must not like you, or they must not like what you're doing, but
they want to continue to stay exposed to you and what you're doing, but they don't like it, so they try to control you and
they continue to stay in a situation that bothers them. It's weird. It really is.
(05:28):
That's the only way I can say it. It's just weird.
Some people don't like their significant other.
Some people don't like a family member.
Some people just don't like other people, yet they want them around.
Now we can talk about the emotionally abusive person's insecurities and fears, and a lot of them require what some people
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might call a supply, like in narcissistic abuse, the supply is the narcissist's emotional food, so to speak.
So if you are there to control, they feel satisfied, they feel satiated, because you are there to control, and it gives them
some sense of control in their life, which gives them some sense of power, and an insecure person wants to feel powerful.
(06:19):
And they know that by taking away your insecurity, because you're not likely to be abusive, that you will not feel any power,
and you will continue to feel powerless with them, which keeps them in control, having power over you.
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And when they have control and power over you, they feel secure, or at least more secure.
Because most emotionally abusive people, or worse, physically abusive people, if they have power over you, they feel like
they're in control of their life, they feel like they're in control of their happiness, and they're getting what they want.
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All a very selfish path, a pursuit of happiness. They're never happy.
If they were happy, then they wouldn't abuse.
But because they're not happy, they find someone to control, and that makes them feel more powerful inside themselves, because they want to feel secure.
And when you have someone who hurts someone to feel secure, and they don't work on that insecurity, or all those insecurities inside themselves, then they stay abusive.
(07:35):
And so, that's why they have to go on a healing journey to heal themselves, and do it for themselves.
Meaning, they're not going to do it for anyone else but themselves.
And if they choose to do it for someone else, like when someone says, I'll change for you.
When they say, I'll change for you, you have to be very careful going forward with that person, because they're not changing for themselves.
(08:03):
That means, you know, somebody who says, I'll change for you, tells me that they don't believe they need to change.
It tells me that they're going to put on a temporary act, just to make you happy, just so that you'll get back in their good
graces, and then you feel trapped again, because now you're stuck in a relationship with somebody who really doesn't believe they need to change or heal.
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And so, they will make you think, you know, some people will make you think that they're going through the motions, but be
very careful of those who say, I will change for you.
If they say, I need to change, because I need to heal, and I need to work on myself, then it better be followed up with, this is what I do.
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This is what I do to hurt you.
This is what I have been doing.
This is what I need to work on.
I realize now how awful I've been.
And when I did this, and you left the room and you were crying or sad, or just needed space for me, I realized how awful I was at that moment.
And the reason I did that, and this is them explaining it, the reason I did that is the following, and they tell you.
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The reason I'm being so detailed here is because some people will listen to this show and say, oh, that's all I need to do,
is I just need to pretend and put on an act for a while until I get back in their good graces, so that we can get back to the way things were.
You do not want the way things were.
You do not want the way things have been.
You don't even want the way it was in the beginning, I'm going to tell you.
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Because the way it was in the beginning, even though there were a lot of good times, there were some things mixed in there
that got worse and worse that took all that away. It overwrote the good times.
And then it continued overriding the good times as the months and years went by.
(10:08):
So a lot of abusive relationships start wonderfully. You're my soulmate. You are everything I want. You are everything I need. You're everything I've always wanted. Because they're fitting into that mold.
They're fitting into the mold that they know will suit you just fine and be perfect for you.
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And I'm not saying that all of them do it consciously.
Some of them just fall into the same old relationship patterns that they've always known, because that's how they learned
to relate to others when they were younger.
And they took all those old coping and survival skills from childhood, which a lot of them aren't healthy in adult relationships,
(10:53):
but they took them into adult relationships. And that's how they behave. What do I mean by that?
A good example is a child who's in an abusive home or an alcoholic home where the alcoholic in the home is dangerous in some way or frightening to the child.
The child has to learn to survive.
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One of my survival mechanisms when I was a child was shutting the F up and just being quiet.
And I knew that if I was quiet and I stayed out of the way and even out of sight, that the abusive alcoholic in our home would be less likely to be provoked.
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I knew that if I stayed quiet, kept my mouth shut, that I would not provoke my drunk stepfather. Because I didn't want that fury.
Because he got really angry when he was drunk.
He was super nice when he wasn't, but he was really angry when he was drunk.
And I didn't want anything to do with that. So I learned.
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I learned as a child to be silent.
And so when conflict arose in my teenage and adult years, what do you think I did? I stayed quiet.
And that led to emotionally abusive behavior, like guilting my partner by being silent, by disappearing emotionally, just disconnecting.
(12:26):
And so when I felt uncomfortable, when I wanted my romantic partner to change something that I didn't like, even if there
was no reason not to like it, but if I was uncomfortable with it, because as a child I was always uncomfortable and I didn't like that.
So I grew up and felt like I could control my life.
Now, as an adult, I used my old coping strategy of being silent as a method of control.
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And I would try to make someone I care about, I'm supposed to care about, I'm supposed to love, I was trying to make them
do what I want them to do by disconnecting emotionally.
So that's one of many qualities and behaviors that I had in adult relationships that I took from childhood, that most emotionally abusive people take from childhood.
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They learn these things when they're young and then turn them into power and control.
So old survival skills, old coping mechanisms turn into, or can turn into power and control in adult relationships.
Because as the child, they don't have any control.
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They feel totally out of control and that's not a good feeling.
Then they grow up and as an adult, they realize, oh, I can now control some of my life and this is how I'm going to do it. Because this is all I know.
And I'm not necessarily talking about overt abusive people.
Overt abusive people, they will do things like yell and intimidate and bully and call you names and all that kind of stuff that is very obvious.
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You can point at it and go, hey, they just called me this name. That's abusive. That's hurtful. That's not nice.
And so I don't like that, but at least I can name it. I don't like being named called. I don't like being bullied. That is something you can name. That's what overt abuse is.
Even when they hit, when they hit you and they hurt you like that physically, at least you can point at it and say, I have a name for that. That's easy.
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I mean, it's not easy, but you know what I mean? It's easy to label.
But the overt abuse that's under the radar, like the silent treatment I'm talking about, that's under the radar.
You don't know where the person is when they're doing the silent treatment.
I mean, there are two kinds of silent treatment that I talk about.
And one is the guilt inducing kind, where you want somebody else to suffer.
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So you stay silent in an effort to make them change, make or control them, or make them do what you want and make them feel
bad for not doing what you want.
So you go into this almost depressive like state where they can't figure out what's going on or where you are. And it's almost like moping. I'm moping. I don't like what you're doing.
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And I'm going to be over here and I'm going to stay quiet.
And I'm putting on the voice, the inflection to put the emphasis on the child state, the childlike state of mind, of emotion,
where they just cross their arms and they're not going to talk to you because they want you to feel bad.
Now the child's not thinking that, but the adult is, at least in emotionally abusive behavior. That's one kind.
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That's the emotionally abusive kind of treatment.
There's the other kind of silent treatment, which is about processing.
And most victims of emotionally abusive behavior will go into silence as a matter of reflection and processing, not in a way to make someone else feel bad. And that's a big difference.
I just want to make sure I made that clear in the past.
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And I make that clear now is that you can quote, give someone the silent treatment in an emotionally abusive way to force
them to change, to manipulate them, to control them, to make them feel something that you want them to feel. In my past, it was guilt. I wanted her to feel guilt.
And then there's the processing and reflective silent treatment where you just need to process what happened.
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You just need to figure out what that person just said and why they said it.
Asking yourself, what could I have done to cause that?
Or asking yourself, what the heck are they talking about?
So that kind of silent treatment isn't really a silent treatment at all, but you typically go silent. You typically disconnect.
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You typically get away from the source of confusion, the source of contention, so that you can reflect on what the heck just happened and you can process it.
What am I supposed to do with this?
What am I supposed to say about that?
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What am I supposed to say back?
What, how do I think about this?
How do I go forward with this information?
So that silent treatment, the kind where you need to process and reflect is all inward. It's all toward you.
It's all thinking about you, your needs, what you need to do, what to think about it. It's all about you.
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Whereas the emotionally abusive silent treatment is all about them. I want them to feel bad.
I want to show them that I'm not happy.
And if they see that I'm not happy, maybe they'll change.
And if they change, then I get to keep my power.
The abusive person doesn't typically think like that because honestly, it's like an ingrained behavior for a lot of people,
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unless they're very overt and they know they're doing it.
There are those types of abusers and unfortunately they exist.
And unfortunately they control with very intimidating tactics like that.
But then there are the covert abusers that may just do this because that's how they learned to behave.
That's how they learned to relate and also find comfort and not peace, but happiness.
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They are trying to move toward happiness by doing these terrible behaviors that cause others to feel bad. I had to learn this myself.
I had to learn what it meant to be selfless.
Emotionally abusive people need to learn what it's like to be selfless and even sacrificing.
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Yes, emotionally abusive people have to sacrifice control.
They have to sacrifice power in order to have a great relationship.
Those two things, control and power need to be sacrificed. Many won't do it.
Many don't think they can do it because sacrificing those things to them means devastation, emotional devastation.
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It is like a super fear inside them.
And they carry this super fear that if they let go of controlling you, controlling people they say they care about, if they
let go of that power over you and power over people they say they care about, then they believe that something as bad as death is coming their way.
(19:51):
That might be an exaggeration, but maybe not.
In fact, I would bet that most abusive people don't even know why they control.
Because they just do it so they won't feel uncomfortable, but they don't know what would happen if they don't not do it.
If I don't not control you, then what happens?
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I mean, where does their thought process go?
One of the things I teach in my Healed Being program for emotionally abusive people who want change, it's a mouthful, I have
to say it really quick, is to ask yourself as the emotionally abusive person, ask yourself, what would I lose if what I fear happening happened?
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Or what I fear would happen, happened.
Meaning, let's just say that I, you know, I'm talking as the emotionally abusive person.
Let's just say that I choose not to control that person, my partner, whoever.
Let's just say that I choose not to control that person.
Let's just say I choose not to give that person the silent treatment, for example, to make them feel guilty.
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What will happen if I don't do that?
That's an important question that I don't think a lot of abusive people ask themselves.
What would happen if I didn't do that?
Well, I wouldn't get what I want.
Then you follow up, I'm not saying you have to ask this of any abusive person in your life, but it is a philosophical thing to think about.
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What does the abusive person believe they'll lose? Well, I might lose control.
Okay, how is that a bad thing? Let's dig even deeper.
Well, if I lost control, yeah, if you lost control, what would happen then?
Well, I wouldn't get what I want.
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Yeah, how is that a bad thing?
Well, if I don't get what I want, then I won't be happy.
Okay, now we're getting a little bit deeper, but not much.
So, you're not happy, which means you need to hurt someone to be happy.
That might twist their brain a little bit.
Like, no, I don't have to hurt someone.
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And then they're going to say something along the lines of, well, if they just did what I wanted them to do, we'd both be happy. Now, there's some logic. It's not even logical at all.
It's just a do what I say and don't argue with me kind of approach.
Do what I say and don't argue with me.
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They don't want to say that because they're insecure in themselves, unless they're an overt abuser.
But the abusive person doesn't want to have to say, do what I say and we'll both be happy. They want to coerce. They want to manipulate.
They want to influence you so that you are in the space that you are in, almost as if you believed that was the way you need to be.
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And you came to that decision on your own. That is disgustingly clever.
Meaning, some abusive behavior is so subtle that you will believe that you came to the conclusion that it was your fault for
not doing the right thing in the first place. That is, again, disgustingly clever.
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It's disgusting because you are believing something about yourself that isn't true. And some people will do that.
They will make you think that you are your own problem and you need to fix yourself so that you can satisfy the terms they've
laid out, that you may not even understand that those terms are very one-sided and made by only one person for you to follow
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so that they can stay in control and feel powerful inside themselves because they're insecure.
And the only reason I'm really pummeling on emotionally abusive people right now, I know some of them listen to this show
and they learn from it, is that if you know this about yourself, if I can drill, you know, if the emotionally abusive person
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is listening right now, if I can drill into your head that your quest or pursuit of power or control or a sense or feeling
of security is giving you the exact opposite of what you want, then perhaps you'd be willing to take a break or even let go
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of the pursuit of security and power and control.
And by letting it go, it would actually give you what you want.
It would actually give you the opposite of what you think would happen.
So if you think you would be emotionally devastated by letting go of control or not making them do what you want them to do,
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then of course you're not going to want to let go of control or power.
So instead you keep control or power, which what does it do? It pushes them away.
It makes them feel unloved and unworthy and uncared for and unsupported.
Abusive people make those they say they care about feel unloved because of the control and the power they like to have over the other person.
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And the abusive person thinks that as long as they do what I say, we'll both be happy.
That's the illogical thinking of most abusive people.
If the emotionally abusive person thinks that both of us will be happy if I just do this, look at your results. Look what you're getting. Look what's happening.
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And if they're listening to this right now, they probably want to know why they're getting bad results.
You probably want to know why they're being hurtful to you or manipulative or controlling.
You might know now a little bit why they're doing it, but you still have that question.
If they love me, why would they do it?
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You still have that question, and they will have trouble answering it. They will.
I mean, I've talked to a lot of them.
They will have trouble answering that, but that is their purpose now.
They have to ask themselves that question and explore it and figure out why they would do something hurtful to someone they loved.
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Their answer is going to be, but I believe I'm right, but they need to look at the results.
They're only pushing the people they claim to care about away. That's the result.
That's why believing that controlling or manipulating someone is never favorable for a long-term relationship. It just doesn't work. It always pushes the person away.
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I didn't mean to go down this road today, but the person who wrote to me, I just wanted to thank her for sharing that entire story, that heartbreaking story.
I want you to stay strong and continue on the path of getting out of that situation, because in my experience, things like that don't change until you do.
(27:18):
An abusive relationship doesn't change until you change it.
That may sound scary as hell to some people listening right now, but I just ask you to look at the trend.
Has it changed up to this point? Has it gotten worse? Has it gotten better? Is it getting better?
Because if the trend line isn't going up and to the right, then you're not going in the right direction.
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It's going to continue the path it's on.
And even when it is going up and to the right, how slow is the progress?
Is it one increment per six months or is it going up a little bit each day?
That's what you should see a little bit each day in a healing relationship.
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When it's not healing, it's either flat line or it's a continually up and down with mostly downs or it's even where it's going down and to the right.
You know, those progress bars that we see in corporate meetings.
This is how much profit we've had.
And this is how much loss I like to look at it as a relationship trend line.
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This is the trend of the relationship trend line. Where's it going? How's it been going?
What you had yesterday and last week, you will get tomorrow and next week.
And when you accept that as truth, then you make the best decisions for you and for everyone involved really.
Because even when the victim of emotionally abusive behavior says, I can't take it anymore. I'm going to leave.
(28:49):
That is a good decision for both people.
Because it, first of all, it tells the other person, the hurtful one, the one who's doing these bad behaviors, that those
bad behaviors are not tolerable and they're not healthy and they're not conducive to a long-term relationship.
So, I'm not going to stand for it anymore. It empowers them.
(29:13):
It empowers them to finally reflect and think about what they're doing, even though they should have done it years ago.
But it empowers them to finally reflect on what they're doing, because now they know how serious you are.
And the problem that occurs is that a lot of, many, many victims of emotionally abusive behavior will say, please stop doing that.
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Or when you do that, it hurts.
When you do that, I feel disrespected. I feel embarrassed.
I feel whatever, not worthy, not loved.
When you do those behaviors, will you please stop?
Which is a healthy thing to request.
When that's said and the person continues doing the behaviors, then they clearly don't believe that there's any accountability
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or don't put enough weight in your words.
Meaning they don't think that you're telling the whole truth.
Because if you were, you would probably not be here.
That's the one thing that a lot of victims have to struggle with, is that they'll say, hey, what you're doing is hurting me.
(30:19):
And then the other person, either they say they're sorry, or no, I'm not. They deny, they invalidate.
And then when the victim doesn't show them any accountability, where they have to actually emotionally pay for their behavior,
in a way, then the abuser will continue. Because there's no reason to stop. Because the victim's still there.
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And I'm just using the word victim for brevity.
But the victim is still there, and the abuser still has the victim in their life.
And they've learned that these were maybe, the abuser may think that those were empty threats. If you don't stop, I'll leave.
And then they don't stop and you don't leave. What does that look like?
(31:04):
That looks like something that'll never happen. And I know we do this.
We give people the benefit of the doubt. We give people a chance. We feel empathetic. We feel compassion. We want them to change.
We do want to see the good parts of them come out.
Because we've seen it in the past.
(31:25):
We've seen the very beginning of the relationship, like I was talking about earlier.
Even though it slowly eroded into what it became now, there were parts of them that you have seen, typically in most relationships,
there were parts of them that you have seen that you really appreciated, that you really loved, that really made you feel special.
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And when you don't see those things anymore, you don't feel special anymore.
In fact, you feel the opposite of special.
You feel hurt and unloved and unsupported and uncared for. And you wonder where they went.
This is why it's so important that they understand that when you are not going to take it anymore, and when you're done, they know you're done. It's real to them.
(32:13):
This doesn't mean you get into an argument with a very dangerous person or that you risk any physical abuse. I don't want that.
The disclaimer is pick your battles wisely.
But the goal is to make them realize that you're serious. I'm serious. I don't want this behavior anymore.
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And if it continues, then I can't be around you.
That may be the direction it goes. It may not be.
And I'm not suggesting you do this.
This is something that you have to assess about your own relationship.
If you can have these kinds of conversations and be physically okay, and even emotionally okay to get through them, even though
(32:55):
it might be very difficult, a very difficult conversation to have.
But sometimes we need to let people know what's acceptable and what's not, which really comes down to personal boundaries.
A personal boundary is what you will and won't accept in your life, in your relationships, in anything really.
This is a personal boundary of mine.
(33:16):
I will not allow anyone to do what?
For example, I will not allow anyone to disrespect me. That could be your personal boundary. It's one of mine. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
There are people that disrespect others all the time, but it's still a personal boundary of mine.
So if somebody does it, I'm in line at the grocery store, they hit the back of my foot with their shopping cart. They don't say, excuse me.
(33:42):
And then they blame me for having my foot there. That's kind of rude.
Am I going to turn around and push the cart back and say, that's my boundary.
I'm going to get that out of my face.
No, I'll probably just note that this person's a jerk and I'll move on. I won't hang around them. I won't talk to them. I'm just going to move on.
(34:03):
Sometimes that's what we have to do with certain people. Sometimes we try to get along. We try to make peace.
We try even to adapt, to accommodate.
And when that doesn't work, I got to move on.
And that doesn't mean I'm telling you to leave the relationship.
I'm just telling you that there's a point.
(34:25):
There is a point where you do have to reflect on everything that you've talked about, everything that you've brought up, all
the maybe suffering that you might've experienced, and ask yourself if it's worth continuing to be with somebody who you've
shared hurts you in some way, and they don't change.
(34:48):
I believe that even emotionally abusive relationships have the capacity to heal and change.
I've seen a lot of emotionally abusive people heal and change and become completely different.
You don't even recognize these people when they've changed.
They are just, they turn a 180 and their life starts going in a different direction. They have a different personality. People look at them differently. They say something's different about you. You've changed.
(35:19):
And they just show up in the world as a different person.
So I'm here to say that healing for an emotionally abusive person can happen. It does happen.
I see it a lot, but they have to step out of this selfish place and into a place, what I talked about earlier, a place of
(35:41):
sacrifice, vulnerability, humility, and letting go of control.
And when they get into that space and they are willing to look inward, instead of always looking at you, always expecting
you to change for them, if they are willing to change for themselves, because they don't like the fact that they are hurting
(36:04):
someone they claim to care about, then there's a chance. Some relationships can survive that transition. Some can't.
It all depends on whether the victim of the abusive behavior still has love left in their heart.
And if you've sealed that heart shut and you just can't get there anymore, the likelihood that you will is small. I'm not saying it's impossible.
(36:29):
It's usually small because what happens is you've reached a threshold, a breaking point.
And when somebody reaches that point, they just weld it shut. That's it.
I'm not going to open my heart to that person at all, ever again, because I don't want to hurt anymore.
We usually reach a threshold when somebody has pushed us past the point of no return.
(36:53):
I mean, that is like the breaking point.
When you break, you know that if you're pushed any farther, it's going to feel like an emotional death or even worse.
It's going to feel like a physical death.
It's going to put you into the worst state possible.
And the part of you that wants to make it through this life and feel some sense of joy and happiness again, comes up and says, we can't take anymore. It's over.
(37:22):
That's I'm not going to take it anymore.
I'm shutting my heart down from you.
I mean, not from the world, but just from that person, I'm going to shut my heart down from you.
I'm going to seal it shut so that you can't get in anymore. That's usually my gauge.
If a relationship can make it, if the abuser wants to heal and they are doing it for themselves and the victim of that behavior
(37:46):
has any love left in their heart, where they're willing to give it another shot, the relationship does have a chance.
So it just depends on where you are with that and what's going on.
If you are experiencing any kind of abuse in your relationship or at least hurtful or difficult behaviors, and hopefully it
(38:08):
doesn't get that far, but often it does.
The person who wrote to me, she's been in it for a couple of decades now, uh, over that.
And, um, my mom was in it for four decades, 40 years. That's just mind blowing it.
Anybody can go through that and make it through, but they do.
(38:28):
And because they did, you will too, no matter what you're going through, you will make it through because there's a part of
you that will protect you when things get so bad that you can't take it anymore. That is your threshold. That's when you say, that's it. I've had enough. I'm done. I won't take anymore.
It will happen eventually because everyone has this inside of them.
(38:50):
It reminds me of, um, a really quick, it reminds me of a story when I was like 10 years old, I was so afraid of confrontation for reasons which I already shared.
And my, um, friend quote friend up the road, I was sitting at the table reading a magazine and he kept like pushing me and
slapping me and saying, let's go wrestle.
Cause as young boys, we were wrestling and I was done and I didn't want to do it anymore. And he just kept slapping me. Let's go wrestle. Let's go wrestle somewhere.
(39:17):
I said, no, I don't want to. No, I don't want to. No.
And he just kept on and on and on.
And I turned into a different person.
I have no idea where this came from, but I got up and I walloped him in the mouth. I not slapped him.
I punched him in the mouth as a 10 year old boy.
I punched this other 10 year old boy in the mouth. He falls to the ground. He's holding his mouth.
(39:42):
And I sat back down calmly and I looked at my magazine again and I just thought, Oh, that's interesting.
I don't even know what I thought, but, um, that was it. It was done.
He stopped bothering me and he, I think it was at my house. He left my house.
I don't remember anything after that, except that he came over the next day and offered to, um, his mom offered to take us to Chinese food.
(40:07):
So apparently he forgave me, I guess.
So, uh, that was a very enlightening moment for me.
And that's only happened maybe two other times in my life where I got to the point where I was pushed so far that I was unwilling
to accept any more of this behavior and something changed inside of me and I pushed back.
(40:35):
I'm not saying you should get physical with anyone.
I'm just saying there's a point where you will be so done.
You will reach your threshold and you will get to the point where you will say, no more.
I am not going to take this anymore.
And it'll happen so fast that you won't even have to think about it.
(40:55):
You won't even have to prepare for it. You'll know what to do.
I'm just telling you that's in there.
If, and when you need it, it's in there.
So stay strong and know that if it ever comes to that, you will know exactly what to do.
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.
(41:20):
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 love and abuse.com for more information.
And if you've discovered that you are doing the hurtful behaviors to someone that you care about, and 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.
(41:45):
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 where all the titles to the episodes are changed, click on the 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.
(42:10):
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):
Thanks for joining me for another episode of Love and Abuse, and I'm going to say this right out. I hear you. I can hear your words. I can hear your thoughts.
Not really, but you know what I mean. I understand what you're going through.
For those that needed to hear that, that's what I wanted to tell you, because I hear from a lot of people, and they say I feel alone. I feel alone in my struggles.
(00:54):
I feel like no one understands what's going on, and it's so great that they write to me, and they say it's so great that you
put into words what I'm going through, and it touches me.
I received a really long letter, and I wanted to acknowledge that person, that I hear you.
(01:14):
I validate your experience, and you are not going crazy.
I say it at the end of every show. You're not going crazy.
You are experiencing this, and to that person who wrote and shared her thoughts and her struggles, I understand what you're going through. I hear your struggle.
(01:37):
I feel it when you share, and I also want to validate that your experience is not unique, because that was her question at the end. Is my experience unique?
Have others endured similar, and I didn't read you any of this, but just assume that whatever she's experiencing is very difficult,
(01:59):
and it's been going on a long time.
She asked if there were others that have endured similar long-term manipulation and abuse. Way too many.
Way too many people have endured it.
She described so many aspects of abuse, including financial and even health abuse. Her health is in jeopardy.
(02:25):
When you're with somebody who controls you to the point where you can't do anything without feeling the threat of that abusive
behavior, then you're in a very dangerous situation.
You probably don't need to hear that from me, but in case you do, that's dangerous. That's very dangerous.
(02:48):
She is taking steps, or she's going to start taking steps, she said, toward getting out of that relationship, looking at divorce,
looking at hiring an attorney, which is fantastic, because you need somebody on your side.
You need somebody that helps you get through what you may not be able to do on your own.
(03:14):
I believe you can do it all on your own, but it can be damn hard with some people. They will make it hard.
You have to be careful who you're dealing with, and that just means planning better.
It doesn't mean that you can't do it. It just means planning better.
(03:36):
Also, planning to be hurt, and I hate to say that, but you should plan ahead so that you know what's coming.
One thing that happens sometimes is the smear campaign, where they will smear your good name, your good reputation, and make
(03:57):
you look the bad guy, make you look like you're the problem, make you look like you are the reason for all that's happened
in the relationship, all the bad stuff, and they're the fragile victim.
When you're in a relationship with somebody who believes they're the fragile victim, they will spread that word like wildfire.
(04:18):
Just believe that's coming, and know it's coming, and plan for it. How do you plan for it? It's all mental preparation, really.
This is the first half of it.
The first half is mental preparation when you are ready or getting ready to leave a relationship like that.
You have to prepare mentally that they're going to try, not everyone, but some people are going to try to hurt you, to crush
(04:42):
you, to take your power away, the rest of it, take what's left of your power away, so that as long as you don't have any power,
you stay exactly where they want you to stay, which is so weird when you think about it.
Why would somebody who wants to hurt you, want you to stay there so they can continue hurting you?
(05:04):
Because isn't the point that if they're hurting you, they must not like you, or they must not like what you're doing, but
they want to continue to stay exposed to you and what you're doing, but they don't like it, so they try to control you and
they continue to stay in a situation that bothers them. It's weird. It really is.
(05:28):
That's the only way I can say it. It's just weird.
Some people don't like their significant other.
Some people don't like a family member.
Some people just don't like other people, yet they want them around.
Now we can talk about the emotionally abusive person's insecurities and fears, and a lot of them require what some people
(05:51):
might call a supply, like in narcissistic abuse, the supply is the narcissist's emotional food, so to speak.
So if you are there to control, they feel satisfied, they feel satiated, because you are there to control, and it gives them
some sense of control in their life, which gives them some sense of power, and an insecure person wants to feel powerful.
(06:19):
And they know that by taking away your insecurity, because you're not likely to be abusive, that you will not feel any power,
and you will continue to feel powerless with them, which keeps them in control, having power over you.
(06:40):
And when they have control and power over you, they feel secure, or at least more secure.
Because most emotionally abusive people, or worse, physically abusive people, if they have power over you, they feel like
they're in control of their life, they feel like they're in control of their happiness, and they're getting what they want.
(07:02):
All a very selfish path, a pursuit of happiness. They're never happy.
If they were happy, then they wouldn't abuse.
But because they're not happy, they find someone to control, and that makes them feel more powerful inside themselves, because they want to feel secure.
And when you have someone who hurts someone to feel secure, and they don't work on that insecurity, or all those insecurities inside themselves, then they stay abusive.
(07:35):
And so, that's why they have to go on a healing journey to heal themselves, and do it for themselves.
Meaning, they're not going to do it for anyone else but themselves.
And if they choose to do it for someone else, like when someone says, I'll change for you.
When they say, I'll change for you, you have to be very careful going forward with that person, because they're not changing for themselves.
(08:03):
That means, you know, somebody who says, I'll change for you, tells me that they don't believe they need to change.
It tells me that they're going to put on a temporary act, just to make you happy, just so that you'll get back in their good
graces, and then you feel trapped again, because now you're stuck in a relationship with somebody who really doesn't believe they need to change or heal.
(08:30):
And so, they will make you think, you know, some people will make you think that they're going through the motions, but be
very careful of those who say, I will change for you.
If they say, I need to change, because I need to heal, and I need to work on myself, then it better be followed up with, this is what I do.
(08:51):
This is what I do to hurt you.
This is what I have been doing.
This is what I need to work on.
I realize now how awful I've been.
And when I did this, and you left the room and you were crying or sad, or just needed space for me, I realized how awful I was at that moment.
And the reason I did that, and this is them explaining it, the reason I did that is the following, and they tell you.
(09:21):
The reason I'm being so detailed here is because some people will listen to this show and say, oh, that's all I need to do,
is I just need to pretend and put on an act for a while until I get back in their good graces, so that we can get back to the way things were.
You do not want the way things were.
You do not want the way things have been.
You don't even want the way it was in the beginning, I'm going to tell you.
(09:45):
Because the way it was in the beginning, even though there were a lot of good times, there were some things mixed in there
that got worse and worse that took all that away. It overwrote the good times.
And then it continued overriding the good times as the months and years went by.
(10:08):
So a lot of abusive relationships start wonderfully. You're my soulmate. You are everything I want. You are everything I need. You're everything I've always wanted. Because they're fitting into that mold.
They're fitting into the mold that they know will suit you just fine and be perfect for you.
(10:33):
And I'm not saying that all of them do it consciously.
Some of them just fall into the same old relationship patterns that they've always known, because that's how they learned
to relate to others when they were younger.
And they took all those old coping and survival skills from childhood, which a lot of them aren't healthy in adult relationships,
(10:53):
but they took them into adult relationships. And that's how they behave. What do I mean by that?
A good example is a child who's in an abusive home or an alcoholic home where the alcoholic in the home is dangerous in some way or frightening to the child.
The child has to learn to survive.
(11:16):
One of my survival mechanisms when I was a child was shutting the F up and just being quiet.
And I knew that if I was quiet and I stayed out of the way and even out of sight, that the abusive alcoholic in our home would be less likely to be provoked.
(11:37):
I knew that if I stayed quiet, kept my mouth shut, that I would not provoke my drunk stepfather. Because I didn't want that fury.
Because he got really angry when he was drunk.
He was super nice when he wasn't, but he was really angry when he was drunk.
And I didn't want anything to do with that. So I learned.
(11:59):
I learned as a child to be silent.
And so when conflict arose in my teenage and adult years, what do you think I did? I stayed quiet.
And that led to emotionally abusive behavior, like guilting my partner by being silent, by disappearing emotionally, just disconnecting.
(12:26):
And so when I felt uncomfortable, when I wanted my romantic partner to change something that I didn't like, even if there
was no reason not to like it, but if I was uncomfortable with it, because as a child I was always uncomfortable and I didn't like that.
So I grew up and felt like I could control my life.
Now, as an adult, I used my old coping strategy of being silent as a method of control.
(12:51):
And I would try to make someone I care about, I'm supposed to care about, I'm supposed to love, I was trying to make them
do what I want them to do by disconnecting emotionally.
So that's one of many qualities and behaviors that I had in adult relationships that I took from childhood, that most emotionally abusive people take from childhood.
(13:14):
They learn these things when they're young and then turn them into power and control.
So old survival skills, old coping mechanisms turn into, or can turn into power and control in adult relationships.
Because as the child, they don't have any control.
(13:36):
They feel totally out of control and that's not a good feeling.
Then they grow up and as an adult, they realize, oh, I can now control some of my life and this is how I'm going to do it. Because this is all I know.
And I'm not necessarily talking about overt abusive people.
Overt abusive people, they will do things like yell and intimidate and bully and call you names and all that kind of stuff that is very obvious.
(14:07):
You can point at it and go, hey, they just called me this name. That's abusive. That's hurtful. That's not nice.
And so I don't like that, but at least I can name it. I don't like being named called. I don't like being bullied. That is something you can name. That's what overt abuse is.
Even when they hit, when they hit you and they hurt you like that physically, at least you can point at it and say, I have a name for that. That's easy.
(14:36):
I mean, it's not easy, but you know what I mean? It's easy to label.
But the overt abuse that's under the radar, like the silent treatment I'm talking about, that's under the radar.
You don't know where the person is when they're doing the silent treatment.
I mean, there are two kinds of silent treatment that I talk about.
And one is the guilt inducing kind, where you want somebody else to suffer.
(14:59):
So you stay silent in an effort to make them change, make or control them, or make them do what you want and make them feel
bad for not doing what you want.
So you go into this almost depressive like state where they can't figure out what's going on or where you are. And it's almost like moping. I'm moping. I don't like what you're doing.
(15:24):
And I'm going to be over here and I'm going to stay quiet.
And I'm putting on the voice, the inflection to put the emphasis on the child state, the childlike state of mind, of emotion,
where they just cross their arms and they're not going to talk to you because they want you to feel bad.
Now the child's not thinking that, but the adult is, at least in emotionally abusive behavior. That's one kind.
(15:50):
That's the emotionally abusive kind of treatment.
There's the other kind of silent treatment, which is about processing.
And most victims of emotionally abusive behavior will go into silence as a matter of reflection and processing, not in a way to make someone else feel bad. And that's a big difference.
I just want to make sure I made that clear in the past.
(16:12):
And I make that clear now is that you can quote, give someone the silent treatment in an emotionally abusive way to force
them to change, to manipulate them, to control them, to make them feel something that you want them to feel. In my past, it was guilt. I wanted her to feel guilt.
And then there's the processing and reflective silent treatment where you just need to process what happened.
(16:38):
You just need to figure out what that person just said and why they said it.
Asking yourself, what could I have done to cause that?
Or asking yourself, what the heck are they talking about?
So that kind of silent treatment isn't really a silent treatment at all, but you typically go silent. You typically disconnect.
(17:00):
You typically get away from the source of confusion, the source of contention, so that you can reflect on what the heck just happened and you can process it.
What am I supposed to do with this?
What am I supposed to say about that?
(17:20):
What am I supposed to say back?
What, how do I think about this?
How do I go forward with this information?
So that silent treatment, the kind where you need to process and reflect is all inward. It's all toward you.
It's all thinking about you, your needs, what you need to do, what to think about it. It's all about you.
(17:44):
Whereas the emotionally abusive silent treatment is all about them. I want them to feel bad.
I want to show them that I'm not happy.
And if they see that I'm not happy, maybe they'll change.
And if they change, then I get to keep my power.
The abusive person doesn't typically think like that because honestly, it's like an ingrained behavior for a lot of people,
(18:07):
unless they're very overt and they know they're doing it.
There are those types of abusers and unfortunately they exist.
And unfortunately they control with very intimidating tactics like that.
But then there are the covert abusers that may just do this because that's how they learned to behave.
That's how they learned to relate and also find comfort and not peace, but happiness.
(18:32):
They are trying to move toward happiness by doing these terrible behaviors that cause others to feel bad. I had to learn this myself.
I had to learn what it meant to be selfless.
Emotionally abusive people need to learn what it's like to be selfless and even sacrificing.
(18:56):
Yes, emotionally abusive people have to sacrifice control.
They have to sacrifice power in order to have a great relationship.
Those two things, control and power need to be sacrificed. Many won't do it.
Many don't think they can do it because sacrificing those things to them means devastation, emotional devastation.
(19:26):
It is like a super fear inside them.
And they carry this super fear that if they let go of controlling you, controlling people they say they care about, if they
let go of that power over you and power over people they say they care about, then they believe that something as bad as death is coming their way.
(19:51):
That might be an exaggeration, but maybe not.
In fact, I would bet that most abusive people don't even know why they control.
Because they just do it so they won't feel uncomfortable, but they don't know what would happen if they don't not do it.
If I don't not control you, then what happens?
(20:15):
I mean, where does their thought process go?
One of the things I teach in my Healed Being program for emotionally abusive people who want change, it's a mouthful, I have
to say it really quick, is to ask yourself as the emotionally abusive person, ask yourself, what would I lose if what I fear happening happened?
(20:36):
Or what I fear would happen, happened.
Meaning, let's just say that I, you know, I'm talking as the emotionally abusive person.
Let's just say that I choose not to control that person, my partner, whoever.
Let's just say that I choose not to control that person.
Let's just say I choose not to give that person the silent treatment, for example, to make them feel guilty.
(21:00):
What will happen if I don't do that?
That's an important question that I don't think a lot of abusive people ask themselves.
What would happen if I didn't do that?
Well, I wouldn't get what I want.
Then you follow up, I'm not saying you have to ask this of any abusive person in your life, but it is a philosophical thing to think about.
(21:27):
What does the abusive person believe they'll lose? Well, I might lose control.
Okay, how is that a bad thing? Let's dig even deeper.
Well, if I lost control, yeah, if you lost control, what would happen then?
Well, I wouldn't get what I want.
(21:49):
Yeah, how is that a bad thing?
Well, if I don't get what I want, then I won't be happy.
Okay, now we're getting a little bit deeper, but not much.
So, you're not happy, which means you need to hurt someone to be happy.
That might twist their brain a little bit.
Like, no, I don't have to hurt someone.
(22:10):
And then they're going to say something along the lines of, well, if they just did what I wanted them to do, we'd both be happy. Now, there's some logic. It's not even logical at all.
It's just a do what I say and don't argue with me kind of approach.
Do what I say and don't argue with me.
(22:31):
They don't want to say that because they're insecure in themselves, unless they're an overt abuser.
But the abusive person doesn't want to have to say, do what I say and we'll both be happy. They want to coerce. They want to manipulate.
They want to influence you so that you are in the space that you are in, almost as if you believed that was the way you need to be.
(22:55):
And you came to that decision on your own. That is disgustingly clever.
Meaning, some abusive behavior is so subtle that you will believe that you came to the conclusion that it was your fault for
not doing the right thing in the first place. That is, again, disgustingly clever.
(23:19):
It's disgusting because you are believing something about yourself that isn't true. And some people will do that.
They will make you think that you are your own problem and you need to fix yourself so that you can satisfy the terms they've
laid out, that you may not even understand that those terms are very one-sided and made by only one person for you to follow
(23:46):
so that they can stay in control and feel powerful inside themselves because they're insecure.
And the only reason I'm really pummeling on emotionally abusive people right now, I know some of them listen to this show
and they learn from it, is that if you know this about yourself, if I can drill, you know, if the emotionally abusive person
(24:08):
is listening right now, if I can drill into your head that your quest or pursuit of power or control or a sense or feeling
of security is giving you the exact opposite of what you want, then perhaps you'd be willing to take a break or even let go
(24:32):
of the pursuit of security and power and control.
And by letting it go, it would actually give you what you want.
It would actually give you the opposite of what you think would happen.
So if you think you would be emotionally devastated by letting go of control or not making them do what you want them to do,
(24:56):
then of course you're not going to want to let go of control or power.
So instead you keep control or power, which what does it do? It pushes them away.
It makes them feel unloved and unworthy and uncared for and unsupported.
Abusive people make those they say they care about feel unloved because of the control and the power they like to have over the other person.
(25:26):
And the abusive person thinks that as long as they do what I say, we'll both be happy.
That's the illogical thinking of most abusive people.
If the emotionally abusive person thinks that both of us will be happy if I just do this, look at your results. Look what you're getting. Look what's happening.
(25:50):
And if they're listening to this right now, they probably want to know why they're getting bad results.
You probably want to know why they're being hurtful to you or manipulative or controlling.
You might know now a little bit why they're doing it, but you still have that question.
If they love me, why would they do it?
(26:11):
You still have that question, and they will have trouble answering it. They will.
I mean, I've talked to a lot of them.
They will have trouble answering that, but that is their purpose now.
They have to ask themselves that question and explore it and figure out why they would do something hurtful to someone they loved.
(26:32):
Their answer is going to be, but I believe I'm right, but they need to look at the results.
They're only pushing the people they claim to care about away. That's the result.
That's why believing that controlling or manipulating someone is never favorable for a long-term relationship. It just doesn't work. It always pushes the person away.
(26:54):
I didn't mean to go down this road today, but the person who wrote to me, I just wanted to thank her for sharing that entire story, that heartbreaking story.
I want you to stay strong and continue on the path of getting out of that situation, because in my experience, things like that don't change until you do.
(27:18):
An abusive relationship doesn't change until you change it.
That may sound scary as hell to some people listening right now, but I just ask you to look at the trend.
Has it changed up to this point? Has it gotten worse? Has it gotten better? Is it getting better?
Because if the trend line isn't going up and to the right, then you're not going in the right direction.
(27:41):
It's going to continue the path it's on.
And even when it is going up and to the right, how slow is the progress?
Is it one increment per six months or is it going up a little bit each day?
That's what you should see a little bit each day in a healing relationship.
(28:03):
When it's not healing, it's either flat line or it's a continually up and down with mostly downs or it's even where it's going down and to the right.
You know, those progress bars that we see in corporate meetings.
This is how much profit we've had.
And this is how much loss I like to look at it as a relationship trend line.
(28:23):
This is the trend of the relationship trend line. Where's it going? How's it been going?
What you had yesterday and last week, you will get tomorrow and next week.
And when you accept that as truth, then you make the best decisions for you and for everyone involved really.
Because even when the victim of emotionally abusive behavior says, I can't take it anymore. I'm going to leave.
(28:49):
That is a good decision for both people.
Because it, first of all, it tells the other person, the hurtful one, the one who's doing these bad behaviors, that those
bad behaviors are not tolerable and they're not healthy and they're not conducive to a long-term relationship.
So, I'm not going to stand for it anymore. It empowers them.
(29:13):
It empowers them to finally reflect and think about what they're doing, even though they should have done it years ago.
But it empowers them to finally reflect on what they're doing, because now they know how serious you are.
And the problem that occurs is that a lot of, many, many victims of emotionally abusive behavior will say, please stop doing that.
(29:36):
Or when you do that, it hurts.
When you do that, I feel disrespected. I feel embarrassed.
I feel whatever, not worthy, not loved.
When you do those behaviors, will you please stop?
Which is a healthy thing to request.
When that's said and the person continues doing the behaviors, then they clearly don't believe that there's any accountability
(29:59):
or don't put enough weight in your words.
Meaning they don't think that you're telling the whole truth.
Because if you were, you would probably not be here.
That's the one thing that a lot of victims have to struggle with, is that they'll say, hey, what you're doing is hurting me.
(30:19):
And then the other person, either they say they're sorry, or no, I'm not. They deny, they invalidate.
And then when the victim doesn't show them any accountability, where they have to actually emotionally pay for their behavior,
in a way, then the abuser will continue. Because there's no reason to stop. Because the victim's still there.
(30:42):
And I'm just using the word victim for brevity.
But the victim is still there, and the abuser still has the victim in their life.
And they've learned that these were maybe, the abuser may think that those were empty threats. If you don't stop, I'll leave.
And then they don't stop and you don't leave. What does that look like?
(31:04):
That looks like something that'll never happen. And I know we do this.
We give people the benefit of the doubt. We give people a chance. We feel empathetic. We feel compassion. We want them to change.
We do want to see the good parts of them come out.
Because we've seen it in the past.
(31:25):
We've seen the very beginning of the relationship, like I was talking about earlier.
Even though it slowly eroded into what it became now, there were parts of them that you have seen, typically in most relationships,
there were parts of them that you have seen that you really appreciated, that you really loved, that really made you feel special.
(31:45):
And when you don't see those things anymore, you don't feel special anymore.
In fact, you feel the opposite of special.
You feel hurt and unloved and unsupported and uncared for. And you wonder where they went.
This is why it's so important that they understand that when you are not going to take it anymore, and when you're done, they know you're done. It's real to them.
(32:13):
This doesn't mean you get into an argument with a very dangerous person or that you risk any physical abuse. I don't want that.
The disclaimer is pick your battles wisely.
But the goal is to make them realize that you're serious. I'm serious. I don't want this behavior anymore.
(32:33):
And if it continues, then I can't be around you.
That may be the direction it goes. It may not be.
And I'm not suggesting you do this.
This is something that you have to assess about your own relationship.
If you can have these kinds of conversations and be physically okay, and even emotionally okay to get through them, even though
(32:55):
it might be very difficult, a very difficult conversation to have.
But sometimes we need to let people know what's acceptable and what's not, which really comes down to personal boundaries.
A personal boundary is what you will and won't accept in your life, in your relationships, in anything really.
This is a personal boundary of mine.
(33:16):
I will not allow anyone to do what?
For example, I will not allow anyone to disrespect me. That could be your personal boundary. It's one of mine. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
There are people that disrespect others all the time, but it's still a personal boundary of mine.
So if somebody does it, I'm in line at the grocery store, they hit the back of my foot with their shopping cart. They don't say, excuse me.
(33:42):
And then they blame me for having my foot there. That's kind of rude.
Am I going to turn around and push the cart back and say, that's my boundary.
I'm going to get that out of my face.
No, I'll probably just note that this person's a jerk and I'll move on. I won't hang around them. I won't talk to them. I'm just going to move on.
(34:03):
Sometimes that's what we have to do with certain people. Sometimes we try to get along. We try to make peace.
We try even to adapt, to accommodate.
And when that doesn't work, I got to move on.
And that doesn't mean I'm telling you to leave the relationship.
I'm just telling you that there's a point.
(34:25):
There is a point where you do have to reflect on everything that you've talked about, everything that you've brought up, all
the maybe suffering that you might've experienced, and ask yourself if it's worth continuing to be with somebody who you've
shared hurts you in some way, and they don't change.
(34:48):
I believe that even emotionally abusive relationships have the capacity to heal and change.
I've seen a lot of emotionally abusive people heal and change and become completely different.
You don't even recognize these people when they've changed.
They are just, they turn a 180 and their life starts going in a different direction. They have a different personality. People look at them differently. They say something's different about you. You've changed.
(35:19):
And they just show up in the world as a different person.
So I'm here to say that healing for an emotionally abusive person can happen. It does happen.
I see it a lot, but they have to step out of this selfish place and into a place, what I talked about earlier, a place of
(35:41):
sacrifice, vulnerability, humility, and letting go of control.
And when they get into that space and they are willing to look inward, instead of always looking at you, always expecting
you to change for them, if they are willing to change for themselves, because they don't like the fact that they are hurting
(36:04):
someone they claim to care about, then there's a chance. Some relationships can survive that transition. Some can't.
It all depends on whether the victim of the abusive behavior still has love left in their heart.
And if you've sealed that heart shut and you just can't get there anymore, the likelihood that you will is small. I'm not saying it's impossible.
(36:29):
It's usually small because what happens is you've reached a threshold, a breaking point.
And when somebody reaches that point, they just weld it shut. That's it.
I'm not going to open my heart to that person at all, ever again, because I don't want to hurt anymore.
We usually reach a threshold when somebody has pushed us past the point of no return.
(36:53):
I mean, that is like the breaking point.
When you break, you know that if you're pushed any farther, it's going to feel like an emotional death or even worse.
It's going to feel like a physical death.
It's going to put you into the worst state possible.
And the part of you that wants to make it through this life and feel some sense of joy and happiness again, comes up and says, we can't take anymore. It's over.
(37:22):
That's I'm not going to take it anymore.
I'm shutting my heart down from you.
I mean, not from the world, but just from that person, I'm going to shut my heart down from you.
I'm going to seal it shut so that you can't get in anymore. That's usually my gauge.
If a relationship can make it, if the abuser wants to heal and they are doing it for themselves and the victim of that behavior
(37:46):
has any love left in their heart, where they're willing to give it another shot, the relationship does have a chance.
So it just depends on where you are with that and what's going on.
If you are experiencing any kind of abuse in your relationship or at least hurtful or difficult behaviors, and hopefully it
(38:08):
doesn't get that far, but often it does.
The person who wrote to me, she's been in it for a couple of decades now, uh, over that.
And, um, my mom was in it for four decades, 40 years. That's just mind blowing it.
Anybody can go through that and make it through, but they do.
(38:28):
And because they did, you will too, no matter what you're going through, you will make it through because there's a part of
you that will protect you when things get so bad that you can't take it anymore. That is your threshold. That's when you say, that's it. I've had enough. I'm done. I won't take anymore.
It will happen eventually because everyone has this inside of them.
(38:50):
It reminds me of, um, a really quick, it reminds me of a story when I was like 10 years old, I was so afraid of confrontation for reasons which I already shared.
And my, um, friend quote friend up the road, I was sitting at the table reading a magazine and he kept like pushing me and
slapping me and saying, let's go wrestle.
Cause as young boys, we were wrestling and I was done and I didn't want to do it anymore. And he just kept slapping me. Let's go wrestle. Let's go wrestle somewhere.
(39:17):
I said, no, I don't want to. No, I don't want to. No.
And he just kept on and on and on.
And I turned into a different person.
I have no idea where this came from, but I got up and I walloped him in the mouth. I not slapped him.
I punched him in the mouth as a 10 year old boy.
I punched this other 10 year old boy in the mouth. He falls to the ground. He's holding his mouth.
(39:42):
And I sat back down calmly and I looked at my magazine again and I just thought, Oh, that's interesting.
I don't even know what I thought, but, um, that was it. It was done.
He stopped bothering me and he, I think it was at my house. He left my house.
I don't remember anything after that, except that he came over the next day and offered to, um, his mom offered to take us to Chinese food.
(40:07):
So apparently he forgave me, I guess.
So, uh, that was a very enlightening moment for me.
And that's only happened maybe two other times in my life where I got to the point where I was pushed so far that I was unwilling
to accept any more of this behavior and something changed inside of me and I pushed back.
(40:35):
I'm not saying you should get physical with anyone.
I'm just saying there's a point where you will be so done.
You will reach your threshold and you will get to the point where you will say, no more.
I am not going to take this anymore.
And it'll happen so fast that you won't even have to think about it.
(40:55):
You won't even have to prepare for it. You'll know what to do.
I'm just telling you that's in there.
If, and when you need it, it's in there.
So stay strong and know that if it ever comes to that, you will know exactly what to do.
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.
(41:20):
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 love and abuse.com for more information.
And if you've discovered that you are doing the hurtful behaviors to someone that you care about, and 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.
(41:45):
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 where all the titles to the episodes are changed, click on the 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.
(42:10):
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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