May 27, 2025 • 32 mins
What does it take for an abusive person to change? A whole lot (if they even want to change), but this one component of healing is often one of the hardest for them to stop. Their consistent focus on you can make their healing and change much more difficult, let alone having no time and space to heal yourself.
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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.
(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.
I'm going to get right into a message that I received from somebody that talks about their partner, their husband, joining the Healed Being Program.
(00:31):
That's the program I run for hurtful and emotionally abusive people that want to heal and change over at HealedBeing.com.
In case you're listening, and you think you might need that, or you know somebody that might need that, that is the website for it.
One thing I wanted to mention about that program is that people will join in order to save their relationship.
(00:56):
That is like their sole reason sometimes.
And the problem with that, the problem with somebody joining a program or getting help, getting therapy, whatever it is, to
stop doing emotionally abusive behavior, the problem when their intention is to save the relationship is that it is what they
(01:17):
tend to focus on during the process where they're supposed to be healing and changing.
And if someone's focus is on saving the relationship, what typically ends up happening is they don't go through the changes
they need to do inside themselves in order to show up as the best person they can, the best possible partner they can.
(01:45):
And when they are focused on something else, like their intention is to save the relationship instead of healing themselves,
or their number one priority is to save the relationship, what typically comes with that is a lot of fear and desperation.
And the problem when you have somebody who's been emotionally abusive who carries a lot of fear and desperation is that they
(02:11):
will do things for the wrong reasons.
And if someone changes their behaviors and starts showing up differently in the relationship simply to save the relationship,
and let's just say that the person that they're trying to keep in their life, let's just say that they give them another chance,
(02:32):
or they now see these changes, but something doesn't feel right, something isn't still, something's still off, and the other person can feel it. They can tell something's off.
The behaviors have changed, or most of them, but something still doesn't feel right.
(02:53):
And when it doesn't feel right, that tells me that they're not actually doing the healing that they're supposed to be doing.
They're not actually addressing their own emotional triggers, their coping mechanisms, and what they do in general that is
hurtful and harmful to other people, to the relationship, and even to themselves. They're not addressing that.
(03:18):
Their focus is on how do I save this relationship?
How do I make sure that other person doesn't leave me?
And when they are focused on that, there's fear.
And that fear is coupled with desperation.
And desperation makes somebody show up in ways that is very in alignment with a pragmatic result, like, for example, saving the relationship.
(03:47):
They're trying to use the formula of healing and change of emotionally abusive behavior.
They're trying to use what it takes to change for the sole purpose of saving the relationship.
And when people do that, when they are in this program, or like I said, in therapy or whatever, and their sole purpose is
(04:08):
to make sure the other person doesn't leave, does that sound like control? Does that sound like manipulation? It does to me. And it's sometimes not even intentional.
There are members of my program that I have conversed with who have said, I just want to save my relationship.
(04:30):
Now, as they do the lessons, as they participate in the conversations in the online group, they realize, oh, focusing on that
is taking the focus away from where it should be, which is on themselves.
And what do they need to change in themselves so that they aren't solely focused on saving the relationship?
(04:53):
They are solely focused on healing what's going on inside of them so that they don't show up as the person that somebody else wants to distance themselves from.
That is how they save a relationship if the relationship is to be saved. That is what needs to happen.
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Somebody who wants to heal and change needs to have that focus on themselves, reflecting on what they've been doing probably
most of their lives, at least in every teenager or adult relationship that they've been and reflect on how they've been showing up.
(05:34):
That causes people to distance themselves, emotionally disconnecting, physically disconnecting, so that when they are in the
current or next relationship, the same things don't happen again because they will happen again if the person's focus is to save the relationship.
(05:55):
Now, what I tell the members of that program is, it's okay to have saving the relationship and keeping the person in your life as your motivation. Absolutely okay.
You can use that to motivate you all day long.
But if you make it your primary purpose of taking the program, then what will happen is if the relationship is, quote, saved
(06:21):
or that person doesn't leave and wants to give the relationship a chance because they see these improvements, what will happen,
I guarantee, what will happen is that the behaviors that haven't been healed will reveal themselves again.
They will rise up and out of the person who hasn't healed them.
(06:43):
And I emphasize this in the program. I emphasize it many times. Lesson six is on focus.
It's focusing on your own healing and growth for the emotionally abusive person who wants to change.
And the reason I'm telling you this is because I received this message, and I want to read you this message, and then you'll
(07:07):
probably understand where I'm going to go with it.
But it is important that I preface what I'm going to read with what I just said, because if somebody wants to heal from being
the emotionally abusive person, they want to change, then it needs to be a pursuit of their own healing and change.
(07:28):
It needs to be something that is personal to them.
Meaning the person who really wants to heal and change not only knows they're being harmful, but believes that it is wrong
to be that way, and believes that if they don't heal that in themselves, that their lives will not improve and their relationships will fail.
(07:55):
It may not end up in divorce or separation.
Sometimes it does, often it does, but sometimes it just turns into a stale or dead relationship or a very stressful one. One that nobody's ever happy.
And that's what happens when the emotionally abusive person doesn't realize they actually do need to change and do need to heal.
(08:20):
The process is looking at what triggers you and looking at how you cope with things.
Because how an emotionally abusive person copes is by hurting other people. It's like their alcohol.
And mix alcohol with emotional abuse, that's twice as bad.
And it's kind of related to the message I'm going to read in a minute.
(08:42):
But if they don't know how to cope, they don't know how to deal with the challenges in their life, then what they're going
to do is take their inability to cope out on you.
And of course we don't want that.
But I, again, I wanted to preface what I'm going to read with all of this because it's all related and I'll, I'll talk about
(09:03):
it a little bit more after I read this, but I'm just going to go ahead and get this out.
It's, um, this person wrote, hi, I left my abusive husband back a few months ago and he was severely verbally and emotionally abusive.
I got a mean workbook score of 134 and she's talking about the relationship assessment and the mean workbook.
I talk about it at the end of every episode.
(09:24):
The closer it is to 200, the more control and manipulation and emotionally abusive behavior you're experiencing. And 134 is really up there. It's high.
She said a lot of the abuse happened when he was drunk.
And after I left, he tried talking to me and how we should get back together.
And he said he was healing and working on himself and he was also feeling very hopeless.
(09:45):
And he wants us to get together and talk and that's fine, but it doesn't really accomplish much.
Um, it's mostly him talking about how bad he feels.
And, um, I feel like I'm somehow now responsible to help him work through his painful emotions.
He also wants me to work with him on his healing and the stuff he's learning.
(10:07):
And I've always been a good supporter and listener for him during the entirety of our marriage.
But I've come to the strange realization that even though I was the one who was abused, I'm stepping in to emotionally support
the abuser as if he was the one who's hurt most by our situation.
I'm feeling responsible somehow, like I need to take care of him.
(10:27):
Do you think I should step back and let him do it on his own? Thank you for sharing that.
I'm so sorry you're going through that.
It does sound like there has been progress, but also a barrier to some progress.
And, uh, first of all, I also want share that I changed some of the details.
So if this sounds familiar to you, it probably may be familiar to you if you, uh, are listening and think, Hey, that's my marriage.
(10:53):
That could be a number of people that relate to that.
And, uh, I anonymized this on purpose and it will fit a lot of situations because just real quick, when I read messages on the air, I keep them private.
I keep them confidential and there will be many, many hundreds or thousands of people with very similar circumstances.
(11:14):
So if someone that, you know, listens to the show and they think, why are you talking about me?
I'm talking about so many other people and I do change a lot of the details so that that doesn't happen.
So anyway, now you know why I had the preamble about a person who wants to heal and change needs to focus on themselves because
(11:37):
if the victim of emotional abuse feels like they need to be involved in the other person healing, what ends up happening is several things actually.
One is that the victim doesn't have their own space and their own time to heal what they need to heal in themselves because
(11:59):
the victim of emotional abuse has gone through a lot and they've lost themselves along the way. So they need to reconnect. They need to align themselves again.
If you've gone through a lot of hell in your relationship and now that hell has stopped and you feel like you're being left
(12:21):
alone, that's going to be liberating for one and shocking for two and all kinds of things.
You're going to be confused because you're going to wonder why aren't you the subject of their attention, of their focus?
Why aren't you in their line of sight anymore?
It's going to feel like a mixture of good and weird and confused, but good because now you no longer feel like you're the
(12:48):
center of attention because being the center of attention for so long because you're afraid to say the wrong thing or do the
wrong thing or tell them something that you want to tell them or share anything because when you do, trouble happens.
And so you end up in a strange place when they stop focusing on you, watching your every move, listening to your every word,
(13:17):
wanting to pick apart what you say.
It puts you in a very strange place of being left alone in a good way. You're left alone with your thoughts.
You're left alone with your own feelings.
You can feel without somebody else telling you how to feel.
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You can think without somebody else telling you how to think.
And when you are in that space after having been emotionally abused for so long, it is a very strange feeling.
And as you start finding yourself again, because you lost yourself for so long, or at least a good part of yourself, when
(14:01):
you start reconnecting with that part of you that's still in there, you end up rediscovering who you are.
And when you find who you are again, you really want that back because it feels so good to be yourself.
And that's what I tell people in the Healed Being Program.
That's what I tell you on this show.
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The person who has been emotionally abusive and constantly focused on you the whole time, watching what you say, picking apart
your emotions, telling you how to feel or guilting you making you feel sad or angry, whatever they've done, it's been all about you. Their focus has been on you.
(14:45):
They want you to do the things that they want you to do.
And when you've been that focus, when you've been that center of attention for so long, when they start actually working on
themselves, they take that attention off of you.
I mean, how does that feel when I just talk about it now?
(15:06):
They're taking their attention off of you for maybe the first time in a long time and letting you be.
They're letting you be who you are.
They're letting you do what you want to do and say what you want to say.
They're letting you reconnect with yourself and they're learning to accept you exactly as you are. And that feels good.
(15:30):
It feels good to be accepted exactly as you are.
But the victim of abusive behavior now has a lot of stuff to deal with.
They have a lot of things going on in their head.
They need to get back on track.
They need to figure out who they are again.
There's a lot of PTSD in there because they are so used to acting in a certain way and saying things in a certain way that
(15:56):
they need to figure out who they are and figure out what to do going forward.
There's a lot to process after you've been in an abusive relationship for so long and the abuse stops. There's a lot to process.
And because you're going to need time and you're going to need space, you're going to need to be alone.
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Even if you still live in the same house, you still need your own time and your own space and not their watchful eye or their listening ears.
You need your own space now because that's what it takes to accept somebody exactly as they are, even if that person wants to leave.
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That's another thing that emotionally abusive people who want to heal and change have to learn to accept is that sometimes
the person they're with, when they finally get time and space to themselves, what they really think and feel underneath all
the survival mode that they've been in, underneath all of that, their true thoughts and feelings will finally rise up and out of them.
(17:14):
And sometimes, yes, sometimes it includes the desire to leave, the desire to get out of the relationship.
That's so scary for someone who starts their journey of healing when they've been the emotionally abusive, the hurtful one, the difficult one.
It's so scary because that person has been in a state of fear and desperation for a long time.
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And sometimes it's afraid to be abandoned and afraid to be rejected.
And when they have those feelings, those thoughts driving their behaviors, then the idea that you could leave may make them want to control again.
And if they can keep their control, then that means you'll stay.
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But if you stay in that kind of environment, what ends up happening is more of the same.
And more of the same always equals more distance, emotional and physical, because nobody wants to be controlled.
I say that knowing there probably are caveats, but in general, nobody wants to be controlled.
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Nobody wants to be under someone else's control.
You want to be able to move your limbs freely on your own accord.
Everyone wants to be able to control their own body, control their own mind, control their own thoughts.
Everybody wants to have their own feelings without being told what their feelings should be.
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And when you actually start experiencing that, thinking and feeling for yourself in your own mind, without somebody else trying
to make you think or feel what they want you to feel, that is your first step into truly healing.
I'm not saying that all victims of abusive behavior can heal very quickly.
(19:11):
In fact, in my experience, it usually takes the victim of abusive behavior a lot longer to heal than the abuser themselves.
And it kind of makes sense when I say that.
A lot of people might think that's pretty obvious because the abuser isn't the one hurt.
The person hurt is the one who was abused. That makes sense to me too.
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But sometimes I hear, how come the person I've been hurting, and this isn't their words, this is what I'm using to describe
what they say, the person I've been hurting for so long is still angry.
And it's been a month and they're still angry at me.
And of course the answer is, of course.
Of course the answer is, yeah, because now they have these wounds and now they're trying to reconnect with themselves and they don't even know what's real.
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They don't even know what they think and what they want.
And they have to figure all of that out. And that is difficult.
And it's a process and it takes time.
In my estimation, it takes a minimum of two to four months just for the fog to start lifting.
And then a minimum of about six months just to start realizing that your thoughts are your own and you're starting to reconnect with yourself in certain ways.
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And it can take up to a year or more.
But the typical timeline is between two and 12 months to get to that point where they feel like if you're a person who has
been abused in any way or hurt in any way by somebody else, if you are now in the healing phase, it can take a year, it can
(20:51):
take longer, but it usually takes about a year, not necessarily to heal, but it usually takes about a year or less for that
person to even consider trusting the other person, the person that hurt them.
That's if there's still love in their heart.
So if you've been in an abusive relationship and you still have love for that person and you would like the relationship to
(21:19):
heal and you would like to reconcile and start again, start fresh, start without all the hurtful behaviors and with a healed
person or healed being as I call it, then the time it takes for you to rebuild trust and rebuild faith that things are going
in a good direction and that they actually are changing and rebuild faith in your own decision-making process because a lot
(21:47):
of victims of abusive behavior have learned that they can't trust themselves or they believe they can't trust themselves because
why would they be able to trust themselves if they made decisions that brought them to this point?
And so a lot of people lose faith in their own decision-making process and that's because the more you're exposed to a toxic
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influence like an emotionally abusive person or any abusive person, because there's all kinds of abusive behaviors, the more
you're exposed to that, the less you get to think clearly, which is why I call it the fog.
Because if you're in the fog, it's very hard to think clearly.
It's very hard to make decisions because now you fear that you're going to make the wrong decisions because every time you
(22:33):
make a decision, you're punished for it in some way or it ends up where you are blamed for something or made to feel guilty
about a decision that you made or any number of things that can happen when you do behaviors that aren't acceptable, when
you say things that aren't acceptable to another person.
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So you get put in a position where it's almost as if no matter what you do, it's wrong.
So imagine, you don't have to imagine, you probably went through this yourself if you're listening to this show, you know
what it feels like when everything you do is wrong.
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You know what it feels like even when you try hard to make things right and try to please somebody that you discover can't
be pleased, but you keep trying, you'll get to the point where you'll either lose faith in yourself that you're unable to
show up as what they need or lose faith in yourself that you aren't good enough or you're not worthy of love and somebody's affection.
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You're not worthy of another person's time because you can't do anything right. That's the belief that can develop.
That's not true, but that's the belief that develops because of this conditioning.
You are being groomed to believe that you aren't good enough and aren't lovable and aren't worthy and aren't relationship material.
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You're being groomed and it's hard not to believe those things because you have come to love and trust a person who now has
turned the tables and makes you wrong about everything and makes you feel bad about everything so you feel like you're not
showing up right, but the truth is when somebody makes you feel bad and they aren't supporting what makes you happy and they
(24:28):
don't seem to care if you're not happy, that has nothing to do with the way you're showing up.
It has everything to do with the way they handle life and relationships and that's not your fault. And so don't blame yourself.
I mean it's easy for me to say don't yourself, but that's what a lot of victims of abusive behavior will do.
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They will blame themselves and I'm here to say that you don't have to.
You don't have to do that because the other person should want you to be happy.
That person in your life should want you to feel good.
That person should want you to feel loved and when you don't feel those things from another person who is supposed to be there
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for you, that's nothing that you did wrong. You didn't do anything wrong.
It's just the way they show up and control their life and controlled people in their lives so that they don't have to deal with anything they find difficult.
Like I was saying earlier, coping mechanisms.
They don't have proper coping mechanisms and they are acting from fear and so everything becomes something they need to control
(25:40):
so that they don't have to deal with it.
Just like this person who wrote, her husband used to drink and that was his coping mechanism and now that he doesn't drink,
he probably has other behaviors because he hasn't learned how to cope with the difficulties in his life.
And just to answer this person who wrote, she asked, do you think I should step back and let him do it on his own? Now you know the answer.
(26:06):
You know the answer and he may not like it.
He may hate it because it's going to bring up his fear.
And his insecurities and he's not going to be happy and he's going to be so afraid and he's going to be so focused on losing
the relationship that he may not address what really needs addressing because the relationship doesn't need addressing.
(26:29):
Let me just end it with this.
The relationship isn't what needs to be focused on because it isn't the problem. The relationship isn't the problem.
The person doing the harmful behavior is.
And when the hurtful person, the perpetrator of abusive behavior, when they realize that they have a problem and that they
(26:53):
are a problem, and I'm not putting them down for it. I've been on both sides.
I've been on both sides of this equation. I know a lot about it.
I've been on both sides and I've done the healing process.
So I know for a fact when the person who perpetrates the abusive behavior realizes that they have a problem and are a problem.
(27:15):
When that rings so true that they can say, it makes sense that you want to be away from me because I have been harmful and
I need to heal that in myself.
When they get to that point where they can say that to the person they've been hurting, then they really understand where
the problem is and who they need to focus on to start healing.
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It's rare that somebody will say, hey, you stay away from me because I'm harmful.
But that is a very healed perspective, or at least the beginning of healing.
So if somebody is emotionally abusive or has been and is listening to this right now, that is where your focus needs to be on yourself. It needs to be on you.
(28:01):
Because if you look at the other person and say, don't leave me, please don't leave me and you're begging and you're saying,
just stay with me, just stay with me.
Realize that that also needs healing in you.
That is why you focus on yourself.
That also needs to heal inside of you. What is it I'm talking about?
I'm talking about if you want somebody to stay in your life so bad that you're so desperate for them to stay in your life
(28:26):
that you're begging them to stay, that needs to be addressed as well.
Because what you're doing is the same thing you've been doing all along.
You're wanting them to do what you want them to do, regardless of how they feel. That is not honoring somebody's path. That is not honoring somebody's boundaries.
That is saying, this is what I want you to do.
(28:47):
Please do it without asking the question and honoring the answer to, what do you want? What do you want to do?
That is an important question for somebody that you've been hurting for a long time.
Because if they say, well, I don't want to be with you until you heal, what is the response to that?
(29:07):
The response is to honor their path, honor the path they want to take because that's what they want.
And when you can honor somebody pursuing what they want while also working on yourself, you are accepting them as an individual
with their own thoughts and ideas and plans of the future, then you should trust that if they do want to be with you and they
(29:31):
do care about you and they still have love in their heart for you, they will want to work on the relationship, but they also need their own time to heal.
And just like the abusive person needs their time to heal, the victim of that behavior needs their own time to heal.
And when you are healing as separate beings, separate individuals, you can bring the best healed version back into the relationship if the relationship is to be.
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And the relationship will only be if the victim still has love in their heart after the perpetrator of the hurtful behavior
is healing or starting to heal and both people want to work on it.
But the emotionally abusive person has to realize that the victim needs to go through their healing in their time, in their
own space, and allowing them that, giving them that freedom to be themselves and make their own decisions without your involvement
(30:27):
is a very loving thing to do. Thanks for joining me today.
I hope this has been helpful to you, to the person who wrote.
I'm grateful that you shared that and I wish you the best. Stay strong.
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.
(30:47):
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.
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.
(31:13):
It has changed thousands of lives and relationships and can change yours too.
Visit healedbeing.com to start with some free lessons right away.
And if you're looking for a safer way to listen to this show, where all the titles to the episodes are changed, click on the
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.
(31:37):
You are worthy of respect, kindness, and love, and you deserve to be accepted exactly as you are. Again, stay strong. 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.
I'm going to get right into a message that I received from somebody that talks about their partner, their husband, joining the Healed Being Program.
(00:31):
That's the program I run for hurtful and emotionally abusive people that want to heal and change over at HealedBeing.com.
In case you're listening, and you think you might need that, or you know somebody that might need that, that is the website for it.
One thing I wanted to mention about that program is that people will join in order to save their relationship.
(00:56):
That is like their sole reason sometimes.
And the problem with that, the problem with somebody joining a program or getting help, getting therapy, whatever it is, to
stop doing emotionally abusive behavior, the problem when their intention is to save the relationship is that it is what they
(01:17):
tend to focus on during the process where they're supposed to be healing and changing.
And if someone's focus is on saving the relationship, what typically ends up happening is they don't go through the changes
they need to do inside themselves in order to show up as the best person they can, the best possible partner they can.
(01:45):
And when they are focused on something else, like their intention is to save the relationship instead of healing themselves,
or their number one priority is to save the relationship, what typically comes with that is a lot of fear and desperation.
And the problem when you have somebody who's been emotionally abusive who carries a lot of fear and desperation is that they
(02:11):
will do things for the wrong reasons.
And if someone changes their behaviors and starts showing up differently in the relationship simply to save the relationship,
and let's just say that the person that they're trying to keep in their life, let's just say that they give them another chance,
(02:32):
or they now see these changes, but something doesn't feel right, something isn't still, something's still off, and the other person can feel it. They can tell something's off.
The behaviors have changed, or most of them, but something still doesn't feel right.
(02:53):
And when it doesn't feel right, that tells me that they're not actually doing the healing that they're supposed to be doing.
They're not actually addressing their own emotional triggers, their coping mechanisms, and what they do in general that is
hurtful and harmful to other people, to the relationship, and even to themselves. They're not addressing that.
(03:18):
Their focus is on how do I save this relationship?
How do I make sure that other person doesn't leave me?
And when they are focused on that, there's fear.
And that fear is coupled with desperation.
And desperation makes somebody show up in ways that is very in alignment with a pragmatic result, like, for example, saving the relationship.
(03:47):
They're trying to use the formula of healing and change of emotionally abusive behavior.
They're trying to use what it takes to change for the sole purpose of saving the relationship.
And when people do that, when they are in this program, or like I said, in therapy or whatever, and their sole purpose is
(04:08):
to make sure the other person doesn't leave, does that sound like control? Does that sound like manipulation? It does to me. And it's sometimes not even intentional.
There are members of my program that I have conversed with who have said, I just want to save my relationship.
(04:30):
Now, as they do the lessons, as they participate in the conversations in the online group, they realize, oh, focusing on that
is taking the focus away from where it should be, which is on themselves.
And what do they need to change in themselves so that they aren't solely focused on saving the relationship?
(04:53):
They are solely focused on healing what's going on inside of them so that they don't show up as the person that somebody else wants to distance themselves from.
That is how they save a relationship if the relationship is to be saved. That is what needs to happen.
(05:14):
Somebody who wants to heal and change needs to have that focus on themselves, reflecting on what they've been doing probably
most of their lives, at least in every teenager or adult relationship that they've been and reflect on how they've been showing up.
(05:34):
That causes people to distance themselves, emotionally disconnecting, physically disconnecting, so that when they are in the
current or next relationship, the same things don't happen again because they will happen again if the person's focus is to save the relationship.
(05:55):
Now, what I tell the members of that program is, it's okay to have saving the relationship and keeping the person in your life as your motivation. Absolutely okay.
You can use that to motivate you all day long.
But if you make it your primary purpose of taking the program, then what will happen is if the relationship is, quote, saved
(06:21):
or that person doesn't leave and wants to give the relationship a chance because they see these improvements, what will happen,
I guarantee, what will happen is that the behaviors that haven't been healed will reveal themselves again.
They will rise up and out of the person who hasn't healed them.
(06:43):
And I emphasize this in the program. I emphasize it many times. Lesson six is on focus.
It's focusing on your own healing and growth for the emotionally abusive person who wants to change.
And the reason I'm telling you this is because I received this message, and I want to read you this message, and then you'll
(07:07):
probably understand where I'm going to go with it.
But it is important that I preface what I'm going to read with what I just said, because if somebody wants to heal from being
the emotionally abusive person, they want to change, then it needs to be a pursuit of their own healing and change.
(07:28):
It needs to be something that is personal to them.
Meaning the person who really wants to heal and change not only knows they're being harmful, but believes that it is wrong
to be that way, and believes that if they don't heal that in themselves, that their lives will not improve and their relationships will fail.
(07:55):
It may not end up in divorce or separation.
Sometimes it does, often it does, but sometimes it just turns into a stale or dead relationship or a very stressful one. One that nobody's ever happy.
And that's what happens when the emotionally abusive person doesn't realize they actually do need to change and do need to heal.
(08:20):
The process is looking at what triggers you and looking at how you cope with things.
Because how an emotionally abusive person copes is by hurting other people. It's like their alcohol.
And mix alcohol with emotional abuse, that's twice as bad.
And it's kind of related to the message I'm going to read in a minute.
(08:42):
But if they don't know how to cope, they don't know how to deal with the challenges in their life, then what they're going
to do is take their inability to cope out on you.
And of course we don't want that.
But I, again, I wanted to preface what I'm going to read with all of this because it's all related and I'll, I'll talk about
(09:03):
it a little bit more after I read this, but I'm just going to go ahead and get this out.
It's, um, this person wrote, hi, I left my abusive husband back a few months ago and he was severely verbally and emotionally abusive.
I got a mean workbook score of 134 and she's talking about the relationship assessment and the mean workbook.
I talk about it at the end of every episode.
(09:24):
The closer it is to 200, the more control and manipulation and emotionally abusive behavior you're experiencing. And 134 is really up there. It's high.
She said a lot of the abuse happened when he was drunk.
And after I left, he tried talking to me and how we should get back together.
And he said he was healing and working on himself and he was also feeling very hopeless.
(09:45):
And he wants us to get together and talk and that's fine, but it doesn't really accomplish much.
Um, it's mostly him talking about how bad he feels.
And, um, I feel like I'm somehow now responsible to help him work through his painful emotions.
He also wants me to work with him on his healing and the stuff he's learning.
(10:07):
And I've always been a good supporter and listener for him during the entirety of our marriage.
But I've come to the strange realization that even though I was the one who was abused, I'm stepping in to emotionally support
the abuser as if he was the one who's hurt most by our situation.
I'm feeling responsible somehow, like I need to take care of him.
(10:27):
Do you think I should step back and let him do it on his own? Thank you for sharing that.
I'm so sorry you're going through that.
It does sound like there has been progress, but also a barrier to some progress.
And, uh, first of all, I also want share that I changed some of the details.
So if this sounds familiar to you, it probably may be familiar to you if you, uh, are listening and think, Hey, that's my marriage.
(10:53):
That could be a number of people that relate to that.
And, uh, I anonymized this on purpose and it will fit a lot of situations because just real quick, when I read messages on the air, I keep them private.
I keep them confidential and there will be many, many hundreds or thousands of people with very similar circumstances.
(11:14):
So if someone that, you know, listens to the show and they think, why are you talking about me?
I'm talking about so many other people and I do change a lot of the details so that that doesn't happen.
So anyway, now you know why I had the preamble about a person who wants to heal and change needs to focus on themselves because
(11:37):
if the victim of emotional abuse feels like they need to be involved in the other person healing, what ends up happening is several things actually.
One is that the victim doesn't have their own space and their own time to heal what they need to heal in themselves because
(11:59):
the victim of emotional abuse has gone through a lot and they've lost themselves along the way. So they need to reconnect. They need to align themselves again.
If you've gone through a lot of hell in your relationship and now that hell has stopped and you feel like you're being left
(12:21):
alone, that's going to be liberating for one and shocking for two and all kinds of things.
You're going to be confused because you're going to wonder why aren't you the subject of their attention, of their focus?
Why aren't you in their line of sight anymore?
It's going to feel like a mixture of good and weird and confused, but good because now you no longer feel like you're the
(12:48):
center of attention because being the center of attention for so long because you're afraid to say the wrong thing or do the
wrong thing or tell them something that you want to tell them or share anything because when you do, trouble happens.
And so you end up in a strange place when they stop focusing on you, watching your every move, listening to your every word,
(13:17):
wanting to pick apart what you say.
It puts you in a very strange place of being left alone in a good way. You're left alone with your thoughts.
You're left alone with your own feelings.
You can feel without somebody else telling you how to feel.
(13:38):
You can think without somebody else telling you how to think.
And when you are in that space after having been emotionally abused for so long, it is a very strange feeling.
And as you start finding yourself again, because you lost yourself for so long, or at least a good part of yourself, when
(14:01):
you start reconnecting with that part of you that's still in there, you end up rediscovering who you are.
And when you find who you are again, you really want that back because it feels so good to be yourself.
And that's what I tell people in the Healed Being Program.
That's what I tell you on this show.
(14:24):
The person who has been emotionally abusive and constantly focused on you the whole time, watching what you say, picking apart
your emotions, telling you how to feel or guilting you making you feel sad or angry, whatever they've done, it's been all about you. Their focus has been on you.
(14:45):
They want you to do the things that they want you to do.
And when you've been that focus, when you've been that center of attention for so long, when they start actually working on
themselves, they take that attention off of you.
I mean, how does that feel when I just talk about it now?
(15:06):
They're taking their attention off of you for maybe the first time in a long time and letting you be.
They're letting you be who you are.
They're letting you do what you want to do and say what you want to say.
They're letting you reconnect with yourself and they're learning to accept you exactly as you are. And that feels good.
(15:30):
It feels good to be accepted exactly as you are.
But the victim of abusive behavior now has a lot of stuff to deal with.
They have a lot of things going on in their head.
They need to get back on track.
They need to figure out who they are again.
There's a lot of PTSD in there because they are so used to acting in a certain way and saying things in a certain way that
(15:56):
they need to figure out who they are and figure out what to do going forward.
There's a lot to process after you've been in an abusive relationship for so long and the abuse stops. There's a lot to process.
And because you're going to need time and you're going to need space, you're going to need to be alone.
(16:24):
Even if you still live in the same house, you still need your own time and your own space and not their watchful eye or their listening ears.
You need your own space now because that's what it takes to accept somebody exactly as they are, even if that person wants to leave.
(16:46):
That's another thing that emotionally abusive people who want to heal and change have to learn to accept is that sometimes
the person they're with, when they finally get time and space to themselves, what they really think and feel underneath all
the survival mode that they've been in, underneath all of that, their true thoughts and feelings will finally rise up and out of them.
(17:14):
And sometimes, yes, sometimes it includes the desire to leave, the desire to get out of the relationship.
That's so scary for someone who starts their journey of healing when they've been the emotionally abusive, the hurtful one, the difficult one.
It's so scary because that person has been in a state of fear and desperation for a long time.
(17:42):
And sometimes it's afraid to be abandoned and afraid to be rejected.
And when they have those feelings, those thoughts driving their behaviors, then the idea that you could leave may make them want to control again.
And if they can keep their control, then that means you'll stay.
(18:02):
But if you stay in that kind of environment, what ends up happening is more of the same.
And more of the same always equals more distance, emotional and physical, because nobody wants to be controlled.
I say that knowing there probably are caveats, but in general, nobody wants to be controlled.
(18:23):
Nobody wants to be under someone else's control.
You want to be able to move your limbs freely on your own accord.
Everyone wants to be able to control their own body, control their own mind, control their own thoughts.
Everybody wants to have their own feelings without being told what their feelings should be.
(18:47):
And when you actually start experiencing that, thinking and feeling for yourself in your own mind, without somebody else trying
to make you think or feel what they want you to feel, that is your first step into truly healing.
I'm not saying that all victims of abusive behavior can heal very quickly.
(19:11):
In fact, in my experience, it usually takes the victim of abusive behavior a lot longer to heal than the abuser themselves.
And it kind of makes sense when I say that.
A lot of people might think that's pretty obvious because the abuser isn't the one hurt.
The person hurt is the one who was abused. That makes sense to me too.
(19:34):
But sometimes I hear, how come the person I've been hurting, and this isn't their words, this is what I'm using to describe
what they say, the person I've been hurting for so long is still angry.
And it's been a month and they're still angry at me.
And of course the answer is, of course.
Of course the answer is, yeah, because now they have these wounds and now they're trying to reconnect with themselves and they don't even know what's real.
(20:02):
They don't even know what they think and what they want.
And they have to figure all of that out. And that is difficult.
And it's a process and it takes time.
In my estimation, it takes a minimum of two to four months just for the fog to start lifting.
And then a minimum of about six months just to start realizing that your thoughts are your own and you're starting to reconnect with yourself in certain ways.
(20:30):
And it can take up to a year or more.
But the typical timeline is between two and 12 months to get to that point where they feel like if you're a person who has
been abused in any way or hurt in any way by somebody else, if you are now in the healing phase, it can take a year, it can
(20:51):
take longer, but it usually takes about a year, not necessarily to heal, but it usually takes about a year or less for that
person to even consider trusting the other person, the person that hurt them.
That's if there's still love in their heart.
So if you've been in an abusive relationship and you still have love for that person and you would like the relationship to
(21:19):
heal and you would like to reconcile and start again, start fresh, start without all the hurtful behaviors and with a healed
person or healed being as I call it, then the time it takes for you to rebuild trust and rebuild faith that things are going
in a good direction and that they actually are changing and rebuild faith in your own decision-making process because a lot
(21:47):
of victims of abusive behavior have learned that they can't trust themselves or they believe they can't trust themselves because
why would they be able to trust themselves if they made decisions that brought them to this point?
And so a lot of people lose faith in their own decision-making process and that's because the more you're exposed to a toxic
(22:09):
influence like an emotionally abusive person or any abusive person, because there's all kinds of abusive behaviors, the more
you're exposed to that, the less you get to think clearly, which is why I call it the fog.
Because if you're in the fog, it's very hard to think clearly.
It's very hard to make decisions because now you fear that you're going to make the wrong decisions because every time you
(22:33):
make a decision, you're punished for it in some way or it ends up where you are blamed for something or made to feel guilty
about a decision that you made or any number of things that can happen when you do behaviors that aren't acceptable, when
you say things that aren't acceptable to another person.
(22:54):
So you get put in a position where it's almost as if no matter what you do, it's wrong.
So imagine, you don't have to imagine, you probably went through this yourself if you're listening to this show, you know
what it feels like when everything you do is wrong.
(23:14):
You know what it feels like even when you try hard to make things right and try to please somebody that you discover can't
be pleased, but you keep trying, you'll get to the point where you'll either lose faith in yourself that you're unable to
show up as what they need or lose faith in yourself that you aren't good enough or you're not worthy of love and somebody's affection.
(23:39):
You're not worthy of another person's time because you can't do anything right. That's the belief that can develop.
That's not true, but that's the belief that develops because of this conditioning.
You are being groomed to believe that you aren't good enough and aren't lovable and aren't worthy and aren't relationship material.
(24:05):
You're being groomed and it's hard not to believe those things because you have come to love and trust a person who now has
turned the tables and makes you wrong about everything and makes you feel bad about everything so you feel like you're not
showing up right, but the truth is when somebody makes you feel bad and they aren't supporting what makes you happy and they
(24:28):
don't seem to care if you're not happy, that has nothing to do with the way you're showing up.
It has everything to do with the way they handle life and relationships and that's not your fault. And so don't blame yourself.
I mean it's easy for me to say don't yourself, but that's what a lot of victims of abusive behavior will do.
(24:50):
They will blame themselves and I'm here to say that you don't have to.
You don't have to do that because the other person should want you to be happy.
That person in your life should want you to feel good.
That person should want you to feel loved and when you don't feel those things from another person who is supposed to be there
(25:12):
for you, that's nothing that you did wrong. You didn't do anything wrong.
It's just the way they show up and control their life and controlled people in their lives so that they don't have to deal with anything they find difficult.
Like I was saying earlier, coping mechanisms.
They don't have proper coping mechanisms and they are acting from fear and so everything becomes something they need to control
(25:40):
so that they don't have to deal with it.
Just like this person who wrote, her husband used to drink and that was his coping mechanism and now that he doesn't drink,
he probably has other behaviors because he hasn't learned how to cope with the difficulties in his life.
And just to answer this person who wrote, she asked, do you think I should step back and let him do it on his own? Now you know the answer.
(26:06):
You know the answer and he may not like it.
He may hate it because it's going to bring up his fear.
And his insecurities and he's not going to be happy and he's going to be so afraid and he's going to be so focused on losing
the relationship that he may not address what really needs addressing because the relationship doesn't need addressing.
(26:29):
Let me just end it with this.
The relationship isn't what needs to be focused on because it isn't the problem. The relationship isn't the problem.
The person doing the harmful behavior is.
And when the hurtful person, the perpetrator of abusive behavior, when they realize that they have a problem and that they
(26:53):
are a problem, and I'm not putting them down for it. I've been on both sides.
I've been on both sides of this equation. I know a lot about it.
I've been on both sides and I've done the healing process.
So I know for a fact when the person who perpetrates the abusive behavior realizes that they have a problem and are a problem.
(27:15):
When that rings so true that they can say, it makes sense that you want to be away from me because I have been harmful and
I need to heal that in myself.
When they get to that point where they can say that to the person they've been hurting, then they really understand where
the problem is and who they need to focus on to start healing.
(27:39):
It's rare that somebody will say, hey, you stay away from me because I'm harmful.
But that is a very healed perspective, or at least the beginning of healing.
So if somebody is emotionally abusive or has been and is listening to this right now, that is where your focus needs to be on yourself. It needs to be on you.
(28:01):
Because if you look at the other person and say, don't leave me, please don't leave me and you're begging and you're saying,
just stay with me, just stay with me.
Realize that that also needs healing in you.
That is why you focus on yourself.
That also needs to heal inside of you. What is it I'm talking about?
I'm talking about if you want somebody to stay in your life so bad that you're so desperate for them to stay in your life
(28:26):
that you're begging them to stay, that needs to be addressed as well.
Because what you're doing is the same thing you've been doing all along.
You're wanting them to do what you want them to do, regardless of how they feel. That is not honoring somebody's path. That is not honoring somebody's boundaries.
That is saying, this is what I want you to do.
(28:47):
Please do it without asking the question and honoring the answer to, what do you want? What do you want to do?
That is an important question for somebody that you've been hurting for a long time.
Because if they say, well, I don't want to be with you until you heal, what is the response to that?
(29:07):
The response is to honor their path, honor the path they want to take because that's what they want.
And when you can honor somebody pursuing what they want while also working on yourself, you are accepting them as an individual
with their own thoughts and ideas and plans of the future, then you should trust that if they do want to be with you and they
(29:31):
do care about you and they still have love in their heart for you, they will want to work on the relationship, but they also need their own time to heal.
And just like the abusive person needs their time to heal, the victim of that behavior needs their own time to heal.
And when you are healing as separate beings, separate individuals, you can bring the best healed version back into the relationship if the relationship is to be.
(29:58):
And the relationship will only be if the victim still has love in their heart after the perpetrator of the hurtful behavior
is healing or starting to heal and both people want to work on it.
But the emotionally abusive person has to realize that the victim needs to go through their healing in their time, in their
own space, and allowing them that, giving them that freedom to be themselves and make their own decisions without your involvement
(30:27):
is a very loving thing to do. Thanks for joining me today.
I hope this has been helpful to you, to the person who wrote.
I'm grateful that you shared that and I wish you the best. Stay strong.
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.
(30:47):
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.
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.
(31:13):
It has changed thousands of lives and relationships and can change yours too.
Visit healedbeing.com to start with some free lessons right away.
And if you're looking for a safer way to listen to this show, where all the titles to the episodes are changed, click on the
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.
(31:37):
You are worthy of respect, kindness, and love, and you deserve to be accepted exactly as you are. Again, stay strong. We'll talk again soon.
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