Have you ever thought that there might be something you’re missing about your emotionally abusive relationship?

When I was with my emotionally abusive husband that thought used to hit me at regular intervals.

I’d spend a LOT of time asking myself the Usual Questions:

• How can he treat me that way (aka What have I done to deserve this)?
• Why doesn’t he love me?
• What have I done wrong?
• What’s wrong with me?
• Will it always be like this?
• What more can I do?
• Is it all my fault?
• How can I make him see…”

I never found too many good answers. In fact, I never found any answers, at all… except: “It must be because you’re a disgusting, horrible person.”

That really did NOT help.

But, still, there was a niggling voice at the back of my mind that just kept on murmuring:

“There must be something I’m missing.”

There was, of course. Two inter-related things, in fact:

1)    The nature of an emotionally abusive man, and

2)       The nature of an emotionally abusive relationship.

I hadn’t noticed that I was dealing with someone from Planet Zog – the planet of all emotionally abused men.

Before these aliens are landed on Planet Earth, their inglorious leader, Chairman Nasty, puts them through a rigorous training. They’re trained to speak Earth languages with native fluency. And they spend long hours studying the Emotional Abuser’s Handbook. They have to be word perfect in the script and the behaviours detailed in it before they are allowed out of their cages…

Okay, so that’s a fanciful way of putting it.

That doesn’t stop it being an accurate expression of an important truth.

Last week, I was working with a new 1 on 1 client. I told her one very specific thing that her Mr Nasty would have said to her in a particular situation. She was AMAZED.

“How did you know that?” she asked me.

“I heard it first from my clone”, I replied. “And then from the partners of quite a few other clones.”

They’re good little students, are emotionally abusive men.

They may have a few original thoughts in their heads – but not where relationships are concerned. They don’t have any kind or considerate thoughts in their heads either, where their ‘intimate’ relationships are concerned.

That’s just not the way they are programmed.

So, unless you can change one form of life into another, the chances are you’re not going to change them.

I’m guessing that you’ve been missing that at the emotional level.

Which brings me onto another key thing you’ve been missing:

You have not been factoring yourself into the equation.

If you had just one watchword, it would be: “I don’t matter.” Right?

That’s toxic.

Emotionally abused women all miss the fact that they matter.You‘ve been missing the fact that you really do matter. Just not to your Near and Resident Alien.

By now, that should make a weird sort of sense.  He wasn’t looking for someone who would really matter to him, someone whose well-being he would really care about.

Not your fault.

Of course, there’s plenty more to say. But for now, you need to take on board this thing you’ve been missing:

He is not your fault.