Do you still want to change an emotionally abusive partner – or ex-partner? Do you tell yourself that you could still have a good life together? Or else do you want to put past conflicts behind you and relate to each other in the future as civilized human beings? If that sounds like you, there are a few key insights you are, likely, missing.  In this article, we shall be looking at  the key ones.

4 key insights

First off, if you are still hoping for a good resolution to a bad relationship, you are – unintentionally – setting yourself up for still more disappointment.  Suppose you consumed contaminated food that had been left at room temperature for way longer than was safe.  You would expect to feel rotten as a result.  You would know that food poisoning  would be the likely outcome.  An emotionally abusive relationship is a contaminated relationship.  An emotionally abusive partner has NO intention of helping you to create  good feelings  out of a bad relationship.

Second.  If you still want to change an emotionally abusive partner (or ex) after ALL the heartbreak he has put you through,  you are a Hopium addict  who refuses to look at her addiction. How much proof do you need?An emotional abuser has no wish to change.  An emotional abuser has no wish to change..

How many times would you let a pet attack you before you decided the situation was unacceptable? An emotionally abusive partner is both more vicious and, most probably, more intelligent than most pets (much as it pains me to admit it). He is quite happy to continue to attack you for as long as you provide him with the opportunity to do so.  Your Hopium addiction is blinding you to reality.

Third. When your hopes of happiness hinge on your need to change an emotionally abusive partner, you have reached a state of toxic unhappiness.  Your unhappiness has become toxic because you have resigned yourself to wait for the miracle that will never happen.  Miracles do not come to those who wait and clutch at the outcome they want.  Miracles come to those who let go of trying to control the situation and commit, instead, to their own growth and well-being.

I do not say this judgmentally. I say this as someone who tried The Miracle Wait for the longest time before my despair finally woke me up to the truth. I didn’t learn the first time, or the second, or even the seventieth.  The truth had to beat me over the head many, many times before I finally saw it.

All the while, I was trying to protect myself from the pain I thought I could not face.

In reality, the pain of not facing the truth is the worst pain of all.  It is a great relief to stop taking ownership of the failure to change an emotionally abusive man: changing him was never your job.

If any relationship deserves to be defined as loveless it is the emotionally abusive relationship.

Fourth.  If you want to change an emotionally abusive partner, you are still hiding from yourself.

There is a reason why victims of emotional abuse hide from themselves.  They hide because they fear to discover that they are as awful as they think they are.  (I know this doesn’t quite make sense when you write it down, but that is the way it works.  Women frequently tell me,  “I am terrified of facing myself, for fear of discovering that I am as awful as I already believe I am.”  They are terrified of receiving the confirmation of what they already believe they know.)

The two things victims of emotional abuse forget

However, when the victim of an emotionally abusive partner is busy trying to find ever deeper sand in which to bury her head,  she forgets two things:

• She constantly has her – alleged – awfulness rammed down her throat by her emotional abuser.
• The struggle to survive around an emotionally abusive partner does not bring out the best in a person. When you have been around an abuser for long enough, it is not surprising if you use some of his own techniques back to him, in order to protect yourself.

When you let go of the desire to change an emotionally abusive partner and accept that he is horrible (albeit with occasional nice patches) you stop having to fight an uphill battle. You can, finally, let go of judging him – and judging yourself. You can shift your focus from self-criticism – alternating with self-justification – to healing.

You were never anywhere near as bad as an emotionally abusive partner said you were.  Actually, you were never bad, at all. Your problem, inasmuch as it was a problem, was that you did not have a clear sense of self.  You did not know what made you you, and what makes you special.

And if you are thinking to yourself, “Nothing makes me special.” I beg to differ. That is a part of the emotionally abused mindset that Mr. Nasty worked very hard to program into you. There is so much that makes you special.

None of the clients that I have ever worked with started out believing in their unique worth and specialness.  Their worth and specialness were hidden from their sight. When I work with clients on getting them to finally see themselves, that soon starts to change.  That is what makes the true journey of healing from emotional abuse such a joyful one.

Chances are you wouldn’t waste too much time trying to bend your cutlery with your mind.   The chances of bending your spoons and forks etc. with your mind are about as good as the chances of changing an emotionally abusive partner.  Real life lies somewhere else entirely.  Let go of the need to change your Mr. Nasty, so you can start to enjoy your life.

Trying to change an emotionally abusive partner or ex-partner is one of the biggest obstacles that stop women from moving forward. please use the social media buttons to share this article on  for the benefit of women who have already spent too long gambling their happiness on the transformation that is never going to happen.