Have you ever felt humiliated by an emotionally abusive partner?  An emotionally abusive relationship really is the high road to never ending humiliation, isn’t it?  And humiliation has a toxic effect on the way you feel about yourself. 

 An emotionally abusive relationship is the high road to ongoing, endless humiliation TWEET THIS

Mostly, you struggle with the humiliation alone. You experience it as acutely as if the eyes of your entire community were on you the whole time. Most likely, they are not. 

There are so many names (and nicknames) you could accurately apply to an emotionally abusive man; including The Humiliator. 

Here in the UK, Nigella Lawson, aka The Domestic Goddess, is now instructing the nation about the ugly conundrum that is domestic violence. Nigella, in case you don’t already know her, is the TV chef that we Brits have taken to our hearts. She is rich, beautiful, bright, successful, privileged, sexy. She doesn’t fit the emotionally abused woman steretype, at all. 

After her first husband’s tragic, premature death from cancer, she married the hugely successful – and wealthy – Charles Saatchi. They began living the Happily Ever After… at least as far as the British public knew. Until recently… 

when photos appeared in the British Press of Saatchi, sitting at a restaurant table in elegant Mayfair, shoving his finger up his beautiful wife’s nose and, also, throttling her. 

All part of a “playful tiff”, he said. She had “snot hanging from her nose” he said. 

The Press have spoken at some length about Nigella’s humiliation. Her private hell has been suddenly, mercilessly, ‘outed’. 

Can’t you just imagine how she feels? 

The greatest humiliation I ever experienced at the hands of my Humilator happened in the best hotel he and I ever stayed in. 

First, there was the screaming rant at the top of his voice, that carried through the walls and windows of our luxurious room, so that the hotel staff and guests knew they had a ‘domestic’ in the building. Then, there were the meals in the fine restaurant where we alone sat in such stony silence that anyone with half a brain who saw us would have know that we – well, I, anyway – was the unhappiest person there, by a country mile. 

I felt so ASHAMED about the way The Humiliator was behaving… 

And here’s the thing: his behavior was NOT my fault. Any more than Charles Saatchi’s behavior was Nigella’s fault. Any more than your Humilator’s behavior is your fault. 

Anyone has a right to be as peeved as they like with you. Feeling peeved doesn’t give them a right – or even a justification, or an excuse – to act out. 

That’s them, acting their shoe size, not their age. 

Why do you feel humilated by it? 

Because you make it about you. 

Now, I take the point that if you have a cat or a dog, you are, ultimately, responsible for that animal’s house-training. That animal is a pet, and its training is down to you. Either you can train it, or you can’t. If you really can’t, the only sane option is to ‘rehome’ it. You’d accept responsibility for your failure with that animal and move on. Right? 

Your partner is not a household pet, and therefore it is perfectly reasonable to expect MORE of him. 

An emotionally abusive partner’s bad behavior does NOT make you a bad person. TWEET HERE. 

Let’s be as charitable about him as we possibly can be. Maybe, just maybe, there is a nice person lurking inside that Nasty exterior. To all intents and purposes, that nice person has no desire to get out any time soon. Quite possibly that person has no wish to get out any time at all during this lifetime. 

So what happens when you take a pickaxe, your hunger for love, or even your not-so-magic wand to that granite exterior? 

Push-back. 

Let’s not dismiss, out of hand, the Pigs-Will-Fly Scenario, so loved by emotionally abused women. Just suppose he did want to liberate his inner Nice Guy; he’d still have to do it for himself. It’s not something you can – or should – try to do for him. Ever. 

Look at it this way: 

He either did, or did not, have a mother. Either way, you are not her. 

You cannot possibly be the Love of his Life because he hasn’t the faintest idea how to ‘do’ love. 

That’s his stuff. 

Let it be his stuff. 

You chose a ‘wrong un’. 

That’s all. 

He and the humilation come as a rather toxic package. 

Humiliation only ever begets more humiliation. 

Emotionally abusive relationships only ever beget more emotional abuse. TWEET THIS 

You’ve been there, done that and… flogging a dead horse simply doesn’t work. 

Let it go. 

That humiliated person is not who you truly are. That humiliated person is just a character in The Humiliator’s drama. 

It’s a lousy play, and a lousy part. 

You’re old enough, and wise enough, to take centre stage in a play of your own creation. What’s more, both you the people who love you will truly enjoy that new play.

How about it?