Blog

On Selflessness And Humility

Humility and selflessness are precious gifts to bring to a relationship. They are also gifts that have to be earned; gifts that are only to be bestowed on people who have proved that they are worthy of them. Your abusive partner proved, time and time again, that he was not worthy of the gifts you brought to the relationship. Yet, you continued to lavish them on him. And, in his hands, they turned to dross. (But then, most things turned to dross in his hands.)

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When Will You Take Center Stage In Your Life?

In an abusive relationship, you disappear from your own map of the world. You only have to listen to an abused woman. You only have to listen to yourself. You have your list of priorities: your partner, your children, your pet… And then nothing… Look down far enough and you will eventually find yourself, at the very bottom of the heap: the Woman Who Believed She Didn’t Matter.

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Signs of Emotional Abuse

How do you identify the signs of emotional abuse? When you are in it, it’s almost impossible to do so. Because being in an emotionally abusive relationship is like being in a maze: all you can do is go up different paths, which almost always turn out to be dead ends. You lack on overview; not least because your abusive partner is intent on closing down your horizons, and creating a kind of tunnel vision in which all you see is him. So, the first sign of emotional abuse is the obsessive way that you focus on your partner. There are at least thirteen other key signs.

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“Peace at last, my darling…”

Abusive men are brilliant at activating the anxious, disempowered child within you. They do this to disorient and disempower the competent adult that you have become. In time, with enough input from an abusive man, it’s easy to forget that you are a competent adult. It’s easy to believe that you are the pitiful creature an abusive partner says you are; precisely because his words confirm the child’s tendency to feel hopeless and helpless.

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Cutting The Ties Of An Emotionally Abusive Relationship

Many women want to be free of an abusive partner, or ex-partner, and yet can’t quite let go. From a logical standpoint it makes no sense at all. But why should it? One woman’s words sum up the problem perfectly: “What is that part of me that endlessly holds out the hope that he has grown and won’t be a jerk?”

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The 7 Secrets to Creating An Abusive Relationship

Nobody ever deserves to get hooked into an abusive relationship, but that is exactly what does happen to a lot of us. In fact, the statistics suggest that 1 in 4 women will undergo domestic violence – and that probably doesn’t include those of us who “only” suffer mental and emotional abuse.

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Your Self-Respect

We try so hard to accommodate to our abusive partner’s whims, wishes, and demands that we completely lose sight of ourselves. Still, somewhere in that tiny space, our self-respect remains. And the day comes when something finally triggers it. When that happens we respond from an entirely different place, from a strength and a clarity we didn’t even know we had.

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Abusive Men 57

Why on earth would you settle for Abusive Men 57? The abusive man that you have allowed into your life is not a reflection on you. His awfulness is entirely his own. It is all about him. His vile behavior is not about you, at all. Sure, you have a responsibility for giving an abusive man shelf space in the first place. But you didn’t create him. (Not even if he swears blind that you did!)

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10,000 hours of abuse

Perhaps the environment you grew up in was emotionally abusive; you may have been emotionally neglected – and otherwise ill treated. Or you may just have been programmed to be a total people-pleaser. Either way, you were trained to be exceptionally receptive to an abusive partner. So you, like me, were much more inclined than another woman might be to put in those 10,000 hours (and possibly many further thousands as well).

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The 5 Simple Steps to Healing from Narcissistic Abuse

Over the next 5 days, I'll send you some lessons and tips that I've found have really helped women to heal from narcissistic abuse.  Starting with the basics.