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“How do you know when it’s time to leave?”
f I had a dollar for every woman who has ever written to me saying: “I didn’t know you’d been living with my husband/partner”, it would be a nice little earner – sadly. Sure, everyone is different. But abusive relationships are all much of a muchness. There comes a time, usually fairly early on in the relationship, when you get that sinking feeling in your stomach and you think: “This is really wrong. I should walk.” But then you don’t. Many women wait to leave until they know they are at rock bottom. But rock bottom is a moving target. Just when you think you must have reached it in an abusive relationship things get even worse.
What do you know with your heart?
In an abusive relationship your heart is systematically trashed and vilified. You walk, or limp away feeling that your heart is worthless because that is the way it has been treated.
And so you put your trust in your head. Because your head must be clear and rational, must it not? That is what heads are meant to be, after all.
Yet your head will not lead you out of the impasse. Such wisdom as you hold in your head stops at the jaw bone or the neck.
7 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Started Out On The Road To Recovery
The dire predictions my abusive partner made for and about me were all completely wrong. (Somehow it took me the longest time to realize that he had no talent at all for predicting the future.) As a general rule, people who make a point of predicting your future are utterly useless at it.
The dire predictions I made proved wrong. We base our predictions for the future on the past. If you choose to stay in an abusive relationship, then of course all you can expect is more of the same. But once you start the process of change by leaving it, you create a climate in which everything can change, generally for the better.
The Truth About Moving On
When other people say, “move on”, they often mean something along the lines of: “Your present state makes me feel uncomfortable. Please put yourself out of my misery.” When people advise you to “move on” it is generally an empty phrase. Women who are already feeling broken and hollow pick up on the emptiness of the words and assume that moving on is way beyond anything they are capable of attempting.
How I Found The Courage To Leave
It’s a myth that you need courage before you can make big changes in your life. You don’t need courage at all. You just need to heed that small inner voice and take the small steps that you can, bearing in mind that all roads will lead you somewhere other than where you are stuck right now.
About Your Journey
Many women, including me at one time, carry a map of their journey that goes something like this: there was – or should have been a time – of peace and joy, a kind of earthly paradise. You were cast out of it by a bad relationship, or a whole series of them. The journey is actually time spent wandering directionless through the wilderness.
In Praise of Abused Women
I am reminded of the quotation that there are no weaknesses only overdone strengths. Abused women overdo generosity, selflessness, devotion, trust and faith to name but a few.
When You Can’t “Just Be Friends” With Your Ex
Leaving an abusive man is never easy. Women are most at risk when the relationship breaks down.
It’s easy to see why you could argue that throwing an abusive man the sop of friendship might keep his anger in check. Naturally, he hates being ignored. But it remains the safest course of action.
“The opposite of love…
When you are consumed with hurt and rage hatred may feel like a more constructive outlet than love. The downside is, of course, that you remain just as focused, even fixated, on the person as you were before. So how, you might ask, do you arrive at indifference?
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.