How many bad Valentine’s Days have you had?
I can rank mine into 3 separate categories:
Teenage angst, waiting to receive the first Valentine – and wondering whether I would ever get one.
My married years, when the wasband would pointedly buy a card, engineer a fight, and leave the card in its bag, because “under the circumstances, […]
“Why is it that the feeling of waiting for him to call me to tell me that he is sorry and that he loves me won’t go away? How do I let go of the feelings of wanting him to show up and be the prince I want in my life?”
Being in an abusive relationship means you dream small and hope small – if you still dream and hope, at all. If you’re wishing for anything, you’ll be wishing to be “loved, and treated right, respected, and happy”, and a number of other things that all sound perfectly reasonable until…
The news of Gerry Rafferty’s death felt like a personal loss. Rafferty was the poet whose song “Baker Street” epitomizes hopium addiction*, and the broken dreams of an abusive relationship.
“Baker Street” was the soundtrack of my hopeless marriage. Gerry Rafferty, in case you don’t know the name, was a singer-songwriter who co-founded Stealer’s Wheel, and […]
Fairytale-itis is something most little girls contract in childhood. It lies dormant until they kiss their first frog, or Beast, or handsome prince. Then it triggers all kinds of madness including:
Not seeing the person in front of your eyes
Putting him at the very centre of your world – and yourself on the periphery
Disregarding your own needs and wants
Doing more back-flips than Andre the seal for a few lousy scraps of affection
Everything Susie said was self-critical. She should have jumped by now. She should have left her abusive husband. Susie wasn’t prepared to cut herself any slack at all. Intellectually, she knew everything I – or anyone else – could tell her. But, still, there she was, paralyzed… (Because it’s not what you know with your head that matters; what matters is getting your heart to the point of letting go of a relationship that does NOT work.)
Susie’s knowledge hadn’t percolated through to heart level, yet.
I was talking with a client who is taking that long, long walk away from her abusive husband and into freedom.
And, yes, it feels like a frustrating journey that never reaches its destination because every step feels like a ‘baby step’ – and baby steps seem so small, and insignificant, when there is such a […]
The abusive man is looking for someone who will serve him 24-7 in various departments of his life: the bedroom, the kitchen, the finance department, parenting – both of his children, and himself – and so on, and so forth. But more than that, the abusive man is someone who will carry a heavy load of loathing – his loathing both for himself and for other people. He is looking for someone he can dump that load on, forever after.
When you are in it, it’s almost impossible to do. 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 […]
Emotionally abused women are women who become increasingly hurt, troubled, and confused by the way that their partner behaves towards them. They don’t understand why they lavish their partner with everything they have to offer – love, consideration, even money – and yet that partner treats them badly.
Emotionally abused women are loving, forgiving, and generous […]
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.
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