The urge to control or manipulate a partner can lead to tremendous arm to the person engaged in a relationship who accepts this nonphysical harm, simply because they have been used to it over a period of time and in some ways became immune or even consider this mistreatment as normal.
After months and sometimes even years of being “bullied” by their partners, people can one day out of the blue decide to move on, having found the courage to leave with the hope of being happier following a breakup.
If you or someone you know is at a crossroad, you have come to the right place. This article will serve as a guide to ensure that you quickly rebound by regaining both self-confidence and the self-worth to enable you to love and be loved again.
Are you in an emotionally abusive relationship?
Being in an emotionally abusive relationship can happen to anyone. Such situations transcend gender, social class and race; meaning that even men, rich or poor can be victims of such relationships. Most people that are being taken advantage of on an emotional level do not realize what is going on; for a long time they can be victims without even realizing it!
Sometime out of fear, other times out of love, compassion or simply due to their personality, people are put in a position where they feel like they should compromise for the well-being of their partner and their relationship. This can be seen as a positive action and loving gesture, but can also be a sign of emotional abuse when done repeatedly and frequently over time. Furthermore it is usually a telling sign when only one person in the relationship is always the one that has to conform to the others’ desires.
Another common trait often witnessed in emotionally abusive relationships is the fact that the “abuser” is often extremely needy and very selfish. The world and the relationship revolves around them; They depend heavily on their partner on the day to day to maintain a certain lifestyle. Many times the person being emotionally abused is in reality the rock of the relationship.
Without your support, compassion and attention your partner is not really able to fulfill their day to day activities. This should be a very powerful and empowering realization for you; although you are the victim in a given situation, you are in reality more stable, stronger and more independent than your partner!
This imbalance or the feeling of being dominated can lead to a lack of self-confidence, self-worth and even a sense of dependence to your partner however, as they seem to have taken the role of leader or guide in your everyday life. In extreme cases people who have been emotionally abused by their significant other for a long period of time are incapable of making important life decisions or even to find the strength or the will to leave their partner in order to seek a better and more fulfilling companion to build a future with.
Finding the strength to leave
The most important step to your well-being and stability is the decision to leave your abusive counterpart. Of course, they will do everything in their power to force you to stay by their side and often times even emotionally blackmail you. This is what they are good at and how they got to control you in the first place!
The odds are that they need you more than you need them, and often strive off of your love and energy. Once you have unequivocally decided to leave, you are in reality and in that moment already free from their manipulation and mental control.
However taking the decision to leave someone or to break up and actually following through with it are two very different things. It takes a tremendous amount of strengths and courage to leave someone that you probably still have strong feelings for. It is crucial that you remember all that has pushed you to make this drastic decision. It is no longer about them but all about you and your well-being.
You cannot continuously give more importance to someone else’s well-being over your own and expect to be happy. The fear of hurting someone that you love should not prevent you from making the necessary changes in your life; ones that will enable you to be more in harmony with who you truly are and the life that you want to live.
I often recommend to the people that I advise that they write down their thoughts on paper. Words have tremendous power and this action will serve multiple purposes. For one, writing will enable you to organize your thoughts and clearly understand both how you feel at a given time but also what you aspire for. Secondly, having written your thoughts at a given time enables you to go back and read your own words to remind yourself of the reality of how YOU feel about a given situation. It is very easy to forget, or to be manipulated by ideas and thoughts that are not your own!
Regaining self-confidence and self-worth
Finally being able to break away from such a relationship is one of the most liberating and empowering feelings in the world. Most of the time when people are able to finally move on from an emotionally abusive relationship, they gain a tremendous boost of both self-confidence and self-worth. Deep down they realize their accomplishment.
In essence your life goes from being exclusively focused on attending to the well-being of your counterpart, to being able to focus your energy on your own needs. All of a sudden you are free to dream again and to have projects and perspectives that do not need to be approved, cross checked or validated. The weight that will be lifted is well worth the struggle that you will have had to endure to get there.
In some cases it is possible that you will feel some sort of absence as if an emotional gap of sorts needs to be filled. That is why many people quickly get back into another relationship a few months or even weeks following a break up. Many people refer to these as “rebound relationships”. Consider yourself warned; our subconscious can sometime play bad tricks on us and push us to fill a void by jumping into another detrimental relationship.
The best way to prevent this from happening is to set weekly or even daily goals that will enable you to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and in turn gain self-confidence; It can be as simple as engaging in a conversation with a total stranger or doing something that you have never done before every single day for a period of at least 3 weeks.
You should also write down a list of a few projects or activities that you have always wanted to do but never had the courage or time to pursue. Keeping your mind busy and entertained, but also being fulfilled and expanding your world on a daily basis will prevent you from taking a step back in your healing process.
The last point that needs to be stressed here is the importance of friends and family to your overall well-being and especially following a break up. Relationships can cause a drift in our bond with our loved ones; we are often so focused on our couple and on devoting tremendous amounts of time to our significant other.
This notion can be exponentially more significant in emotionally abusive relationships; many people who have experienced such relationships have often times also completely isolated themselves from others that they used to be very close too.
If you have people that love you, friends or family that you have fallen out of touch with, it is extremely important that you reach out to them, but also that you make extra efforts to once again nurture those relationships. Human relations are a key component of our well-being because we are social creatures. Do not let an emotionally abusive relationship affect your interactions with other people that you deeply care for!
A bright outlook
Always be hopeful and stay positive. Change starts off with a simple realization; the fact that you have landed on this article shows that you or someone you know has already made an essential step towards breaking away from the shackles of an unhealthy relationship. You have the power to make a change in your life for the better; do not be held back by guilt, the fear of hurting someone that you care for or the thought of not being able to find someone else. Don’t hesitate to check out the eBooks and audio guides we have available to help you through this period! You can also get in touch with us by leaving a comment below and we’d be more than happy to respond.
Your coach to help you quickly rebound from an emotionally abusive relationship,
Adrian
