Good point. I DO see that as an important element. Thanks.

I think that's very true with some. I know my mother didn't listen to anyone who told her she'd been turned into a doormat, but within a month of leaving him, she realized the truth of it all.

A friend of mine is trying to divorced her husband, and is going through this right now.

As far as whether love keeps people with an abuser...well a lot of people use the word 'love' to mean 'attachment'. If anyone is thinking that they are staying with an abuser our of 'love', its really just emotional attachment and emotional dependency which they are calling love.

I don't really think that I agree with statements like this. It's a bit patronising to say to someone that they can't really be in love with someone when you can't see why they would love that person. Yeah, atatchment and dependancy is often what it's about but love isn't all about everything being perfect. I don't think so anyway or it's just a label we hang on something that looks perfect to us.

Is it patronizing if its true?

You are correct to say 'often', and I was wrong to not qualify my statement to acknowledge exceptional situations....but its *usually* attachment and emotional dependency that keeps those people together.

I never said a word about whether they might also be 'in love' in some way, but thats NOT the reason they stay together (most of the time).

People can be 'in love' and recognize they are healthier if they separate, and they separate. Its not any 'being in love' part of the experience that keeps the abused and abuser together, most of the time; its attachment/dependency/fear.

As a person that has the "POTENTIAL" to be extremely intimadatively abusive, the person has to FIRST realize what "intimadative abuse" is. I grew up thinking that this manner of action is TOTALLY accepted. Once coming to the REALIZATION that such actions are a choice. I realized that I could CHOSE TO CHANGE. It took several months of work, in a group, with 2 good leaders. If a person sees this type of actions, ALL their life; it is assumed proper. So, first we need to look at history & then maybe their can be an understanding that change is an option. Basically EDUCATION first & then change can be poss.

BEEN THERE, can STILL BE ABUSIVE, I CHOSE WHEN.

OPINION

I think it’s extremely brave when a person recognizes they’ve picked up a bad pattern and takes on the challenge of changing it.

Kowledge And Education

Are You Abusive to Yourself?
Often we allow people into our lives who treat us as we expect to be treated. If we feel contempt for ourselves or think very little of ourselves, we may pick partners or significant others who reflect this image back to us. If we are willing to tolerate negative treatment from others, or treat others in negative ways, it is possible that we also treat ourselves similarly. If you are an abuser or a recipient, you may want to consider how you treat yourself. What sorts of things do you say to yourself? Do thoughts such as “I’m stupid” or “I never do anything right” dominate your thinking? Learning to love and care for ourselves increases self-esteem and makes it more likely that we will have healthy, intimate relationships.

Understanding Abusive Relationships

No one intends to be in an abusive relationship, but individuals who were verbally abused by a parent or other significant person often find themselves in similar situations as an adult. If a parent tended to define your experiences and emotions, and judge your behaviors, you may not have learned how to set your own standards, develop your own viewpoints, and validate your own feelings and perceptions. Consequently, the controlling and defining stance taken by an emotional abuser may feel familiar or even comfortable to you, although it is destructive.

Recipients of abuse often struggle with feelings of powerlessness, hurt, fear, and anger. Ironically, abusers tend to struggle with these same feelings. Abusers are also likely to have been raised in emotionally abusive environments and they learn to be abusive as a way to cope with their own feelings of powerlessness, hurt, fear and anger. Consequently, abusers may be attracted to people who see themselves as helpless or who have not learned to value their own feelings, perceptions, or viewpoints. This allows the abuser to feel more secure and in control, and avoid dealing with their own feelings and self-perceptions.

Understanding the pattern of your relationships, especially those with family members and other significant people, is a first step toward change. A lack of clarity about who you are in relationship to significant others may manifest itself in different ways. For example, you may act as an “abuser” in some instances and as a “recipient” in others. You may find that you tend to be abused in your romantic relationships, allowing your partners to define and control you. In friendships, however, you may play the role of abuser by withholding, manipulating, trying to “help” others, etc. Knowing yourself and understanding your past can prevent abuse from being recreated in your life.

Types of Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse can take many forms. Three general patterns of abusive behavior include aggressing, denying, and minimizing.

Aggressing
Aggressive forms of abuse include name-calling, accusing, blaming, threatening, and ordering. Aggressing behaviors are generally direct and obvious. The one-up position the abuser assumes by attempting to judge or invalidate the recipient undermines the equality and autonomy that are essential to healthy adult relationships. This parent-to-child pattern of communication (which is common to all forms of verbal abuse) is most obvious when the abuser takes an aggressive stance.

Aggressive abuse can also take a more indirect form and may even be disguised as “helping.” Criticizing, advising, offering solutions, analyzing, probing, and questioning another person may be a sincere attempt to help. In some instances, however, these behaviors may be an attempt to belittle, control, or demean rather than help. The underlying judgmental “I know best” tone the abuser takes in these situations is inappropriate and creates unequal footing in peer relationships.

Denying
Invalidating seeks to distort or undermine the recipient’s perceptions of their world. Invalidating occurs when the abuser refuses or fails to acknowledge reality. For example, if the recipient confronts the abuser about an incident of name calling, the abuser may insist, “I never said that,” “I don’t know what you’re talking about, “ etc.
Withholding is another form of denying. Withholding includes refusing to listen, refusing to communicate, and emotionally withdrawing as punishment. This is sometimes called the “silent treatment.”

Countering occurs when the abuser views the recipient as an extension of themselves and denies any viewpoints or feelings which differ from their own.

Minimizing
Minimizing is a less extreme form of denial. When minimizing, the abuser may not deny that a particular event occurred, but they question the recipient’s emotional experience or reaction to an event. Statements such as “You’re too sensitive,” “You’re exaggerating,” or “You’re blowing this out of proportion” all suggest that the recipient’s emotions and perceptions are faulty and not to be trusted.

Trivializing, which occurs when the abuser suggests that what you have done or communicated is inconsequential or unimportant, is a more subtle form of minimizing.

Denying and minimizing can be particularly damaging. In addition to lowering self-esteem and creating conflict, the invalidation of reality, feelings, and experiences can eventually lead you to question and mistrust your own perceptions and emotional experience.

Learn to love yourself...

The bottom line is a man that lays hands on a woman is a scumbag no matter what the excuse leave.

That's not what this thread is about.

Some interesting stuff in this thread though. Not many men want to admit that they've been in relationships where they have been subjected to verbal/ emotional abuse but it's pretty common really.

What I'm getting from this thread is that in some relationships there is an imbalance where one partner deals out personal criticism but can't take it themselves. If you stand up to such a person they become angry and more abusive. Quite often it can start off with the abuser thinking that they are offering constructive criticism but a pattern develops where it turns into "nagging" and that's annoying and demeaning. It can just be the case that two people are incompatible but they stay in a relationship with each other anyway and one or both of them tries to get the other one to change.

Sometimes it's just that people take their problems out on others and it is easy to get annoyed with people that are supposed to care about you or are close to you when they aren't or can't help you with your problems. It's also easy to blame other people instead of taking a good look at yourself.

Well said...I think you are right...It's hard for men to admit they are or have been subjected to emotional and verbal abuse by a woman because they are afraid of being judged as weak when "often" they are really just the opposite...They sustain the abuse longer because they love the abuser and mistakenly fall into the trap of thinking they can somehow change or help her...

Very nicely put Tawt. While there are a lot of reasons people abuse, I think this type is the most easily seen...for me anyway

There is more than emotional abuse...I don't mean physical abuse although I thing that is the most common.

There is also financial abuse...where the man keeps the woman in poverty so she can't leave.

IDK it's a sad symbiosis is my guess but that des not mean there is any excuse for the abuse

This is another excellent point Twat...Abusers blaming others for their problems, always talk, talk, talking about how their partner is wrong, never looking to themselves...I think using reverse psychology is a verbal/emotional abusers strongest card and underestimating the intelligence of others their weakest...Their only focus seems to be control and manipulation...

I've never been able to understand if you "love" somebody how you can abuse them like that, rather emotional, physical, verbal or financial.

Maybe I'm just a weird-o?

Or maybe you're just a good person Hippy...