Abusive Relationships: When someone doesn’t treat you right…

Relationships may not always be the cake-walk that most people expect it to be. No matter how deeply you are in love with your husband, wife, girlfriend or boyfriend there is always going to be several instances where you feel you aren’t being treated right, and in extreme cases, you might even be a victim of an emotionally abusive relationship.

There are several examples of how that happens. Sometimes your boyfriend might have just avoided feelings of your own and might constantly seek your attention. A girlfriend might be undermining you everywhere, giving you the least bit of importance while being absorbed in her own life.

These are just examples of how people in an abusive relationship fail to treat you right. The bottom line is that you always feel suppressed and find yourself giving in, often becoming a victim of an abusive relationship. The best way to stop this is to re-evaluate your relationship and stand up for you. But before you do that, there are a few things that you might want to consider.

Is it really that bad?

This is the part where you analyse everything that you feel towards your dating life. There are two people in a relationship. If it feels as though, only one person has been making the major choices in the relationship and then this is your cue that the way your relationship works is south.

Now you might ask how or why it is that we consider making choices as a sign of a bad relationship. It’s okay to sit back and have your partner making all the choices in the relationship if you are the type that loves to see someone making an effort. It’s alright to let your partner choose for you because it means they care about the choices you make. But it is not okay at all, if your partner decides something that you are against and then goes with it anyway, telling or expecting you to adjust to it.

If you can’t go a day without having to adjust to your partner for the love of saving the abusive relationship, then it is bad. The best way to see if your relationship or your partner is bad for you is to talk it out to a close friend. Friends are usually the ones that are capable of judging a bad relationship and asking you to walk out of it. Share your feelings with a friend and see if your friend says the same thing- to stand up for yourself.

Stand up or walk out?

This is the most common dilemma that men and women around the world seem to be going through, and also the toughest one to answer. When the going gets too tough and your partner is making no effort to improve it, then it’s your time to walk out. But that being said, you should have tried at least once or twice to talk to your partner about how you feel with the way they treat you.

First, stand up for yourself. Stand up for your feelings. If that doesn’t change anything, then it’s high time you reconsider your abusive relationship and all ties with the person. Nobody has to be with someone who makes them feel anything less than what they are. It is not fair to your partner and your relationship if you walk out of the abusive relationship without having tried even once. So when you do try, you have to be prepared for what you are going to talk.

What to tell someone who isn’t treating you right?

No matter what they did to you and how bad they made you feel, you have only one way to approach it, which is by talking to your partner. First, you need to lose all the hesitation and fear you have when it comes to talking about your feelings. The very existence of fear in talking freely to your partner should tell you something about how your relationship is functioning.

Prepare yourself for a neutral result. Don’t expect an apology because most of the times, your boyfriend or girlfriend might just be responding in anger, thus worsening the situation at hand. Another thing to remember is that you need to calm yourself before talking to them. Calm down and think about what you are going to talk to them. Your goal shouldn’t be to unleash all your piled up grief. Your goal should be to convey what you want to say loud and clear.

Equality in an abusive relationship

There are many individuals across the world, which have been in a bad or abusive relationship. All of them at one point or the other have broken down or had a huge fight with their partners because of all the misery that they put themselves into silently. Talk to your partner about having equal choices and equal rights in your relationship. Tell them that you feel like you are giving in all the time. Tell them that you want your own identity in the relationship and you don’t always want it to be about them.

The best advice is to not talk about this when you are already having a fight. Talk to them about your feelings and thoughts when all the fire has died down. Talking to your husband or wife when they are in a calmer state and when your relationship is in a smooth and safe zone, will help you avoid any fights.

Recent incidents

Bringing up incidents that happened recently can be both good and bad. It can be bad because then your partner will mostly jump to the conclusion that you are using references to blame them. It can be good because by mentioning recent incidents you give your partner a chance to know what exactly it is that makes you feel bad.

This way, your partner will know where to correct their mistakes or where their actions hurt you. Hoping that your partner is a rational human being, you can expect that the same mistake doesn’t happen.

Authority

If you don’t have an idea about how to approach your own choices when your partner is already picking it out for you, the best idea would be to just go out and grab your chances. If your partner has decided for you that you will not be attending your girl’s night then simply tell them that you were actually planning on going. This will break the usual silence and will kindle curiosity in your partner. From there, you can take it to talking it out.

If your wife has decided to go for a vacation to Europe when you want to visit Australia, just talk to her about how much you wanted to visit Australia. If your wife doesn’t settle for your opinion, it is fine. Your goal must be to make her consider visiting Australia. You should have the authority for the choices you are about to make. Letting your partner know that you want to make your choices is best advised to be done in action. So, before you talk it out, try taking responsibility for your choices.

Space

Very often, our partners don’t give us enough space and we find ourselves literally suffocating in their constant company. While many individuals fail to see this as an exact form of ‘hurt’ what they fail to understand is that anything and everything that makes you feel less you will eventually hurt you. When your wife or girlfriend has been around you constantly, known every little detail about you, giving you almost no room for privacy, it is high time you tell her to draw line.

Not giving you enough space is also a form of not treating you right. When this happens, the best way to express it is by directly telling your partner that you need more space. How well they take it depends on how you say it. Again, everything you want to say has to be planned beforehand and executed in a calm manner.

For example, when a husband storms out of the room saying he wants more space, the wife ultimately ends up thinking that she is given least importance or starts imagining that her husband is with other women. But when the same scenario is reversed, just in the way the message was conveyed, it brings lesser damage. For example, A husband telling his wife that he needs more space in the middle of a long chat on a pleasant evening leaves the wife vowing to herself that she will keep her man happy.

You need to remember that whatever you want to say to someone who doesn’t treat you right has to be said in the right way if you want to save the relationship. Many bad or abusive relationships end because one of the two people, often being the affected one starts thinking about the need to pursue a person who doesn’t give them importance and equality.

So far, you read about what to say to someone when you want to save the relationship. If you have decided on calling it quits, here is what you need to do to make yourself clear.

The Silent Treatment

When most of us either laugh or frown at the idea of silence as a form of treatment, there are many reasons as to why it is a good choice. If you want to call it quits without playing the blame game, the easiest way to do this is by being very vague about it. This might sound brutal but it is one of the best ways to avoid unnecessary drama.

Start with a “Honey, I need to talk to you” and from then on, a sentence or two as simple as “We have been together for a while now. And I don’t think this relationship is going to work because we both want different things. So I think we should start seeing other people. I hope you understand. No hard feelings.” will do.

There might be a few questions and exchanges and offers from your partner, saying that they will try and make it work for you. That is why you need to be extremely clear and confident about the breakup before actually breaking up. If you are going to have second thoughts, then there is no point behind a direct break up like this.

Being vague about the reason behind the break up is the key to avoid unnecessary quarrels. When you have decided on leaving that person, walk away without looking back. This includes the part where you don’t tell them about how bad you feel about the way they treat you.

Even after the breakup, stay friends or at least remain as two civilized people who don’t start arguing the minute they are together. Be discreet about the reason behind the breakup. You can share it with your close circle of trusted friends, but anything more, that might lead your words straight to your ex is trouble. This is the smoothest form of silent treatment that benefits you without hurting your partner extremely.

The Why

If you are planning to stay friends with your partner after the breakup, then you should probably consider talking to them about how they did not treat you right. Again, you have to be fixed on the fact that you want to end the relationship, before trying to talk to them. The question of ‘why’ always arises when you mention the words ‘break up’ so it is better if you tell your partner about how you felt, that made you want to end the relationship.

Tell them how much this abusive relationship has drained out of you. Tell them how you felt it would be the ‘last time’ every single time you gave in to what they wanted. Tell your partner how upset you got, every single time they failed to acknowledge a certain something in you and it made you feel like you were used for their pleasure. Tell your partner how you were scared every single time there was an argument, which you thought your relationship would end because of. Tell your partner that you felt the need to be in a relationship where there were two people instead of one. Tell them how much you forgot about why you fell for each other because all you could think of was why it no longer felt that good.

Putting out all the above factors or at least some of it, will get your boyfriend thinking about what he has been doing. Assuming that both of you are young, you still have a long way to go, together or apart. So even if you want to leave your partner for the better, you can still change them a little for their future relationships.

If you are spelling out the words ‘break up’ in a dilemma or in a state where you want a second shot at things, then you should consider doing the same thing – telling them about how you felt in the relationship or how they made you feel. This will give both of you, a chance to see if the relationship is going to work.

For your partner, they can assess if they can change the way they treat you and keep you happy. If they start arguing and try to prove that they are right, then you can analyse that what lies in front of you is definitely not what you want for a lifetime and choose to walk away. Either way, talking it out is always the best option. There are a lot of things to consider before talking to them. To keep everything smooth and avoid all the arguments and frustrations, here are a few tips:

  1. Try to indulge in the ‘talk’ when you are relaxing together at home or whenever your partner is in a visibly good mood. This increases chances of having a smooth discussion.
  2. Before you start talking, make sure that your face doesn’t give away the frustration or anger. Calm yourself before talking. Giving away frustration and anger will divert the issue at hand, directing it to how you chose to deal with it. So start calmly and proceed to try to make them understand.
  3. Proving your point is not important. Making them agree that you were right and they were wrong is not important. What is more important is making sure you conveyed whatever you wanted to, honestly.
  4. Don’t expect an apology. A heartfelt and sincere apology shouldn’t be the goal of your speech. Expect nothing but to make yourself clear.

A lot of things you want to say to a person who is emotionally abusing you in your relationship can be fuming hot in your mind. But when you pour it out, it shouldn’t burn them.

The smartest way to deal with the hurt is trying and not focusing on hurting them. Every relationship has its ups and downs. If you find yourself fighting for it then it means there is still something in the relationship for you. If you want to split ways and lead separate lives for the better, then it is the best choice because two miserable people in a relationship is a lot worse than two individuals with broken hearts.

2 thoughts on “Abusive Relationships: When someone doesn’t treat you right…”

  1. Nothing hurts like an abusive relationship. Nothing hurts to see someone you love turn into a monster that you know they are not. I was in an abusive relationship and your article talks about issues that affected me during those difficult days. I tried to make it work but in the end i had to give up or go insane. It was a sad ending. I have tried to pick up the pieces and move on. I hope your article will help people who are in the same situation that i was in.

  2. I do not want to sound conservative but i disagree on the “space” issue. Do not get me wrong. I am all for space but for the right reasons. When your partner has lost someone important in their life, they have failed an exam or they have had a fight at work or something of that nature, i think they deserve a bit of space. However for someone to just wake up in the morning talking about space out of the blue can be a recipe for disaster. Its new age stuff and some people just don’t believe it but, like you said maybe its the timing that is important.

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