The Long Walk Out of Abusive Relationship
Walking out of an abusive relationship could be so hard and almost feel like a crime. It’s like walking in a long dark tunnel looking for an end only to find out we’re afraid of the light.
My best friend falls into an emotionally abusive relationship — well, abusive nonetheless — and it’s safe to say, she barely survives. The suffering has been relentless for months. It hurts to see someone you love talking down to herself, crying herself to sleep thinking there’s something wrong about her. The worse thing is, there’s nothing I could do about it.
Though abuse can be different from couple-to-couple, person-to-person, I hope we can learn something from this one. I use the pronoun he/him because I want to write for my best friend and she’s a female person. I’m aware that men, women, and non-binary people can be victims or abusers.
The Signs and The Pattern
It’s a love story… at first. Right until layer by layer of a person, we think we know slowly stripped away. Then, “Is this normal?”-question sneaks up on you at night.
It’s unimaginably hard to admit that something doesn’t feel right with the relationship when you have an overwhelming amount of love toward your abusive partner. “Oh, maybe he’s tired”, “maybe something happened at work.” We start making excuses to defend our partner. We normalize it. It’s just part of the relationship, right? We think that it supposes to happen in a relationship at some point. We start trying to behave like you better not make any mistake otherwise he would say/do something... bad.
We all know, there is no guidebook to identify potential offenders. It’s hard AF to identify one. Unless you can read other people’s minds, that’s probably a different thing. So, don’t get your hope high to detect fishy personality after reading this.
The signs kind of arose at the early stage of their relationship, it starts with the extreme mood changes. One day he can be sweet and warm and romantic and all that and another day he gives her silent treatment and on another day he just completely shut her down saying, that her complaints about her work have been a burden for him, which I silently judge, it comes from his inferiority somewhere in his head.
He distorted the reality that the problem he created himself was because of her triggering his emotional instability. In a way, this man put her as the sensitive one and the wrong one in any situation, as if there’s nothing wrong with him. Most of these exchanges always ended up with her apologizing for something she did not commit.
Here’s the thing, she’s one of the kindest people I know, so I kind of expecting this situation. The pattern was super clear: he’s getting crazy and then she’s feeling guilty and apologize and she makes excuses to forgive him.
The second chance turns into 876 chances.
As time passed, he’s turned into these two extreme polar, on one end he can be this sweet, adorable boyfriend, and on another end, he can be this unloving, insensitive boyfriend. It’s really up to him which persona he decides to be, knowing that my best friend not going to do anything about it.
The bottom line is: he can be nice or be a**hole at his convenience while my best friend has to gamble which part of him she got to deal with every night.
Bottom line is: he can be nice or can be an a**hole at his convenience while my bestfriend has to gamble which part of him she got to deal with every night.
I know, emotional abandonment doesn’t sound very serious. It’s hard to take this account as abuse if there’s no bruised arm or blackened eye. But, the truth is, emotional abandonment is a form of abuse. My best friend continuously feels undesired and discarded which takes a mental and physical toll on her. The excitement of the relationship has turned into anxiety, exhaustion, and fear of what’s coming next.
After juggling whether this relationship is worth keeping or not, she had been enlightened at last. She thinks a lot about what cost her to keep this man for half-assing their relationship. Which cost literally everything, her time, money, health, and sanity. It’s only about time this emotional abuse can turn into anything physical.
I’m asking her what kind of things she tells herself to finally arrive at the conclusion to quit her relationship? Here some of the questions she asks to herself that might help anyone who has been asking the same question, am I in an abusive relationship?
- Expressing emotion. To be honest, how did your partner express their emotion? Did you guys discuss like adults to resolve problems? Did both of you make effort at all to make the relationship better?
- Lies. Did he lie to you? I’m not talking about a white-innocent-lies, but a more important or even dark lies? Did he lie to his friend about how he has been treating you?
- Fixing it. Are you the one who keeps apologizing? Did he make you feel wrong all the time?
- Energy. Do you feel that the energy you’ve been giving to this relationship reciprocates? Is your energy weaning every time you talk to him at all?
- Friendship. If you don’t fall in love with him, would you be his friends, with that attitude?
She stayed for positive ‘what if’s, but the cycle keeps repeating itself. It keeps happening to the point where it’s turned into an unpleasant and damaging relationship.
One thing I can learn from this: words can lie, actions can lie, but patterns tell the truth.
“…words can lie, actions can lie, but patterns tell the truth.”
It’s easy to judge “How can you let someone so undeserving treat you like that?” But maybe he was the only person there to give consolation. Maybe it was his company that filled your void. Maybe the person he was —his kindness —help you get through your day. You knew that you fall for him because of his warmth —and at that time —gentleness. You stayed in hoping, it was still there.
If anyone in this same situation — god forbid —I hope you walked out of that tunnel bringing this one bag of happy, warm memories of him that you will cherish and another bag of knowing this is not the love you want to spend your life with. That what you know about his kindness and his warmth is true, so is the abuse. It’s okay to remember all the great memories but also know that you don’t have to stay.
The walkout might be a long, hard walk, maybe you’re going to crawl, bruised and battered, but it’s going to be worth it. If the walking out still so hard and you decide to sit for a bit, I hope you find people hold your hand so tight, letting you know and show you that loving someone shouldn’t be hurt. It shouldn’t be like this.
