Love and Abuse

When the relationship boundaries are broken a second time

Someone's obsession of you can be disastrous

It can feel amazing when someone focuses entirely on you, supporting you, helping you achieve whatever makes you happy... until it turns into a nightmare. 

Isolating you from everything and everyone, leaving you a shell of your former self

Isolation is one of the more destructive forms of emotional abuse, yet many people don't realize it's happening. They simply notice they no longer feel happy or fulfilled

They call me names, put me down, tell me how pathetic I am - I guess I'm the problem.mp3

Are you the problem if nothing you do is ever right or good enough? Could they possibly be right about everything they're saying? If you believe this, please listen to th

It's me or them: When someone wants to control your relationship with others

When someone wants to control who you see by giving you an ultimatum between them and "me", you might have a hard choice to make. Or, maybe it's an easy choice, but it mi

Being called a bad parent if you want to leave the abusive relationship

You realize the relationship isn't going to work out and want to leave, but you're worried about being called a bad parent. Not only that, you are guaranteed to be called

I don't want to hurt the person who hurts me by leaving them

Your heart is big. And your kindness and compassion, though amazing qualities, can also keep you in situations that are unhealthy for you. When you're afraid you're going

The feeling that you lost a big chunk of your life to the abusive person

It's hard enough to be in a difficult relationship, but when your boundaries are shot, your adrenals are through the roof, and lots of years have passed, you might be won

Leaving an abusive person isn't easy and sometimes isn't over

It can be hard to be in an emotionally abusive relationship. The challenge is real! But what about leaving one? It might be just as hard or harder because of the unknown

The trauma bond keeps you lovesick and broken

A trauma bond is like being addicted to both the highs and lows, just waiting for your next fix. It's not impossible to break a trauma bond, but it can be hard as hell. 

Can you still like someone who hurt you but not love them?

Can the victim of emotional abuse accept the former abuser as a friend after a lot of time has passed? I received this question from someone who used to be emotionally ab

Are your children being manipulated, too?

You're watching your child mirror a narcissistic parent and it feels like you're losing ground. Arguing with the lies they're being told feels pointless, but asking the r

If you don't draw the line on how much is too much, you won't have a line

How much mistreatment is too much? When your boundaries are violated over and over again, there will be a point where you have none and the sky will be the limit on someo

How does an abusive person become an abusive person?

There's got to be a reason someone becomes abusive, right? All abusers abused as children... is that it? Maybe it's a mental health issue. Maybe it's none, some, or all o

Getting conned into taking an unhealed abuser back

They've changed! They've really seemed to change. They seem like a new person so you take them back. Then you find out they were just playing the long game. Emotionally a

Do mutually abusive relationships have a chance?

Sometimes both people in the relationship are hurtful, controlling and manipulative. When that's the case, it's going to take more than one person stopping the behaviors,

The superiority complex of misogynists

A unique episode about the superiority complex that drives mysogny in abusive relationships, why abusive people target those they perceive as weaker, and how their insecu

When you won't see an emotionally abusive person change

You can't fix what's unwilling to be fixed. And when someone would rather you and the relationship suffer and crumble than work on improving themselves, you might have on

Did you sign up for a life of indentured servitude?

If you feel trapped in a maze of emotional manipulation, hoping for a change that never comes, you might realize you've signed up for something you didn't expect and cert

They say they love you but they hurt you anyway

Some people seem to care but then do awful things. When they do, it's hard not to question if they love you at all.