You are not to blame for their abuse. There is no shame in telling someone you are being abused. Don’t keep the abuse against you a secret. Abuse thrives in silence.
In my role as advocate for victims of abuse in family relationships, I am often asked, “How can I tell if behaviour by my partner, children, family members and to a lesser extent work colleagues is abusive or just arguments, disagreements and other disputes that occur between people in day-to-day interactions?”
To break this down I refer to a booklet issued by Engender Equality, a Tasmanian not-for-profit domestic, family and sexual violence organisation, entitled “Understanding Your Relationship”.
Signs of a healthy relationship
Trust: you can trust the other to share your thoughts and feelings without those thoughts and feelings being used against you.
Honesty: You can be honest about your feelings, needs and wants without fear of ridicule or painful consequences.
Love and affection: In intimate, friend and family relationships, you feel free to express these, and have them reciprocated.
Respect: You ask each other what you want to do, and no one tries to control the other person. Your thoughts, feelings, decisions, ideas and differences are respected. The “it’s my way or else” does not exist in a respectful relationship.
Support: Supporting each other to be better people. They encourage you to follow your goals. They share responsibilities and if responsibilities are negotiated a respectful compromise is made.
Freedom: You are happy together, share common interests and you also feel okay about having your own interests and friends outside of the relationship. You are not made to feel guilty for wanting to spend reasonable time with friends and family. You are your own person while being in the relationship.
Communication: Hearing one another during an argument, disagreeing and settling it peacefully. You see each other as equals and there is no abuse of power or power imbalance that alone favours the other.
Boundaries: You respect each other’s boundaries where sex and intimacy are involved and any issues in this area can be discussed without fear. You make sure each of you are comfortable and never push the other to do something they don’t want to do.
Feeling safe: Your partner does not make you feel afraid or uncomfortable.
To summarise, a healthy, respectful relationship is built on a base of trust, respect, compromise, understanding of each other’s differences and feeling comfortable in each other’s company.
Signs of an unhealthy relationship
Yellow flags: Signs that something’s not quite right in the relationship. Yellow flags are early signs that the relationship has the potential to become abusive. At first these signs may not seem abusive or controlling, but have the potential to be damaging to the person on the receiving end and can result in social isolation, low self-esteem, anxiety and depression.
Lack of respect: You go along with something because you feel bad about how the other person acts if you don’t do what they say.
Being held back: They discourage you from doing what you want to do and are always negative about your decisions.
Controlling behaviour: They always make the decisions. They may try to stop you seeing your friends and family. They try to control what you do, where you go, what you say, what you wear and how much you spend.
Overly infatuated or crazy in love: They are possessive, smothering, over-attached; they can’t live without you. They are constantly checking up on you or turning up unannounced.
Getting blamed for your partner’s problems: They say, “This is your fault.” Quickly, you begin to accept their unhealthy behaviour towards you, and their excuses for their bad behaviour.
Feeling jealous most of the time: Obsessive jealousy can often be mistaken for love, but underneath it is a form of control and possessiveness. When you trust and respect each other, it shouldn’t matter who you talk to or spend time with. If you are constantly being accused of cheating or flirting, or they want you to spend all your time with them, it is a sign of jealousy and mistrust.
Trying to change the other: They say, “It’s my way or no way.” There is no compromise or effort to take your needs into consideration.
You feel stressed: You feel frightened, anxious or tense when your partner is around. You may feel like you’re walking on eggshells, you can’t be yourself or feel like you have to look over your shoulder all the time (hyper-vigilant).
Regular conflict: You disagree or argue a lot and you are the one to back down always. Issues aren’t resolved where you both win; you are always the loser.
Red flags: Signs you are in an abusive relationship and need to consider seeking help to end or change the relationship. Red flags include physical abuse against you, your children, pets; threat or use of weapons; locking you out of the house; depriving you of sleep, food or medical care.
Sexual abuse: Forcing you into any form of sexual activity without your consent, forcing you to have intercourse without protection, calling you sexually degrading names,, telling you, “You would do it if you loved me.”
Verbal abuse: Putting you down in public and private, criticising your appearance, intelligence, opinions, mental health, name calling.
Emotional abuse: Blaming you for everything, unfavourably comparing you to others, sulking and giving you the silent treatment, manipulating you through guilt trips, threatening to harm you or themselves. Telling you that no one else would want you.
Psychological abuse: Gaslighting, brainwashing you into believing it’s you who is the problem, you who must change and conditioning you to where you lose all sight of who you are, instead becoming a person that exists entirely to serve and think only for your partner, their wants and needs. You abide by their rules.
Social abuse: Isolating you from friends and family by being rude to them, moving you to places where you don’t know anyone. Forbidding or physically stopping you from seeing other people. Isolating you from potential allies and those who could support you if abuse is disclosed.
Spiritual abuse: Forcing you to do things that are against your beliefs, disrespecting your cultural background, forcing you to participate in religious rituals you don’t agree with.
Economic or financial abuse: Controlling your money, interrogating you over what you spend, not giving you access to the bank accounts, not giving you enough money to buy necessities, withholding the money you earn for themselves, taking out loans in your name, incurring debts and forcing you to pay for those.
. . .
I have said this before in previous articles but feel it needs to be reiterated: there is no excuse for abuse. Abusers choose to abuse. You cannot get them to change if they don’t want to.
It is not your fault. You are not to blame for their abuse. There is no shame in telling someone you are being abused. Don’t keep the abuse against you a secret. Abuse thrives in silence.
