Books and movies extol love. There have been poems and songs written about love and when a person falls in love, the expectation of course is for love to be a smooth and beautiful ride. When you are in a relationship, you want to believe that everything will be just right and nothing bad will happen.

While things do seem very rosy at the beginning, the passage of time may tell you a very different story. When two people get emotionally close to each other, there are chances of one or even both partners beginning to emotionally abuse each other.

Emotional abuse can be defined as things that one partner does that emotionally impacts the other partner in a way that it degrades the person’s individuality, ruins their self esteem and in the long run, impacts the relationship itself.

Emotional abuse occurs either because of the abuser’s own emotional issues, because of selfishness, or because the abuser is unaware of the way in which his behaviour impacts you. This is a serious problem and it needs to be addressed if you are to save your relationship as well as your self esteem and emotional strength.

Top 5 Tips To Deal With Emotionally Abusive Relationships

Accept That You Are Being Abused

First, you need to admit that you are being put through emotional abuse. Stop making excuses for your partner. Many women tend to make excuses for the bad behavior of their man because it can be extremely hard to acknowledge that a loved one is abusing them. Acceptance is the first step toward healing as well as handling the problem.

Identify The Abusive Acts and Triggers

Identify the ways in which you are being abused emotionally. Writing this down will help to a great extent. There are different types of emotional abuse, ranging from the “silent treatment”, withholding of affection, threats of abandonment or threats that harbour on your greatest fears, and many more such things. Write these down and also note down the frequency of the instances of abuse, along with dates if you can remember them.

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Think back to what triggered off the episodes of emotional abuse. Write these down as well so that you can get an idea of the pattern of abuse and what works as a trigger. In many cases, identifying the pattern and the trigger could show you underlying problems that could be addressed effectively to curb the abuse.

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Discuss The Abuse

Talk to your partner at a point of time when he is relaxed and in a frame of mind to listen to you. Instead of telling him “You make me feel bad when you give me the silent treatment”, tell him “I feel emotionally hurt when we don’t talk”.

This takes the “blame” out of the conversation, and it focuses more on what you feel than what he has done. He will then feel more inclined to address the problem. However, if he feels that you are cornering him with what he has done, then he is more likely to close up and not listen to you.

Seek Help For Both Of You

If there are underlying issues in your partner’s life that need to be addressed, you can probably opt for therapy together to help both of you deal with it. In some cases, if your partner came from a divided family or was exposed to verbal or emotional abuse as a child, he might be emotionally abusing you without realizing it. In this case, seeking therapy together will help him deal with his past, and will also help you deal with the trauma that you have gone through.

Know When To Walk Out

If your partner refuses to acknowledge that he abusing you, calmly tell him that you are not open to putting up with the abuse. Your partner might not accept therapy or counselling right at the beginning. However, if he continues to be in denial and continues to abuse you, then you need to give yourself some space.

Keep a few trusted friends informed about what you are going through and take some time out for yourself. This will give your partner a chance to analyse how much you mean to him and whether the relationship means enough to him to work for and to save.

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