by K. Russell

Created on: January 05, 2011

“Why don’t you just leave?”

Those words grate across the heart and soul of anyone who has suffered the ravages of an abusive relationship. By the time you realize that the person who claims to love you is actually a beast, a rabid dog, eating the guts out of your courage, your dreams, and your heart, there simply isn’t much left to take.

Abusers are masters of manipulation, which is why recognizing the signs of an abusive relationship can be so difficult to spot, especially from the inside. As with most other problems in life, recognizing the problem exists is the first step to fixing it. Until you recognize that the person you are with is abusing you, you will continue to enable and excuse their behavior.

Below are just a few signs of an abusive relationship:

• physical attack

• verbal attack

• missing money or valuables

• disparaging remarks on a regular basis

• frequent emotional outbursts

• out of control alcohol or drug use

• constant blaming

• constant empty promises

If you suspect that the person you are with is cheating on you, stealing from you, or being overly critical or negative, sit down with them to discuss it calmly. Healthy relationships can get through these discussions positively, constructively, and without attacking each other. If the discussion immediately turns into a yelling match in which your accusations are being turned against you, you are probably in an abusive relationship.

The biggest problem with abusive relationships, apart from their destructive and violent tendencies, is the long-term brainwashing that occurs as your abuser uses your insecurities against you, to convince you that no one else would want you, that your abuser is already going above and beyond what anyone else would give you, and so on. By the time conditions are bad enough that the abuse is obvious, many abused partners genuinely believe their deserve to be abused! The mental destruction and warping that occurs before the more obvious physical, emotional, and financial abuse is far more destructive to your self confidence and self preservation.

Getting out of an abusive relationship first requires that you recognize its existence. After acknowledging that you are in an abusive relationship, you must plan, secretly, carefully, and thoroughly, for your escape. Looking at it as anything other than escape is futile. Abusers will threaten you, your children, your pets, your job, anything

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