A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:My bf of 2 years has become more emotionally abusive lately. Everytime i try more to be nice to him, he pulls off more, but still i couldnt hate him at all. I know i shouldnt take this abuse anymore but i couldnt leave him either. I really want to hate him and stop wanting him. Is there anything wrong with me for putting up with his crap and still trying to work things out. Please help
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female
reader, Alice87 +, writes (5 February 2011):
You sound like a really nice girl who is really trying to make your relationship work, but sometimes you have to give yourself permission to walk away. My ex-husband was verbally and emotionally abusive. I put up with it in the beginning because I felt sorry for him. He'd had a tough childhood and had been hurt by past girlfriends, etc. I told myself that I would be the one to restore his faith in people. But you know what? You can't fix someone like him. People like that will suck you dry. They take and take and become more and more abusive as time passes. You two are still dating and if this is how he is acting now, it will only get worse as time goes by. And God forbid you marry the guy and have kids, he will emotionally abuse them as well.I finally divorced my husband last year after 14 years of marriage when I realized that we were modeling an unhealthy relationship to our children. But both of my daughters are scarred by him and are in counseling. I wish I had left years ago.Please do whatever it takes to break this off. It will be hard but in the long run you will be so glad you did. Good luck!
A
reader, anonymous, writes (4 February 2011): Right or wrong, at the end of the day leaving an abusive partner, if you love them, and they weren't always like that is not easy.
There comes a point though when you just have to accept it's not working. All your getting out of the relationship is avoiding the heartache of ending it, unfortunately by that point you've probably lost all your self esteem and sense of who you are.
If he can't change then pluck up the courage and leave. It's painful yes, but you'll be happier in the long run. When you start believing his behaviour is actually your fault (which you will), the. Your in trouble. Find someone to love you for who you are, who won't abuse you.
I was in an abusive relationship (physical and emotional) and I'm still picking up the peices, and when something goes wrong, even the smallest thing, his words still go round in my head.
Don't think your safe just because he hasn't hit you. The emotional scars last a lot longer than the physical ones.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (4 February 2011): The only appropriate way to handle this situation is to walk away from him and never look back. This will be a difficult move for you being that you love him and have fallen into the unhealthy pattern of making light of his abusive treatment on you. He will never stop abusing you. He is only going to become more abusive toward you. You are allowing him to abuse you and even if you walk away from him he is going to continue abusing you because it thinks it's his entitlement to abuse you. You have to realize your worth and accept that there are many gentlemen who will treat you like the queen that you are. You have to walk away from your abusive boyfriend. Get yourself into therapy. That will help you realize that your boyfriend is not worthy of you. You will need to take steps which will make it impossible for him to contact you with his manipulative controlling abuse such as changing your phone number, email addresses, deleting internet accounts or changing user names, delete all pictures of yourself on the internet which associate you to an account, etc.. You have to take this serious. Your boyfriend is a monster and he's never going to treat you better only more and more worse. Good luck!
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A
female
reader, PatientlyWaiting1 +, writes (4 February 2011):
No you are not crazy. But you need to stand up for yourself period. Stand your ground, you will feel so much better after and he will be shocked and will respect you more. When he gets abusive via text, phone or in person say something like "do not ever talk to me like that again in your life. i am sick and tired of you being rude to me." then end the convo. you have to say it sternly but not loud and you must mean it. that is your first step. you have to begin to train yourself not to need him then it will be easier. he will never respect you by you chasing after him and being "nice" you need to be a bitch. Get the book "Why men marry bitches."
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (4 February 2011): It all depends how long you are prepared to try to make it work. There comes a time when, for your own sense of self worth and well being, you have to call it a day. Recognising when to walk away is vital if you want to have a happy settled life.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (4 February 2011): No there's nothing wrong with you for doing that, is it the right course of action for a good and happy life? Maybe not.
Look you need strength. My first reaction to your post is to leave but that's not an option you feel you can consider. So if you don't have the strength to do that then you need to find the strength to stand up for yourself.
If anyone else in this world treated you like crap, would you be nice to them? No of course not. Why is that? Because you treat people how they treat you, if someone disrespects you then you don't respect them enough to be nice to them right? That's how the world works and you have to do that with people or they never learn. If you treat someone nice when they#re treating you like crap then you're rewarding their behaviour. It's like giving your dog a treat for biting your hand. You wouldn't do that either would you?
So why then are you letting this guy do that? Love makes us do stupid things I know but there's nothing more stupid than actually making the problem worse. Stand up, fight your corner and if he's not nice to you then stop being nice to him. Why would he change when he knows you're still going to let him treat you like that and there are no negative consequences. If your dog bit you on the hand you'd give him a vicious slap across the nose, shout "no" at him and throw him into the yard. If he tried again the same thing would happen, the dog would then realize that doing that action will only lead to being slapped on the nose and thrown out in the cold and it never does that again.
You have to treat your boyfriend the same way, you have to stop rewarding his bad behaviour and start showing him that there are serious consequences to treating you that way. Let me make it clear to you, words mean nothing, telling him there'll be consequences if he doesn't stop won't work unless you actually follow through. I bet you've discussed this with him a million times, I bet he's apologized lots for it but in the end it's all talk.
Time to start slapping that dogs nose and kicking him out to yard (not literally of course) but you have to stand up, be strong and not let him do this.
People only abuse others because that person never stops them.
I had one such partner that was very verbally abusive. I let it lie a few times but it never went away. I then decided that if she talked to me like that again then I'd go away and ignore her for a week and the next time it would be two weeks. The time after 3 weeks and if it got the month then I was gone for good. Only when someone like that sees that there are going to be serious consequences to their actions do they ever think about changing.
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A
female
reader, natmarie  +, writes (4 February 2011):
 Have you thought about going for counselling?
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A
male
reader, Capri2  +, writes (4 February 2011):
Yes. There something called "survival instinct" which protect us from things that hurt. It seems not to be working with you. May be you should go to a therapist to find out way. Instead of trying to be with someone that hurts you.
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