Why Would Someone Emotionally Abuse?

An emotional abuser causes others to suffer when:

You do not comply with their emotional needs that were deprived of in childhood. and/or

To protect themselves from the pain they felt because of this deprivation.

If you are not meeting their needs then you can be punished for not doing so or the abuser goes into their emotional safe place and exhibits abusive type behaviour towards you (using what they know will work to get you to comply).

If they are not getting their emotional needs met from childhood and are punishing you for doing this when feeling insecure, they presume that you caused them to feel this way, so they set out to hurt you for it.

You are blamed for their insecure sense of self and pressured into making them feel better. The intention is to get you to feel you are causing them to feel bad about themselves, and expect you to make up for it.

Perhaps your abusive partner encourages you to feel sorry for them, so you lose sight of what they are actually doing. They guilt you to being responsible their emotions and can make you think you’re the problem and make it up to them.

This is all to meet their needs that keep them safe or give them a sense that they are gaining revenge for their poor treatment as a child.

As you are probably aware, people bury negative childhood emotions to protect themselves, so that they can avoid the pain of their past.

Therefore, when they get closer to you, they feel they need to protect themselves from getting too close and can then exhibit abusive behaviour to remain detached or to get you to prove to them that you will put up with them.

Their anger from their past relationships becomes misdirected towards new loved ones – you.

They haven’t learnt to manage these emotions for themselves, or even know that they have a problem that needs to be resolved. As you may have noticed they are often incapable of admitting they have a problem.

An abuser can repeat the emotional abuse that they believe was done ‘to them’ as a child (note here that if someone believes things have been done 'to them', they are in a victim mentality, and as a child they were victims to these things as had no choices).

Perhaps they were abused emotionally for not meeting the maladaptive needs of their parents (caregivers), they could have felt unloved, rejected or abandoned because of this.

So, when their insecurities are triggered as adults, they abuse you emotionally to get the love they wanted, the proof that you won’t leave them or to avoid possible pain.

 What to do if you are Being Emotionally Abused

If you notice any signs of emotional abuse towards you, then you are playing a part in the game to meet the maladaptive needs of another.

Inflicting abuse on you is an attempt to escape these insecure feelings about themselves.

The emotional abuser needs to address these feelings and repair their damaged selves, instead of making others pay the price for their emotions. When they acknowledge it is their issue they do not need to project onto others or make you responsible.

If you recognise that you’re being emotionally abused then you need to set boundaries for their behaviour, otherwise they will continue to ‘play out’ in your relationship.

If you can’t do this or stay in the abuse then there is likely to be something in you, around your needs that you are trying to meet by not doing so.

The same way that they have issues from their past, you are likely to be carrying your own.

You may not value yourself, to let yourself be abused this way. You may need to build a stronger sense of self, so that you can take better care of yourself and live healthier relationships.

For more information about how Transformational Relationship Coaching can help you or someone you know then contact me now for your free consultation.

Be good to yourself

John