A relationship can start off with great promise and end up becoming very toxic.
Emotional abuses can gradually set in with time and you may not even realise your loosing your confidence. Abusers can be very tactful at making you feel guilt to gain control. Leaving you confused and alone.
In a report by the Daily Mail, Sally Brown, a psychologist British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists, reveals 14 warning signs you maybe in an abusive relationship.
If you feel you’re in an unhealthy relationship, seek help.
14 signs:
1. Joking at your expense
You find your partner taking digs at you and how you can't do anything. If you protest, you are accused of being too sensitive. If these jokes are made in public, people might sit in awkward silence.
2. Constantly feel guilty
Do you feel like you’re walking on eggs shells? Because you don't want to do or say the wrong things that may make you feel guilty or ashamed. The abuser can even make an individual feel bad about their own horrible behaviour - they were upset because what you did make them feel that way.
3. Monitoring your every move
You have to notify and get permission to go out without them. They also tell you what time you need to be back home. They justify this by telling you it is for your own safety.
4. Unexpected grand gestures
When you start to question your relationship, your partner may make grand gestures like giving you flowers, or taking you out for a surprise dinner. It is their way of buying time and your silence.
5. Manipulation
The abuser may use manipulation to make you doubt yourself and state of mind.
6. Rain on your parade
Their horrible remarks shut down every piece of good news. Your partner doesn't rebel in your accomplishments and joy. So you avoid sharing your plans and other goals.
7. Criticizing everything you do
Over time the compliments turn into crude comments from how you look to what you eat.
8. Lack of empathy
When you going through a struggle, they don't want to hear it, become critical or tell you to 'get over it'.
9. Nothing you say is right
An abuser will keep in mind every wrong you have already apologized for. Or use something private you shared with them against you.
10. Your finances are being controlled
It may have started with giving you advice on how to handle your money and then became a take over. They will start pressuring you on how to spend your money.
11. Under pressure to take sides
When things start to escalate, your friends and family may get involved. When things between them get intense you are forced to take sides.
12. You get told you've changed
People often tell you that you are not yourself. You find yourself making excuses for why that is.
13. Long for time on your own
You find yourself looking forward to time with yourself when you know he will be away.
14. You get shut out for days
Sometimes your abuser may not make contact with you for days. It is their way to emotionally withdraw from you. They may say it is because they needed time and space. But you may not know what they were really up to.
