Thread by @jbartonmezzo, I don’t often tweet about intensely personal things, but I had an [...]

I don’t often tweet about intensely personal things, but I had an experience a few days ago that brought up a lot.

For the benefit of anyone who has been through, or might be going through this currently, I want to put this out there.

Let’s talk about abusive relationships.

I was married a while back to a guy who was really nice for the vast majority of the time I knew him. We had our issues, but nothing seemed untenable, until the end of the relationship when things got really rocky.

It took a long time, a long and expensive divorce, and a good therapist for me to understand that I’d experienced an emotionally, mentally, and verbally abusive partner.

There were so many reasons I would have never thought of him as abusive... we had a good relationship for much of our time together.

But in the end, that sharp left turn in our relationship was marked by incredibly typical abuser tactics:

Here are some tale-tell abuser tactics that I experienced:

- Love bombing
- Isolating you from friends and family
- Gaslighting
- Word twisting
- Playing the victim
- Blame shifting
- Subtle shaming

All of this is is done so the abuser maintains control over the relationship.

Fast forward to now, and recently, I’d begun to see a guy.

It started with love bombing (wanting to move WAY too fast into locking this relationship down), & I clocked that red flag. I decided to keep it in the back of my mind, and still see if this was a promising relationship.

Not long into dating, we had a conversation that left me with a cold, heavy feeling in my gut. He’d taken a sharp left turn in how he interacted with me, and it shook me. I’d seen this before. I spent some time processing, and cut the relationship off.

Here’s why I want to share this here:

I’ve spent days wading through a lot of emotions tied to this shift, and a lot of them are anger at myself for having not been able to see that he would do this. I’ve been through this before... why couldn’t I predict this now??

I just talked with a friend who’s been through this too, and she helped me understand that I can’t fault myself for not being able to see behind the veil. That as smart and sure in my own footing as I am, that’s just not a super power that one can have. We can’t read minds.

There’s something liberating in that knowledge. The blame is not on me for having not seen it... the blame is squarely on the shoulders of the person who chooses to use abusive tactics in an effort to control others.

No ifs, ands, or buts... the abuser earns the blame.

I can have my internal security defenses up as high as the sky, but at the end of the day, if I allow someone in thinking they’re good, I’m BRAVE, not stupid. If they abuse that privilege, then it’s my duty to cut them out.

I don’t have mind reading powers. None of us do.

So, if you’re in a situation like this, or if you’re processing through something like this, I offer solidarity here. Trade any anger you have for yourself for empathy.

You’re not stupid. You’re brave as hell, and it’s not your fault that someone else turned out to be abusive.

Trust me...you’ll learn the lesson of how to see the red flags, and that will serve you well. And, if you ever find yourself facing an abuser again, trust your body. That feeling in your gut doesn’t lie. That jackass can exit directly out of your life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abusive_power_and_control?wprov=sfti1

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