Verbal and Emotional Abuse Help and Support

Better than "It hurts my feelings when you…"

A comment on the previous post helped me to realize that I’ve got to come up with a strategy for dealing with my husband that doesn’t include telling him that he’s hurt me. He doesn’t care. Or rather, he’s glad that I’m hurt because that means he has the upper hand. I’m ripe for travelling down…
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A Self-Care Journaling Exercise: 5 and 2

What beliefs are giving you trouble? Which ones are worth carrying forward into the future? There’s an exercise called “5 and 2” and it asks you to choose five beliefs to keep and two beliefs to let go. What’s good for you to keep and what’s better left behind? Here are my thoughts on 5 and…
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My Support System Is My Foundation

It’s all right that they don’t call ME. The fact that I have benefited and will continue to benefit from their wisdom, education and support is phenomenally important to me. I went from being someone stuck in isolation to being someone who knows who to call and when. More importantly, I learned that my husband’s…
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Why I’m Staying In My Abusive Marriage

I will be doing a lot of work in the realm of codependency, as well as finding solutions to dealing with my husband’s abusive techniques. It takes two participants to play this sick game we’ve got going on in my home. What will happen when I simply stop playing?
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My Buttons Get Pushed – But I Control My Reactions

I’m reading a book1 in which the authors identify three common ways people think when confronted with button-pushing people and an alternative, healthier way to think. In a prior post, I wrote about some stinking thinking before I knew what it was: “Or maybe it’s me blaming myself for not seeing this coming. Maybe it’s me thinking that no matter what I…
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Gaslighting Abuse Means War

Perhaps I am so important to him that he feels we should be as one mind. Unfortunately, this thought seems to translate into we should be of his mind and “my mind should disappear and stop causing so many problems.
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Crisis Writing

Remember to Write the Good Things Too Not too long ago, I was talking to my sister about how I tend to reach out to other people when I’m embroiled in an emotional crisis, but as soon as things smooth out, the people who were my support stop hearing from me. Until the next crisis.…
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Angel-Speak Decoded

IF the souls of my unborn children were passed on to me BECAUSE they needed to “pass through” some sort of physical existence before going on to do better things, then I truly am blessed. And now I’m crying. It hurts so badly. Knowing I’ll know my children “later” is a sorry substitute for the…
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Change Through Resistance Feels Like a Fight

Maybe it hurts because it’s supposed to hurt. He meant to hurt me. “Goodbye and good luck.” I think he meant to threaten me, too. The “good luck” part was not lovingly said, you know. On a high note, this could be the first time he’s ever wished me good luck in anything.
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Couples’ Counseling Does Not Help Abusive Relationships

I want him to take responsibility for our problems as he expects me to do & expects as much of himself as he expects of me. I want equality in our marriage. However, I tend to agree with Kera who commented, “His response to your marriage counseling hardly seemed like he’s going to become a…
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