SIGNS YOUR IN A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP

I share this post as a tribute to the ongoing #dontexcuseabuse campaign 

Sources:Gender Violence Recovery Centre kenya, sanctuary for abused,
children of parents narcissistic tendancies

The below signs are from sanctuary for the Abused written by licenced Psychologists link is above. The signs listed apply  to both men a women

As long as you want better for yourself you can achieve anything.Their is no need to suffer alone in silence if there is someone/organisations willing to help .Don't go through this nightmare alone someone does care for you and will help you ..If the signs are visible don't wait till you have broken ribs! or worse.If in kenya click the gender violence recovery link to get help. ITS NEVER TOO LATE TO GET HELP

Below are some of the signs

Unemployed or Underemployment.
Underemployment is not necessarily an objective phenomenon; it may be the subjective response to the man's failing to meet his own expectations. Educational and occupational attainment frequently is less than wife's, such status discrepancies are painful even should the husband bring home a higher salary.

Emotional Dependency.
Emotional dependency on the spouse is usually not recognized or understood, but is expressed through demands for constant reassurance and gratification. This may explain in part why spouse abuse often begins during wife's pregnancy.

High Investment in Marriage.
Wants to preserve marriage at any cost and will go to great lengths to do so. In the event of separation or divorce, tends to immediately replace lost spouse with a new partner.

Boundaries.

• Violates your personal space.
• Intimidates you by getting too close.
• Touches, pinches, grabs you against your will.

Quick Involvement.

• Sweeps you off your feet.
• Love at first sight.
• "You're the only one for me."
• "I have to have you." "I think about you all day / all night"
• Desperately pressures you for a commitment so you're engaged, sleeping together in less than 6 months or living together in less than 12 months.

Controlling Behavior.

• Controls where you go, what you do, with whom and for how long.
• Controls money and money decisions, won't allow you to share expenses or refuses to work and won't share expenses.
• Protective to the point of controlling.
• Says he's angry when you're "late" because he "cares."
• Takes your car keys, won't let you go to church, work, or school. Won't let you drive.

Jealousy.Angry about your relationship with other men, women, coworkers, even children and family. This insecurity and possessiveness causes him to accuse you of flirting or having affairs, to call frequently or drop by to check up on you, even check your car mileage or have you followed.

Abusive Family of Origin.
Was physically, sexually or emotionally abused as a child or witnessed spouse abuse. He sees violence as normal behavior, a natural part of family life.

Low Self-Esteem.

• Guards his fragile sense of self by acting tough and macho.
• Pumps up his fragile sense of self with sex.
• Imagines you threaten his manhood.
• Damages your self-esteem, demeans your growth, demands your silence.

Alcohol/Drug Abuse.

• Abuses alcohol/drugs, tries to get you drunk, berates you if you won't get high.
• He may deny his drug problem and refuse to get help. Don't think you can change him or that alcohol/drug abuse causes violent behavior. They are two separate problems.

Difficulty Expressing Emotions.

• Unable to identify feelings and express them directly and appropriately.
• He may say he's "hurt" and sulk when he's really angry.
• He displaces anger at his boss or himself onto you.
• Blame Shifts; he's never responsible for what happens.

Blames Others for His Feelings or Problems.

• Believes others are out to get him and he's the victim.
• Blames you for everything that goes wrong.
• Will say "You make me mad," "You make me happy," "I can't help getting angry" to manipulate you.
• Holds you responsible for his suicidal or self-abusive or sexual- acting-out behavior.

Hypersensitivity.
Quick temper, unable to handle frustration without getting angry, easily insulted. Will "rant and rave" about minor things like traffic tickets or request to do chores.

 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Seems like two different people with mood swings from nice to explosive. May change his behavior around the guys. May be very sociable around others and only abusive with you.

Unrealistic Expectations.

• Very dependent on you for all his physical and emotional needs ("You're all I need").
• Expects you to live up to his ideals of a perfect partner, mother, lover, friend.

Rigid Gender Roles.

• Expects a woman to stay at home, serve and obey him.
• Gets angry if you don't fulfill his wishes and anticipate his needs.
• Speaks for you.
• He thinks it's OK for men to keep women "in line" by force or intimidation.

  Rigid Religious Beliefs.
 Justifies rigid sex roles and the physical/emotional/sexual domination of women and children with strict or distorted interpretations of scripture.

Disrespect for Women in General.

• Ridicules and insults women, sees women as stupid and inferior to men
• Tells sexist jokes ("dumb blond", "PMS" jokes).
• Refers to women in derogatory or non-human terms ("babe", "chick", "fox", "bitch") or as specific parts of anatomy
• Sees women only as sex-objects, uses prostitutes or has affairs
• De-values women's accomplishments and work, acts like women are second-class citizens.

Emotional Abuse.

• He may ignore your feelings, continually criticize you and call you names like "fat, ugly, stupid"
• curse and yell at you
• belittle your accomplishments
• manipulate you with lies, contradictions, and crazy-making tactics
• humiliate you in private or public
• Uses sarcasm and says it's 'humor.'
• regularly threaten to leave or tell you to leave, keep you awake or
• wake you up to argue or verbally abuse you.

Isolation.

• An acquaintance rapist will try to separate you from others to a secluded spot.
• Batterers will try to keep you from working or attending school, move you to a rural area, restrict your use of the phone or car.
• He'll try to cut you off from men, women, family and children by saying "You're a whore," "You're a lesbian," "You're tied to your parent's apron strings," or "You're spoiling the kids."

  Reliance on Pornography.

• Rapists, child molesters and men who sexually abuse or rape their wives or other women often have an abundance of pornographic literature, internet bookmarks, magazines, or videos.
• They may want to involve you in their interest by photographing you or taking you to pornographic movies or shops.
• They may coerce you into doing things sexually you are uncomfortable with or wouldn't normally do and then say that you "liked it" or "asked for it."

Sexual Abuse.

• Refuses platonic relationship if dating
• uses "playful" force in sex
• uses sulking, sympathy or anger to manipulate you into having sex
• emotionally coerces or forces you to have sex or hurts you during sex
• demands sex when you're scared, ill, tired or
• starts to have sex when you're asleep, drunk, or unable to give consent.

Cruelty to Animals, Children, or Others.

• Teases, bullies, abuses or harshly punishes animals, children, elderly, disabled weaker people or other women.
• Is insensitive to others' pain.
• Tortures or kills pets to feel powerful or hurt you.
• Threatens to kidnap the children if you leave.
• Punishes or deprives the children when angry at you.
• Punishes the children for behavior they're incapable of (whipping a 2 year-old for wet diapers).

Past Violence.
Any history of violence to "solve" problems. Justifies hitting or abusing women in the past, but "they made me do it." Friends, relatives or ex-partners say he's abusive (Batterers beat any woman they're with. You didn't cause it and you can't control it or cure it).

Fascination with Weapons.
Plays with guns, knives, or other lethal weapons, threatening to "get even" with you or others. Tells you he knows how to kill someone and/or how to hide bodies; or that he has 'friends' who will 'take care of you'.

Threats of Violence.

• Any threats of physical force to control you or make you do something should be taken seriously.
• He may threaten to hurt you or your family. Non-batterers do not say things like "I'll kill you" or "I'll break your neck" or "I'm out to get you now."
• Posts threats or defamatory material about you on the internet.

  Breaking or Striking Objects.

Punishes you by breaking loved objects, terrorizes you into submission (If he doesn't want you to be a student, he may destroy school books or break lamps). Non-batterers do not beat on tables, punch holes in walls, destroy furniture, throw objects at you to threaten you. The message is "You're next! You're just an object I can control and I can break you like our china."

 Any Force During an Argument.

Hurts you in anger or in "play", pushing , shoving, pulling, grabbing you by the collar, holding you down, restraining you from leaving the room, slapping, punching, hitting, kicking, or burning.

WE PLAN MORE FOR THE WEDDING THAN WE DO FOR THE ACTUAL MARRIAGE.

MARRIAGE IS A LIFETIME COMMITMENT DONT JUST FOCUS ON THE WEDDING DAY IT ONLY LASTS 1 DAY BUT THE MARRIAGE IS FOR A LIFETIME

As women we have been fed the narrative ,"Finish school,get a job ,find a husband and live happily ever after......."

We have been conditioned to think that the single most important moment in our lives is walking down the isle to our prince charming who will save us from all our worries and be our knight and shining armour.

So from a young age we think about the details of how we would like the magical day to look ,what we will wear ,what colours we will have ,what shoes and how our hair will look.
Every so often we add more details to the day inorder to ensure that nothing messes up that special day.

Every detail is carefully picked out with the aim of bringing the day as close to perfection as possible.

Then the day comes and goes and you realize, you lived a day to fulfill expectations and spend more money than necessary just to achieve a milestone imposed on you. Which leaves you thinking,".....so what next??????".

So here you are sitting across the room from someone you where supposed to be living happily ever after with but instead all you can think is .....who is this stranger i married?, 

How come nobody told me it was going to be this difficult and did i make the biggest mistake of my life?"

The thing about love is once you open your heart up to someone its hard to shut them out. 

Sometimes in marriage and also in long term relationships we go through obstacles and we tend to build walls or in some cases we choose to create an illusion of who the perfect person is suppoaed to be and we have unrealistic expectations of our spouses and it leads to resentment .

Time goes by and we find we know nothing about the person we married.

The thing is thats exactly what marriage we marry the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with and that in itself is a gift but we focus on everything else but ensuring we get to spend the rest of our Live happily with that person.

What i loved about old love (our grandparents kind of love) is that they understood it they accepted the traditional parts of what a union is and they also grew into what love and family threw their way and thats why we can sit around during family holidays and see how their love inspired generations .

Love needs to be patient and love needs to be kind even when there is no reason to be kind.

Now we allow everyone tell us what love is supposed to be instead of creating and working hard to create the kind of love we dreamt of in our homes.

Most people can be envious and give advise just to see you miserable and some just cannot understand the dynamics of your relationship and will give one sided advise. 

So my advise for you is plan for the future plan for the problems and plan to stick it out so you can have an always and forever.

If you would like to talk send us a message by leaving your name email and message  in the section on the right hand side

To see similar posts click on one of the labels below.

I HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO

DONT CLING TO A MISTAKE BECAUSE YOU SPENT A LOT OF TIME MAKING IT.

Listening to a conversation by a lady who decided to become complacent with the physical ,verbal and emotional trauma from her spouse and her giving reasons as to why she stayed in a toxic and draining relationship made me sick to my stomach so I write this to show women who use "I have no where else to go," as an excuse that it's time for you to want better for yourself.


Women feel trapped in relationships of domestic abuse. For  reasons like a pastor told her that God hates divorce, her partner said he would change, she did not have a place to go and money to survive once she left, she thought love conquered all, she felt alone , what would she do with the kids or just the fact that she has given so much to the relationship that she would rather stay than leave.
The limitations of leaving can be both psychological and physical. Many rationalise their situation. Some end up blaming themselves for the abusive behaviour of their partners and try convince themselves if they approach the person differently, maybe they won’t be abused.

Being in an toxic relationship is like an addiction “The person being abused is focused on the positive and waiting for the next positive. The fact that a person can be so loving in one moment and cruel the next makes you doubt that they don't mean it and as women we tend to see the good in the people we love and end up suffering for it.The psychological effect the moments of tenderness and intimacy are unpredictable, but they are so intense and fulfilling that the you end up staying in the hopes that a moment like that will happen again. Almost like selective amnesia you forget the bad in order to hope for the moments of intense love and acts of grandeur.
 (see my post on learn to live ,  dont agree to bercome a statistic  ,starting over )

Eventually you become both physically mentally and emotionally worn down and continue to tolerate more abuse.  Over time you end up feeling less entitled to safety, to love, to happiness like you do not deserve it.

The thing is a-woman-is-unstopable-once-she-realises she deserves better .When you get so used to being unhappy you begin to think it's normal. While in reality it is Not normal. Nobody is created to stay miserable. It is the wrong decisions we continue to make after a mistake that leave us broken.

Everyone goes through bad things you can either let that define you or you can learn to move on having learnt from the situation.

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