Signs Of An Abusive Relationship: The Vicious Trap

A beautiful relationship is a thing to cherish; it enriches the lives of people involved in it. It gives them immense possibilities of exploring each other and enhances the qualities of each other. A healthy relationship will lead to more relationships which are healthy. It is the opposite in case of relationship where abuse and violence take prominence. It kills the personality of those involved in it, giving rise to further abusive relationships.

As beautiful relationship builds up more beauty inside you; similarly an abusive relationship gives out abuse. Whoever is a part of an abusive relationship whether directly or indirectly; suffers! Indirectly involved are children where one of the parent or both are the source of an abusive relationship. There are possibilities that when the children get into relationships, it will have possibilities of turning out in to an abusive one.

Amongst the many reasons why a person has abusive mentality, the foremost is that he or she has been a part of abusive relationship for quite a substantial amount of time, either directly or indirectly. An abusive relationship induces many negative characteristics in a person, like self pity, grave dependability, lack of respect and trust, sadistic attitude, fear and insecurity. These negativities even if curbed superficially, come out under opportune circumstances.

If rationalised or not acknowledged with a stable mindset, these tendencies can vent out in a harmful manner. This applies to everyone who’s been a part of abusive relationship for a considerable time span.

Top signs of Abusive relationship

The realisation that you are involved in an abusive relationship dawns after the passage of some time as the signs of an abusive relationship are often misleading in the initial phase of the relationship. There are chances that you confuse those signs with concern, love and possessiveness. Till the time the abused figures out the severity of the situation, the trap of the misleading emotions of the abusive relationship plants its roots deeply in such a form that they afflict the abused with the negatives like fear, guilt or dependability.

To understand the top signs of an abusive relationship one has to understand that the one who abuses follows a certain pattern and repeats a particular trend of behaviour always. Some of the signs that are present in an abusive relationship are discussed below:

· The desire to control the other person.

One of the top signs of an abusive relationship is that the abuser will try to be the single most controlling factor in the relationship. He/she would dominate the other to a great extent to achieve that control. There are usually two ways through which the abuser wants to exert control.

1. Show unhappiness over small things and would exert a control over you even on petty issues like what to wear, where to go, whom to talk. In an abusive relationship the abuser would not put forth his opinions in a straight forward manner, but in such a way as to make you look and feel guilty for even ordinary and immaterial things.

2. Will always directly or indirectly show that how many sacrifices he/she is making, and how many problems life is offering him. The major motive behind this is to exercise control. To achieve this control the abuser would show his dissatisfaction or voice out his unhappiness even on the smallest issues and incidents. In a way he would make it appear that he is going through so much in life to keep you happy.

· There will be a lot of discomfort and fear in the relationship.

Another major sign of an abusive relationship is that the abuser would all of a sudden lose control over petty issues and pick up quarrels and fights. To achieve this, the abuser will keep sullen over small issues or burst out unexpectedly on short notices on any pretext. He will thus keep you under continuous fear of himself.

There would always be a fear looming large on the relationship as to what to say and how to behave. All of a sudden a happy moment would turn into a hurtful one. He/she will stop talking to you, or will try to emotionally punish you.

· The abuser would try to make you entirely dependable on him / herself.

He will try to exert control over major issues like finance. He would under the pretext of caring show jealousy towards your friends and family. Under the pretext of concern he would try to keep an eye on you either by trying to accompany you wherever you go or by sending someone to escort you. He would try to check on you by unexpectedly calling you and by stressing to know whom you talk to. A major sign of an abusive relationship is that the abuser will keep you in debt or not give you enough money to handle in case you are financially dependable on him.

· There would always be an attempt to lower the self esteem and self worth of the other person by the abuser.

To achieve this, the abuser would try to malign you in your own eyes, point fingers at your character. He would try to control your friendships or become suspicious even on small instances like your talking to strangers etc. Even if you try to explain or try to tell him that you are innocent, he would not listen to you and argue about it, use bad words and leave no stone unturned to prove you guilty and make it appear big. This is again a major sign that forms part of the abusive relationships.

· Physical abuse becomes a regular thing in the relationship, if the abuser hits you even once.

Another top sign of abusive relationships is physical violence. Usually it comes in an abusive relationship at a later stage, but once it starts there are less chances of it being curbed. The important part to know here is that even if the abuser shows that he is sorry for the act, he would always rationalise it by saying it that it was your behaviour which had provoked him to do that. He would always blame you for it.

· The abuser tries to exert a lot of Social pressure too on you by involving friends, de faming you in front of others.

Another pertinent sign of an abusive relationship is that the abuser would try to disassociate you from society. The reason behind such act is again to lower your esteem and to control you. By doing this he tries to cut off your associations with your friends and well wishers, by constantly dragging them also into the fights and over a period of time by blaming them wrongly of misconduct.

· The abuser would always emotionally pressurise you by way of blackmailing.

A major sign of the abusive relationships is that there is always a fear looming large that the abuser will try to harm you or harm himself if his needs are not met, or something goes against his wishes. The abuser would always threaten to do undesirable things as taking his or your life, or to harm the property or house in order to keep you more and more terrified and to exercise more control over you.

· He would repeat the same behaviour again and again even after saying sorry.

Another persistent sign in an abusive relationship is that the abuser has no remorse for whatever he does. There might be a sense of guilt involved, but the factor is rationalised by the abuser by shifting the blame from himself to others. In order to get rid of the guilt, the abuser would always try to show that you are the one who causes him to behave in an undesirable manner.

Even after the signs of an abusive relationship come out clearly it becomes extremely difficult for you to come out of such a relationship. It is like a monkey-on-back state, the reason being, an abusive relationships rids you of your independence, confidence and happiness. The ever prevailing factor of fear, the obsessive and suspicious behaviour, enslavement and fixative tendencies from a close one often leads you in a state of despair and hopelessness. In an abusive relationship, in order to exert control over you the abuser uses all sorts of areas to harass you, emotional, physical, psychological and financial. It looks like the abuser is punishing you for the sufferings inflicted on him through others sometime in the past.

There seems only one way to end an abusive relationship, by and large, and that is abandoning it; however even this needs a great amount of courage and self control and self manageability on the part of the one being abused.

Picture- Desirée Delgado