This is an answer to a question I received from a woman who is being convinced by her partner that she is the abuser. She’s starting to think she is.
She wants to know if she needs to do the work, or if she is just believing a false narrative just so her partner can get away with his behaviors.
I want to talk about something that comes up more often than you might think: What happens when the person you believe is emotionally abusive turns it around and tells you that you’re the abusive one?
It’s disorienting. Suddenly, everything you thought you understood about the relationship gets flipped, and you’re left wondering if you’ve been the problem all along.
This confusion doesn’t come out of nowhere. When you’re in a relationship with someone who consistently makes you feel small, controlled, or wrong, you eventually start pushing back.
Maybe you get angry more often than you used to. Perhaps you’ve said things you regret, or you’ve stopped being as patient and understanding as you once were. The person who’s been making you feel terrible then points to these reactions and says, “See? You’re the abusive one. Look at how you’re treating me!”
Here’s what makes this so effective as a manipulation tactic: There’s usually a grain of truth in it.
You have been reactive.
You have said harsh things.
The problem isn’t that these observations are completely false; it’s that they’re being used to erase the context that led to your behavior in the first place.
Think of it like this. Imagine someone keeps poking you in the arm. At first, you ask them nicely to stop. They don’t. You ask again, more firmly. Still nothing.
Eventually, after the hundredth poke, you slap their hand away…hard. Now they’re holding their hand, looking hurt, saying, “Why did you hit me? That’s abuse.”
Technically, you did slap their hand. But focusing solely on that moment while ignoring the hundred pokes that came before it creates a completely distorted picture of what’s actually happening.
Emotional abuse works the same way, except the “pokes” are invisible. They’re the subtle put-downs, the dismissals, the ways your feelings get minimized or your reality gets questioned.
Over time, these accumulate. Your nervous system stays activated because you’re constantly bracing for the next criticism or the next time your experience will be invalidated.
Eventually, you stop responding calmly because calm hasn’t worked. You escalate because it’s the only way to be heard – or at least, it feels that way.
When you finally do escalate, that’s when the accusation comes. “You’re so angry all the time. You’re verbally abusive. You’re the one with the problem.”
What gets left out of this narrative is everything that happened before your anger showed up. The person accusing you conveniently forgets their role in creating the conditions that led to your reaction.
This is where it gets tricky, though. Just because someone is using your reactions to deflect from their own behavior doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look at your own actions honestly.
Reactive abuse is real. It’s what happens when someone who’s being abused starts behaving in ways that mirror the abuse they’re receiving.
But reactive abuse is still a reaction. It’s a response to an ongoing pattern of harm, not the source of it.
The distinction matters because the solution is different. Someone who’s genuinely abusive needs to fundamentally change how they relate to others.
Someone who’s reacting to abuse needs to get out of the abusive environment so they can stop being in survival mode. Once they’re out, the reactive behaviors typically fade because they’re no longer necessary.
I know this from personal experience. In my past relationships, I was emotionally abusive.
I would control through withdrawal (the emotionally abusive silent treatment). When my partner would get upset about something I did, I’d shut down completely. I wouldn’t engage, wouldn’t explain, wouldn’t give them anything to work with.
This drove them crazy, understandably. They’d get more and more upset, their voice would get louder, and eventually they’d say something cutting or harsh.
At that point, I’d think, “See? They’re the problem. Look at how they’re treating me.”
What I couldn’t see then (or wouldn’t see) was that their reaction was a direct response to my behavior. I created the conditions that led to their anger. Then I used that anger as evidence that I was the reasonable one and they were out of control.
It was a perfect setup. I got to avoid accountability while simultaneously positioning myself as the victim.
The woman who wrote to me about this situation is dealing with a partner who does something similar. Their partner makes them feel inadequate, criticizes them, and dismisses their feelings.
Over time, this has made them more reactive and less patient. Now their partner is saying, “You’re verbally abusive. You’re the problem.”
The question they’re asking is: Are they right? Am I the abusive one?
Here’s how you can tell the difference:
Abusive behavior has a pattern and a purpose. It’s not just about individual moments of anger or frustration; it’s about control. Emotional abuse is designed to make you doubt yourself and make you feel like you’re always wrong. It’s meant to keep you off-balance so you’re easier to manage.
In other words, emotional abuse is strategic, even if the person doing it isn’t consciously thinking of it that way.
Reactive abuse, on the other hand, is defensive. It’s what happens when you’re trying to protect yourself from ongoing harm. The anger, the harsh words, the loss of patience… these aren’t coming from a desire to control the other person. They’re coming from a place of desperation, from feeling like nothing else has worked.
One way to test this is to imagine what would happen if you left the relationship. Would your anger and reactivity follow you into your next relationship? Or would it stay behind with this one?
If you’ve been reactive in other relationships too, across different partners and different contexts, that might be something worth reflecting on and exploring inside yourself. It could mean there’s a pattern in how you deal with conflict that needs attention.
But if this behavior is specific to this relationship, if it only shows up with this particular person, that says a lot. It suggests the behavior is tied to the dynamics of this relationship, not to who you fundamentally are.
Another thing to consider: Does the person accusing you of being abusive take any responsibility for their role in the relationship’s problems? Or is everything always your fault?
Abusive people rarely, if ever, acknowledge their own behavior. They deflect, minimize, and blame. If your partner is telling you that you’re the abusive one but refuses to look at their own actions, I consider that a big red flag.
Also, think about how you feel most of the time in the relationship:
Do you feel safe expressing your thoughts and feelings?
Do you constantly worry about how they’ll react?
Do you feel like you can be yourself?
Are you always walking on eggshells, trying to avoid triggering their criticism or anger?
Abusive relationships create a pervasive sense of anxiety and self-doubt. You start questioning your own perceptions and memories. You feel like you’re going crazy because what they say happened doesn’t match what you remember happening.
If that’s your experience, your reactions, even the ones you’re not proud of, make sense. You’re not reacting to nothing. You’re reacting to a pattern of behavior that’s been eroding your sense of self over time.
Once you’re no longer in an environment where you’re constantly defending yourself (whether they stop being abusive or you end up leaving the situation), the reactive behaviors lose their function. You won’t need them anymore because you won’t be under attack.
Another sign of an abusive person is that they will carry their patterns into the next relationship. Abusive behaviors aren’t situational; they’re part of how that person relates to others.
That’s why abusive people often have a string of failed relationships where the same issues keep coming up. They might blame their exes, calling them all “crazy” or “too sensitive,” but the common denominator is them.
So if you’re asking yourself whether you’re the abusive one, start by looking at the bigger picture. Don’t just focus on the moments where you lost your temper or said something harsh. Look at the context. What was happening before those moments? What pattern of behavior led up to them? Are you trying to control the other person, or are you trying to protect yourself?
Also, be honest about whether your behavior is consistent across relationships or specific to this one. If it’s specific to this relationship, that might be all you need to know. It doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for your actions, but it does mean the solution isn’t about fixing something fundamentally wrong with you. It’s important to recognize that this relationship is bringing out the worst in you because of the dynamics at play.
Last thing, pay attention to how the accusation of abuse is being used. Is it coming up during a genuine conversation about both people’s behavior, or is it being weaponized to shut down any discussion of the other person’s actions?
If every time you try to address something they’ve done, they turn it around and accuse you of being abusive, that kind of consistent deflection is almost always another sign of where the abuse is actually originating.
A healthy relationship is when both people are willing to examine their own behavior without immediately pointing fingers at the other person. It means being able to say, “I see how my actions affected you, and I’m sorry,” without following it up with “but you did this, so really it’s your fault.”
Mutual accountability is a staple in every healthy relationship.
The reality is that most people who are genuinely abusive don’t spend a lot of time worrying about whether they’re abusive. They’re too busy justifying their behavior and blaming others.
The fact that you’re even asking the question, that you’re willing to examine your own actions and consider the possibility that you might be the problem, suggests you are not the abusive one.
But it also suggests you’ve been in this relationship long enough that you’ve lost trust in your own perceptions. That’s what emotional abuse does: it makes you doubt yourself so thoroughly that you can’t tell what’s real anymore.
If you’re in that place, the most important thing you can do is get some distance. If not physically, then mentally and emotionally. Talk to people outside the relationship who know you well. See if your behavior with them matches what your partner is describing.
The goal is to get perspectives from others who aren’t invested in the narrative your partner is creating. Often, that outside view can help you see what’s really happening more clearly than you can from inside the relationship.
And if it turns out you have been behaving in ways that are harmful, own it. Apologize sincerely. Make changes.
But don’t let the acknowledgment of your own mistakes become a reason to stay in a relationship that’s destroying you. You can take responsibility for your part and still recognize that the relationship itself is the problem.
 | Paul Colaianni Paul Colaianni is an Emotional Abuse Expert and Behavior and Relationship Specialist who has been analyzing complex relationship dynamics since 2010. As the creator of the Healed Being program and host of the top-rated Love and Abuse and The Overwhelmed Brain podcasts, with over 21 million downloads worldwide, he specializes in helping people recognize hidden manipulation, navigate emotionally abusive relationships, and empower themselves to make informed decisions. |