Love and Abuse – Manipulation and Emotional Abuse in Relationships

When someone keeps hurting you, you might blame yourself and think if you were only better, they’d stop. But as their hurtful behavior continues, resentment builds, and you start questioning everything about yourself.

When we talk about toxic behaviors and communication, we often encounter people who can be quite difficult. Some are controlling and manipulative. They can be dishonest and deceitful.

They can also be resentful. However, resentment itself isn’t necessarily emotionally abusive unless it transforms into behaviors that deliberately hurt others or make them feel bad. For instance, when you resent something someone did to you, and you want revenge, that’s when it can cross into emotional abuse.

The type of resentment I’d like to touch upon in this article is when you resent someone for not noticing that they’re hurting you. This viewpoint frequently appears in emotionally abusive relationships. The victim of emotional abuse might let resentment build up, then be silently upset at the other person for not recognizing how their actions affect them.

I can share a personal example from my life before I recognized my own emotionally abusive behaviors. In one of my previous relationships, I would build resentment toward my partner when she didn’t notice she was upsetting me.

To make her aware of my resentment, I would give her the silent treatment. I hoped she would feel guilty enough to change or figure out what she was “doing wrong” on her own. The truth is, she wasn’t really doing anything to me. She was simply being herself, but I couldn’t accept that because I was judgmental and critical back then.

I have a past I’m not proud of, but I remain transparent about it in my podcast and these articles. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I share my own experiences when relevant to the topic. In this case, this reference to my past matters because I built resentment toward someone but never communicated why I was resentful. I never expressed what was happening inside me. Instead, I became silent, hoping they would somehow figure it out on their own.

Back then, I had a fear of confrontation. And while that’s no excuse, it definitely influenced how I behaved. I really wanted others to figure out what was bothering me without me having to tell them. I didn’t want to be seen as the bad guy because I feared their anger.

So, instead of speaking up, I would try to make the person I couldn’t accept feel bad for doing things that upset me, even when they weren’t aware of what they were doing.

Resentment can build when we don’t let someone know what’s wrong.

If I had just been honest with my partner back then and said, “Hey, when you say that, it makes me angry,” we could have had a discussion or even an argument. But at least it would have been out in the open. Instead of addressing my issues directly with the other person, saying something like, “Let’s talk about this,” I became caught between my fear of confrontation and my selfishness.

I was selfish because I didn’t want to be seen as the cause of our relationship problems. I wanted the other person to think they were the source of all issues.

During that time in my life, I saw everyone else as the cause of my problems. I was self-righteous, with impossibly high standards. And I was highly judgmental of those who couldn’t meet those standards, yet I never even told them what those standards were!

It’s almost laughable because of how ridiculous that sounds. Imagine someone thinking, “I have these sky-high standards that I want them to meet, but I’m not going to tell them what those standards are. And, as long as they never meet these unknown expectations of mine, I’ll make their life difficult and make them feel bad until they figure out what I want.” Ridiculous, really.

Both the Victim and Emotional Abuser Can Become Resentful

It’s not just the victim who becomes resentful in a difficult relationship. Both people in the relationship can develop resentment but with different expectations.

The victim of emotional abuse might say, “I want them to figure out they’re hurting me. Why should I have to tell them? They should just know. Can’t they tell that they are the cause of my pain and suffering?”

The perpetrator of emotional abuse might say, “I shouldn’t have to say anything. They should just know me, comply, and submit. Then we’d both be happy.”

The victim comes from a place of hurt, and the perpetrator comes from a place of control. They both have the same expectations (“They should just know what they’re doing wrong and stop doing it”), but they definitely differ in “why.”

Resentment builds when we don’t express what’s going on inside us. If you’re upset about someone’s behavior but never express that upset, your resentment can grow. And it can continue to grow when problems remain unresolved or excommunicated.

You might get upset about something and just hope the other person figures it out on their own because you think it should be obvious to them. However, if they don’t figure it out (or choose to be willfully ignorant), resentment will fester inside of you because the problem was never addressed. Maybe because of a fear of confrontation, or perhaps you believe they should love you enough to recognize when they’re hurting you.

This is what we do to ourselves! We can create our own resentment because we believe others should see what they’re doing to us. And if they don’t see it, we ask ourselves:
Why not?
Why can’t they see what they’re doing to me?
Why can’t they recognize how they’re hurting me?

For victims of emotional abuse, the questions become even more pointed:
Why can’t they realize that they are the cause of my sadness or upset? or,
Why don’t they understand that my depression stems from our last conversation, or the one before that, or the accumulation of all our conversations?
Why can’t they understand that when they say I’m wrong all the time, it hurts?

Walking around with these thoughts will definitely build resentment. And it can affect us deeply.

How To Dissolve Resentment

Dissolving resentment is easy: Just express what you think and feel with the person you feel resentment toward.

I know that’s easy for me to say, but it may be difficult for you to do. It’s not a magic formula that resolves everything, but it’s one step toward resolving the difficulty. It can be as basic as telling someone, “This is what’s happening. When you do or say this, I feel mad/sad/upset.”

Then you ask them to stop. It sounds simple, though it’s probably impossible for people reading this article to implement in many situations. But that would be ideal. That would be the utopian relationship:

“When you do or say that, I feel upset or angry, and I wish you would stop doing that. Will you please stop?”

And in a perfect world, they would respond, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that upset you. I won’t do it anymore.”

Wouldn’t that be nice? But that’s not what normally happens, is it?

Again, I’m speaking to people reading this article. Sometimes, they don’t realize what they’re doing, and I understand that. It seems like the peak of ignorance – how could they not know they’re doing this to me? Well, as I’ve said before, most emotionally abusive people, probably all of them, believe they’re right. They believe these behaviors are necessary to make the relationship better.

They try to make you conform to a set of standards they believe work for everyone. They want you to adopt their values and standards because those work for them. They want you to comply and submit to following these same standards so that everyone’s happy, at least in their mind (though this isn’t true with everyone who does emotionally abusive behavior).

This has been my experience working with couples, working on myself as I’ve grown and healed, and working with individuals in my other program. What I’ve seen repeatedly is that emotionally abusive people believe they’re right. Because of this belief, they won’t back down. There’s a steadfast righteous indignation. They refuse to stand down because that’s what they define as comfortable, happy, and right.

Even though it’s hurtful, when emotionally abusive people maintain these sky-high standards and remain judgmental, critical, controlling, and hurtful, they damage relationships with people they care about.

I know this doesn’t make sense because why would you hurt someone you want to have a relationship with when hurting them pushes them away? Let me speak directly to those who might be engaging in emotionally abusive behavior right now:

Why would you, intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously (and I’ll explain this in a minute), push away someone you want to connect with, have a relationship with, and sometimes share a life with?

The emotional abuser might say, “I don’t mean to push them away. They’re just not doing what they’re supposed to do,” or “They’re doing things to make me unhappy,” or “They’re not doing or saying the right things.” They’ll have some excuse.

I know from experience these were the kinds of thoughts I had. When I say intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously, let me explain. Intentional is what I call overt abusive behavior. It’s name-calling, bullying, intimidating, and they know they’re doing it. It’s intentional. They’re trying to control, belittle, hurt, and bully you. They know they’re doing it, and it’s very conscious.

So you have the intentional, conscious abusive person who knows what they’re doing, knows you’re hurt by it, sees that you feel disrespected, embarrassed, or powerless from their behaviors, and they still do it.

They know exactly what they’re doing. They see your reaction. They see how you feel. Your facial expressions, nonverbal language, body language, and words all show how unhappy, uncomfortable, and sad you are, and they still do it.

This isn’t a person who wants a relationship. This is a person who wants to dominate you. They want power over you and want to keep you powerless. You become, and I really hate to say this, an emotional slave to them because they take advantage of your emotions. That’s the overt, intentional abuse.

The unintentional and unconscious person is someone doing behaviors they may not realize are hurtful, or they might believe they’re supposed to behave this way. They learned it from their upbringing, from what they witnessed in their family. Maybe from their mom and dad, or other relationships they’ve witnessed, or perhaps from how their parents or others treated them. They learned these patterns. And really, all emotionally abusive people do it because of poor coping mechanisms.

If every person in the world had healthy coping mechanisms – meaning they knew how to deal with challenges when they arise – you likely wouldn’t see emotionally abusive behavior. But when we’re children facing challenges we don’t know how to handle, we try to survive. Those survival skills we learn in childhood transform into coping mechanisms when we’re older. That’s how we navigate the world.

For example, when I was young, I stayed silent. Later, as an adult, I used the silent treatment, but as a kid, I stayed quiet because I didn’t want to trigger what I call “drunk dad behavior.”

My stepfather was an alcoholic, scary, and abusive, and I didn’t want to incite his behavior. I didn’t want to see his reaction when he was drunk. Every other time was fine. He was a great guy when he wasn’t drunk. There were other problems, but I won’t get into that.

When he was drunk, I was silent. I learned that from my mom. She didn’t say things to provoke his behaviors. It didn’t always work, but we did our best to keep quiet because saying something might make him angry. And then, who knows what would happen next?

So, I learned at a young age to fear confrontation. I learned that silence was the best way to survive. Then, as we get older and enter adult relationships or start dating in our teenage years, we carry these old survival skills that have become coping mechanisms. When challenges arise, we act very much like we did as children, except as adults, we become emotionally abusive if we believe we can control the people in our lives and the outcomes we get.

These coping mechanisms we develop and carry into adulthood, where we feel more powerful and no longer face those old dangerous situations. Any one of us can become emotionally abusive because we don’t want to face what made us fearful as children. Instead of confronting those old fears, we develop push-away behaviors – protective coping mechanisms that help us feel safe.

Sometimes, people prioritize their sense of safety over anyone else’s thoughts and feelings. This can manifest as that unconscious, unintentional, emotionally abusive system in your life that leaves you vulnerable to manipulation and control. You might not even know this vulnerability exists until someone takes advantage of it.

It’s similar to living in a small town where you feel safe enough to leave your car and house unlocked. Then, one day, you return to find your car smashed and your house robbed. You’re left wondering, “How could this happen? This isn’t what happens in this town. This isn’t what happens to me.” You never prepared for it because it never happened before. It doesn’t make sense.

My own skepticism grew as I learned about the various ways people hurt and deceive each other. Of course, I became more skeptical after that. I’ve been burned before – not just with emotional abuse, but with people trying to take advantage or rip me off. These things happen, even when we least expect them.

The reality is that these protective behaviors we develop can end up hurting both ourselves and others. We might think we’re keeping ourselves safe, but we’re actually creating barriers to genuine connection and understanding. This is especially true when we prioritize our perceived safety over the emotional well-being of those around us.

Every experience reinforces what we know or teaches us new tools. When you’ve been through an emotionally abusive relationship, you gain new tools after you heal, reflect, and process what happened. These tools can help in your current or future relationships if you choose to pursue one.

I know what some people reading this are thinking: “I don’t want to have to be that way. I don’t want to think badly about people. I don’t want to keep that door shut and only let the right people in.” They believe people should just be good and not bring harm to their lives. They want to expect that from others.

But we know the truth. There are people out there with nefarious intent or unintentional, unconscious, harmful behaviors. We just need to acknowledge they exist.

This is why I say fall in love slowly, especially in romantic relationships. You need to see how people handle challenges to understand how they cope.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re in a relationship, and you told your partner, “I talked to my ex on the phone, and they mentioned having a great time in France.”

Now, how does your partner respond? Do they say, “Wow, that sounds great. How are they doing?”
Or do they say, “You talked to your ex on the phone? Why? Why are you talking to your ex?”

That second response is a red flag or at least an orange one. You want to understand why they’re reacting this way. Have a conversation about it. Ask, “Why are you reacting this way? What’s going on?” If they say, “I don’t think you should talk to your ex,” ask them why and discuss it.

These are the kinds of conversations you want to have early in a romantic relationship. This is why falling in love slowly is healthier. When challenges arise, you can address them and determine if this is someone you want to spend time with or if they have issues or insecurities to work through.

Most people reading this article aren’t in new relationships. They’re in relationships that have lasted for years, and they’re just now figuring things out. They’re asking themselves, “Why do I feel this way? Why do I always feel bad?” So they search online, read articles, listen to podcasts, and learn about emotionally abusive behavior. They try to understand if what they’re learning correlates with their experience, and then they develop new tools to cope.

Does an unhealthy attachment style and lack of boundaries encourage or “allow” abusive behavior?

That was one of the questions I received in an email.

Allow? No. Encourage? I don’t like that word, but someone might feel free to behave badly when there are no boundaries in place. This happens when you don’t have the tools, resources, hindsight, or foresight to establish and maintain healthy boundaries.

Think of it like putting someone who’s never played piano in front of one and expecting them to create beautiful music. Not just “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” but a truly enjoyable arrangement. You can’t expect someone with no experience or knowledge to do something they’ve never learned.

When you’re immersed in an abusive relationship, you’re so busy trying to process what’s happening and figure out who’s wrong or right that your mind becomes clouded with confusion. This confusion overrides any real processing and reflecting you need to do. You stay stuck in this state of confusion, constantly questioning: Am I right? Are they right? Am I wrong? Am I the abusive one? Are they the abusive one?

If you’re still questioning this in yourself, I recommend listening to this episode: Am I the Abusive One?

You’re usually not in the right headspace to learn what you need to learn to avoid this behavior in the future because you’re in it. It’s hard to see things objectively when you’re experiencing it. It’s like being in a knife fight and trying to figure out the best survival strategy while dodging the blade. You’re in survival mode, just trying to defend yourself or fight back, focused solely on not getting hurt.

Processing is nearly impossible when you’re in the middle of it. You’re in an action state during the relationship, but what you need is a rest state to process. This is why separation can be beneficial. It gives you that rest state, allowing the fog to lift so you can start processing things.

The longer the abuse continues, the more scrambled and confused your brain can feel, but it does reset. You just need more rest states, time away from the behavior and the person’s influence, whether good or bad.

Even their good behavior is influential. My wife, when she was married to a sociopath, said she knew he was about to “throw a brick” at her when he was being nice. That’s the mindset of an abuse victim. Even during nice moments, you remain in a cautionary protective state, waiting for the next incident, hoping it won’t happen but knowing it’s coming.

This creates a belief that love and abuse go hand in hand. That’s why I named my podcast, Love and Abuse. It’s the traumatic bond that forms.

A trauma bond forms when you believe love and abuse are inseparable. That’s when you find yourself constantly waiting for those moments of caring, hoping they’ll make you feel worthy and important while dreading the inevitable pain that follows. In your heart, you know the hurt is coming, so you try harder, adapting and changing who you are in hopes of feeling loved and worthy.

It might not be a conscious intent (but often, it is) to change your behaviors to feel more worthy and loved, but deep down, especially in romantic relationships, you might desperately want to feel loved.
You might want to feel important and worthy.
You might want someone to fight for you, not against you.
You want to feel protected, not used as someone else’s shield.
You don’t want to be anyone’s punching bag, whether verbal or physical.

In many relationships, you simply want to know you are loved and deserve love.

Let me be clear: You are lovable. You are worthy. You are important. When someone fails to see these truths about you, it’s not because they aren’t true. It’s because that person is trapped behind their own wants, needs, fears, and insecurities. Sometimes, it’s their unresolved anger, unprocessed trauma, or childhood neglect blocking their view.

That’s a journey of processing and healing that they need to take. Don’t take on their healing work. Don’t absorb their unresolved trauma. Don’t accept their dysfunction as your truth because you are so much more than that.

Too often, victims of abuse start believing their abusers. They begin thinking they’re not good enough for the person who’s hurting them.

Think about that statement: You’re not good enough for a person who hurts you…

That doesn’t make any sense! How can you not be good enough for someone who’s trying to hurt you? There’s no logic in that statement, and it’s definitely not a healthy situation.

When you finally accept that someone who hurts, controls, or manipulates you simply lacks the capacity to see your worth, to recognize how lovable and wonderful and important you are, you’ll likely stop seeking their approval and validation.

Maybe you’re not doing this, but perhaps someone reading this article is. And I want to emphasize how crucial it is that you don’t let their dysfunction define who you are. Someone’s inability to see you accurately isn’t a reflection of who you are. They cannot possibly see the real you because they’re trapped behind their own limitations and toxic behaviors, patterns created long ago that serve no purpose today. And they continue these behaviors simply because they haven’t addressed them.

Most people don’t address their hurtful behaviors because they’re stuck in righteousness and selfishness. They’re so deeply entrenched in that mindset that they can’t see beyond it.

Some people need a wake-up call. I know I did when I was this way. I needed someone to leave me, to divorce me, and say, “I can’t be with you anymore.”

My wife at the time couldn’t even explain why she fell out of love with me, but thankfully, I eventually figured it out. I had to tell myself, “I’m the problem. I’m the cause of all these issues in my relationships because my partners keep leaving me.”

When I asked myself, “What do I need to look at in myself?” That’s when my healing journey began.

This can happen for some people – the unconscious, unintentional, emotionally abusive people have the best chance at healing, but they need their eyes opened. The problem is, sometimes they won’t open their eyes. Sometimes, they just won’t admit who they are. They’ll keep blaming the world and pointing fingers.

But I want to be clear to those experiencing abuse: you aren’t allowing or encouraging anyone to behave this way. This is who they are and who they would be this way, even if you had solid boundaries and took no mistreatment.

The only difference between someone with solid boundaries and someone without is that the one with boundaries probably wouldn’t last as long in the relationship because they wouldn’t tolerate it. But even if that is true, even if you had solid boundaries and wouldn’t take toxic behavior from anyone, emotional abuse can make you think you’re at fault. That is why even those who know how to honor themselves can still get wrapped up in a messy relationship.

“Did I change them into an emotional abuser?”

This was the last question from that email I mentioned earlier. They asked, “Was it me who changed him into this person who seems so negative and has such low energy?”

The answer is no. That’s who he is. That’s who he’s always been.

Here’s something I always come back to: we all have choices in relationships. I had a choice to be married. I had a choice to be with someone who was doing things against my sky-high standards. I was judgmental and critical. This was a long time ago, but that’s who I was. I had a choice to stay married to this person while not accepting who they were.

I believe if you can’t accept somebody for who they are, why stay with them and continue to put them down, hurt them, and emotionally abuse them? If the emotionally abusive person is with somebody who’s doing things against their standards and values, and they just don’t want that person to continue those behaviors, they (the abuser) have a choice to leave. That’s their choice! They can stay or leave someone who’s doing things against their boundaries, morals, ethics, or values.

The emotionally abusive person has a choice to leave the relationship, but instead of leaving, they stay and try to control, hurt, and manipulate the person they’re with.

Let me reiterate: They have a choice. They’re adults. They can make decisions that are right for them, just like you can make decisions that are right for you.

The bottom line is if someone is dissatisfied with how you’re showing up in their life, they have choices beyond trying to control, manipulate, or hurt you. They can choose to stay or leave. While this might seem oversimplified, it’s true.

The real questions are:

Are you trying to control them?
Are you trying to hurt or belittle them?
Are you trying to intimidate them?

Or are you genuinely trying to change, adapt, and show up in ways that might improve the relationship?

The difference between the abuser and the victim of that abuse is that the abuser wants to control the victim. Abuse is about trying to force someone to conform to your wishes while maintaining power over them so they feel powerless.

That’s the essence of emotional abuse. If you ever had a question if you are the abusive one, ask yourself if your intention is to dominate and control the other person so that they feel powerless.

If you’re reading this article, unless you’re an emotionally abusive person seeking change, you’re likely someone who feels powerless and is looking for solutions. You’re probably trying to do better in your life and perhaps your relationship. You’re probably trying to understand what’s happening, and you’re willing to make changes to improve the relationship. And because of those things, the chances of you being emotionally abusive are very slim.

Sure, we all occasionally exhibit behaviors that could be considered emotionally abusive, but it’s the consistent pattern and intent that defines true emotional abuse, whether conscious or unconscious.

To give the person who wrote to me a direct answer to their question: No, you didn’t change him into someone negative with low energy. That’s who he is.

Can we influence others’ happiness, comfort, safety, or feelings of insecurity? Absolutely. We affect each other all the time. But are we responsible for it? Heck no. The responsibility lies with each individual.

It’s the responsibility of the person experiencing these feelings to communicate them. It’s okay to say, “Hey, this is how I feel. Let’s talk about it,” or “When you say or do this, it makes me feel this way. Can discuss it?”

When you’re being hurt by someone who is supposed to love and care for you, asking “Do you realize it hurts me when you do or say that, so would you be willing to stop now that you know that?” is a perfectly healthy, normal question. And, of course, pick your battles wisely. If you are with someone who is dangerous, you probably don’t want to instigate dangerous behavior. Questions like this may do just that.

But in many relationships, questions and comments like this should be the norm if you’re feeling hurt. Once that knowledge is shared, the hurtful person has a choice to stop or not. Hopefully, they say, “I had no idea. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

And hopefully, they’ll follow through with that promise!

Of course, they might also say, “No, I didn’t know that, but I’m not going to stop because I believe I’m right and you’re wrong. Tough luck.” Or they could say, “Yes, I knew I was doing I was hurting you, but I felt I needed to because you weren’t doing the right thing.”

A response like that would certainly be revealing.

Regardless of how they respond, what matters is that now you know where they stand. The knowledge is on the table. It’s out there. You’ve talked about it instead of letting resentment build. And just like the emotionally abusive person who feels it’s your fault, they have a choice to stay in a relationship with someone who, it seems, they can’t ever be satisfied with. But it’s not your fault they choose to stay with someone they can’t seem to accept as they are.

It’s also not your fault that they are too blind with dysfunction to see your true worth.

To the person who wrote to me, I wish you the best in your situation. I hope this helps. And to anyone reading this who needed to read these words, I hope this brings value to your life. Remember that you are worthy. You are lovable. You are important. And someone else’s dysfunctional or toxic behaviors cannot possibly define you.

Share this with others who might benefit.