The emotionally abusive relationship can sometimes be hard to define. How long must abusive behavior go on before one actually admits that what’s really happening is abuse? 

I want to address something that comes up a lot in the messages I receive. Some people write to me and tell me they’re too old to make changes in their relationship. Some have been with their partner for 20, 30, or even 40+ years, but they believe it’s just too late to do anything about the problems they’re facing.

I’m here to tell you that’s not true. I’ve heard from people in their 70s who have successfully transformed their relationships by finally speaking up and making the changes they needed to make. The real barrier isn’t your age. The real barrier is the belief that you’re too old. That belief is what keeps you stuck, not the number of years you’ve been alive.

When you tell yourself you’re too old to change things, you’re giving yourself permission to stay exactly where you are. You’re accepting that this is just how it’s going to be for the rest of your life.

The problem is that if you don’t try to make a change of any kind, there will be no change. You’ll continue seeing the same results over and over again. And you’ll continue feeling the same way you’ve been feeling.

The question isn’t whether you’re too old. The question is whether you’re willing to try something different.

A lot of people stay in long-term relationships, hoping their partner will change. They wait and wait, thinking that someday things will be different. Maybe their partner will wake up one day and suddenly become more considerate, more loving, more respectful. Maybe the hurtful behaviors will just stop on their own.

This is where hope becomes dangerous. Hope can trap you in an unfulfilling situation. When you’re always hoping for change, you’re not actually doing anything to create that change. You’re just waiting. And while you’re waiting, time passes. Years pass. Your life passes.

I’m not saying hope is bad. Hope can be a beautiful thing when it motivates you to take action. But when hope keeps you passive, when it keeps you accepting unacceptable behavior because you believe things might get better someday, that’s when hope becomes a problem.

If you’ve been in a relationship for years and the same patterns keep repeating, you have to ask yourself: What makes me think this will change on its own? If nothing has changed in 10, 20, or even years, why would it change now without any intervention?

The truth is, it won’t. Change requires action. It requires you to initiate conversations. It requires you to set boundaries. It requires you to make decisions about what you will and won’t accept in your life. Waiting for your partner to change while you do nothing different is like standing in the same spot and hoping you’ll end up somewhere else. It doesn’t work that way.

I know taking action is scary. I know it’s hard to speak up when you’ve been quiet for so long. And I know it’s difficult to rock the boat when you’ve spent years trying to keep the peace. But staying silent and hoping for the best is a choice, too. It’s a choice to accept things as they are.

When you’re in an emotionally abusive relationship, hope often becomes part of the cycle that keeps you trapped. You experience hurtful behavior, you feel terrible, and then there’s a period where things get better. Your partner is kind again, or at least not actively hurtful.

During these better times, hope floods in. You think, “See? They can be good. This is who they really are. The bad stuff was just a phase.”

But then the hurtful behavior comes back. And you’re confused because you saw the good in them. You know they’re capable of being loving and kind. So you hold onto hope that the good version will become permanent.

This is how the cycle continues. The hope you feel during the good times makes you willing to endure the bad times. You tell yourself that if you just love them enough, if you just try hard enough, if you just give them enough chances, they’ll change.

But it’s important to remember that recognizing unhealthy behaviors is more important than hoping they’ll stop.

When you focus on hope, you’re looking toward an uncertain future.
When you focus on recognition, you’re dealing with the reality of what’s happening right now.

What’s happening right now is what you need to address, not what might happen someday, not what you wish would happen, but what is actually happening in your relationship today.

If someone is being hurtful to you, your belief that they’re going to stop hurting you could be hazardous to your health. I mean that seriously. When you keep believing things will get better while they continue to get worse, or while they stay the same, you’re putting yourself in a position where you’re constantly exposed to harm.

You can’t wait for someone else to decide to stop hurting you. Most often, people who hurt others do not suddenly develop a change of mind. Most need to seek help or have some sort of life-changing experience that drives them into empathy.

Unfortunately, because waiting for an abusive person to suddenly stop being abusive is often a futile effort, you have to be the one to make change happen and decide what you’re going to do about the hurt being inflicted upon you.

The Trauma Bond

One of the reasons it’s so hard to leave emotionally abusive relationships is something called a trauma bond. This is when you find yourself craving love and connection from the very person who hurts you.

Here’s how it works: when someone treats you badly, you feel terrible. You feel worthless, unlovable, not good enough. Then that same person shows you kindness or affection, and suddenly you feel worthy again. You feel loved. You feel like you matter.

The problem is, you’re now seeking your sense of worth from the person who took it away in the first place. They put you in a “lowered” state, and then you look to them to lift you back up. This creates a cycle where you become dependent on them for your sense of value.

This is why emotionally abusive behavior continues. The victim seeks their sense of worth, and sometimes their entire identity, from the person who’s abusing them. It’s a vicious cycle that leads to all kinds of bad things.

When you make a commitment to this kind of trauma, to this cyclical event that happens over and over again, it becomes a rut. You become entangled in stagnation and repetitive negativity. You might not even realize what’s happening. You just know that this person made you feel bad, and now you’re trying to get their acceptance back. You want them to see you as smart, valuable, and worthy of love. But they never pull that off.

Trauma bonds often start in childhood. For example, a child gets reprimanded by a parent, who then seeks attention, acceptance, and love from that same parent. This pattern can transfer into your adult relationships. You get used to seeking validation from people who hurt you.

Trauma bonds distort your perception of love.

When you are trauma-bonded, you can start to believe that a cycle of hurt and reconciliation is what love looks like. You might begin to believe that the intensity of pain followed by the relief of affection is actually passion or a deep connection.

But it’s not. It’s dysfunction:

Real love doesn’t require you to feel worthless so that you can appreciate feeling worthy.
Real love doesn’t put you into a lowered emotional and energetic state, then offer you crumbs of affection to bring you back up.
Real love is consistent. It’s supportive. And it doesn’t tear you down.

Can You Break Free from a Trauma Bond?

That’s a massive challenge when you’re in the thick of it. Breaking free from a trauma bond is incredibly difficult because you’re fighting against your own brain’s wiring. Your brain has learned that this person is your source of love and validation. And even though they hurt you, they’re also the one who makes you feel better. And your brain doesn’t want to give that up!

This is where you have to confront your beliefs about hope and the possibility of improvement in your relationship. You have to ask yourself some hard questions:

How long have I been hoping things would change?
How many times have I seen the same pattern repeat?
What evidence do I have that real, lasting change is possible with this person?

If you’ve been in this relationship for years and the same cycle keeps happening, you need to recognize that hope alone isn’t going to break the pattern. You need to take action.

That action might be setting firm boundaries. It might be insisting on couples therapy (though I often suggest individual therapy for each, as couples therapy can go wrong if the abuser manipulates the therapist). It might be separating for a while so you can think clearly without their influence. It might be leaving the relationship entirely.

It can be scary as hell to be without the person one is trauma-bonded to. But as long as one stays in the abuse cycle of love and abuse day after day, nothing will change. The trauma bond will keep them seeking validation from someone who uses their need for validation to control them.

If you are in an abusive relationship of any kind, especially if you trauma-bonded and find it difficult to leave, you have to be willing to face the possibility that this relationship might not be fixable.

You also have to be willing to consider that the person you’re with might not be capable of the change you’re hoping for. And finally, you have to be willing to prioritize your own well-being over your attachment to this person.

When Abuse is Abuse

I received a message from someone who left an abusive relationship, and they said something that really stood out to me. They said they still don’t know if they should call it abuse. They prefer to call it “mean behavior.”

This is so common. People who have been in emotionally abusive relationships often struggle to use the word “abuse” to describe what happened to them. There are several reasons for this.

First, there’s shame. When you acknowledge that you were abused, you’re acknowledging that you were a victim. And in our culture, there’s a lot of shame attached to being a victim. We’re taught to be strong, to stand up for ourselves, not to let people walk all over us. So when you admit you were abused, you might feel like you’re admitting you were weak.

But being abused doesn’t mean you were weak. It means someone took advantage of you. It means someone treated you in ways that no one should be treated. That’s not your fault.

Second, labeling it as abuse means you have to do something about it. As long as you call it “mean behavior” or “difficult times” or “rough patches,” you can minimize it. You can tell yourself it’s not that bad. You can convince yourself that you’re overreacting.

But when you call it abuse, you can’t minimize it anymore. You have to face the reality of what happened. And facing that reality means you have to make decisions.

You have to decide whether to stay or leave.
You have to decide what boundaries you need.
You have to decide what you’re willing to accept going forward.

That’s a lot of responsibility. It’s overwhelming. So sometimes it feels easier to just not call it abuse.

Third, calling someone an abuser feels like a huge accusation. You might still care about this person. You might still love them. You might remember the good times and the good qualities they have. Calling them an abuser feels like you’re reducing them to this one terrible thing, and that doesn’t feel fair.

But acknowledging that someone’s behavior was abusive doesn’t mean that’s all they are. It just means that’s what they did. And you’re allowed to name what happened to you. You’re allowed to be honest about the impact their behavior had on you.

You don’t have to use the word “abuse” if it doesn’t feel right to you. But I encourage you to be honest with yourself about what you experienced. Don’t minimize it. Don’t make excuses for it. Don’t convince yourself it wasn’t that bad when it was.

When you acknowledge that you were in an abusive relationship, something shifts. The responsibility for change moves to you. As long as you don’t acknowledge it, you can keep hoping your partner will change. You can keep waiting for them to wake up and realize what they’re doing.

But once you acknowledge it, you can’t wait anymore. You know what’s happening. You know it’s not okay. And now you have to decide what you’re going to do about it.

This is a heavy burden. It’s the burden of acknowledgment. Once you see something clearly, you can’t unsee it. Once you name it, you can’t pretend it’s something else.

A lot of people resist this acknowledgment because they’re not ready to carry that burden. They’re not ready to make the hard decisions that come with seeing their relationship clearly. So they stay in denial. They minimize. They make excuses. And they focus on the good times and try to forget the bad times.

I understand that. I really do. Making the decision to leave a relationship, or even to demand significant changes in a relationship, is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. It’s scary. It’s painful. It feels like you’re giving up on someone you love.

But being in denial of abusive behavior is also a choice. It’s a choice to continue living in a way that hurts you. It’s also a choice to prioritize someone else’s comfort over your own.

When you acknowledge what’s really happening in your relationship, you’re taking back your power.

Taking back your power means giving yourself more choices. It can be you saying to yourself, “I see what’s going on here. And I am going to decide what to do about it.” That’s empowering, even though I realize it can also be terrifying.

The burden of acknowledgment is real. But the burden of staying in denial is also real. But either way, you’re carrying a burden. So the question is which burden you want to carry: the burden of facing the truth and making hard decisions, or the burden of pretending everything is okay when it’s not.

Never Define Your Worth Through Their Eyes

One of the most damaging aspects of emotional abuse is how it affects your sense of self-worth. When someone repeatedly puts you down, criticizes you, and makes you feel like you’re not good enough, you start to believe it. You start to see yourself through their eyes. If you’re going to take anything away from this article, take this: Your worth is not defined by how an abusive person sees you.

If someone treats you like you’re worthless, that doesn’t mean you are worthless. It means they’re treating you badly. Those are two completely different things.

Abusive behavior is a reflection of the abuser’s issues, not your worth. When someone is hurtful, controlling, manipulative, or cruel, that tells you something about them.

It tells you they have unresolved issues.
It tells you they don’t know how to have a healthy relationship.
It tells you they’re dealing with their own pain in destructive ways.

But it doesn’t tell you anything about your value as a person.

You are inherently valuable. And you deserve to be treated with respect and kindness. You deserve to be in a relationship where you feel safe, supported, and loved. These things are true regardless of how anyone has treated you.

I know it’s hard to believe this when you’ve been told the opposite for so long. I know it’s hard to see your own worth when someone you love has spent years convincing you that you don’t have any. But I’m telling you, they were wrong.

You are worthy of love. You are worthy of respect. You are worthy of a relationship that builds you up instead of tearing you down.

Don’t let someone else’s inability to see your value convince you that you don’t have any. Don’t let someone else’s hurtful behavior define who you are. You are so much more than what they told you.

Reclaiming your sense of self-worth is a process. It takes time. It takes work. You might need to talk to a therapist. You might need to spend time away from the person who hurt you so you can remember who you are without their influence. You might need to surround yourself with people who see your value and reflect it back to you.

But it’s possible. You can rebuild your sense of worth. You can learn to see yourself clearly again, not through the distorted lens of someone who hurt you.

You deserve that. You deserve to know your own value. And you deserve to be in relationships with people who recognize and honor that value.

If you’re in an emotionally abusive relationship, or if you’re trying to heal from one, please know that you’re not alone. There are resources available. There are people who understand what you’re going through. And there is hope for a better future, not the passive hope that keeps you stuck, but the active hope that motivates you to make changes and create the life you deserve.

You’re never too old to make those changes.
You’re never too far gone.
You’re never too damaged.
You can heal.
You can grow.

And you can have the healthy, loving relationships you deserve.

But it starts with recognizing what’s happening, acknowledging the truth of your situation, and taking action to change it. The hardest truth for most victims in relationships like this to accept is that an abusive person usually will not change unless the person they are hurting decides they’ve had enough and makes changes for themselves.

If they can’t see your worth through their own selfish and hurtful behaviors, make sure you never lose sight of it yourself.