Good morning to everyone except Jim Golby. I'd like to say a few things about emotionally abusive relationships this morning. First, emotional abuse is abuse. Full stop. 1/
https://twitter.com/JABell27/status/1433957900821704704
Emotional abuse happens when a predator manipulates the emotional needs & desires of the victim to compel behavior that, all other things being equal, the victim would not normally choose to engage in. 2/
That’s why consensual sex, as we typically understand it, can be a component of an emotionally abusive relationship. It makes things particularly insidious. 3/
When I was a Navy Family Advocacy Program officer, I often heard, “I wish he/she would just hit me. It would make this so much easier to understand.” Or, “But I love him/her, and he/she loves me. I don’t understand how this can be happening.” 4/
And I would think, “Yes. I know.” B/c I did. It was so liberating to learn, in the training for FAP & SA victim advocate, that the important dynamic in any abusive relationship is a power dynamic. Someone emotionally abusive is manipulating their victim to feel control. 5/
The abuser I had been with never hurt me physically. He just had lots of sex w/other people when I am hardwired for exclusive. He expected me to accept it, keep letting him come back, & listen to him talk about it (which was part of the manipulation). 6/
In an emotionally abusive relationship, it is possible to simultaneously give consent to sex AND either be dying inside b/c you knew you’d been manipulated into consenting OR believe that you were choosing to consent. Either way, the relationship is still abusive, and 7/
it can be a special kind of hell to know that you were being manipulated. The self-blame & shame can be hard to get past. 8/
Whether the manipulation is to get sex, or the continuation of an unhealthy relationship, or expressions of affection, or money, or any other thing, emotional abuse is not okay. And the victim is not “weak” for being in the relationship, 9/
for staying in the relationship, for having emotional needs that a predator has figured out how to manipulate to meet their OWN need for control, or for having revealed those needs to someone they believed they could trust. 10/
The ONLY person at fault in an emotionally abusive relationship relationship is the person who is doing the manipulation. Sending love today to all out there who are, or have ever been, in these kinds of relationships, & mad respect for anyone who calls the predator out. 11/end
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