We often hear from clients that the boundaries (or the lack of)  set up by their partners are causing trouble in the relationship. However, did you know that emotional boundaries are a necessary part of being a healthy human being?

We set boundaries to prevent ourselves from being vulnerable, easily hurt, or easily upset. A healthy amount of separation from the intensity of the moment (and the other person) helps us to make decisions and objectively from our own values, not from other people’s pressures.

Dr. Cheryl MacDonald backs this up in “How Self-Love and Boundaries Mix” with an interesting point about those people involved in harmful conflict:

People who feel emotionally vulnerable or those who desperately want to seek approval from others are most susceptible to losing their sense of self because the protection, the “bubble wrap”, their emotional boundary was not noticed, properly set, or communicated. Be cautious about making too many compromises, as the “bubble wrap” can expand to the point of breaking, and may cause people to question their own thoughts, feelings and identity. This questioning leaves a hole in people’s self-esteem. Emotional boundaries are flexible; however they can break under stress …

Boundaries are thus something that each person in a relationship needs, and those boundaries must be properly communicated. Boundaries are defined differently for each person, but it boils down to those things you like and those things you don’t.

When you don’t like something, and you make this clear to your partner and other people, you are setting an emotional boundary. As long as this boundary is set up to keep your self-worth (not push the other person away), this boundary can help you keep up a healthy sense of self. Remember that being in a relationship doesn’t mean becoming one person, but sharing a life. You can still be your own person while also being in a relationship!

You may struggle with emotional boundaries if you were not taught sufficient self-love and independence (essentially, self-love means that you decide how you think about yourself, a form of setting boundaries between your opinions and others’ opinions). Dr. MacDonald points out in her article that:

“If people had a healthy, nurturing childhood, they probably grew up feeling grounded, and learned how to protect their sense of self-love, self-worth and have a sense of feeling internally proud. They learned how to set emotional boundaries, and learned how to say no, because they felt loved as a child. In their childhood experiences, there was no need to scavenge for affection, or try desperately to please, just to gain attention and love.”

What about you? Have you been struggling with emotional boundaries in your relationship? Perhaps you experience the autonomous decision-making of your partner as cold, isolating and feel pushed away? It could be that you need to negotiate better your reciprocal emotional boundaries?  You can talk to us about the boundary problems in your relationship by talking to Dr. Nora, our conflict coach.

Nora Femenia is a well-known coach, conflict solver and trainer, and CEO of Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. Visit her blog and sign-up free to connect to her creative conflict solutions, positive suggestions and life-changing coaching sessions, along with blog updates, news, and more! We can begin by you having a complimentary consultation at Conflict Coach, with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

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Technorati Tags: abuse, appreciation, control, Emotional Abuse, feelings, healthy boundaries, Healthy Marriage, Self-Esteem, self-respect

It’s the shock a woman feels the first time he screams, calls her a name or insults her. He is angry, shouting and facing her down with his entire wrath. Let’s remember this shock; the first sign that the promise of marriage (“to be together to love and respect each other”) was not taken seriously, but were only words.

As a spouse, you have to feel shocked, hurt and totally blindsided by his attack. There is no way we can cover up and deny the total effect of this aggression on us. It is sudden, unexpected, and leaves us with a sour taste afterwards… how do we make sense of this aggression in the midst of a marriage we believe “reasonably happy”?

How to recover the lost sense of security from being with him, when you don’t know if this terrible anger episode will repeat itself?
What if he is harboring a LOT of anger against you, and he is unable to process and release it? You don’t want to consider this possibility!

Almost by mandate, we immediately try to forget the incident or make excuses for his behavior to cover it up.

Why would a spouse cover up this abusive behavior?

It is too big a signal that there are huge hidden personality issues not recognized, but working underneath. Either because there is fear of the unknown aspects, or inability to discuss them; we choose denial and cover up by saying: “he was stressed out, too tired, under a lot of pressure, etc.”

This is the first mistake of an emotionally abusive relationship: not taking this violation of interpersonal limits seriously. Without that, taking care of healing the verbal and emotional abuse impact is not taken seriously, either.

By staying passive and not drawing a line, you are sending him the message that says it is ‘OK’ to treat you this way. You tell him that he has not crossed your boundaries in a way that is not acceptable, and give him permission to do it again. And he will… The more deep interpretation of this interaction can be this:

- He is yelling at you;
- You accept, understand him and forgive him;
- He is testing your limits, seeing how far he can go dominating you with his anger or cold anger explosions;
- You show that there are no protective limits around your self; you show yourself to be weak and not self-protective.
-He feels it as a one-upmanship game: how far can he go putting you down up until you react?

Let’s see how far down can she go? And he ups the ante with the violence. You think you are showing him love by staying put; he sees only one thing, you are just as weak and pathetic as he thought you were.

The truth is that his behavior shows that he has an internal problem of self-control and respect for others and you can’t fix it by staying. There is no amount of “love” you can give him that will solve this challenge; he needs to work at self-control and respect everybody, not only you.

In your marriage, it ‘never’ gets better and it ‘will’ get worse.You have to trust that the ‘first shock’ is the right answer, stop the denial and act on it by leaving. Either you continue or not the relationship, this is the only unequivocal message that tells him: “Abuse is NOT allowed here.”

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Technorati Tags: abuse, aggression, angry husband, Cold Shoulder, conflict, confrontation, critique, domestic violence, Emotional Abuse, fight, forgiveness, frustration, humiliation, loneliness, negative emotions, rejection

1) We want to maximize the expression and the experience of interest and joy in our lives and the lives of those around us.

2) We want to minimize the expression of negative feelings of all concerned. Those feelings I will specifically name as: anger, fear, distress, disgust and shame.

3) The way to achieve the goals of # 1 and # 2 is to express ALL FEELING whether they be positive or negative!

4) We do this by educating ourselves and others about the importance of feelings both negative and positive. We develop understandings between us that it is ok to express any type of feeling. We develop articulated rules for doing so.

… Always keep in mind that this can happen to and be expressed by anyone in the room. We need not feel guilty for expressing our suffering if we are not the ill partner. Expressing our suffering lets the other know that their suffering has meaning and is reflected in the other. We all end in recognizing, on a higher level, that to suffer is human and in the end we feel better.

(See the whole article here)

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to suffer alone in an unhealthy relationship for one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.You can begin with our passive aggressive system created just for men, at Stop Your Passive Aggression, with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

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Technorati Tags: abuse, anger, appreciation, conflict resolution, Emotional Abuse, emotions, frustration, hidden anger, humiliation, passive aggression, peace, repressed anger

According to an article on Live Science by Jennifer Welsh, the part of your brain that deals with memory (the hippocampus) can be damaged during childhood abuse, neglect, and/or maltreatment. The damage seems to occur when exposed to high levels of stress during certain ages. With that damage comes a lower ability to “talk” to other areas of the brain, like the brain’s reward center (dopamine system). In the article, a researcher from Harvard University suggested that this may be why many victims of abuse are at greater risk for depression, drug abuse and mental illness in adulthood.

Read the entire article at Live Science.

These findings are extremely important for telling how the brain reacts to its surroundings – if a child is especially vulnerable to stress-based damage in his/her early years, learning how to interact and deal with conflict in a healthy way can protect your children. If your child is often exposed to loud, explosive fights or is humiliated or embarrassed by punishment techniques, what could the effects be later on in life? This is not to say we’re all turning our children into drug addicts later on – but new research consistently shows us that our brains are always watching and making note of our lives.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to suffer alone in an unhealthy relationship for one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.You can begin with our passive aggressive system created just for men, at Stop Your Passive Aggression, with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

 

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Technorati Tags: abuse, appreciation, Emotional Abuse, emotions, feelings, frustration, hidden anger, humiliation, isolation, respect, Silence

But what about group interaction? As humans, we have a foundational need to belong to the group – which group you want to belong to, you decide, but you still have a need for company. When we are excluded or “ostracized” in any interaction, it strikes a blow to our self-esteem. This even includes interactions with strangers, such as networking seminars for work, group activities at school, blind dates or any other point where we might be rejected by a stranger. It is also devastating on youngsters; the impact of school bullying, where one person is selected to be rejected by a group of peers, has long lasting effects on self-esteem.

Of course, being rejected by a loved one or family member can be even more painful.

You might already know that passive aggressive behavior often revolves around avoiding rejection – the emotion is so painful that it calls for hurting others first. But even if you’re not passive aggressive, you know what it’s like to be rejected, and you probably subconsciously avoid the emotion. According to Kipling D. Williams, a Purdue University expert, ostracism can cause pain that often is deeper and lasts longer than a physical injury; he calls it an “invisible form of bullying.”

What happens in the brain when we’re rejected? Interestingly, the part of our brains that register physical pain also feel the sting of emotional pain like rejection.

Studies have shown that there is no one personality that is more or less susceptible to rejection and its damaging effects – it happens to all of us. Some of us may cope with rejection differently, however; we may try harder to be included by being more obliging and doing extra favors. Or, we may try to get attention by provoking others or even being aggressive. In extreme situations, continually being rejected can lead us to become overall less friendly and more aggressive to people, acting out on the sadness and pain that we’re feeling. Imagine having an intense wound that rude people kept poking their fingers in – wouldn’t you be angry and stop trusting those who approach saying “I’m only here to help”?

Anyone who is in this situation should know that there is always help out there for those willing to seek it. Even just a wise friend can help you, or a supportive coach. Another tip is to analyze carefully who you’re trying to be included with – are those you’re trying to impress promoting unhealthy ways of life and communication? Remember that your best bet at having a happy life is to surround yourself with others who are accepting and supportive – not negative and harsh.

And of course – remember that you can reject others, too, and cause them pain. Be aware of both your own emotions and those of others in order to put a stop to the vicious cycle of rejecting others by impulse to hurt, without thinking about the pain inflicted.

Do you need help learning how to cope with rejection, or how to know if you are rejecting others without realizing it? A Conflict Coach can help you here, with lessons and tips that will be useful to you in healing. Please visit Conflict Coach today to learn more.

Technorati Tags: abuse, belonging, brain, bullying, communication, Emotional Abuse, emotional needs, emotional pain, interaction, ostracization, ostracized, rejected, rejection, relationship conflict, Relationships, Self-Esteem

Annie’s husband was often abusive to her. Usually, he would get upset if she wasn’t paying him her complete attention. A week before today, she was finishing dictating her daily report for work in the phone, when he began to scream at her for not paying attention to him. He slammed the door when leaving the house. But Annie – even when hurt – did her usual routine: she cleaned, cooked for him and kept the house in order besides attending her full-time job.

She decided that the most adequate response was to continue as if nothing happened; she attributed his behavior to exhaustion and had her best face on when he came home. Was she being empathetic to him? Or was she being a person unable to stand up for herself? Even more important: was her response the right behavior for stopping emotional abuse in the future?

The answer to the last question is “NO.” There are many factors by which people decide to ignore abuse, but it will not make the abuse disappear if you ignore it and be nice to your abuser.

Annie went through much of the early relationship believing that if she could be accepting and supportive, continually creating a loving home atmosphere, her husband’s abusive behavior would disappear. Unfortunately, she was in fact rewarding her husband’s negative behavior.

In response to his temper tantrum, Joe found her being attentive, nice and caring toward him. Ask yourself: why would he change his treatment of his wife if she responds so positively to his abuse?

We know through psychological research that behavior varies depending on its consequences. The “no critique, no punishment” that is Annie’s ideology only sends a message that she can take it, and that Joe will get what he wants when he acts abusively.

Hence, if Annie is nice to Joe when he treats her badly, she is signaling her submission to his anger and teaching him that is OK to continue being abusive.

So, what is the right attitude for healing emotional abuse? A firm, assertive response that clearly expresses your unhappiness. No grey areas here, but a strong condemnation of the abuse, and a definition of what is acceptable in the future.

As in:

“When you become so angry with me that you yell and curse like this morning, I feel really upset and hurt. That abusive behavior threatens the trust I have in you.”

“If this abuse goes on, I will leave the house. I will stay by myself until we can both reconsider what kind of marriage we want and how to get it.”

Learning to speak up assertively has to be following by congruent actions: If you say that you will leave the house temporarily when he yells at you, then do it. There is no other way to teach an abusive husband what are your limits about what kind of behavior will be acceptable.

If you are in an emotionally abusive relationship, being assertive requires respecting yourself. You need to realize that you are worthy of gentle, caring and respectful treatment by the person who says loves you the most. You also need to realize that you have a right to demand that treatment from the person who calls himself your “partner.”

Do you need help learning assertive techniques, or learning how to respect and empower yourself? We have many resources that you can start with:

• A coaching session with Coach Nora to talk about your personal situation and what is best for you.
• “Healing Emotional Abuse,” a book specifically for women who have left (or want to leave) emotionally abusive relationships.
• Our Healing Emotional Abuse blog, dedicated to giving you more information about what emotional abuse is.

You don’t have to suffer silently through abuse for a single day of your life. Learn what your options are today, and start living the life you want NOW.

Technorati Tags: abuse, assertive, emotionally abusive relationships, empowerment, healing emotional abuse, Self-Esteem, stopping emotional abuse

There are many steps you can take to stop allowing others to intimidate you. The first step you should take is to get a good look at yourself and determine what is there in your irrational, unhealthy way of thinking has allowed yourself to become intimidated by others. Did your parents tell you that authorities were always right and needed to be respected? Was it your inner fear of confrontation? Or fear of starting a conflict if that was needed to defend your rights?

If you think this might have been the case then you should take steps towards:

• Identify new healthier ways of thinking to help you overcome and respond to the intimidating factors.
• Display your new ways of thinking and acting to those who are intimidating you, this will show them that you are no longer willing to be intimidated by them.
• Develop ways of dealing with people in case they respond negatively to the new you – our blog has many, many postings on how to deal with conflict in all of its forms.
• See the consequences of your new assertive behavior
• Stick to your guns and accept whatever the consequences are of your new behavior – there may be costs to standing up for yourself, but you have to realize that it is more important to stick to your values than let them be taken away.

These steps take practice to achieve, and there may be times where you back track and your progress takes a hit. The important thing is to move forward from those times, eventually making great improvements from your old ways of thinking.

The next step to take once you have developed a strategy for dealing with those who intimidate you is to develop ways to reinforce your beliefs in the new, more positive and strong self-image. The easiest way is to use daily affirmations or positive self-talk. Examples of positive self-talk include:

• I am a good person, who is worthy and deserves to be treat with respect
• I will not put anyone in a superhuman position over me
• I will take my life back under my control from any who tries to intimidate me in the future
• I will not allow others to intimidate me
• There is no one out there who can intimidate me.

It pays to put some effort in building up our resistance to intimidation, because it will make our lives easier and conflict-free. There is no better feeling in life than knowing you are being treated exactly the way you need and deserve to be treated.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today, when you sign up to our blog and receive the ebook: Healthy Marriage.

Technorati Tags: abuse, anger, conflict resolution, Emotional Abuse, Healthy Marriage, healthy relationships, negative emotions, personal power, Relationships, respect, self-empowerment, Self-Esteem

To immediately ask yourself, “Do I abuse my partner?” may cause you to panic. It may bring feelings of denial and shame, forcing you to shut down before you’ve really started.

Sometimes it is easiest to work from the outside in – start with those you have small affections for, and analyze how you treat them. As you consider your actions towards others, and the results of those actions, move farther into the circle of people you love. Think about your friends, your extended family, your parents, and finally your partner. Don’t think only about what you do, but what feedback people give you. Is there open communication, or do they ignore or submit? Are you often told you need to work on something, and usually just ignore it?

Confronting your own shameful actions can be hard to deal with, like watching a soap opera of your life. We try to deny that our relationships are often full of drama and little subtleties that can throw a wrench in things and make us hurt one another.

Learning to handle relationships in a healthy way cannot begin until we confront these bad memories – either ones we caused or ones we were subject to. In thinking about your relationships with others, try not to focus simply on what they do to you, but how you react and what you do to them in return. Are there patterns that seem to emerge? Do you handle many situations in the same way? How do people react to you when you act that way?

If you have trouble finding a start, watch someone else’s drama unfold – either on TV or in real life. How do they interact? As they hurt each other (as people in dramatic situations are prone to do), do they retaliate in anger, turn away and withdraw, avoid it by doing something else, or blame themselves and become a trembling mass of nerves?

Once you begin recognizing these harmful traits in others (and their consequences), you can return to an analysis of your own actions. Without doing this, it is impossible to determine which attitudes need to change in order to preserve the relationships that are most important to you. Once you recognize it in yourself, you will also be able to recognize it in the people who hurt you.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today, you can get your own copy of the ebook: Healing Emotional Abuse.

Technorati Tags: abuse, appreciation, critique, Emotional Abuse, feelings, Healthy Marriage, humiliation, loneliness, Relationships, resentment, verbal abuse

Overt abuse is the more obvious form of abuse. The abuser is often aggressive and physically and/or psychologically violent. They may employ vicious name-calling, act with subversive behaviors like spying or phone-tapping, use sex as a tool for manipulation and self-satisfaction, spend large amounts of money without respect for the victim’s needs, and deny love, affection, and warmth to the victim or the entire family.

Often, through coaching and the victim’s own commitment to change, overt behaviors will cease. In some cases however, the abusive mindset is so deeply rooted that an abuser will switch from overt abuse to covert abuse.

Covert abuse is well-disguised and hard to pin down. It manifests in manipulative and sneaky behaviors. One such example is a line like, “I can have anybody I want, but I’m with you.” Or leaving the house but denying an explanation of why or where, leaving the victim open to doubt and insecurity. The abuser may give subtle hints about the victim’s inability to do something right or their inability to understand the abuser, and turn the conversation around and insist that they are the misunderstood victim. Other mind games might be a denial of compliments and affection, but will talk about other women/men constantly. They may forget important dates and treat the victim differently from friends, co-workers, and other women/men.

Covert abuse creates a harrowing relationship for the victim, one seeded with doubt, insecurity, and feelings of foolishness and jealousy. Some victims may experience the abuse and wonder if abuse is occurring at all, and whether they are just blowing things out of proportion.

Don’t get locked in that trap. If the situation was the other way around, how would treat your partner? Would you take the time to reassure, comfort, and explain in situations that could be taken the wrong way? If you’re willing to do that to preserve a relationship, and your partner is not, you have a problem. It isn’t about something you did – it’s about what your partner isn’t doing.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today, by buying the ebook with solutions for healing emotional abuse in your life and having a happier love relationship….

Technorati Tags: abuse, aggression, appreciation, conflict, control, critique, Emotional Abuse, feelings, Healthy Marriage, hidden anger, rejection, verbal abuse

It had a dirty secret….if the wife would have different takes on a situation she would have to sneak her views into a conversation, because her husband was the one supposed to do decision-making.

She could suggest, but the final decision (and credit) was not hers. Even if she had, God permit, some really good ideas…she needed to take care of her husband’s face by attributing such ideas to his creation.

And when she felt entitled to some decisions of her own? Several heavy weight traditions would discourage her. Church would preach submission to husbands; society would control her by ridicule. There was little a husband needed to do to “keep her in her place.’’

Even if we accept the benefits of sustaining this state of affairs, times have changed, and this hyerarchical marriage order has disappeared. Has it?

Sometimes I doubt it, because we can see that this male superiority marriage model persists. How? It has taken a different form now given that it’s the husband’s job to enforce her obedience, because society and church have abandoned preaching about wife’s submission to husbands.

It’s left in the hands of a husband to make his wife comply and obey, and to support his authority in the home. How does he do it? Lacking divine authority, there is the tool of emotional abuse to help him make his wife to feel inferior.

How? How come I’m linking persistent male authority with emotional abuse in marriage? Very simple: now, the way to have her humbled and in her place is to make her feel diminished and wrong, being always corrected because being criticized by a higher authority. I know a couple, now in their seventies…she has been all her life a stay-at-home wife and mother. He stills walks into the kitchen and announces to everyone: “she is always burning the food, what is she burning today?”

Is it true? Even if it is, what is the need to shame her in front of her relatives or friends? To prove male superiority, of course! After all those years of marriage, his instincts as the last word, judge and executioner are prevalent. Could he had learned to see her skills with more love and compassion? Could he appreciate more her positive aspects? Of course he could!

What he is doing is using snide comments to inflict public humiliation on her…leting her know who is still the boss. The harsh critiques, negative comments and complaints about her only role are the ways in which she is told to keep her place; if she protests, more abuse will be coming.

Why men do this? They don’t have any obvious need to continuously prove superiority…right? Or is it perhaps their insecurity that forces them to nag, criticize and demean the people who love them the most? So they can show who is the boss?

This attitude is really pathetic and has no place in a healthy marriage… How many divorces do you know, caused by her fatigue at being treated as a lesser, never equal partner?

If you married expecting that your partner would be the person accepting you warts and all; love you and admire you even beyond what you yourself know about your skills…then this is fraud. It means that you can’t trust the person you promised to love above others, because this person is reducing you to a lesser place below him.

Emotional abuse in marriage intent is to support male superiority, but ends up destroying the relationship. Are you in a marriage damaged by emotional abuse applied to support his dominant role? If so, how do you manage to keep your self-esteem alive?

Nora Femenia is a well known coach, conflict solver and trainer, and CEO of Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. Visit her blog and signup free to be connected to her innovative conflict solutions, positive suggestions and life-changing coaching sessions, along with blog updates, news, and more! Go now to http://www.creativeconflicts.com.

Technorati Tags: abuse, appreciation, Emotional Abuse, emotions, feelings, frustration, Healthy Marriage, humiliation, negative emotions, recognition, verbal abuse