MANIPULATION
When a partner tries to influence your decisions, actions or emotions. Manipulation is not always easy to spot, but some examples are convincing you to do things you wouldn’t normally feel comfortable with, ignoring you until they get their way, and using gifts and apologies to influence your decisions or get back in your good graces.
What? "ignoring you until they get their way"? "Using gifts to influence your decisions"? Wow, some girls just have all the luck! All I wanted was to be left alone. I didn't even want to go home after work. So clearly, some abusers are capable to giving you your space, in the form of "ignoring you" . I never got peace in my environment. Having someone in your face all the time, because they're not satisfied with your answers to their questions is exhausting, causes anxiety (which I was diagnosed with years ago) due to the environment I was living in, and it's just plain bullying. That's how I felt during my marriage, bullied! I was married to a jobless, manipulative, opportunistic, bully, and it continued because I allowed it. I did not want to be the wife that brow beat her husband about finding a job, knowing full well that it was hard for black men to find work in this society, meanwhile, the black woman, had three teaching jobs. (College adjunct, elementary school substitute teacher, and a tutor). The sad thing about living such a life is that, you become so used to it, that you stop believing that anyone would believe you if you were to tell them your situation, so you just stay quiet and keep saying, "everything is fine."
Although, your family and friends see what's happening to you, they won't say anything to you, to let you know that they're watching and they know things are not right, so you don't feel like you're crazy for thinking that you're being abused, manipulated, and bullied. What are they afraid of? Are they afraid that if they say something to you, you'll tell them to mind their business? So what? Is that the worst that could happen? Getting told off? We got to do better than that, friends and family. Speak up when you see something that does not look right.
It's always important to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions. It's very easy to blame the other person for the situation we're in, when in reality, "it takes two to tango". It's not healthy to blame the other person for everything that goes wrong in the relationship/marriage, this allows them to keep power over you. When we take responsibility for the part we played in our misery, it becomes easy to free ourselves from the misery. This is how you take back power that was taken from you. This is how you heal.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!
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