​     Some people are in emotionally abusive relationships and they do not realize it.  The emotional abusiveness may be is so covert that you might not recognize that it is happening to you. These tactics may be strategically hidden away, yet utilized in order to put you on the crazy train. Others are so obvious, but you could be left feeling so baffled that you lose your ability to respond. How can you spot that you may be the target of these tactics? Here are some situations that you may want to watch for:

1. Silent treatment- your significant other may use this tactic to “punish” you by refusing to speak for several hours, or even days, then suddenly decides that the conflict is over and starts acting like nothing happened.
2. Anger/rage outbursts- your significant other may use this tactic to scare you or anger you in order to derail the original topic from being discussed.
3. Blame shifting- your partner could use this tactic to avoid taking accountability for something. They turn it around on you and all of a sudden it appears as if it is all you fault The other person shifts the blame with “yes, but you did …..”
4. Switching topics (or adding additional topics in order to confuse you)- your partner immediately brings up a different topic and before you know it, you are so bewildered and confused that you don’t know what the topic was about to start with.
5. Targeting you- immediately when you raise a concern, your significant other turns it around on you by stating that you did not word your issue correctly, you didn’t address it at the right time or your voice is not sounding the “right” way. This is the tactic that derails you right off the bat and the conversation is over before it started.

     There are many more examples of manipulations. So what can you do if you notice that you are actually exposed to some of these tactics? The first part is awareness and recognition that this is happening in your relationship.  You can prepare yourself by writing down what you want to talk about. You can ask before hand for a time when the two of you could sit down and talk. Stay focused and do not allow yourself to get derailed by these tactics. You may have to stay persistent and be the one to bring up the topic again.
     With a yelling partner, you may want to say something like: ”I can tell that you are angry right now. I do want to talk to you about this, so please come back later when we can both talk about this calmly.” Keep stating this until the conversation actually takes place without yelling. For blame shifting or bombarding you with more topics, it still comes down to staying on the topic by stating things like, ”we can talk about your suggested topic at a different time, right now we are discussing X.”
 
Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC, NCC, SRT, CCPS specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and sex addiction related issues. Ingela Edwards Counseling serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

In cases of physical abuse, the victim is encouraged to leave the abuser. In cases of gas lighting, active addiction, ongoing betrayals and other forms of emotional abuse, the betrayed spouse will need to evaluate if leaving is a necessity for their emotional well-being. Maybe you love your spouse, want to stay married, but realize that the emotional roller coaster is too crazy making. You may be powerless over what your spouse chooses to do, or not do, but you can create an informed exit plan for yourself. This may be a plan that you never need to use, however, making a plan in advance could help you in times that are extremely emotionally challenging. Most people do not want to think about having to create a plan on how to leave their marriage, but it may be necessary.

An exit plan is a detailed plan on how you leave your relationship. If the marriage ends, where will you live? Would you be staying in the current residence or would you move out? In some states, the law appears to protect the person who stays in the primary residence. If you decided to move out, could it be viewed as abandonment in your state? Many lawyers offer free consultations to potential clients. You may also want to find out about financial issues, spousal support, child support and child custody laws in your state.

Are you financially dependent on your spouse?  If you find that your relationship is in a state of limbo or dependent on your spouse’s recovery, this may be a good time to evaluate how you would support yourself by applying for jobs, seeking job training or pursuing a degree. Stay at home parents may feel financially trapped, and returning to the workforce can be intimidating and difficult at first. Creating a viable exit plan can take months or even years, but if you are in a state of limbo in your relationship, then now is the time to create your exit plan.

Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC, NCC, SRT, CCPS specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. Ingela Edwards Counseling serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

Many relationships are affected by emotional deprivation, disconnection, resentments or addictions. The question that you can ask your spouse in order to start rebuilding the connection is simple. The question is: “How was your day?” This question is important in building the foundation of your relationship. You are building an emotional connection when you take a genuine interest in your spouse. People who experience emotional deprivation in their relationships often report feeling unloved and unimportant because their spouse fails to ask the simple, yet essential question:” How was your day?”

In cases of intimacy anorexia, it can be painful to realize that it may not be of interest to the anorexic spouse to know how your day was and that is why they do not ask you. They may purposefully choose not to ask. They are busy keeping the distance from you and they do not necessarily want to hear about you day, your feelings or experiences. In these cases, this may also work as a great tool to keep you disconnected. In cases of addiction, the addicted spouse has a tendency of being self-centered, focused on their addiction and it may not occur to them to ask you about your day. The addiction is in the driver’s seat and finding out about your day or feelings is not on the radar at this time. It is probably not until they have sobered up from their addiction that empathy comes in and they are able to take a genuine interest in how you are doing.

Obviously there are variations of issues that can result and pop up in relationships; however, asking your spouse how their day was is an ongoing important question in building or maintaining emotional intimacy. The question is asked out of genuine love, interest and connection.  It is not a one-time thing and then you “forget.”  Does your spouse ask you how your day was? Do they listen and ask questions? Is your spouse interested in hearing what you are saying? If you believe that your relationship is thwarted by addictions, emotional deprivation or intimacy anorexia, seek the guidance of a certified therapist in your area.

Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC, NCC, SRT, CCPS specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. Ingela Edwards Counseling serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

Emotional abuse can go unnoticed for a long period of time. Often, the spouse who is being emotionally abused does not realize that they are being subjected to emotional abuse. They may report feeling a little crazy at times, but can’t identify what it is that is messing with their sense of reality. Often, the feelings of craziness are ignored or tucked away. Emotional abuse is not always what we envision as verbal assaults or constant withholding. Emotional abuse can take place so subtly; a person may not even know that it’s happening to them.

Emotional abuse can take place in a variation of ways, such as: name calling, anger outbursts, raging, blaming, shaming and withholding acts of affection. Lies are also abusive and go under the category of emotional abuse. Blatant lies and lying by omission robs you of the foundational piece of the relationship, which is trust. Another component of lying and manipulation comes in form of The Gaslight Effect. Gaslighting is the practice of intentionally manipulating a person’s understanding of their own reality. The goal of this intentional practice is to get the victim to doubt their own reality and memory.

Gaslighting can take place in the workplace and within relationships. Relationships that are affected by infidelity or sex addiction are prime targets for the Gaslight Effect. The victimizer who has a secret and a hidden agenda, does not want the victim to find out what is happening behind their back. In order to cover their tracks, the victimizer will  keep up the lies and when the victim senses that something is not right, victimizer will tell the victim that they are oversensitive, not remembering events correctly or that the victim always overreacts.

Victimizers will utilize lies, denial, defensiveness and charm. The victimizer will tell the victim how they should or should not feel. The victim often gets to hear the phrase: “You shouldn’t feel that way.” Gaslighting can take place because the people who utilize this form of emotional abuse are generally charming and convincing liars who consistently deny any wrong doing on their part. The gaslighting behaviors are so subtle and covert. There is generally no intimidating or frightening behavior that set off warning signals. In order for this type of emotional abuse to be effective, gaslighting relies on first getting the victim to start doubting their own thinking. Once the victim starts believing that it is their own thinking that is distorted, the gaslighting can move into the second stage in which the victimizer can persuade the victim that the victimizer’s ideas are the correct and true ones.

Gaslighting works because eventually the victim becomes so worn down. They may feel depressed and defective as people. They have been told that they are unable to make good choices, can’t remember things correctly and have poor coping skills. The victim starts believing these subtle yet powerful messages. The victim believes they are crazy and have a false sense of reality. They start to lean on the victimizer more and more as they now believe that the victimizer is the one who knows the best. The goal of the victimizer has now been achieved; the victim no longer trusts their own thinking and reality. The victimizer can now go on with the affairs or sex addiction. When the victim suspects something, they will ignore their intuition because they believe they are crazy and just making things up.

The victimizer smiles, brings on the charm at the appropriate times, tells you how much they care about you and slowly tear you apart…..if you are in a relationship that feels like it’s crazymaking, you may have been exposed to the gaslight effect. In order to counteract the gaslight effect, focus should be placed on awareness, self-esteem, boundaries, personal empowerment and reclaiming your intuition.

Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC, NCC, SRT, CCPS specializes in helping individuals and couples heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. Ingela Edwards Counseling serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

You may have been keeping a secret from your spouse for a long time. There may have been times in the past when you wanted to disclose the secret, but the fears of the unknown reactions kept you from saying anything.  Maybe you had no desire to share the secret, but it was accidentally discovered. Anyhow, when secrets come out, the relationship will be rocky for a while. 

Once the secret is out, you may have thought that your spouse would be mad and hurt for a couple of weeks, then get over it. That is probably not the case. Whether the secret involves infidelity, compulsive pornography use, drug use or other acting out behaviors, you spouse is likely to be in pure
disbelief at first. Then there may be anger, confusion and pain. There is no time limit on how long the healing process takes as it’s a very individualized.

Your spouse will need time to heal, recover and eventually learn to trust you again in order for the relationship to survive. Going forward, you will need to practice rigorous honesty. You will need to be sensitive to your spouse’s needs and understand that the pain of the secret keeping will take time to heal. There may be times when the relationship seems to be worse as you go through the healing process. The relationship is actually not worse. The relationship has now become honest and sometimes honesty really hurts.  Many things that have not been talked about in the past will now need to be addressed. There will be feelings that need to be processed in order to move forward. It will be uncomfortable and painful at times.  

You can apologize for the pain you have caused, but you can’t go back and have a redo. What you can do is to stay in the present. Listen to your spouse and ask what you can do to help. Do not tell your spouse how they should or should not feel.  Do not get angry or defensive.  Research shows that couples who are able to keep the communication open and honest are able to heal faster. If you feel like you can’t talk about it and just want to “hurry up and get over it,” you will only prolong the recovery process. There is no way around or a quick fix.You will need to answer questions, display complete transparency and implement boundaries for yourself and the relationship. It is hard work, but it is doable. Many people report feeling stronger and more confident is their relationship following all the work that both parties need to invest in  in order to restore the relationship.

Ingela Edwards, MS, LPC, NCC, SRT, CCPS specializes in helping individuals and couples
heal from sex addiction, infidelity, intimacy anorexia, and intimacy deprivation. Ingela Edwards Counseling serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.

 Feeling unheard and misunderstood in a relationship leads to resentment, anger and emotional disconnection. Who is doing this in your relationship? Is it you, is it your spouse or are you both stuck in a destructive cycle of shutting each other out?
 Are you easy to talk to or do you become angry, defensive or stonewall when your spouse approaches you?  Are you able to listen and consider messages from your spouse that you may not agree with or do you immediately turn to defending your own position? Do you always have to be “right”? People who have to defend, convince, yell and argue are often times exhausting to talk to.

If you are recognizing yourself in these patterns, you may want to rethink your tactics as you are creating great harm in the relationship. When spouses are unable to communicate freely with one another, it creates distance and emotional blocks. Resentment starts building and you will find yourself stuck with the same unresolved issues that you did not want to discuss or hear. The specific issue or relational problem does not disappear because you choose to shut down the communication. It still lingers there festering and building. 

First off, ask yourself why you feel like you always have to be “right”.  People have different perspective on things, so why is it that you have to try to prove that your perspective is right? When faced with a negative comment from your spouse, why is it so threatening to at least evaluate if the comment may be something for you to work on?  It is not about proving who is right or wrong, it is about hearing each other and working
together to find amicable solutions that nourishes the relationship.

Manipulation tactics do not only include using anger outbursts and defensiveness. Other detrimental tactics are avoidance, finger pointing and patronizing. Excuses I hear are: “I didn’t like the choice of words that my spouse was using; I didn’t like the tone of voice my spouse was using; I didn’t like the timing of the conversation”. These are all manipulation tactics to turn the tables and avoid the topic that was presented. Instead the tables were turned and the "problem” is now HOW the conversation was started, not the real issue of WHAT the problem is.

If you are automatically turning to anger outbursts, turning the tables or defensiveness you miss many opportunities to hear your spouse. There are times when a spouse will tell the other that they have attempted for years to improve the marriage, only to be shut down. At times this goes on until one person has had enough, feels empty and is ready to pack their bags. At this time, it may be too late to try to salvage the relationship. You have the opportunity to listen to your spouse today. If you continue to feel stuck, contact a licensed therapist to help you improve communication and rebuild the emotional intimacy your relationship.

Ingela  Edwards, MS, LPC, NCC, SRT, CCPS specializes in helping individuals and couples
heal from infidelity, intimacy anorexia, intimacy deprivation and sexual addiction. Ingela Edwards Counseling serves the McKinney, Plano, Allen, Frisco, Carrollton, Lewisville, Dallas and Sherman area.