What to do when your partner or spouse keeps hurting you on purpose

How to know you’re in a toxic relationship

Does your partner or spouse physically hurt you, and do they hurt your feelings on purpose? If so, I’m not surprised you might wonder if you’re in an abusive relationship.

I’m so glad you’ve landed here to discover what it means when someone who’s supposed to love you keeps hurting your feelings (and body?).

Let’s find out together if you’re in a toxic relationship or marriage.

I’ll do my part in your journey to avoid getting caught by someone not worthy of your love and attention. I can only increase your awareness and point you in the right direction, but you need to shine a light on what is happening and ask for help, if necessary.

I’m so pleased you are here, so let’s get cracking.

How to know you’re in a toxic relationship

The fact that you’re here is a sign you already suspect you’re in a bad or toxic relationship. If your partner has hurt you physically for the first time, you may be surprised and shocked. But once you see the other signs of a toxic relationship, I suspect you’ll recognise there’s more you should be worried about.

It might have already occurred to you that perhaps you should get out of the relationship, but maybe:

• They’ve apologetically promised it won’t happen again and didn’t mean to hurt you.
• You believe that what happened was a one-off or “not all that bad”.
• You’re still hoping that things will get better.
• They appear to feel guilty and may have even cried at the realisation of what they’ve done.
• You’re blaming yourself for what happened, or they blame you.
• You still think you can change them if only you knew how.
• You think you’re the only one who understands them.
• You believe they are damaged and badly need your love and support.
• You’re just not sure you’re in a bad, toxic or abusive relationship.
• You’re worried about how your partner will react.

So, are you being verbally, emotionally and physically abused by someone who’s supposed to love you?

Let’s see – read on.

Is your wife or female partner abusing you?

Intimate partner violence in general victimizes women in particular and the same can be said about homicides perpetrated by intimate partners. As mentioned earlier, in homicide cases when an intimate partner was implicated, 82 per cent of the victims were women, while 18 per cent were men.”

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Global Study on Homicide*) Source

How to know you’re in a toxic relationship when you’re partner is hurting you

Here’s what might happen when your partner or spouse hurts your feelings.

20 signs of emotional and mental abuse

Here’s how your spouse hurts your feelings on purpose:

1. They continuously criticise and undermine you and make you feel ‘wrong’ all the time.
2. They want to control every aspect of you and your relationship.
3. They call you insulting or degrading names.
4. They ridicule you.
5. They use hurtful and insulting language towards you.
6. They call you by so-called ‘pet names’ aimed to undermine you.
7. They often humiliate you in front of others or when you are alone with them.
8. They’re extremely demanding of your time and your attention.
9. They make you feel guilty for not being a good-enough spouse or mother.
10. They move items and blame you for their disappearance.
11. They move items so that you increasingly question your sanity.
12. They play mind games. For example, they claim to have only the best intentions, make you believe something and then deny they ever said or would do this, that or the other.
13. They lift you emotionally one moment and drop you the next.
14. They use the silent treatment on you – deliberately ignoring you.
15. They use threats that upset and scare you, your children, and your family.
16. They threaten to hurt you (and your children) physically.
17. They threaten to kill themselves if you were to leave.
18. They threaten to ‘expose’ personal, intimate or embarrassing information about you to your boss, friends and family.
19. They threaten to hurt your pets.
20. They spread rumours about you – online or elsewhere.

You can now see that when your partner deliberately hurts your feelings, it may be a sign of worse to come. In any case, it’s a huge red flag. (Of course, you’ll want to be sure you’re not adding to the toxic mix!)

If you now realise they’ve also hurt you emotionally in other ways, you’ll want to read on to understand the signs of physical abuse.

Physical abuse may start somewhat sneaky – ‘playfully’ – if your partner doesn’t hit you outright.

5 ways they can hurt you physically

1. Your partner has so-called play-fights during which they hurt you on purpose.
2. They pull your hair just a little too hard.
3. Your partner ‘punishes’ you physically for anything they don’t like.
4. They physically hurt you by hitting, punching, slapping, pinching or pushing you so that you hurt yourself.
5. They force you to take drugs or alcohol.

5 ways they control and hurt you physically

1. Your partner expects you to ask permission before consulting a healthcare professional.
2. They prevent you from accessing healthcare.
3. They force you to have an abortion.
4. They stop you from using contraceptives.
5. They control your medication – giving or withholding drugs regardless of your needs.

5 ways they can hurt you sexually

1. They force you to do things/have sex against your wishes.
2. They lack consideration for your feelings and wishes in your sexual relationship.
3. They humiliate you sexually.
4. They make you ‘flirt’ or have sex with other people.
5. They threaten to upload sexually explicit videos and photos online.

Can you change them?

Please understand that your partner’s behaviour is most unlikely to improve. Instead, we know that it’s very likely to get worse, and they may also start to hurt you in other ways, no matter how hard you try to be the person they want you to be. Hop over to my toxic relationship test link to see what else could happen.

Yes, they’re likely to promise that it won’t ever happen again, they really won’t do it again, this was truly the last time, etc. 

However, it is going to happen again! In any case – you mustn’t even be waiting to see if it does.

And, no, you cannot change them, neither should you even try. People will only change when they choose to, whether or not a partner is abusive.

What to do if your spouse or partner slaps, hits, bullies or otherwise abuses you?

I urge you to get help even if you only suspect you’re in an abusive relationship.

Talk it through with a licensed therapist who can support and guide you. Or speak to another professional in your community – such as a teacher, doctor or police officer. Or discuss your experience with a trusted friend or family member.

Keeping track of the evidence

Regardless of how serious you think the abuse is, I’d like you to gather evidence.

This article will help you choose the best app to collect and save evidence of your partner’s abuse.

It’s not your fault

It can be quite a shock when confronted with so many signs of a toxic relationship.

Does it all seem too familiar to you because you’ve been in a bad relationship before? If so, it’s time to figure out why you keep choosing the wrong partners.

Either way, you could probably do with boosting your self-esteem. Remember, you did not deserve this!

Is there hope?

There absolutely is hope that you can change your future by making sure you find someone who makes you feel great, safe, loved and treasured. If that is not your present partner or spouse, it’s time to end that marriage or relationship. Ending a toxic relationship and being free from the abuse means you can focus on yourself, figure out what went wrong and start anew – alone or with someone else.

Need help ending your relationship or marriage?

In that case, I recommend you download the professionally produced self-hypnosis audio: Get Help Leaving an Abusive Relationship, Build Self-Esteem with Hypnosis or 10 Steps to Solid Self-Esteem Hypnosis Course.

To find out how hypnosis can help you, hop over to my page on Self-hypnosis FAQ and downloads.

Don’t give yourself a hard time

Please don’t be hard on yourself if you haven’t seen the true nature of your partner before now.

Doubtless, they were charming, caring, sensitive and loving – early on. 

Recognising the signs of a toxic relationship takes a bit of experience and know-how. And, I suspect, the two of you became serious pretty quickly.

Finally

It can take a lot of courage and strength to extricate yourself from an abusive relationship. But you’ve coped with this situation so far, proving that strength and resilience are two qualities you have in bucket loads.

You don’t deserve to be mistreated and abused. You can leave! Below you’ll find a list of specialist organisations in different countries where you can get trustworthy information, help and advice.

I know you can get through this! I’m rooting for you!

You can download the SmartSafe+ mobile app for free. The app helps you to safely and securely collect evidence for when you’re ready to go to the police for help.

Where to get help

For men and women

US and Canada – Domestic Abuse Helpline

For women

US – The National Domestic Violence Hotline
UK – Women’s Aid
Australia – 1800respect

For men

Australia – One in Three Campaign
UK – ManKind Initiative

Also:

Learn how to delete your browser history (clearing evidence of having visited these pages)

Other helpful links

http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women

Sources:

• http://www.childoneurope.org/issues/childabuse/Qualitative%20questionnaire%20on%20child%20abuse_def.pdf
• abusehttps://www.strongheartshelpline.org/what-does-cultural-abuse-look-like/
• https://fairytaleshadows.com/ (opens in new tab)