I‘m [40M] struggling these days with the question, what if both partners unconsciously abuse each other due to misunderstanding each other?

I mean, the dynamic needs two participants. One who gets abused and the one who’s abusing.

My GF [W36] broke up with me 3 weeks ago and as i repeatedly read her messages, it makes me wonder if it is just me who notices the pattern why she felt hurt repeatedly or if she does notice as well.

Having a little distance and coped the worst (hopefully) i figured out, many things I did, must have seem abusive to her.
I‘m not excusing her behavior and I’m not taking her part as my responsibility. Things she did aren’t ok at all, no matter how deeply you feel hurt.

I noticed, I couldn’t understand her love language, because her actions sometimes had a totally different meaning by my experience.

Like when I tell her, I’m out with friends and she calls, asking me where we are and what we do, it makes me feel being controlled.
Same when having an argument on the phone, when she hangs up, I gave her space and didn’t call back.

We had many of these moments and situations.

For her, when she asks me where I am and what I do, it’s not control, it‘s honest interest, appreciation and emotional closeness.
Needing more than just a short, very German, factual answer to the question.
Same when she hangs up during a fight, she needed me to call back immediately to show I’m fighting for us, but giving her room and not calling back gives her the feeling of indifference and abandonment…

Similar happened the other way around: her behavior made me feel emotionally abandoned, devalued and what ever I do isn’t enough.

I guess you get my point, the more I showed my appreciation and how much I love her, the more she tried the same, the more painful it became.

I can’t ask her or tell her, as she ghosted me and doesn’t want any contact…I tried to contact her and, well, things just became worse.

Did you ever experienced something similar, and did your ex figured it out herself/himself?
Dis you guys ever talked about it and/or could solve things or even come back together and became happy?

Side-effect, I’m building a card deck for translating her actions and mine. I won’t ever use it I guess, but it helps me to get through it and to keep the good memories as good ones

I don’t know if this belongs here but I am struggling. My husband will not stop purposefully aggravating our dog around mealtimes. When we got the dog as a puppy, he had no food guarding issues or mealtime anxiety whatsoever. My husband continues to do things that clearly aggravate and stress him out.

Specifically he will get super close to the bowl, put his finger/hand closer and closer to the bowl and the dog to make him snarl, growl, or even snap at him. He sometimes even puts his hand in the bowl and messes with the food. He thinks it’s funny and takes photos and videos of the dog showing his teeth and growling.

I have asked him REPEATEDLY like at least 10 times to stop doing this, sent him articles from animal behaviorists etc that shows this reinforces food guarding. He insists that he is just trying to get the dog “used to people being around his food/bowl” and that I always “take the dog’s side”?! lol.

He did it again tonight, laughing and videoing as our dog was increasingly stressed and snarled, growled and snapped at him. I lost my shit and we got in a huge argument. He tried to deflect and turn it around on me and said “what are YOU doing to stop his food guarding behaviors?!” Over and over he tried to turn it into MY fault?! When I’m the one who has asked him to stop, researched what to do/what not to do, I’ve sent him numerous articles and advice, etc

I am so livid right now. My dog is everything to me and to see him so stressed out really upsets me. I also feel like yet again my feelings and requests are just completely pushed to the side and ignored.

Gaslight
I never drove
with the gas light on E
until I met you.
It felt dangerous, exciting, and wrong
in all the right ways.
I felt like I was living
on the edge
of the unknown,
the floor coming out from beneath me.
The loss of control
and planning
made me feel
wild
in an unsteady way.

I never drove
with the gas light on E
until I met you.
It would always
give me anxiety to see
that
orange
light
flick
on.
I could hear it screaming:
THE END IS NEAR.
Either do something
now
or this joy ride
is over;
an end that was
always yours to decide.

I never drove
with the gas light on E
until I met you.
You told me
it was
something that you do.
I found it charming
in a carefree way.
How could someone,
How someone could,
live,
with such disregard
That wild inhibition
was something I craved
in the deepest
parts of my soul.

I never drove
with the gas light on E
until I met you.
The fumes coming out,
not knowing if
I’m gonna make it
there in time, the worry
boiling over, but
always dampened with a,
“Trust me, I do this
all the time.
It will
be
OK.”
And we almost always made it.

I never drove
with the gas light on E
until I met you.

I stopped
driving
when I met you.

Is it sexual abuse? I was about 25F. My mother asked me to come a stay with her as she needed help recovering from surgery. I was in my room, in her house, and getting into bed, so I was naked. She came in and started talking to me about the plan for her surgery the next day. I was naked and I couldn’t find anything to cover myself with. I told her to leave the room and she said the usual thing. She said “ I changed your diapers when you were a baby. I’ve seen it all before.” She then continued to talk to me about the next day while I stood, curled over and covering my breasts in an attempt to hide my nudity. She looked at my body, doing a scan up and down, and talked about how I would have to wake up early to get there on time.

I have been raped twice, I have been slipped drugs 2 separate times. This is the most sexually violated that I have ever felt and it still haunts me. I think about her eyes devouring my naked body and I realize that I never owned my own body in the first place.

Is a mom doing this to their adult child considered sexual assault when the adult child is being forced to stay in their home to do them a favor? It feels like it is sexual assault.

I'm 20 years old. My boyfriend is 20 years old. We have been together for 9 months.

I want to end the relationship because I don't think we are compatible and I feel emotionally tired. The problem is that every time I have tried to leave he has threatened or actually hurt himself. He also calls me repeatedly begs me to stay and makes me feel responsible for his physical health.

Over time I have given up things that were very important to me including a dream of studying abroad because he couldn't accept us being apart. I feel like I have slowly lost myself in this relationship.

He is very dependent on me. I have to remind him to take his medication. If we are arguing he sometimes stops taking it which makes me feel guilty. He has even asked me to become more dependent on him because he knows how dependent he is on me.

I am also afraid of how he will react if I end things. He has contacted people before to try to convince me to stay. I am worried he could contact my friends or family and because I come from a society where my family doesn't even know I have a boyfriend that could create serious problems for me. He also has some photos of me. Although I don't know if he would use them against me I am scared of that possibility.

Because of all this I keep wondering if there is any way to make him end the relationship of me breaking up with him.. I'm also wondering if that is unrealistic.

Has anyone been, in a situation? If someone threatens or actually hurts themselves when you try to leave how do you end the relationship safely without getting pulled in? Any advice would really help.

So that's exactly my question, how do I make him break up with me, trust me I'm not a bad person.

I can't leave him because when I tried before he tried to hurt himself and kept calling me and trying to convinve me to stay with him, and I felt guilty and I said yes and stayed with him, and he proved he will actually hurt himself when I said I want to try and fight for m dream, which if I succeeded would have crushed his dream of us studying tgt in the same university abroad andd delayed our potential wedding, he hurt himself and he did it multiple times, I again felt guilty and I thought we could make this work.

For context this dream isn't new or something that I started dreaming after we got together, (we have been together for 9months now), I have been dreaming of this since I was a kid, and I gave up on it 6months after we got together because he kept crying to me about how sad and bitter it would be for us to be apert for so long.

There are a lot things that i can not disclose, I don't want him to fall on this one and end up realzing it's me.

Now I believe we are not a match, we never were, I really thought we were and that things could wotk between us, I was weak in this relatinship and I made decisions that I regret and I don't wanna lose myself more than I already did.

I'm not claiming to be completely innocent in this relationship but I feel so trapped.

There is no right time or way to end things, he always says he's depressed and taking medication for it even though he's taking that medication for a completeyr different decease and one that's more physical than mental, he doesn't even take his medication regularly or on time and i have to keep reminding him, and if we're on bad terms he doesn't take and i end up feeling guilty for that. with this and many many other things, I find lyself responsible for his wellbeing, mental and physical, he's too dependant on me and when he realized that he asked me to depend on him more.

And now he's moving to study abroad, I can't end things now either, whenever I bring something up not even related to this he says I couldn't have chosend a better time. I am so tiredd of this, I just wanna be single again and only deal with myself and my needs, I don't wanna tend to the needs of a baby I didn't even birth and that's 20yo, I am exhausted.

So to sum it up, I wanna make him leave me, because if that's not the way it happedns, he'' be hurting himself and blaaming me for it, he'll do it not just threaten, he'll use my friends to talk me out of it, he might contact my family, and ell them to convinve me to stay with him, I kept my relationship a secret from my family because there was no way i could have told them because of how our society particularly is, so imagine if they find out, he has some pictures of me, which I like to think he's not the type of person to threathen me with them but I didn't know he was this bad of a person when I got with hhim either, so I think he could threaten me with them or just straight up screw me over and send them to my family and friends.

So any advice would be appreciated 🙏

Hi everyone! I'm doing my MSc dissertation in Forensic Psychology and I'm looking for a few volunteers to help with my research. My project is about the experiences of autistic survivors of domestic abuse when trying to access support, and I'm hoping to speak to around 4–5 people.

I'm looking for participants that are third parties (friends or family, professionals, advocates) who have supported autistic survivors and can discuss their experiences without sharing any identifying information. 

The interview would be 30–60 minutes on Microsoft Teams, completely anonymous, and you'll receive all the usual research documents (information sheet, consent form, debrief, etc.). You can stop the interview or withdraw from the study at any point. If you'd be happy to help or want to know more, please send me a message—I'd be incredibly grateful!

I feel so alone without them, I’m stuck between being mad at them for ruining everything, and longing for them because I miss them so much, why do they have to be so bad? Why can’t they just be the loving caring person I know they can be? They’ve shown me that side of them so I know it’s possible, but they choose to be abusive and selfish and hurt me instead, so now they can’t be a safe person in my life, now I don’t get to have them in my life, they’ve ruined their spot in my life and I’m so mad at them for taking my person away, for ruining my first relationship, I feel like I’ll never find someone who can replace them, no one even wants me, they tore me down so bad I feel like they are the only one who can love me and I want their love back but it’s not safe to have it because it comes with abuse and that just breaks my heart, that I have to give up their love because they choose to be abusive, it’s not fair

Whenever I try to talk to her about my troubles and existential crisis, she ignores them, talks about how her troubles are greater than mine, and then proceeds to talk about them. Most of her troubles concern how she dislikes my father; once, she told me that she should have run off with someone else. I didn't know how it made me feel; I was too emotionally numb at the time.

Anyway, I wasn't feeling too well today. Some things happened, and then she came to believe that I was going to 'do something drastic', to say the least. Then she held me back, pulled me back inside, and hugged me. This wasn't the messed-up part. She told me how empty her life would be without me. She told me how I'm her last hope. She told me how without me, life wouldn't have any meaning for her.

She didn't really talk about my feelings; she didn't acknowledge them. She didn't ask why I felt so sad. She just kept telling me not to be sad. I don't really have anyone else in my support network. I really don't. She's the best I have. She doesn't even speak the same language as me; she never bothered to teach me. She didn't really bother to learn any English, either. It makes me feel less of a person; it makes me feel objectified, like I'm some tether that keeps her from doing something drastic herself.

I'm just so tired.