Emotional Abuse and The Need to Forgive Yourself

A normal love relationship includes being able to talk freely about our fears and feelings openly with our partner and working through problems together with compassion and understanding for each other.

Past experiences in relationships where we suffered from emotional abuse, taught us to be on the defensive all the time, and that becomes a problem in new relationships. If past experiences are stopping you from trusting your partner now, then its time to ask yourself why you are still hooked to this behaviour. Although this attitude may have served you well in the past protecting you from harm, it is actually blocking your way to happyness.

Whatever verbal or emotional abuse happened in the past relationship it’s sure that we ended up owning the responsibility for the failure, because we “didn’t do the marriage work necessary,” or failed at this or that. In this frame of mind, it is very difficult to trust that whatever we do, is respected and appreciated by this new person in our life.

If looks like feelings and memory of emotional abuse are being stirred up from your past experience. You will have to ask yourself if this is what you are feeling now, in the present and try to distract yourself from thinking that way.

Talk to him and then start to work on your old trust and fear issues, that are left over feelings that served you well in the past but are no longer healthy for you to have now.

Even if it was never  as you imagined it, you will have to accept your need to grieve for this realtionship, and for the loss of what it meant to you. If this was your big dream, that filled too much of your life, perhaps you can’t let go because it still holds some power on you, due to the magic of the ideal relationship you were so deeply expecting to have with him.

We all have had such a dream, and now the mature thing is to face it, appreciate its beauty, and let it go forever. But those memories must not stop us from living our life with all the different challenges to learn from, although we should keep this dream as part of our experiences.

To be able to accept and enjoy what life is giving us today in the shape of love and good companionship, you need to take the first step, and let go to your mental image of the past love dream.

Do you want to hear what other self-aware woman wrote?

“After the fog cleared, I kept asking what did I love about this man, it was the relationship that never was, all one sided because he could not love anyone, my love was real and there is nothing wrong with loving , but not someone like him.”
As painful as the relationship was, I’m grateful I was capable of love; otherwise I would be like him and never know joy, happiness or the beauty of truly loving someone and being loved in return. There is hope for me, because now I know how to love.”

To your happiness,

Neil Warner
Creative Conflict Resolutions
Claim your free copy of the report ‘5 Essential Skills for Happy Relationship‘

Visit "Save My Marriage Today!" Site