Thank you for this article. I am surprised at how few responses here are from men. As you know, men can have deep feelings too, we just tend to keep them closer to our hearts. And despite what many women believe, because of this male-bashing society, women are often the emotional abuser.

I am now in such a marriage being threatened with a legal separation despite my sincere efforts to mend this marriage and having done nothing seriously wrong such as infidelity or violence. I have never even cursed at her. Although I have said some unkind things, as we all do, I am basically a caring and gentle man who has repeatedly apologized for all real and imagined sins to no avail. No apology is “sincere” or “takes responsibility”.

I was amazed that every single item on your list has been spoken to me by my spouse! And as you said, she goes for the jugular to get me to over-react so that I will look like the bad guy and she will not have to face her demons. When I try to be yielding in an attempt to gain the same in return, she responds with no compassion whatsoever and tries to demean me further.

As you noted, she has now escalated matters as she is determined to win, to prove that I am an evil abuser, even labeling me as a sociopath.

Reading this article focused a light on a situation that did make sense to me. It helped me to immediately recognize what is happening
and has given me clarity and direction. Thank you so much.

Thank you for this…
TL

I agree. For awhile there I felt it was my duty to teach people love and kindness by modeling it myself., even when i was being mistreated. Wrong! You love yourself , by not allowing people to get away with being cruel to you. People who arent kind and are just selfish and arrogant to extremes, are never going to get it ,and will never get you. Theyre low level and you will not make a silk purse out of a sows ear. What will happen, is you will slide down to their level and lose part of your goodness.

I was shocked when I was accused of so many bad qualities after he “hurt” me and I had been nothing but kind and forgiving, till being gaslighted. I was told I was selfish, a whore, vengeful and vindictive, I like to hurt people on purpose, even though he bragged to people that he told me that he loved me and other declarations because he wanted “booty”. Whats more purposely hurtful than that? I was the bad one because I finally couldnt take it lying down anymore and asked him to stay out of my neighborhood. Boy those were dark days and several friendships were lost over the drama, and I found out who wasnt my true friend. They all called me crazy and sided against me. Now Im the stable successful one. Ive learned to hold my head up and learned how to stand up for myself. Ive got love in my life and love for myself. I want to give the old me a big ole hug.

Hi DQ,

I am so sorry you are going through this – and it is very, very true that cognitively from a talk therapy point of view it is very hard to get relief – especially when we have been significantly traumatised.

DQ it goes much deeper than that – and I would love to help you understand it in ways that simply cannot be addressed in a blog post by me.

This is why I have my New Life free series “16 Days To Your New Life” and my Webinars because we dive deeply into what has really happened to you, as well as how to heal it.

My strongest suggestion is connecting to this series … you can do this here https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/getstarted

Mel xo