If you leave me now ….

A fear of the relationship ending deeply affected me both early on and later once we were married and children had arrived. The result of this was that I put up with things that on reflection I should never have done so. If I had to give one piece of advice to anyone it would be don’t let another person treat you in any way that you feel uncomfortable with. It may seem obvious to those who don’t struggle with this but to those who do – you know exactly what I mean.

How did this work in practice? I’m going to give one example. This was very early in our relationship. We had been out for the evening – a good time together. I’ve waited with her at the bus stop for her bus home. She chooses this moment to tell me what a terrible time she has been having at home and that I can’t abandon her to going back there. I feel totally out of my depth – I have a mostly good home life. So far this is just another person sharing their problems. But now comes the manipulation. If you love me you won’t make me go back. So how do I react to this. I can react in a number of ways:

• I can sympathise and agree that it must be tough
• I can try and sort it out for her
• I can do nothing just listen
• I can ask her what solution she wants and support her in achieving that

Maybe there are others. What I did was sympathise and pack her off on the bus. But internally I took responsibility for her plight when I was in no way able so to do. What she did was suggest that if I wasn’t going to sort it out for her our relationship had no future. Tie up my taking responsibility, my wanting to cling on to the relationship and her willingness to dump it fully on me and the transfer of power and the backdrop for emotional abuse is well and truly set.

Now clearly taking one example is not sufficient and there were many such examples. But the trend had begun.

I would also add that the role of others can be crucial. I shared this event with my Mum. Her response was that I should let the relationship “cool”. Whilst she may have been right this was actually no help and as a result from this point on I stopped sharing things with my parents. People should think carefully about the advice they give others. We should always investigate how they feel about the situation and allow them to come to the conclusion of how to deal with it – telling them what to do rarely works and may make matters worse.