Abusive relationships are like cancers. You may not realize that you are in an abusive relationship until it is too late. Like cancer, an abusive relationship will gradually have disastrous effects in your life, psyche, health and your outlook or approach towards life. Any relationship can become abusive. Married or romantic relationships can become abusive. Friendship can become abusive and so can a relation between a parent and a child or between siblings. It may be difficult to imagine some of the most cherished relations becoming abusive but that is the reality.
The first step or action to take for anyone in an abusive relationship is to identify the relation as such. All subsequent measures or remedies can only be taken when one acknowledges the nature of the relationship. To do so, you would need to know the red flags for abusive relationships.
1. The most obvious signs or red flags for abusive relationships are different kinds of abuse. The abuse could be verbal, sexual, physical, emotional, psychological or substance related. If a person is an alcoholic or drug addict, addicted to some substance or is overly dependent on some vice, then the relationship will always be abusive. If it isn’t now, then it would become abusive in the near future. Physical, sexual and verbal abuses should always be taken very seriously. Emotional or psychological abuse may not be easily spotted. It is best to opt for counseling to know if there is true emotional or psychological abuse. Such kinds of abusive relationships are very common when a person has a specific condition which could be personality disorder, narcissism, histrionic personality disorder or some other psychological conditions.
2. Some other red flags for abusive relationships include breaking into fights or incessant arguments, a tendency to confine you, harm you or to control you in more ways than one. If you are being blamed for everything bad that’s happening in your lives, if they are responsible for everything good and if you are being held responsible for everything without rationale, then it is an abusive relationship.
3. Abusive relationships can also be passive where the victim is not being actively abused. For instance, meeting out the silence treatment, distancing oneself without reason, tormenting a person in various ways by not doing certain things or doing certain things that should not be done; all are signs of an abusive relationship.