Does your partner:
2. lie to you?
3. cheat on you?
4. listen in on your phone calls?
5. refuse to help with the housework and children?
6. break promises to you?
7. force you to get a job/quit a job you like?
8. demand that you stop outside activities that you enjoy alone?
9. criticize what you wear and do?
10. demand to know where you are and what you are doing all the time?
11. embarrass you in public?
12. drive recklessly to frighten you?
13. keep weapons which frighten you?
14. use your children to manipulate you?
15. make all of the family’s decisions alone?
16. ignore you or brush you off?
17. keep you from seeing your family and friends?
18. become angry or violent when using drugs or alcohol?
19. tell you that you are stupid, fat, ugly, or useless?
20. make degrading comments about women/men?
21. force you to have sex when you don’t want to, or force you to do things you don’t want to do?
22. threaten to leave you and take your children if you don’t obey him/her?
23. threaten to hurt you, your children, or herself if he/she doesn’t get his/her way?
24. hit you or your children?
25. tell you it’s your fault when he/she gets angry and violent?
26. threaten to kill themselves if you leave them?
27. threaten to kill you?
If you answered ‘yes’ to any or all of the above, you are in an abusive situation. It may have happened without you even realizing it. It is important to get yourself help, because abuse can start out as something small, but it will often escalate. A person who is "only" jealous and possessive when you are dating can turn into someone who will scream at, beat, or even kill you later on.
It is natural to be concerned about someone you love. It is not natural to limit someone’s freedom, to make all their decisions for them, to force them to do things they don’t want in bed, to assault, to degrade, to hurt. That is abuse, and it is wrong. In many cases, especially where physical or sexual assault is included, it is also illegal.
Even if you think that you are the only one being hurt, it isn’t true. If you have children, chances are, they are being abused, too. Even if you ‘make sure’ your partner doesn’t physically assault them, even if you know they aren’t being yelled at or sexually harmed, they are witnesses. You may think that the abuse goes on behind closed doors, but young eyes and ears will see and hear things you can’t control. And what they see, they learn. They will grow up to think that this is the way adult relationships are. They may be drawn towards abusive partners, or they may become abusers themselves. The cycle continues.
You may feel that your partner loves you and will change if you help them. Unfortunately, we cannot change anyone else’s behavior, only our own. We can help someone else only as much as they will let us. If your partner doesn’t admit that he is hurting you, you won’t be able to make him stop. If he thinks that you are her property, he will continue to use you in whatever way he wants.
There are groups set up to help abusers face their situations and change. It often involves dealing with issues from childhood that they might not even realize have shaped their behavior today. But, the decision to change has to be their own. If they don’t decide that they need to change, they won’t. Nobody, even somebody they love, will be able to sway them.
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