Dear Rachel:

I read your recent posts. I read abuse on the part of your ex girlfriend toward you, but I did not read abuse on your part toward her.

You wrote: “I know withholding affection is abusive as well”- only if doing so purposefully, for the purpose of hurting the other person, but when you didn’t feel like being touched by her following her abusive behavior, that is not abusive on your part, it is a natural reaction to being abused.

“She (your ex girlfriend) was also always trying to fix/ change me”- if she intended to fix you, or to change you for the better, the first thing she needed to do was to stop her abusive words and behavior toward you.

“to add to my confusion is how her friends and other people around us would always say how loving she was and how much she loved me/ talked about me, and she did act lovingly at times”-

I used to be confused as well. My mother was abusive toward me. One example of her abuse was that she repeatedly said to me “You are a big zero!”.

At other times she told me that I was smart and pretty. To other people she bragged about the good things teachers said to her about me. She acted very lovingly to strangers much of the time, and sometimes she acted lovingly to me. Strangers told me: how lucky you have such a wonderful mother!

Here is what I learned:

-when a person abuses you repeatedly, she/he doesn’t love you.

As simple as that.

anita