What is the abuse cycle in a romantic relationship and how you can break free from it?

LOVE BOMBING/FAKE NICE AND POLITE

The initial stage of the cycle starts with a very surface level fake niceness and politeness from the abuser. They may start to send you lots of loving text messages especially early in the morning, love bomb you with showered gifts that you want or say they have to call you to hear your voice. The gestures can become bigger and more ostentatious depending on how many times you’ve been through the cycle.

EXAMPLE OF WHAT TO SAY: ‘That’s nice’ or ‘Thanks’ and accept the acts of fake nice until you remove this person from your life for good

ABUSE LEADING TO FIGHTING/ARGUING

However, once they feel they have you per say, they will start to reveal a bit more of their true self by manipulating situations to get a reaction out of you to make you seem ‘crazy’ or ‘angry’ or ‘not calm’ for no apparent reason. They could constantly nit-pick at you for small things and make out that you are doing so many mistakes and it can even go as far and petty as controlling the volume of the TV as it’s not being the number you are allowed to have it on, just because they say so. They might make comments to demean or devalue you to make your self esteem levels decrease. Then you confront them about their behaviour or words and it becomes a huge drama for something that could have been resolved in a short amount of time. They deflect and deny how bad it made you feel to downplay their inappropriate behaviour – but you know that inner voice telling you otherwise.

ALSO: There's also the smaller abuse cycle where they lift you up when you're down then when you're happier, they'll bring you down - it's so they control how you feel until you're weakened then they will only bring you down to their low-level as their inner self is failing constantly i.e. elated then deflated so they place their inner world onto you and so you’re in their dysfunctional and unhealthy way of living.

EXAMPLE OF WHAT TO SAY: You can try and communicate how to speak on a respectful level, however they will not be able to comprehend fully how it’s affecting you to change themselves as they are emotionally and mentally immature especially if over the age of 35

HOOVERING/MAKE-UP WITH YOU

They can start the hoovering process by doing nice things for you again such as buying you gifts or pretending to be nice and making you something to eat.

EXAMPLE OF WHAT TO SAY: ‘That’s nice’ or ‘Thanks’ and leave it at that

MAKING YOU FORGIVE BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY TO FORGET THE ABUSE

The next part of the cycle before it begins again is seeing that you’ve let them off with their abusive behaviour so it can start all over again. It can be tiring, exhausting and leave you in a state of being anxious as well as always on tenterhooks as you’re constantly on alert.

EXAMPLE OF WHAT TO SAY: Don’t say anything. This is the part where you ignore their fake apologies and make a exit strategy as soon as possible as whatever method you can.

You don’t have to tolerate it and you just need a plan of action to remove yourself from this person if in a romantic relationship with them. There is no need to be in any of those negative emotions they want to make you feel as you have to set clear boundaries and make it clear to them.

IF THEY ARE WITHHOLDING MONEY OR FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE, IT’S TIME TO START TO USE THEIR WEAK SPOTS INCLUDING THREATENING THEM OR BEING MORE ASSERTIVE AS THEY HAVE MADE YOU AN ENEMY AND NOT A LOVING PERSON IN A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP.

I MADE SURE I WAS NO LONGER SUPPLY FOR THIS LOW-LEVEL PERSON SO HE ALSO WOULD NEVER WANT TO HOOVER ME BACK IN. AS LONG AS YOU’RE AWAKE FROM HIS/HER DELUSIONAL WORLD, YOU ARE FREE.

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Editor-in-Chief: Yasmin/e De Kong