| Is your relationship bordering on abusive? Emotional abuse is often harder to see and accept than physical abuse. When someone hurts your feelings its easy to blame yourself and not the abuser by trying to figure out what you did wrong to deserve this treatment. There are many steps to figuring out if you are in an emotionally abusive relationship. 1) If you feel like you're being put in situations often with your partner that have you thinking "uh-oh" it is time to reevaluate the relationship. 2) If you overhear your partner telling your friends negative things about you, it is likely that they are showing some abusive behavior by using those words as a weapon to keep you in shape. Language is a very powerful tool because words cannot be taken back. 3) Watch how your partner treats their parents. This is an indication of the importance of a parent-child relationship to them. While your relationship is relatively young your partner is on their best behavior so you need to imagine how things will be when they don't feel they need to hold their tongue around you anymore. 4) Evaluate whether or not you feel like you're walking on eggshells around them to spare their feelings. If so, abuse is most likely being performed because they have conditioned you not to feel fully comfortable in the relationship. There are many ways to figuring out the extensiveness of abuse in your relationship, these are just a few key ways. Your partner showing one or two of these once in a while doesn't indicate an emotionally abusive relationship but if combinations of these actions occur very often it might be time to leave the relationship in the past. Patterns of abusive behavior rarely disappear and more often than not they just grow and become worse. There is no reason for abuse in a relationship that is based on love and affection. | 
