When you should leave that relationship
Stay home with me, stop going out with your friends and stop visiting your family because I'm your family now.
It’s possible to be in an abusive relationship without even knowing it. But, if you think you are in one, it’s time to get out.
Abuse is not only physical – it can also be emotional. The aim of emotional abuse is to chip away at your feelings of self-worth and independence, leaving you feeling that there’s no way out of the relationship, or that without your abusive partner you have nothing.
Emotional abuse includes verbal abuse such as yelling, name-calling, blaming, and shaming. Isolation, intimidation, and controlling behaviour also fall under emotional abuse.
At times it’s not easy to know whether you are being abused, or not. The following lists will make it easier:
Do you:
– Feel afraid of your partner much of the time?
– Avoid certain topics out of fear of angering your partner?
– Feel that you can’t do anything right for your partner?
– Believe that you deserve to be hurt or mistreated?
– Wonder if you’re the one who is crazy?
– Feel emotionally numb or helpless?
Does your partner:
– Have a bad and unpredictable temper?
– Humiliate or yell at you?
– Criticise you and put you down?
– Treat you so badly that you’re embarrassed for your friends or family to see?
– Ignore or put down your opinions or accomplishments?
– See you as property or a sex object, rather than as a person?
– Force you to have sex?
– Destroy your belongings?
– Harm you, or threaten to hurt you physically in any way, including slapping, pushing, grabbing, shaking, smacking, kicking, and punching, or threaten to kill you, for instance by making statements such as, “I’ll break your neck,” and then dismiss them with, “I really didn’t mean it”?
– Try to control different aspects of your life, such as how you dress, who you hang out with, and what you say?
– Threaten to self-harm or commit suicide if you leave the relationship?– Threaten to take your children away or harm them?
– Twists the truth to make you feel you are to blame for your partner’s actions?
– Demand to know where you are at all times?
– Blame you or others for their own abusive behaviour? The abuser tends to say, “You make me angry” instead of “I’m angry,” or, “I wouldn’t get so pissed off if you wouldn’t …”. They are hypersensitive, easily insulted and will often rant and rave about injustices that are just part of life.
– Demonstrate cruelty to animals and children, and expect children to do things beyond their ability or tease them until they cry?
– Admit to hitting women in the past, but state that the other party or the situation brought it on?
If you are experiencing any of these signs, get some help. Confide in someone, such as a parent, trusted adult, health provider, or friend. Let them support you and help you end the relationship and stay safe.
Where to get professional help:
– Go to or contact the Family and Marriage Association of South Africa (Famsa). Famsa provides counselling and education to help improve marriages and families. It helps in cases of domestic violence and trauma, divorces and mediation. There are 27 offices across the country. Find your nearest branch by looking on the organisation’s website: famsa.org.za. You’ll find phone numbers and street addresses for branches all over the country.
– Go to your doctor or health clinic. They will be able to advise you on private therapists.
Do you perhaps have more information pertaining to this story? Email us at randfonteinherald@caxton.co.za  (please remember to include your contact details in the email) or phone us on 011 693 3671.
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