The victims of chronic abuse have one thing in common: Through all the deeply troubling experiences with their partner, they come to believe things CAN be different and the relationship can be (or is!) a happy one.
Desiring to live a dream one must ensure they don't wake up to reality...
Manipulators always know how to woo others and they show up accordingly. The perpetrators of coercive control cannot just show up as controlling A-holes. They CAN be good and they MUST be good not to lose control. In fact they must be better than your average Joe for you to pay attention and fall for them during the preemptive launch of your relationship with them. By setting the golden baseline, this sweet spot, and a glimpse of what you could have, becomes the potent addictive component stringing you along a pretty unsettling relationship further down the line.
Abuse is all about power. Power to control. Power to abuse. Power to direct behaviour and power to alter perceptions. But there is only so much the perpetrator can do with someone who cannot be pushed around into doing things they are uncomfortable with - a person unafraid of confrontation, solitude and rejection.
It is therefore imperative the victim is correctly chosen and vigorously tested.
Being sourced for the optimistic and tenatious, yet forgiving, compassionate nature the victim's mind is set to automatically search for the goodness in ANY individual. When tested, she is more likely to give into plausible explanations, giving others the benefit of the doubt. She explains him being hurtful towards her to be the result of his past traumas, his irritability and aggression because he had a stressful day. Finding an excuse fit the purpose of staying in a relationship with him, not to lose the vision of the sweet spot, is how she makes it her mission to fix things.
The idea of him being shady, secretive, and exploitative doesn't even cross her mind because the abuser works tirelessly to control her perceptions by blurring the lines for her to never think there is something wrong with him. Even when he becomes ungrateful and unfairly critical of her undying efforts to please him, or when he repeatedly burns her with contemptuous looks or demeaning remarks, making her feel deeply wrong. Even after him shaming her with a winning smirk on his face, she is loyally required to pick up the pieces of his blunders and indulgences. When she points out his drinking to be a problem he critiques her for trying to control him. His displeasure is a powerful reminder of their relationship being far away from the base line due to her irreverence.
How things could be is paraded in public, but at home things aren't as shiny.
Abusers always show off their chosen side, unless they are rattled and lose their composure by reacting on an impulse. In public, what they show is carefully crafted but at home they cannot be bothered to upkeep it. In fact, their short tempered, prickly side serves a purpose: To cowardly intimidate the vulnerable behind closed doors where the victims are isolated from help.
An abuser can be as sweet as pie to a neighbour and shoot you down with an intimidating look when his face turns towards you. As inconsistent as he is, one thing is ever present: His agenda to gain the upper hand by destabilising you by introducing the concept of 'I am only bad because you aren't good.' Once you believe this notion, the perpetrator entraps you in an infinite cycle of seemingly deserved, justified abuse. Pleasing the abuser in your attempt to avoid feeling terrible about yourself, you gets busy making sure things are just right - an ever moving goal post set by him. You may have spent hours in the kitchen preparing a meal but he will pick on something minor and make it most important.
As much the abuser is addicted to controlling her, the victim gets addicted to the illusion of being able to fix things.
Because you were brainwashed, the circuits in your brain were set to seek your partner's approval by convincing him of your good intentions, your love for him, and the unwavering commitment to your relationship, by doing what he asks of you. The baseline of how good the relationship can be serves as the yard stick for beating you into submission for you not to lose him. The sweet spot is, in reality, just a fairytale crafted to your liking for you to attach to and believe you are responsible for his nurturance.
Perpetrators will raise the baseline time to time by creating an enchanting idea of how things could be.
They must damage control after a particularly destructive exchange by engaging the victim's imagination and playing on her desires. They make empty promises or draw from her social and cultural conditioning for ideas on how to entice her.
Pushing the victim towards the next step in their relationship, the perpetrator begins pressing on her to commit deeper to him. In order to prove to him she is serious about her commitment, he will ask her to change for him. She may drop her hobby, leave her job, stop seeing her friends, move in together with him, get engaged or married to him, or have a child with him. Receiving affection every time she caters to his preferences her brain releases powerful reward chemicals into her body. It feels SO good to be loved and accepted by him.
But she is never too far away from being wrong and rejected.
By being critical of her, how she presents herself, how she speaks, what she wears, how much she works, where she spends her money, and how she brings up his children (who SHE is) becomes the condition for her experiencing either love, or shame. By removing her basic rights, her identity, she is more pliable, drawing her sense of happiness from how successful she is at pleasing him. When he is happy, she is happy. When he is unhappy, she is too and blames herself for it.
A coercively controlling partner is extremely skilled at pressing your buttons. Make no mistake, your pressure points were built right from the start of your relationship with him. Very early on he will open up about his struggles (to gauge your empathic capacity) and past traumas in a profound way (creating an invitation for you to open up about yours). You have been lured into a false sense of security for him to map out your vulnerabilities which are subsequently utilised to further emotionally manipulate you. If you have poor connections with your family or beef with your friends, he will utilise it by siding with you to enable your future isolation, and remind you that, after all, you haven’t got anyone you can lean on.
From that moment on, you are fully relying on him for the truth - a dream spot for any liar.
Free to put you down or name-call you when he pleases, he can quickly turn it into a joke you perhaps didn’t get. Insidiously testing your limits and how you react to him, serves your systematic devaluation. Indeed, the severity of his putdowns increases with the number of repetitions as he managed to break down your boundaries by previously making you believe his behaviour was acceptable. Because he made you believe it was an endearing form of teasing you, you let it slide. You are therefore less likely to protest when the pressure ramps up.
Seemingly trivial pushing, pulling, pinching, or play fighting are used by particularly sadistic perpetrators to cause physical pain in the name of fun. Covert abusers condition the victim's mind to withstand the abuse. If she isn't cool and calls it what it is, he will play the victim by accusing her of being overly sensitive, stupid for not getting his joke, or boring. Relying on him for the truth, she becomes the guilty party, forced to apologise and make it up to him by being more compliant in the future...
The victim can never win but hopes that next time she can do things right to deserve half decent treatment.
Believing it is all her fault, she feels deeply guilty, ashamed of herself, unloveable and unworthy. Everything gets taken away from her. Her community, her confidence, her dreams, her rights, her love for herself, her dignity, and sometimes her children. If she remains sane, she only has her hope to lean on. Hoping all will be well one day because her partner has her back. She cannot fathom losing him and the vision of the perfect future together. She cannot let go of his potential, and neither she could possibly harm her children by breaking up her family. EVERYTHING is her responsibility...
According to statistics, it takes on average about 7 times for an abuse victim to leave her perpetrator because she believes and hopes that:
He is a good person who loves her.
He can change his ways to stop abusing her.
She can make him happy like no other woman can.
He cannot cope without her.
She is wrong about him when he is showing her his ugly side.
She is safer in a relationship with him rather than on her own.
He would never harm her children.
If you have read this far, I am quite certain you, like me, can add your own to the string of hope that kept you tied to unhappiness. If so, we share the same baseline: Being trapped by the illusion of love in an unsafe relating with a heartless, conniving person who controlled every aspect of our life behind our back. If so, like me, study what you know to be true and don't be afraid of asking yourself uncomfortable questions. You aren't to blame for someone you loved being abusive towards you. Now, it is the time to commit to the right person - yourself. Your mission and ideal. YOUR happiness! But also the happiness of your children, who deserve to grow up in a stable and safe environment even if for only 50% of their time. My hope is that you, like me, heal your mind, heart, and soul to restore your confidence and trust in yourself, and become the guiding light for your children and the many domestic abuse victims desperately searching for answers.
Thank you for reading. If my article contributed to understanding yourself, please be generous and share it with others.
Copyright © 2025 Michaela Patel
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