So my gf (F 23) and I (M 22) have dated for 8 months now. It’s my first relationship and we love each other so much. However, my gf’s last relationship a couple years ago was extremely abusive and toxic. She hasn’t gotten therapy for it yet, and because of it, she has toxic tendencies that are completely unintentional. She also has depression and anxiety causing her to have intense reactions when emotional.
She has the tendency to take her emotions out on me when she’s upset about something external and be rude to me. She gaslights me during arguments and raises her voice at me and is aggressive while I’m trying to be civil. And she always becomes rational and apologizes after the fact.
I recently called her out on it when the gaslighting was quite clear. And she listened and acknowledged it and has been emotional the past 2 days about it. She feels terrible about herself. She said she would take therapy and I don’t deserve to be treated like this. I thought it was all well, but we called today, and she was really emotional saying she was insecure I’d leave her. And that she doesn’t think I love her anymore after calling her out on her gaslighting and emotional abuse. I reassured her for like 45 minutes saying I still loved her and wanted to work with her and that I forgave her, but it didn’t help. She is upset at herself, all over the place, and just doesn’t seem ready to have a solution-oriented discussion. She did tell me throughout that my reassurance wasn’t helping her and I could leave. But it was my fault for staying on the call and continuing to try to make her feel better.
I’m just so fatigued and had to do all this after a whole day of work. I really love her and want to stay because she could change. She has been so good to me otherwise and we have so much fun together. I don’t know what to do. I feel so helpless. Any advice?
TLDR: Called gf out on gaslighting and emotional abuse, and she acknowledged it and said she was really sorry. But now she’s been having an emotional breakdown and thinks I don’t love her anymore. I’m exhausted. What do I do?
25 comments
Her making you reassure her that you still love her and won’t leave her after she abused you is also abuse and unacceptable. Stop doing that, because it just reinforces her abusive behavior. Instead you can say, “It’s normal to feel terrible when you do a terrible thing, but the thing to do is to stop doing terrible things.” or “Well, hopefully therapy will make things work out.” or even, “I do not currently intend to leave you, but if you keep abusing me, then that will probably change.” Harsh, but fair. And it doesn’t cause you to keep encouraging the abuse.
If she can’t stop abusing you, then she does need to be single. It doesn’t matter why she is abusing you. It’s not okay to use a person as your training device to heal from trauma. She needs to become somebody who doesn’t abuse others. And if she is truly a good person, she will demonstrate that by making getting therapy a priority she acts on and puts real work into.
Even if you’ve already tried talking it out,calling out when it happens, etc. If the wheels haven’t started to turn for some sort of therapy and or a way to help them sort through all that pain/trauma then it won’t get better. It’ll feel like you’re a phone that’ll never be fully charged. Or a dog on a leash could be another term.
Even if you love them it’s still a good idea to make sure your needs are met as well. You can only do so much before you realize what you got yourself into and hope to find a way out.
It sounds like you’ve been fairly reasonable with them and have tried to be as supportive as you can.
If they aren’t able to move past that pain/trauma in a decent way then things most likely won’t get any or much better. (had a fairly abusive ex myself, it’s not a good time)
Stop being her therapist. You’re her therapist right now. Stop it.
Remind her that the goal is not to get her to stop attacking you. The goal is to get her to deal with her emotions in a healthy way. Just because she stopped using anger to release them and left you alone does not mean she is doing the right thing. Turning from anger and targeting you simply to use pity and guilt to target herself is no better. You want to help her find actual healthy and good ways to release her emotions. You are in it for the long haul and she does not deserve her own self abuse any.ore than you ever deserved it.
You’re girlfriend is abusive. Regardless of it is a trauma response or not, she is abusing you and you shouldn’t be okay with it just because of her last relationship. Honestly these aren’t learned behaviors in that since her last relationship was probably toxic on both ends not just his. These things are only going to get worse.
Without some sort of intervention it’s not going to get better. Most states have free domestic violance classes. She should go to them. She should also seek therapy. This is not healthy for you and can end very bably.
What happens when you just let her be upset?
“I need to be able to tell you when I’m upset about something without it being turned back on me so that I have to comfort you. So from now on I will tell you, give you a chance to apologize and then go or get off the phone.
But please start taking care of this issue. “
Let her have her breakdown and cry it out. She needs to do that without an audience.
To the curb she goes if she doesn’t change.
Oh, no.
That wasn’t an emotional breakdown. that was more emotional abuse and manipulation. while you are the one ‘wronged’ you’re reassuring HER.
nope.
Wow, this describes my situation right now…exactly.
I wanted us to go to therapy so she can deal with her anger issues and for me on how I can better help her…but she refuses to go because she doesn’t believe she needs help .
So now she is leaving me and I will let her go.
She needs to not dump this on you. What she’s doing, getting you to comfort her and soothe her over her own abusive behavior, is incredibly toxic and unsustainable. She needs a therapist, and if she can’t commit to that, follow through quickly, and refrain from doing this toxic shit to you then maybe this relationship wasn’t meant to be, since she’s not in a healthy enough place to treat you acceptably.
> She hasn’t gotten therapy for it yet, and because of it, she has toxic tendencies that are completely unintentional. She also has depression and anxiety causing her to have intense reactions when emotional.
And yet, she is still responsible for all her reactions.
> She said she would take therapy and I don’t deserve to be treated like this.
And has she taken steps to get help? Saying that you feel terrible but don’t do nothing to actually get help, means nothing, because these problems are just going to keep repeating.
And in fact:
> that she doesn’t think I love her anymore after calling her out on her gaslighting and emotional abuse. I reassured her for like 45 minutes saying I still loved her and wanted to work with her and that I forgave her, but it didn’t help.
This is what they call emotional manipulation, whether she does it intentionally or not: you feel terrible that she feels terrible, so that you’ll hopefully drop the “going to therapy” bit.
I’ll ask you one question: if she doesn’t take therapy and you two keep entering these continuous loops of her lashing out at you, you and her feeling bad, her apologizing, telling you that you deserve better and promising to get help , not actually getting help, rinse and repeat: how long can you keep going?
I had a sibling relationships exactly like this: anxiety issues, emotional outbursts and lashing out, walking forever on eggshells, apologies afterwards: the entire lot. For every outburst of theirs, I actually fought back hard because I knew that I didn’t deserve to be treated like this.
Even then, the apologies became meaningless because we were restarting the same spiel over and over again. Resentment started to build hard: it weren’t even the outbursts that were the main cause, it was the fact that every day the bomb could burst and that my life was essentially revolving around their emotional state.
If there is a thing where you have to call out an ultimatum, this is going to be it. You can’t keep going like this and this life isn’t fair on you.
So you’re upset and she managed to make it about her again and has you making her feel better?
Sounds like she’s still manipulating.
Make an appointment for couples therapy. Don’t confront her about it, but tell her you booked it and are really looking forward to going. She may be hesitant of therapy because of the stigmas attached to it and hasn’t made one because of that.
> she doesn’t think I love her anymore after calling her out on her gaslighting and emotional abuse.
So, next time she is abusing you, will you have the courage to call her out and stand up for yourself? Or rather, will you be afraid of another emotional breakdown, so you will walk on eggshells and pretend you dont see Gaslighting is not unintentional. It is intentional act by definition. She is sad she got caught up. And she is ensuring she wont be called out again.
If you insist on staying together: Stop being her therapist, stop reassuring her forever and set boundaries for yourself. Make deal with yourself about what amount of abuse you wont tolerate and will breakup. Plus, if she does not go to therapy, you breakup. Learn to say: “I was reassuring you already for 10 minutes, this is going nowhere. This is draining me and you need the therapy. I am going to take the walk to recharge and will turn off phone.”
You set boundaries for yourself and insist on them. If she is genuinely unintentional abuser, she will adapt and will also go to therapy.
not your job to comfort your abuser
If you’ve made it clear to her that her behavior is hurtful to you and she’s not making moves to change that hurtful behavior she doesn’t care. I know it’s hard to hear
Your gf is abusive. Gaslighting, yelling and stuff are not less despicable behavior if acted by a woman. If she’s not even willing to change, I think breaking up would be the best solution for your mental health and self esteem
It sounds like she is still manipulating you. Next time you may think twice about calling her out because you don’t want to send her on a “spiral.” Your girlfriend is pretty toxic.
Many abusers feel like being confronted or feeling vulnerable or in a way they don’t like is abuse, and will accuse the other person of stuff so that they get to escape accountability. I’d take anything she says with a pinch of salt.
Self-loathing, over emotional responses so you need to reassure her, promises of change, etc., while I am sure is very harsh on her mental health and she might not mean to do this or realise she is doing it, are a very common part of the abuse cycle. It’s still abuse.
And with this, I am not saying she is bad, I am not saying all she can be is an abuser, I am not even saying she is aware, I am saying she cannot cope with her own emotions and that overwhelms her and ends being taken out on you because yes, that was still taking it out on you. To stop that pattern is not something she can learn in a moment’s notice and if you stay, you are effectively acting like you are okay with her treating you like that, as much as you tell her the opposite, and the motivation to get better is gone.
She has told you your reassurances cannot help, and you know you have tried a lot of things and nothing seems to work, you feel helpless and that’s why you have come here asking. So I’m telling you: you are not helpless, but you cannot and should not be her help. It’s her own responsibility, it’s her own thing, helping her might feel like you are taking a weight off her shoulders, or trying your best to, but it’s not actually helping, it’s enabling, it’s in a way not respecting her as the adult that she should be and you should expect of her. She isn’t your kid, she isn’t your charity case, she’s an adult, she’s an equal, not your responsibility, and you need to leave for both your sakes.
Maybe in a few years she will have unlearned these patterns. Maybe not, most people don’t as it’s a hard mentality to get out of, that victim complex. Maybe she will have but will be happy with someone else, or you will be happy with someone else. But right now, she cannot move forward when you are holding her, and you cannot move for her, as much as you try to.
Believe in her abilities to change, to improve, to be a person capable without depending on you. Believe in your own strength to do what is right, to do what is actual love. Let her go.
Honestly you need to leave. She’s very manipulative
> my gf’s last relationship a couple years ago was extremely abusive and toxic.
She’ll say the same thing about you after you break up, which you absolutely should do. You’ll never be able to make her happy.
>She hasn’t gotten therapy for it yet, and because of it, she has toxic tendencies that are completely unintentional
She’s not ready to be in a relationship.
>I really love her and want to stay because she could change
Never date someone for who they could be. Date who they are. She’s not ready yet.
Just dump her. That relationship is too exhausting and she doesn’t want to do anything to make it better. sounds like her ex wasn’t the only one abusive and toxic in the relationship. Judging from her actions in your current relationship maybe she was the abusive one. Wish her well and hope she gets the help she needs.
Break up and tell her to get some help to fix her issues.
You are not obligated to fix her problems and her issues are going to continue to get worse. She needs time alone to get her affairs in order.
You need time alone as well because you don’t want to bring these issues into your new relationships.
It was neither your faults just get dealt a bad hand.