Dating Advice

Abusive Dating

Controlling people are to be avoided, as they are not generally useful to one's personal or spiritual growth and often go on to become abusive. Some who appear most interested in you personally at first may, actually, be among the most controlling personality types. However, they generally seek and find certain types of victims. You can protect yourself from them if you understand how they operate.

Controller/Abuser Pattern: Find a potential victim, and establish a relationship very quickly, then isolate the victim from others who may influence them; they seek:

Those with low self-esteem;

Those looking to escape another controlling or non-rewarding situation;

Those who seek dramatic/dangerous situations, either to stimulate themselves and/or make their lives more interesting, or to capture the (favorable or unfavorable) attention of those around them.

Having found a potential victim, they then seek to:

Establish empathy: Repeats what you say, makes it sound very sensible, as if you're the only one in your circle that really sees the whole picture, and that he/she is the only one who, besides you, recognizes that.

Share frustration: Rages with you, "How can 'THEY' be so stupid, etc.

Seclude you from your other contacts: May start with innocent, supportive-sounding statements, such as, "You don't need to spending time with so-and-so, you only get upset when you do," then escalate to anger when you continue to contact others. Eventually, even telephone contact with others may be forbidden.

At the first sign of physical violence (if not before), get out! There WILL be apologies, promises of it's never happening again, wild stories about how it only happened, "Because I love you so much" (if you buy THAT for a second, you're already in way over your head), and on and on. Pretend to go along with it if you have to, long enough to get your kids, if any, yourself and your sanity out, and then GO. If it's to that point, it's already too dangerous. If you're just at the dating stage and reading this, read the warning signs, and just don't get to that point. 

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