How To Stop Being Abusive to Your Partner. Dear Enchanted, thank you for sending this letter. I want to

applaud you for sending this in because it takes courage to seek help on a matter like this. As you know,

there is a strong stigma surrounding abuse, for both the victim and the abuser. Yet you have bravely sent in

your question and I’ll do my best to assist you.

On #1, this is understandable. All relationships have their moments of frustration. My husband and I have

moments when we frustrate each other too. Usually, we handle these in a variety of ways from letting it pass to

discussing to arguing, but we always try to resolve them and reach a positive place.

The good thing is that you recognize that (1) this abuse is a problem and (2) you want to stop it. There are

abusers who feel that abusing others is okay and they are entitled to violence against their partner. These

people have a separate problem altogether. You clearly do not think that way. So how do we tackle this?

Understanding the Source of the Physical Abuse| How To Stop Being Abusive to Your Partner|

First, let’s understand the source of the abusive behavior. As we have established above, the source isn’t that your partner frustrates you or her frustrating behavior (that she never seems to listen to you). There are many couples who face problems, including feeling that their partner isn’t listening to them, yet it doesn’t result in violence. Or you can put someone else in your position, in this exact situation, and he/she would probably feel irritated, but not get violent.

The source is something else, and we’re here to understand what.

Enchanted, you mentioned that you grew up in an abusive household and I feel this could well be a strong link to your abusive behavior. According to studies,

• About one-third of people abused in childhood will become abusers themselves.
• Men who as children witnessed their parents’ domestic violence were twice as likely to abuse their own wives than sons of non-violent parents.
• Children of domestic violence are three times more likely to repeat this cycle in adulthood.
• How To Stop Being Abusive to Your Partner

Why is this so? That’s because our childhood years are our most formative years. That’s when we form a big chunk of our life scripts, what I call childhood stories until we consciously rewrite them later. So imagine a child who grows up in an abusive household. The subconscious beliefs formed become something like

Even if the child is later educated in school/society that violence is a no-no, this will not override his/her fundamental childhood beliefs — especially if they are deeply embedded, especially if the child never got to work through these false beliefs.

is Not the Start of the Problem|Approaching Behavior Change

The first thing I’d like you to understand is that violence is not the start of the problem. Violence is the tip of

the problem, albeit a very extremely serious tip with grave consequences.

The real problem started way before the violence surfaced. It could be when you witnessed or were at the

receiving end of domestic violence in your household. It could be when you make certain conclusions about

yourself and the world after experiencing the abuse. These incidences, combined with other issues/beliefs,

brewed over time to give rise to abusive behavior. How To Stop Being Abusive to Your Partner

Hence, when the abuse happens, it’s because there has been a certain build-up of pain, angst, and grievances,

as well as a lineup of preconditions (like abusive beliefs), that results in the lashing out. This is why the abuse

occurs despite your best efforts — it’s often the final display in a series of unresolved issues.

By saying this, I’m not in any way excusing the abusive behavior. Your partner has physical and emotional pain

that she now needs to live with, as do you — but understanding this is crucial to get a resolution.

As a result, working on the abusive tendency only isn’t going to solve the problem. You need to get to the root

of the issue. Because of that, if you are abusive, I recommend you get professional aid as resolving this will

take time. I will, however, keep writing this article to give you a general guide.

 Understand What’s Triggering the Violence

There are usually triggers to violence. If not, you would be violent to everyone 24/7 which isn’t the case. (There

are people like that and they obviously suffer from a different problem.)

Our goal is to understand what these triggers are. It doesn’t mean that these triggers are the issue though.

As I mentioned, violence is the tip, not the start, of the problem. Likewise, these triggers are merely catalysts

of the abuse. There are certain pre-existing issues causing the violence to occur. Knowing what these triggers

are will give us insight into these deeper issues.

The answer is out: as it turns out, the person in this example gets abusive because he is screaming to be

heard. If he is not heard, he becomes non-existent; a non-existent human being. This thought terrifies him and

he cannot accept it. So he desperately lashes out in physical violence, screaming and crying for the one person

who matters to listen to him: his partner. How To Stop Being Abusive to Your Partner

Does this justify the violence? No of course not. Violence is not justifiable under any circumstances unless it’s

self-defense. The above is meant to understand the trigger for the person’s abusive behavior. Of course, when

you think about it, it doesn’t make sense because not only does violence not help one get heard, but it will

make any trusted communication difficult in the future due to fear and trauma. However many deep personal

issues are not logical and stem from emotional difficulties. It’s important to recognize and understand them to

start the healing process.

3) Deal with the Root Issues

Depending on your results, you can have multiple factors driving your abusive behavior. These factors can be

different or related. Each factor likely deals with a deeply personal issue, possibly linked to the trauma you

experienced as a child. Get down to the root of each root issue (yes, there are roots to roots) and understand how it came about.

Let’s say you have been using violence to get heard. Your reason is that if you don’t get heard, you feel that you

don’t exist. Some questions to dig into are do you have this belief?

Or let’s say violence is your way to keep love by your side. You feel that you lack love and you cannot stand the

thought of not having someone with you. Some questions to think about are

Tackling each root will likely open a floodgate of emotions: anger, bitterness, hatred, pain. It will also open up a

flood of childhood memories and unhappiness. While uncomfortable, it’s necessary because this is the s***

that was not processed before, which subsequently led to your violent behavior today. What’s different is that

you’re now an adult, stronger and more conscious of who you are. What was confusing before can now be

properly analyzed as you are able to dissect and understand them.

The above will take time. You need time to work through grief, pain, anger, hate, and perhaps even loss. I

recommend you to read my How To Deal With Anger (series), which is on removing anger from your life and

identifying deeper issues that drive anger in us.