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3.2 MORE - TEN SIGNS OF RELATIONSHIP ABUSE

== #6. You have a feeling that your needs are not being met -- that you are working hard to satisfy someone else, but things you want are not being addressed.

In a sense the other person has gotten you to believe that your needs are met if you do the things that he/she wants. The other person wants you to be satisfied with this and forget about yourself.

== #7. You feel incomplete around that person.

You cannot express your full range of emotions or you would be afraid or embarrassed to express these emotions around that person. You might be afraid that he/she would make fun of you or criticize you or tell you to act differently. At the same time you do not have a problem showing these different sides of your personality to friends and colleagues.

Note: These emotions do not have to be negative; they might be playful, silly, childlike, for example, or they could be intellectual or gregarious.

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== #8. Your friends like you, support you and tell you that you are a good person but the other person in your life tells you that you are worthless, insensitive, controlling and misguided.

You can talk openly with others and feel at ease. When you get home,however, you feel nervous, guarded and ill at ease.

== #9. You feel helplessness because you cannot respond to the other person's attacks on you.

While you would like to respond, the other person has convinced you that it is pointless because he/she is always right or is too sensitive and will crumble (yes, this really really happens), that he/she has a right to attack you but you do not have a right to attack him/her, or that he/she is superior to you and you are inferior -- and the list goes on and on.

== #10. The other person avoids true communication.

When you try to have an honest conversation, he/she will not answer your questions, distort things that have happened in the past, lie, leave sentences half finished hoping that you will complete them (statements like "oh, you know..."). He/she may become quite angry when you try to get to the bottom of a problem by insisting on a thorough discussion. At this point he/she may accuse you of being abusive, of pushing too hard or of being controlling.

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