When abuse mirrors your values
Why walking away can feel so wrong
As survivors, we often feel frustrated at ourselves that, in hindsight, we saw red flags right from the start. People might even allude that we should take some responsibility for the abuse we endured, because the red flags were there, and yet we stayed.
I think about this, often.
It wasn’t that I failed to see the red flags. It was that they existed alongside what appeared to be commitment, loyalty, and a shared vision for the future.
One of the reasons I stayed was because the relationship appeared to align with my values. From the start, he borrowed the language of commitment, loyalty, growth, and lifelong partnership that resonated with me. His character also appeared gentle. He seemed a little shy, soft-natured and kind in his manner. He would go out of his way to be helpful and his humour was almost a little nerdy. I found him endearing. And within weeks, he had an outburst of rage like I had never experienced before. It alarmed me. Yet, his outburst was in such stark contrast with everything that I understood about him, the red flag felt like an anomaly rather than a warning sign. Responding in accordance with my own values, I thought: if we are so aligned in what we want from life and relationships, then I need to accept his flaws too.
But what I didn’t know at the time was, whilst the relationship reflected the appearance of my values, it violated the substance of them.
It reflected my hopes more than other relationships had
The real hook was that the relationship appeared to align with my values more than any other relationship had. He appeared to embody my childhood beliefs about partnership, love, and how to invest our life together. He also did so with pressure, but again, the pressing unease felt so subtle against the backdrop of my values being reflected back at me.
It was as if I had found my person in life.
It might well have also been by design.
An early abuse tactic is to mirror our relational beliefs to create a shortcut to deeper attachment. It meant that from very early on, giving weight to any red flags truly felt like I was contemplating giving up on a relationship that appeared to closely align to my ideal. At the time, the thought of walking away from that felt like insanity to me. What it also meant, however, was the stakes were higher. If the “good” was so good, how bad did the bad have to become for me to recognise it was abuse?
Survivors are not assessing early red flags through a neutral lens; often we are trying to make sense of them whilst a mirror of our ideal relationship is being held in front of us.
Staying isn’t lack of discernment; it is coercion.
