Threats are considered physical abuse if they involve bodily harm, but introducing the possibility of doing damage without using violence are considered threats as well. Threats to leave or create distance are common tactics among abusers, and some abusive people will leave their partners in order to punish them, especially if they are confident that their partner will try to get them to come back. Discussions of self-harm are also seen as threats when used to influence the actions of others, and some abusers may expose themselves to dangerous situations or intentionally damage their own well-being if they believe the person they are abusing with feel responsible. Regardless of their content, threats are often just as emotionally damaging to an abused person as if the abuser went through with whatever they threatened, and their impact can be magnified if the threat becomes persistent.

Drawing the Line on Abuse

Everyone makes mistakes. Many if not all of us do things we regret, sometimes chronically, sometimes ignorant of the ways in which we are hurting people. In poly relationships, our frequent encounters with novel and complicated situations may lead us to make more or worse mistakes than usual. Furthermore, the direct negotiations in poly relationships around possession, entitlement, and priority might lead some readers of this piece to believe that everyone they have ever dated has capital-A Abused them. As someone who has moved from one abusive relationship to another before, I do not categorically reject that possibility, but I also want to draw a line between mistreating one another in ways that we come to regret and the well-defined mentality of a chronic abuser. In other words, mistreatment is never ok, but all mistreatment is not abuse.

Common Indicators of Abuse

There are several specific experiences that can confirm if someone is abusive, and they fall into three categories.

Responsibility is denied. If a person refuses to admit what they did, blames some else for their behavior, tells the wronged person that it’s their problem to deal with, or retaliates against them for confronting their behavior, those are sure signs of abuse. These denials may be direct refusals to acknowledge the issue, or an abuser may use diversionary tactics like criticizing the manner in which the issue was raised. They can also seek to undermine attempts at genuine resolution by issuing insincere-sounding apologies that they will then demand the abused person accept. Egregious damage is done. Physical violence, sexual coercion or assault, and other tactics of outright fear are behaviors that abusers typically only engage in when they are confident that their partner is sufficiently under their control to neither leave nor report the abuse. If a partner is engaging in any of this behavior, they are abusive. Similarly, if a person’s own career goals, relationships, and other hopes and dreams have been abandoned or put on indefinite hold, and they instead find themselves focused on the desires and goals of their partner, it’s likely that they are being abused. The behavior is chronic. If a person finds themselves using the word pattern to describe their partner’s behavior, or are able to predict the ways in which the partner will mistreat them, or are unable to make certain behavior stop no matter what they try, then they are experiencing abuse. Similarly, if they have begun to exhibit the Common Effects of Abuse, it’s an obvious sign that the ways they are being mistreated are a serious problem.

Common Effects of Abuse

Experts on abuse are in agreement that perhaps the greatest single indicator that someone is being abused is their own intuition. If your own intuition is telling you this, trust it. While an abuser may be able to subvert and manipulate many levels of your conscious processes, there are still parts of you deep down that know something isn’t right. Below are two checklists from different resources on abuse that discuss signs that someone is in an abusive relationship. They include both high-level generalizations and granular behaviors specific to common types of abuse.

Signs of being abused from Why Does He Do That?:

Are you afraid of him? Are you getting distant from friends or family because he makes those relationships difficult? Is your level of energy and motivation declining, or do you feel depressed? Is your self-opinion declining, so that you are always fighting to be good enough and to prove yourself? Do you find yourself constantly preoccupied with the relationship and how to fix it? Do you feel like you can’t do anything right? Do you feel like the problems in your relationship are all your fault? Do you repeatedly leave arguments feeling like you’ve been messed with but can’t figure out exactly why?

Effect of gaslighting from section titled “Are You Being Gaslighted?” in Dr. Robin Stern’s The Gaslight Effect.

Gaslighting may not involve all of these experiences or feelings, but if you recognize yourself in any of them, give it extra attention. 1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself. 2. You ask yourself, “Am I too sensitive?” a dozen times a day. 3. You often feel confused and even crazy at work. 4. You’re always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend, boss. 5. You wonder frequently if you are a “good enough” girlfriend/ wife/ employee/ friend/ daughter. 6. You can’t understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren’t happier. 7. You buy clothes for yourself, furnishings for your apartment, or other personal purchases with your partner in mind, thinking about what he would like instead of what would make you feel great. 8. You frequently make excuses for your partner’s behavior to friends and family. 9. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don’t have to explain or make excuses. 10. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself. 11. You start lying to avoid the put-downs and reality twists. 12. You have trouble making simple decisions. 13. You think twice before bringing up certain seemingly innocent topics of conversation. 14. Before your partner comes home, you run through a checklist in your head to anticipate anything you might have done wrong that day. 15. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person — more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed. 16. You start speaking to your husband through his secretary so you don’t have to tell him things you’re afraid might upset him. 17. You feel as though you can’t do anything right. 18. Your kids begin trying to protect you from your partner. 19. You find yourself furious with people you’ve always gotten along with before. 20. You feel hopeless and joyless.

Spotting an Abuser Seeking Victim-Status

“Life has been hard and unfair for the Victim. To hear him tell it, his intelligence has been chronically underestimated; he has been burned by people he trusted; and his good intentions have been misunderstood. The Victim appeals to a woman’s compassion and desire to feel that she can make a difference in his life. He often tells persuasive and heart-rending stories about how he was abused by his former partner, sometimes adding the tragic element that she is now restricting or preventing his contact with his children. He maneuvers the woman into hating his ex-partner and may succeed in enlisting her in a campaign of harassment, rumor spreading, or battling for custody.” -Lundy Bancroft, Opening to the profile for “The Victim” in Why Does He Do That?

While some abusers seek victim-status a central component of their abusive behavior, many abusers play to their allies’ sympathies and accuse the people they have abused of mistreatment. If you are unsure whether you are hearing genuine claims of abuse or attempts at victim-status from an abuser, there are several indicators to help discern the difference.

Anger vs. Contempt

Plenty of compassionate relationships end with a degree of bitterness. It is common to be angry at a partner at the end of a relationship, sometimes even for a long time. Furthermore, people who recognize that they have been abused often feel considerable amounts of anger towards their abuser. However, Bancroft explains that “If you listen carefully, you often can hear the difference between anger toward an ex-partner, which would not be worrisome in itself, and disrespect or contempt, which should raise warning flags.” Even in the most brutal break-ups, former partners are able to recognize the humanity of their ex-lover or metamour, speak with a degree of compassion, and discuss their own role in the situation. On the flip side, name-calling or other degrading language, condescending tones, and a superior attitude toward a former partner or metamour are all likely signs that the person talking is abusive.

Control vs. Resistance

Most abusers claim mistreatment by their past partner. Some are even fluent in the parlance of emotional abuse and personality disorders. Claims about not feeling safe with a person are frequent. Often, abusers will describe situations using vague terms with an implicit interpretation of behavior, trusting the emotional sensitivity of the topic to prevent their listener from asking questions. Statements like “They gaslighted me.”, “They abandoned me.”, and “They made me feel like I was a terrible person.” are all frequent refrains of abusers playing the victim.

Under stricter scrutiny, however, the descriptions of mistreatment from an abuser will often reveal their attitudes of entitlement and superiority. While people who have been abused will tell stories of being victimized by someone’s actions to control them, an abuser’s narrative often focuses on their victimization by someone who resists their control. Neglect, abandonment, and ambivalence often play heavily into an abuser’s narrative. They may describe core parts of their partner’s identity, like their friends, their hobbies, their habits or even their opinions as problematic or destructive. What these statements demonstrate is not often proof of true mistreatment, but evidence that the speaker feels affronted when someone does something they don’t like.

Descriptions of conflict situations can be more difficult to discern, as victims are unlikely to behave faultlessly under duress. Abusers may tell stories of their past partners criticizing them, abandoning them, yelling or otherwise behaving in dramatic and unkind ways. Because abusers rarely take responsibility for their behavior, it is also likely to be the former partner who allegedly started things. However, if questioned about the details of a conflict, the core narrative may reveal that a former partner’s actions can be reinterpreted as the behavior of someone who is trying to escape.

Unfortunately, this narrative dichotomy is not a reliable litmus test due to an abuser’s tendency to lie outright. While some misinformation is created by twisting a narrative that starts with an element of truth, if an abuser believes that the person they are talking to won’t check up on what they’re saying, they may begin to create fabricated stories of abuse, instability and manipulation on the part of their partner to shore up their claims. Many abusers also engage in projection—attributing their own thoughts and behaviors to someone else—and so may accuse the other person of attitudes and actions that they themselves are responsible for.

Appeals to Pity, Superiority, and Saviors

“The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.” -Martha Stout, P.h.D. The Sociopath Next Door

The entitlement and superiority an abuser harbors can also manifest in the more positive attitudes they adopt towards their partners, friends and colleagues. Abusers often cast themselves in the roles of misunderstood, unlucky, special people with gifts that are either unappreciated or lost due to some injustice. They cultivate an aura of tragedy and exceptionality and convince their target that it is because the target is also a special, misunderstood person that they can appreciate the abuser’s exceptional qualities.

This message can be seductive, particularly for those who struggle with their own sense of identity or self-worth. To those ensnared by the narrative, an abuser may suggest or imply that the target’s love or friendship is the key to the abuser’s healing or redemption. The target may find themselves offering emotional support or tangible resources, and they may begin acting as an apologist for the abuser’s problematic behavior toward others. As the relationship evolves, a “you and me against the world” mentality sometimes manifests. The target may begin viewing those who take issue with an abuser in a hostile or negative light. They may begin engaging in abusive behavior themselves, rationalizing an abuser’s mistreatment, or accepting and parroting the abuser’s account of a situation without question.

Blame and Denial of Responsibility

Blame becomes a good indicator of abuse when the scope of what someone is blamed for far exceeds the actions they have taken. While someone might experience a handful of the following moments with someone in the initial throes of a tough break-up, the presence of several of these behaviors over longer periods of time are telling signs of an abusive mentality.

They have a hard time talking about events in their relationship without assigning blame to the other party.

They use more recent actions of the other party to justify instances of their own problematic behavior that occurred further in the past.

The same few stories of a former partner’s wrongdoing are returned to again and again, but their perspective on them remains much unchanged.

They omit key details of situations that would shift a part of the blame to themselves.

Lying and Withholding

This one can be tricky, because often an abused person will not speak about certain situations involving their abuser, even for long periods of time after the end of the relationship. An abuser is unlikely to discuss any incident of their own wrongdoing unless they are certain that the person they are talking to will forgive them. If you’re looking for a litmus test that might reveal an answer, ask yourself the following questions:

Is this person withholding information because their past behavior is shameful, or because they are ashamed that they tolerated the behavior of someone else? Does the information this person is withholding cast a negative light on themselves, or on another person?

If the answer to these questions is often the former, you are likely dealing with an abuser. If the answer is more often the latter, you are more likely dealing with someone who has been abused.

Overt fabrications can be more complicated to unravel, since most abuse happens in private and can only be corroborated by the other person. In cases of polyamory, however, other partners and metamours might be able to weigh in on past experiences. No matter what the situation, open communication is key. If you are involved with someone who has been accused of abuse, the best advice is direct communication rather than accepting someone’s denial.

A Pattern of Victimization

For abusers who fully embrace victim-status, their accuser’s remarks will be just another bump in a long, cruel road. “Often the Victim claims to be victimized not only by you but also by his boss, his parents, the neighbors, his friends, and strangers on the street,” explains Bancroft “Everyone is always wronging him, and he is always blameless.” Being an abuser does not invalidate a person’s past experiences of abuse. However, if someone accused of abuse is prone to describing instances of their own victimization in justifying their bad behavior as a replacement for expressing remorse, they are likely well-versed in seeking victim-status.

Recruitment Techniques

Often, abusive dynamics are perpetuated not by a single abuser, but by a community of people who actively or passively enable the abuse by turning a blind eye, expressing sympathy for the abuser, or actively colluding in the mistreatment of the person being abused. Frequently, an abuser will manipulate a third party into intimidating, shunning, or otherwise dehumanizing the abused person by instilling a belief that it is the abuser that needs protection or that the abused person must be shown that their behavior is wrong. This is done both to continue to exert control over the abused person in a larger social context, and to ensure that no one will believe that person’s claims of abuse.

While both an abuser and an abused person may solicit others for assistance that involves boundary-setting and social exclusion, and both will claim that the other one is lying, abusers often reveal themselves in their ability to convince other people to engage in the same types of cruel behavior outlined by The Power and Control Wheel and in Abusive Behaviors. Sometimes this is achieved through the recruitment of unsuspecting peers. In some instances, abusers maintain relationships with other people who engage in abusive behavior, as those people are willing to validate an abuser’s worldview and actively participate in the abuse of others.

The spreading of damaging information is known as a “smear campaign”. Within the recovery community, the people who take part in these campaigns on behalf of the abuser are referred to as “flying monkeys”. A large amount of literature exists on the motives, tactics and effects of smear campaigns, and there is a general consensus in recovery and clinical communities that persistently spreading negative misinformation in order to effect the social isolation of another individual is a significant indicator of abuse and, often, a personality disorder.

Black vs. White Thinking

A large part of the difficulty in extricating oneself from an abusive relationship is its complexity. Many abusers are themselves victims of past trauma. Many of them experience real difficulties as a result of their attitudes and behaviors that have an extremely negative effect on their emotional state and their ability to lead functional lives. Many of them express remorse for their actions and devote occasional effort or at least pay lip service to modifying their behavior. Many people who are abused fight back or act out under the intense emotional distress caused by abuse and do real harm to the abuser in return. Many of those people feel anger and bitterness. Some express and even act on a desire for sort of revenge.

Most abused people, however, also initially express guilt about their own behavior, a sadness for the loss of their relationship, and empathy for their abuser’s struggle. During the relationship and in the early stages of recovery, they often express confusion, fear, and concern not just for their own well-being, but also for the person who has abused them.

This stands in stark contrast to an abuser, who tends to craft a narrative that reduces the abused to some form of monster, master manipulator, or hysteric who is wholly responsible for the conflict and, above all, not to be believed. Some abusers may feign sympathy to garner moral superiority or suggest an character flaw, e.g. “Poor thing. They clearly has mental issues”, “Their drinking does such terrible things to them”, “They’re obviously still bitter”, but the focus of the conversation tends to return again and again to the injustice of the other person’s behavior and the abuser’s suffering.

Personality Disorders

While many abusive attitudes are the result of cultural messaging surrounding a certain role or aspect of an abusive individual’s life (love, career, parenthood, etc.), some individuals may harbor an attitude conducive to abusive behavior at a more generalized or deeply internalized level. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (a.k.a. the DSM-5) lists ten separate personality disorders falling into three distinct categories.

Cluster A (odd and eccentric): Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal

Cluster B (dramatic, emotional, and erratic): Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic

Cluster C (anxious or fearful): Avoidant, Dependent, and Obsessive-Compulsive

While all personality disorders are characterized by maladaptive patterns of behavior, emotion, and thought, Cluster B disorders are the ones most closely associated with abusive behavior. Indeed, rather than being defined by a genetic idiosyncrasy or quantifiable chemical imbalance, personality disorders are defined by maladaptive behaviors and thought patterns that also appear in the general population. These characteristics exist on a spectrum of frequency, intensity, and injury, and a PD diagnosis is related to the level of dysfunction an individual experiences as a result of their behavior.

This spectral component of personality disorders can make their diagnosis difficult, and a survivor of abuse who finds similarities between their own experience of an abuser and the criteria of a disorder may have difficulty arriving at a definitive conclusion. The tendency for survivors to remain silent or communities to reject narratives of abuse may make identifying patterns of behavior all the more difficult. The lack of awareness around the relative ubiquity of personality disorders and their features may also make a survivor less likely to be believed or supported.

Closure is also unlikely to come from an abuser themselves, as disordered individuals, especially those in Cluster B, often suffer from anosognosia, a lack of self-awareness that impairs their ability to recognize the severity or source of their issues. If someone in Cluster B does seek therapy, it will likely be for aid in managing their own difficulties as opposed to out of concern for others, and Cluster B individuals are often willing to lie or conceal the destructive elements of their behavior from their therapist or themselves.

To compound the problem, the Internet may sometimes serve as more of a hindrance than a help to those seeking understanding. Because search engine results are driven by popularity, the most easily available information about PD characteristics appears in popular psychology articles, which often present a single profile of a particular disorder as its defining features or litmus test. In these situations, an abused person may discount their own experience due to their abuser’s lack of described traits or the presence of traits that may be considered contradictory.

Even within the clinical community, debate around the delineation and description of personality disorders continually shifts. In every publication of the DSM, some disorders are renamed, reclassified, removed, or newly included. The DSM-5 includes the term “Personality disorder not otherwise specified” to refer to cases which meet the underlying criteria for a personality disorder but do not fit one of the ten current models. Similarly, the DSM-5 contains the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder with a grandiose expression, but clinical research since the 1980’s has identified a subtler and more secretive expression, often referred to as “covert” or “compensatory” narcissism that often expresses as a shy, vulnerable and self-conscious demeanor and is the more common presentation in women. While both subtypes share attitudes of superiority, intense self-involvement, entitlement, and a lack of empathy, the DSM’s current criteria of a grandiose, exuberant, and attention-seeking demeanor creates false negatives in diagnosing certain individuals.

These circumstances coalesce to muddy the waters for survivors of abuse, who may become bogged down in their search for clarity. Many survivors report a sort of epiphanic ecstasy paired with existential horror or despair when they first read descriptions of disordered individuals that bear an uncanny resemblance to their abuser. It is common for survivors to read copious amounts of literature related to different disorders in Cluster B, and some survivors vacillate between disorders when determining which one to apply to their abuser. Others may recognize the behaviors but lack a clear benchmark for determining the relative level of dysfunction present in their own experience, and question whether or not the abuser has a disorder at all.

If you believe that you have been abused by someone with a personality disorder or have been struggling to understand the rationale behind your abuser’s bizarre behavior, there are a few things that may be helpful to consider:

It doesn’t matter what they are. It matters what they do. A personality disorder does not make someone’s abusive behavior innately worse. It is not a necessary component of abusive behavior and does not somehow legitimize the behavior as abusive. Rather, an individual’s proclivity to engage in abusive behavior may contribute to legitimizing a PD diagnosis, but someone will receive that diagnosis in part because they are abusive, not the other way around. It is important to remember, then, that regardless of whether or not you can define your abuser as PD, you can describe their behavior and its effect on you, and a stamp of validation from a psychologist will not make your own experiences any more or less real.

A personality disorder does not make someone’s abusive behavior innately worse. It is not a necessary component of abusive behavior and does not somehow legitimize the behavior as abusive. Rather, an individual’s proclivity to engage in abusive behavior may contribute to legitimizing a PD diagnosis, but someone will receive that diagnosis in part because they are abusive, not the other way around. It is important to remember, then, that regardless of whether or not you can define your abuser as PD, you can describe their behavior and its effect on you, and a stamp of validation from a psychologist will not make your own experiences any more or less real. A name is a tool that has different uses in different contexts. Giving something a name allows you to get and impart information about it to other people. Depending on whether you are seeking information or giving it, labeling your abuser as PD will have different costs and benefits. If you are researching abusive behavior, referring to a specific disorder and using its associated terminology, such as sociopathy vs. psychopathy for Antisocial or grandiose vs. vulnerable expressions for Narcissistic, may yield more relevant results, and understanding their specific patterns of cognition will allow you to more accurately predict or contextualize your abuser’s behavior. It is important to remember, however, that other people in your life may not have similar experiences or the information that you do, and applying such a loaded term as “personality disorder”, “borderline”, “sociopath” etc. may alienate someone who has not experienced your abuser’s behavior or educated themselves about Cluster B disorders. In these situations, using the terminology of personality disorders may be less effective or even counterproductive, but that does nothing to make the reality of your circumstances any less true.

Giving something a name allows you to get and impart information about it to other people. Depending on whether you are seeking information or giving it, labeling your abuser as PD will have different costs and benefits. If you are researching abusive behavior, referring to a specific disorder and using its associated terminology, such as sociopathy vs. psychopathy for Antisocial or grandiose vs. vulnerable expressions for Narcissistic, may yield more relevant results, and understanding their specific patterns of cognition will allow you to more accurately predict or contextualize your abuser’s behavior. It is important to remember, however, that other people in your life may not have similar experiences or the information that you do, and applying such a loaded term as “personality disorder”, “borderline”, “sociopath” etc. may alienate someone who has not experienced your abuser’s behavior or educated themselves about Cluster B disorders. In these situations, using the terminology of personality disorders may be less effective or even counterproductive, but that does nothing to make the reality of your circumstances any less true. Time is on your side. One of the defining criteria for diagnosing an individual as PD is that their maladaptive patterns are persistent and intractable. Not only may a PD individual repeat the same behaviors within a given relationship, but certain behaviors may also play out again in other contextually similar relationships. Because of this, it is likely that an abuser’s past partners will have parallel experiences to share that may validate your perspective, and their own path toward healing might grant you insight into your own processes. Similarly, the dramatic nature of Cluster B individuals means that they frequently exhaust goodwill within a given circle, and your abuser is likely to reveal themselves to their current allies sooner rather than later. In these cases, you may find that people you once considered participants in your abuse becoming part of your support structure in healing and give you further insight into your abuser’s behavior/disorder.

If you would like to seek information or support related to personality disorders, Out of the Fog is an excellent place to start. They provide resources relating to all aspects of coping with or moving on from someone with a personality disorder, and their list of traits related to personality disorders is particularly informative.

| PART III: HALTING ABUSE

The first and most important step toward halting abuse is recognizing that it is happening. If you identify with the examples and feelings described in this piece, you are already on the path to recovery. I am not a professional abuse counselor, however, and any direct advice I have about the process of halting abuse would merely be parroting the research of experts. Instead, I can refer you to those experts for advice that is more specific to your own situation.

If you want to leave, Why Does He Do That? provides concrete advice on how to leave your relationship, including steps to take if your abuser is dangerous to you or your loved-ones’ physical well-being. It also includes comprehensive information about abuser programs and the steps necessary for abusive people to correct their behavior.

If you are considering staying, both The Verbally Abusive Relationship and The Gaslight Effect provide advice on how to decrease the amount of abuse you experience. I am disappointed to say that there is a relative consensus that removing abuse entirely is unlikely, but some progress may be made to reduce the level of abuse and its effects on you.

If you would like to educate those close to you about how to best support you, To Be an Anchor in the Storm is written for the friends and loved ones of people in abusive relationships.

Halting Metamour Abuse While Staying with a Shared Partner

One scenario that you may not find advice on is how halt abuse you experience from a metamour. You may not have the same emotional attachments to your metamour that bond people to abusive partners, and it can be far easier for you to resolve to keep them out of your life. Unfortunately, the continued connection through your shared partner may make this easier said than done, and it is unlikely that you will be able to fully escape their abuse unless your or your metamour’s relationship with a shared partner ends.

If you are resolved to leave your partner in order to escape an abusive metamour, I will again refer you to the resources above. If, however, your partner is considering leaving your metamour, you may decide to stay. As any person supporting you in confronting abuse should, I will not push you toward one decision over another. I will, however, discuss some issues you may encounter if you decided to remain in the relationship.

If you are staying in the relationship because of beliefs related to principles, self-worth, and fear instead of genuine joy, consider the following:

Framing this as a war of values wins nothing and leaves you with battle scars. Integrity and corruption have one important thing in common: They are both self-reinforcing. If you are staying in a relationship because you cannot allow yourself to be driven off by cruelty, consider that your abuser has an equally powerful ideological framework backing them, and fighting a war of attrition often leads to a Pyrrhic victory. In these situations, the person who loses most is likely your shared partner, and you can do far more to help them confront the abuse they are experiencing if you yourself are free from your metamour’s influence.

Integrity and corruption have one important thing in common: They are both self-reinforcing. If you are staying in a relationship because you cannot allow yourself to be driven off by cruelty, consider that your abuser has an equally powerful ideological framework backing them, and fighting a war of attrition often leads to a Pyrrhic victory. In these situations, the person who loses most is likely your shared partner, and you can do far more to help them confront the abuse they are experiencing if you yourself are free from your metamour’s influence. The process of recovering from abuse may last far longer than the relationship. Moving on from abuse takes time, and many people bear the marks or memories of their abusers for years. No matter how intense the connection between you and your partner, it is important to remember that abuse has long-term effects on your emotional and physical well-being whether you stay with your partner or not. The choices you make now will determine how much damage you are willing to sustain and how complicated your recovery process will be.

Moving on from abuse takes time, and many people bear the marks or memories of their abusers for years. No matter how intense the connection between you and your partner, it is important to remember that abuse has long-term effects on your emotional and physical well-being whether you stay with your partner or not. The choices you make now will determine how much damage you are willing to sustain and how complicated your recovery process will be. Leaving now doesn’t necessarily mean goodbye forever. The nice thing about polyamory: Everyone’s always available. Even if your partner is not yet willing to confront their own abuse, they may be later on. If you speak to them clearly about why you are ending the relationship, your honesty may create the possibility of a future connection, no matter how difficult their feelings might be in the present.

The nice thing about polyamory: Everyone’s always available. Even if your partner is not yet willing to confront their own abuse, they may be later on. If you speak to them clearly about why you are ending the relationship, your honesty may create the possibility of a future connection, no matter how difficult their feelings might be in the present. The opportunities for love are many. If you have experienced abuse, the feelings of isolation, depression, and dependence formed from traumatic bonds may cause you to believe that your current partner is a once-in-a-lifetime chance at love. They aren’t. Your unique dynamic may be a precious experience, but they do not hold a monopoly on attraction, romance, and compassion. Moreover, once you have taken time to reclaim some of the strength and independence that abuse has eroded, you will be more likely to find a meaningful relationship with someone who does not expose you to mistreatment.

If your partner decides to cut ties with your abusive metamour, staying with your partner may still create obstacles to your recovery.

Model of the Ring Theory by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman.

The negative effects of abuse may make it difficult for your partner to support you and vice-versa. In an article titled “How to not say the wrong thing”, psychologist Susan Silk and mediator Barry Goldman describe a model they call the Ring Theory for how a given community supports someone experiencing trauma. Silk and Goldwater explain that people in inner rings of the community seek comfort and support from those in outer rings. If two people are both recovering from abuse, especially abuse caused by the same person, they may both be in the center circle but view one another as in the next ring out. In this situation, both parties might say and be told the wrong things and help no one.

In an article titled “How to not say the wrong thing”, psychologist Susan Silk and mediator Barry Goldman describe a model they call the Ring Theory for how a given community supports someone experiencing trauma. Silk and Goldwater explain that people in inner rings of the community seek comfort and support from those in outer rings. If two people are both recovering from abuse, especially abuse caused by the same person, they may both be in the center circle but view one another as in the next ring out. In this situation, both parties might say and be told the wrong things and help no one. They may resist labels of abuse and steps to recovery. It is not necessary to educate yourself about chronic abuse to know that someone is mistreating you. An abused person may end their relationship because of their partner’s behavior without ever considering the word abuse. If your partner does not understand the mindset and tactics behind chronic abuse, they may be less willing or able to confront what has happened to them and take the appropriate steps to recovery. An uneducated partner may even take actions informed by myths or misconceptions about abuse, which may slow down or directly contravene your own progress.

It is not necessary to educate yourself about chronic abuse to know that someone is mistreating you. An abused person may end their relationship because of their partner’s behavior without ever considering the word abuse. If your partner does not understand the mindset and tactics behind chronic abuse, they may be less willing or able to confront what has happened to them and take the appropriate steps to recovery. An uneducated partner may even take actions informed by myths or misconceptions about abuse, which may slow down or directly contravene your own progress. Your partner may trigger memories of abuse. Whether your partner was an ally to your abuser or not, you may have shared traumatic experiences with them or possess shared habits that you have negative associations with. These situations may make the psychological distance necessary for recovery more difficult.

In turn, your past experiences of abuse might create obstacles to the progress and intimacy of you and your partner’s romantic relationship.

You may have trouble trusting them. The experience of abuse can seriously damage a person’s trust in other people, especially in romantic contexts. Regardless of whether or not your partner mistreated you, you may feel a severe lack of trust for them that undermines the security of the relationship. Especially in poly relationships, which require a trust in your partner’s ability to make romantic choices that are safe for both of you, the concern about their judgment may make forming a secure attachment difficult.

The experience of abuse can seriously damage a person’s trust in other people, especially in romantic contexts. Regardless of whether or not your partner mistreated you, you may feel a severe lack of trust for them that undermines the security of the relationship. Especially in poly relationships, which require a trust in your partner’s ability to make romantic choices that are safe for both of you, the concern about their judgment may make forming a secure attachment difficult. It may be harder to manage your emotions around banal issues. A common condition of abuse is a state of confusion regarding the circumstances of events and who bears responsibility. Even after the abusive relationship is over, you may find yourselves reacting strongly to mundane situations involving miscommunications or boundaries, or you may lack the emotional resilience to constructively address minor conflicts when they emerge.

A common condition of abuse is a state of confusion regarding the circumstances of events and who bears responsibility. Even after the abusive relationship is over, you may find yourselves reacting strongly to mundane situations involving miscommunications or boundaries, or you may lack the emotional resilience to constructively address minor conflicts when they emerge. The lasting effects of abuse may make creating a healthy relationship more difficult. Dr. John Gottman, a renowned relationship researcher and therapist, found that a key predictor for the future success of relationships was the ratio of positive to negative moments that a couple has together. That “Magic Ratio” is 5:1 in long-term studies about lasting marriages. If you and your partner are both coping with the effects of abuse, you may not be able to create positive experiences for one another reliably enough to maintain the relationship, and you might find yourself moving from an abusive relationship to an unhappy one.

This may sound discouraging, but each of these challenges is surmountable, and it is indeed possible to transition from an abusive poly dynamic to a healthy partnership. I cannot tell you the ways in which your own relationship is precious and fulfilling, or whether it will be worth the struggle, but I do encourage you to decide that for yourself.

Continued Abuse from Former Metamours

If a partner is committed to maintaining a friendship with an abuser after their romantic relationship ends, the abuser may continue to mistreat both their former lover and their former metamour. While this abuse may include some of the same tactics that existed when they were connected romantically, the change in status can cause the abuser to adapt their tactics to new circumstances.

Evolving Abusive Tactics toward the Former Metamour

After I found out Philip and Eva had been sharing a bed again, I told him I wasn’t going to be Eva’s metamour again. I’ve never believed in vetoes, but if that meant I had been wrong about myself, then I didn’t want to be right anymore. Eva had already told Philip that she wouldn’t get involved with him again if he was still seeing me, and he said he offered to commit to not getting back together with her until their 3-month break was over at the very least.

That didn’t go well. I showed up to see Philip one night as she was leaving. She had said it would be fine, but all I got out was “Hi guys, how are you doing?” before she stalked out of the room and slammed the door behind her. I’ve been trying to be better about holding Eva accountable when she’s mean to me, so the next day I sent her an email about it.

Philip was there when she got it. He was helping her with an application for a program she was applying to, but after she read the email she told him she was too upset to work anymore and that he had to leave. He got so upset with me. She keeps saying she’s going to leave town, and he told me the he was afraid she wasn’t going to get her application in and bail. We had a fight about it the lasted a few days, but neither of us could do it anymore, and we broke up.

When she got my email, Eva had sent me a short text saying she was sorry for the way she left, though I can’t say Philip or I had found it particularly sincere. I thought it was the last I would hear from her, but I think it was only about 24 hours after Philip and I had split when I got a letter from her. She told me she was angry at me about the rule I’d made, but that she didn’t have time and it didn’t make sense to talk about it. Apparently since she had never had someone make an agreement like that before, she didn’t know how she would react, and it turned out we could share public space for concerts and events, but being in her living room with just Philip and me did not feel OK. Good thing she reassured me that the likelihood of that was low now, and she could already feel herself healing and letting it all go. She told me she’d gotten into her program and that she did not want me to communicate with her for the next five months. I was told that this would be her last email to me for the foreseeable future.

My break-up with Philip didn’t last long, but a lot of things changed this time. He told me he finally recognized the pattern I was talking about, or maybe just needed to have it happen one more time to admit it to himself. He and Eva split for good and he took a big step back in how involved he was willing to be in her life, but they’re still trying to remain friends. Eva hasn’t gotten back in touch with me, though, and things keep happening. Now she tells Philip that she doesn’t feel “safe” with me. I want her to stop treating me the way she does, but I know that trying to talk with her about it would be crossing a boundary she’s set, so these days I just try to stay out of her way.