Let’s continue our discussion of emotional abuse, but now we’re focusing more on the coping strategies that will help you navigate your situation, especially when your family doesn’t understand what you’re going through and insists on making things work. Emotional abuse can leave you feeling trapped and alone, but there are ways to empower yourself and move forward. It can feel suffocating with no way out, but there are some proactive steps you can take to at least make things better for yourself.

Recognizing Your Reality

Your supposed support network may not really be on your side, but I want to remind you that you’re not crazy. What you’re feeling deep inside — the trickery you’re seeing, their shifty nature, their outer charisma of displaying a good side or doing favours for your family — is just a mask so that you can be seen as the bad one. It may be challenging initially to find a solution to your current situation, especially when kids are involved and your family doesn’t offer enough support, but you can start with one thing.

Stop explaining yourself to the family because it will drain your energy and they may end up hurting you more or causing you to doubt your own decisions. They are often lost in their distorted worldviews or may be emotionally abusive themselves.

You cannot expect them to understand your perspective — it’s like trying to convince an apple that it’s a tomato; you’ll only be seen as unreasonable. Therefore, the best approach is to avoid trying to convince them or show them the other side of the situation.

I understand how tempting it can be to try to explain yourself, hoping that someone close will understand. I’ve been through that myself, until my sibling helped me see things clearly by bringing me to my senses. It’s important to acknowledge that what you’re feeling is real and valid.

If you’re experiencing feelings of depression, being unwanted, or unloved, these are real aspects of your current reality. Remember, what your family or partner says comes from their own perspective — they believe they’re right in their own way. You are not crazy, stupid, or petty; your experiences and feelings are profoundly real.

Setting Realistic Expectations

Another thing you can do is simply lower your expectations in terms of the support you will get. When you expect your family or your siblings who you’ve been through a lot with in life to just listen and be on your side, then you’re priming yourself for disappointment and further heartbreak, they will not really understand your pain as we’ve discussed above, they will simply say sorry or even brush it off. Your family may even be willing to assist you to ‘resolve’ things with your partners.

But when you lower your expectations, you take the help they’re willing to give and not adding more emotional burden to yourself or not letting the mind feed you with the idea that “no one understands you.”

Sometimes our friends or our family don’t really have that emotional capacity or that logical sense or those emotional resources to see where you’re coming from as they’re probably also victims of the same system, elevating the abuser and despising the allegations of the abused.

When you lower expectations, it doesn’t mean you don’t ask the family for help, you ask them but take what they give not focusing on what they’re not giving you. If they’re only giving you money as support and then on the other side, calling your ex, just take the money if you really need it as that’s the only thing they can offer or have the capacity to offer.

If for example, you wanted their assistance with taking care of your kids and they said, no, it’s okay, look for a solution and feel the relief or see the difference between reality and expectation.

With expectation, you hope they will say yes for all your concerns or all your requests for help but when you see reality for what it is, you will ask but when they say no, you move swiftly to the next scenario or the other best alternative for you. At least, you now know where those you expected to stand for you are.

Building a Supportive Network

Another thing which you can do is, build up your support network. Most times, the support network will not even come from your family because they’ve been muddied by your ex or your ex has recruited them to the dark side. So, you can look for those siblings or those friends or even those cousins who will just say to you, “Hey, I understand what you’re going through, what kind of help do you need.”

Those are the people who will respect your boundaries when you tell them that they should not talk to your emotionally abusive spouse. Those are the people who will give you emotional support when you’re being tossed around like a basketball in a basketball court by your partner or by the enablers who are doing your partner’s bidding.

They will offer you that space where you can rant and vent how much you want without using those aspects against you. They will also offer you constructive advice on the best thing to do by being objective on what the best steps for you will be.

You might also come up with a plan or an exit plan and they will be the kind of people who will look at that plan and even help you solidify that plan for you. Those are the people who may even be willing to provide you with shelter or financial assistance or take care of your kids as you’re trying to figure things out.

So, your mind will try to push you to force support from your immediate family but you don’t need to really feel alone or to feel entitled that you ought to have their support. No, focus, look for your own support network, it’s better to have a support network of strangers than a family who will not listen to you, those strangers are your family now.

Practical Steps Towards Independence

When it comes to support network, it also means you taking that extra mile to look for that job or to do that extra side hustle, this is time to double down on getting that income.

The actions of the relationship may have of course led you to being fired as you took a lot of days off in your workplace to take care of your kids. So, looking to those past networks or looking for that job is very crucial.

Conclusion

So, don’t tire. By focusing on yourself and not even trying to convince your family — here, focusing on yourself means building your support network, looking for a job, lowering your expectations, and stopping overexplaining yourself — you can slowly start building yourself up and climbing out of that hole of despair.

This is your tough responsibility, and you don’t have to do it alone. Instead, maximize your strengths and resources, and keep moving forward from there.

As you are now aware, you’re already far much ahead in terms of growth, the fact that you’re standing up for you simply means you can never be at the same level with the one who is emotionally abusive. You may think they’re winning in the physical space but that’s not winning, it’s them avoiding themselves.

They’re avoiding themselves but by you standing up for you, you are the eventual winner, it might be tough now but once you overcome it, you will be grateful that you chose you and not the marriage. Happy healing and I am here to cheer you on, your emotions, your feelings are valid and reach out if you need support.

There are a lot of people who are willing to support you out there, you don’t need a million people, as long as you have your side you can conquer this.

Note from the Author

If you’re ready and you’d like my help with healing, finding peace in life and breaking free from these toxic patterns, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.