76 - Emotional Abuse and Polyamorous Relationships
It isn't easy or fun to talk about abuse. Abusive relationships come in many different iterations, and non-monogamous relationships are not exempt from these kinds of unhealthy dynamics. It's difficult for poly folk to speak publicly about abuse, as social stigma discourages many people from sharing any negative or darker aspects of poly relationships. In this episode, we explore how poly relationships in particular can fall victim to emotionally abusive behaviors, as well as how to recognize abusive patterns early on.
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Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are talking about emotional abuse in relationships in general, but also how that can relate to polyamorous relationships specifically, that there are some different ways that people in polyamorous relationships might be more vulnerable to emotional abuse or maybe less likely to notice it, or less able to get help with it when they do. This is something that's a tricky topic, and we're going to get into this more later, but it's something that's difficult to talk about because most of us who are polyamorous want to represent it as positively as we can because to most of the world, if you said, oh, there's abuse in poly relationships, they go, of course, because it's degenerate and terrible and you have no morals, and so no surprises there. What are you complaining about? So, but I mean, to be really serious though, there are, there's, it's still relationships, and in relationships there's a lot of good, and there's also a lot of bad that can happen. And so it is an important subject to talk about sometimes and to be able to talk about.
Emily: And on that note, I'm Emily.
Dedeker: I was gonna say, no, dang it, she stole my joke.
Jase: Damn it.
Dedeker: I was gonna do that. Okay. Yeah, sorry you guys. I'm Dedeker.
Jase: And I'm Jase.
Dedeker: And yes, we do have to bring you a bummer topic this week, but, you know, as Jase pointed out, that is the difficulty in talking about abuse, is that people who are in fringe relationships or alternative relationships have a hard time being able to publicly talk about the darker sides or the darker possibilities of when those relationships can turn unhealthy. And then also, honestly, we've had on our list of episode topics abuse for like centuries now and it's just such a bummer. Yeah. such a bummer that we don't want to talk about it. However, the thing is it's still a very, very valuable topic to discuss because of the fact that not enough people are talking about it.
Jase: Right.
Jase: So Dedeker, can you start us off by defining abuse for us? You have that written down here.
Dedeker: Yes, I do. So abuse within the context of relationships is basically any form of trying to take control over a partner. And obviously that can come up in many different ways. Most of us are familiar with physical abuse, which is physically controlling your partner either through hitting, kicking, slapping, all of those horrible nightmare scenarios that we hear about in abusive relationships. And so that's controlling your partner with physical threats or with physical actual blows. There's verbal abuse, which may not obviously involve any kind of contact between one partner and the other, but it can involve insults or put downs or extreme criticism or attacking somebody's self-esteem. And so that's seeking to control the person by lowering their self-esteem. Frequently verbal abuse and attacks on self-esteem tend to get mixed in with other kinds of abuse as well. When I was researching this section for my book, I learned about financial abuse, which is a whole other thing, which is when one partner controls all of the money and basically very tightly controls how much money or how much income the other partner is allowed to have. It might be things like keeping a really tight grip on finances but allowing the partner just like a small allowance.
Jase: Right.
Dedeker: Exactly. Like a small stipend, not allowing the person to have their own bank accounts, not allowing the person to make decisions for purchases within the home. So, you know, that's financial abuse. And then the big one that we want to talk about today specifically is emotional abuse. And emotional abuse is like really hard to spot because it's a little bit more amorphous, right? I mean, like when I tell you guys like emotional abuse, like what comes to mind, because it's not something that I think has become a big talked about topic, at least on the household level yet.
Jase: I mean, it's something that over the past couple of years, the three of us have talked about a lot though. Yeah. So I feel like I do have a better sense of it now than I would have before. Because yeah, before like when I hear emotional abuse, I assume more like verbal abuse, like what I would have thought would be more like just yelling at a person or like always telling them that they suck or calling them names.
Emily: and necessarily differentiate the two.
Jase: Right.
Jase: But I can see now that they're definitely intertwined.
Emily: For sure.
Dedeker: Yeah, all of these forms of abuse can all come as one package deal, or they can come separately, or they can be mixed together.
Jase: Right, right. And yeah, so it can be a hard thing to tell too, and we'll get into this later as well, but it's hard because you could have a relationship where you fight all the time and are always arguing and yelling at each other, but that's not abusive. So that it is this tricky thing to identify. It's like with physical abuse, there's this clear line of, did they hit you? Yes or no? But with emotional abuse, it's a harder thing because there's not this clear marker of when you've crossed some line into that or not.
Emily: And no, I mean, just to, I know that we were talking about how signs of abuse don't really show up until much maybe later on they don't always show up early in the relationship and so you think, okay, you know, we're going to be good to go here and it'll always be blissful. And they then when they do potentially show up, that can be particularly difficult to spot. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing.
Dedeker: is like when it comes to physical abuse, like you almost never hear of somebody who started getting physically abused on like the second date.
Jase: Right. It's like a second date is like a red flag.
Dedeker: No one's gonna stick around and the same thing with emotional abuse is very rarely is someone gonna start emotionally abusing you very early on in the relationship. It tends to be once the relationship is established and these patterns, like the groundwork for these patterns has already been laid. Just to make a note on something that you said, Jase, I've heard both from people that I personally know who've been in emotionally abusive relationships and from people who've written about their experiences on the internet, I feel like I've heard a common sentiment of like, I mean, and this is really messed up, but kind of wishing that like, I wish there had been such a clear marker like this person hitting me or this person grabbing me or this person striking me so that I would feel like I had the permission to leave. Yeah, or to leave. Versus when this person is just straight up being an abusive asshole,
Emily: and there's no tangible thing.
Dedeker: Exactly. But it can be really, really hard. And especially when part of the abuse has this mental and emotional aspect to it.
Jase: Right, right.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: And it's, it's also difficult because, well, the trick with emotional abuse, too. And I think part of the reason why it comes on later in a relationship, like we said, if someone were abusive to you on the second date, you're not going to stick around, probably, but is also that abuse isn't something that people do intentionally. The things that they're doing to try to control you might be intentional and thought out, but their feeling of needing to do that comes from beliefs that they have and a lot of times from their own fear. And so it's difficult because they could be a super nice person and be emotionally abusive. It's not just, so again, it's hard to identify if in your head you think it's got to be this just monster who's awful all the time, but it's not like they could be super nice. You could rarely fight, but they could still, you know, usually there's going to be some fighting. But I think part of the reason why this comes on later in a relationship is one, you're more likely to stick around because you've invested more time already and more emotion in this relationship. But I think also on the other side that once they've invested more time and emotion in a relationship, it becomes scarier for them. And so because of their internal beliefs that they have, these abuse behaviors are going to show up and they probably will not know it. Most abusers don't know that they're doing it because it's not based in ideas, it's based in beliefs, which is why it's so difficult.
Dedeker: It's interesting for you to point out because there's very few people who are just naturally born like evil abusers and are just looking for someone to abuse.
Emily: To unleash their wrath.
Dedeker: Yeah, no one's thinking like, oh, I get off on abusing this person. Unless it's like in a weird BDSM context, but that's a whole other thing.
Jase: That's a whole other thing. And that's different because no control is truly being taken from someone. Control is being given in certain situations, even if it's like a 24/7 thing, but it's being given willingly as opposed to abuse where it's being taken.
Emily: So how is polyamory uniquely vulnerable to emotionally abusive situations?
Dedeker: Well, so this is an interesting thing because, I mean, any relationship could fall victim to becoming emotionally abusive, you know, depending on the people in it and the issues. But polyamory specifically can really kind of become fertile ground for emotional abuse for a number of reasons. The biggest one that gets talked about a lot is this term called poly guilt, which is pretty self-explanatory. It's this idea that if you inwardly feel guilty about being polyamorous, as in if you inwardly kind of feel guilty that like, oh, my partner's just tolerating this, or my partner's still letting me do this even though it makes him upset or it makes him jealous, if there is this internal sense of like, I'm getting away with something, that can really buzz around in your head until it's this almost permanent state of guilt. And so that means that any negative reaction or negative behavior that your partner has can feel totally justified because you feel like you're the person who's getting away with something, like you're the bad one. And so of course, like they're justified to do or say whatever.
Emily: Yeah, you're the selfish one.
Dedeker: Exactly, you're the selfish one who's doing these things.
Jase: Well, and part of that leads into our second reason here, and that's that the abuser often feels that they're actually the one who's the victim. Like we were talking about that it comes from fear and these beliefs that they have already. And so they'll try to control the narrative about exactly that. Maybe it is making you feel like you're doing poly wrong. Because it could even not just be poly guilt about being poly at all, but maybe about doing poly differently than they want to or that they do right now. Like they could change their mind about how they want to do poly. And it's that they'll try to control this narrative by telling you that you're doing stuff wrong because they really do feel like they're the victim here, which is why it's so hard to identify sometimes too.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Dedeker: And it's hard specifically with polyamory because of the fact that we don't have a very firmly defined cultural narrative for what a polyamorous relationship is supposed to look like, which is on one side a very good thing, because it means that relationships can look all kinds of different ways. But then in this situation can be a bad thing because it means that one person can step in and say like, well, no, you're doing it wrong. The way that I want to do it is correct. You should do this, you shouldn't do that. You should be feeling this, you shouldn't be feeling that. And because there's very little to compare it to, at least from a wider cultural standpoint, the person who's on the receiving end of that usually doesn't have much to argue with
Jase: Right.
Dedeker: against it.
Jase: Yeah. Cool.
Jase: I mean, going on from that lack of emotional responsibility and then also gaslighting, which is basically convincing the other person that their fundamental thoughts are wrong, like convincing them that, that they don't remember things the way they think they do or, you know, it's essentially like, getting inside their brain and convincing them not to trust themselves. That that's something, I mean, how do you feel like that shows up more in poly relationships or can show up more?
Dedeker: I mean, I feel like it can be things like telling someone that they're overreacting or if it's something like, well, so what that I didn't text you at the end of the night? That's not the way it's supposed to go. Which goes back to controlling the narrative again. Which is basically kind of like, you know, gaslighting is making the other person think that they might be kind of crazy. Or they're the unreasonable one. And then, you know, kind of the flip side of gaslighting, which shows up on the other side, is this idea of putting all emotional responsibility on the other partner. And so instead of saying to someone, like, no, no, no, like, you shouldn't be feeling jealous, like, that's crazy, or you shouldn't be feeling insecure, like, or you're imagining things, is saying to someone, like, you're making me feel jealous, you're making me insecure, you're making me upset, you're making me feel all these things.
Emily: Like kind of playing the victim to a certain degree?
Dedeker: Kind of, but it's kind of entirely putting the onus of your emotions on someone else.
Emily: Yeah.
Jase: Right, right.
Emily: And then this, well,
Jase: talked about this in the intro.
Emily: Yeah, I mean, inability to talk about polyamorous relationships in a negative way, because especially like the three of us, for example, we kind of, especially to our peers, we're somewhat of, I don't know, authorities on the subject. Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, it's hard, like you don't want to necessarily talk about, like, the negative aspects of polyamorous relationships because it is this new thing and we're trying to, you know, bring the movement forward and get it off the ground.
Jase: Well, and like I was saying before, it's hard to talk to people about it that are not poly because maybe your normal support system, which could be your family or some of your really good friends, they're just gonna blame all of the problems on polyamory.
Emily: For sure.
Jase: Like I've definitely had some times where I've been racking my brain like if I'm having a really hard time with something of like who could I talk to? Who could I call right now to talk to about this that isn't one of my partners, and, you know, but would still like get it and be supportive and I wouldn't have to give them, I wouldn't have to talk for like two hours to give them all the backstory to like get them up to speed on this. And a lot of times I haven't been able to come up with anyone.
Emily: Me too.
Dedeker: Me too, and me three.
Emily: Yeah, yeah.
Dedeker: Why we talk it all out on the podcast.
Emily: Exactly. And that's where we get together.
Dedeker: So for our listeners, you're the guys who get all the fallout from our emotional baggage.
Emily: Exactly.
Jase: It is a great reason to try to find poly support groups in your area. There's a group here in LA called the Poly Processing Group, which is part of Sex Positive LA, that's specifically for stuff like this, like having a place to talk about what's going on, rather than like philosophical discussion. It's like practical discussion about what's going on.
Emily: That's super cool.
Jase: I haven't gone to it yet, but I'm planning to check that out soon as I've heard really good things about it. Anyway, trying to find stuff like that is. Yeah, definitely. You want to give us the last one, Dedeker?
Dedeker: Yeah, yeah. So the last one, particularly in relationships where it starts out as a couple, as a foundational couple who are looking to add a third person to their relationship, this situation is really, really ripe ground for emotional abuse to occur. Because if you look at it, you're already setting up a controlling power structure, you're already setting up that like the two people who are in the established couple They have the authority, they have the power, they have the, you know, they get to make the decisions. And this third person is just supposed to step in and kind of fall in line. And especially because of the fact when people try to add a third to their relationship, it tends to be all about controlling that third. Because we don't want that third person to get between us. We don't want that person to try to split us up. We don't want that person to try to be with just one of us. And so it becomes all about we need to control this wild card factor. And again, this does not come from a place like there's no couple who wants to abuse a third person very rarely. You know, it all comes from again, fears and beliefs that like, well, we need to preserve our relationship. And so that means that this other person needs to be kept in check. And so that results in behaviors that are technically abusive.
Jase: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Dedeker: Okay, so to bring us back to talking about abuse, it's really easy, you know, when you start studying abuse and learning about abuse, to think that, okay, well, in order for my relationships to not be abusive, that means they need to look happy and healthy and perfect and jolly all the time.
Emily: Right.
Dedeker: And that's not necessarily going to be the case.
Jase: Or people who get caught up on this idea of abuse and so will label everything as abuse.
Dedeker: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, of course, realistically, you can expect that any relationship is going to have some kind of conflict, there's going to be some kind of arguing, there's going to be some kind of emotions. Hopefully, if you're a good communicator and if you have good emotional management, that means it doesn't turn into anything abusive or anything explosive. However, you know, there will, there is a chance that there may be negative interactions in your relationship that do not count as abuse.
Jase: Yeah, they still could be reasons to leave a relationship, but it's important to not confuse those with abuse. So, for example, being neglectful in a relationship. Like, yeah, that sucks and can be hurtful, but that's not necessarily abuse. Withdrawing from a relationship that can happen. Someone can just start to withdraw from a relationship. Being angry or upset, sure, people fight, people get angry, people get upset. Just because you're upset doesn't mean you're being abusive. Abandoning, meaning just leaving, or being controlling. And this one's interesting because,
Dedeker: Yeah, I have a question about that one. Because the thing is like that's how we've defined abuse is that it involves trying to control your other partner. So what's the difference between like abusive control and just being controlling in general?
Jase: Right.
Jase: So this is still a bad thing that should not, you know, that you don't want to have in your relationship. But the difference is that this is being controlling in a way that you still have an option to say no to. And I know that's a real amorphous sort of thing. But it's about like being really demanding or being really clear about like, well, no, I really want, you know, I need you to do it this way. So you got to do this, you got to do that. Like that sort of being controlling in particular, that can often be tied up in emotional abuse, which is then adding to it like, you know, because you're hurting me if you're not doing it that way or because, you know, those things we talked about, like convincing you that you're crazy for wanting to do them a different way. It's a subtle difference that a person can be controlling or demanding and not be abusive. that, yeah, that abuse is more about taking away someone's agency and taking away someone's power rather than just trying to control them. It's like taking away their power and exerting power over them that makes it abuse.
Dedeker: I see. So kind of the being controlling aspect is like a person trying to impose their will on someone else versus trying to actually disempower them and then impose their will on someone else. Yeah? Am I getting that right?
Jase: Yeah, I guess the easiest way to think about it is that being demanding is not abusive. It still might not be a good way to have a relationship. But being demanding is still something that you can say no to or choose not to do. it's kind of more upfront as opposed to as opposed to abuse, which is a little more just sort of, I don't know, crushing and more gets at you mentally and makes you feel like you're a bad person for not doing everything that they want, as opposed to just like, well, yeah, they're controlling or demanding. It's a subtle difference and neither one's good. That's the thing. All these are still things that you could be justified in leaving a relationship over. It's just to say, don't confuse them with abuse because the way that you'll want to deal with them could be different because of that.
Dedeker: Okay, so that's the question. So how do you know when it actually is abuse?
Jase: Okay, so for that, yeah, I took some things and we can all talk about these or read different ones if we want, but this is from a book called Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft. And Lundy Bancroft is a guy who specifically counsels abusive men. So the point of view of his book is specifically about abusive relationships where the man is the abuser to a woman in a heteronormative relationship. But he still has a lot of insights and he's been doing this since 1987 specifically working with abusive men because like we talked about, if you are the abuser, it's hard to identify that because it's based in your beliefs and you do feel like a victim. It's not like you know that you're being a jerk and there's not such a clear sign like we said with physical abuse or like, you know, it's not as easy to identify. But some questions you can ask yourself to help determine if you might be in an abusive relationship is number one is are you afraid of your partner?
Emily: This is really interesting because I've definitely been in abusive relationships where I've been afraid of a partner that never touched me or did anything along those lines, but I definitely have been like it was very unsettling to be around them and they scared me in various ways.
Jase: Yeah. Are you getting distant from friends or family because your partner makes those relationships difficult?
Dedeker: I would add a caveat to that one that not just your relationships with your friends and family, but also your other romantic relationships if you're polyamorous. That's actually frequently what happens in emotionally abusive polyamorous relationships is that it becomes more difficult to actually maintain your other relationships.
Jase: Because they might not be specifically explicitly limiting those things, but it could be more just that they make your life so difficult every time you see those other partners that you're getting more distant from them or feel like you can't maintain those relationships.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: The next one is, is your level of energy and motivation declining or do you feel depressed?
Emily: I've definitely done that before.
Jase: I mean, this one's hard too, because, for those of us who've dealt with some depression, sure. It could be separate, but it's, has that started happening since this relationship? That alone isn't saying that there's abuse happening, but it's one of the signs that you could look for. Yeah. Is your self-opinion declining? So again, your self-esteem, is that changing over time in this relationship? So that you're always fighting to be good enough and to prove yourself. And that goes along with the next one, which is do you find yourself constantly preoccupied with the relationship and how to fix it? And do you feel like you can't do anything right?
Dedeker: I mean, it connects to the next one also, which is do you feel like the problems in your relationship are all your fault? These questions, I mean, to me, what they really indicate is what's common, especially in verbally abusive relationships as well, that it's all about attacks on self-esteem. Right. And the thing is, and also speaking from personal experience on this, is that even if you have high self-esteem and if a person that you love is constantly telling you negative things about you, and as much as cerebrally and logically you can say to yourself, no, I know that's not true. I know that's not true. It's so easy to internalize it without even realizing it, you know, because once that narrative is established that you're the bad one or you do all these things wrong or these are all your character flaws, it can be really, really hard to escape that.
Emily: Yeah, and to think that there's just nothing that you can do correct in this relationship, no matter how hard you try or what you do.
Jase: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've absolutely had times in relationships where only much later, looking back, did I finally go, you know, I actually was justified in being upset about those things I was upset about because I felt like because of the reaction I got, I was wrong somehow. I was overreacting somehow, or I was making something up out of nothing, which especially, as we've talked about as poly people, we're into examining ourselves and personal growth. And I think that also makes us extra susceptible to someone telling you you're doing it wrong. Your reaction's wrong. It's like, oh, God, you must be right. That's what I'm all about.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: And then lastly is, do you repeatedly leave arguments feeling like you've been messed with, but you can't figure out exactly why? So kind of that thing of like, how did that get turned around like that by the end? Or like, why did I end up apologizing at the end when I was upset about something or, you know, that that sort of thing?
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: And then so I guess I want to say too that these are things that it's not like a person is just an abuser or they're not. You could also in poly relationships, you could have someone who is being abused in one relationship and in their relationship with you could be the abuser, right? It can go like that. And someone might be abusive in one relationship of theirs, but not in another. It is a tricky thing because there's all these beliefs and triggers and fears that are behind it. So it's not like, you know, if maybe you are in an abusive relationship, but you see their other partners and they seem fine, that doesn't necessarily mean you're not having that.
Emily: Yeah, or that you're wrong to be wondering, am I actually being abused here?
Jase: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Or even if you're supporting them in another abusive relationship, you could be being abused in that relationship. It's this whole thing. And it's really important to be aware of that, to check in with yourself, because ultimately you are responsible for having healthy relationships for identifying those. that just like an abuser will put any of their negative feelings on you, that they're your fault, that you caused them to feel insecure or you caused them to feel jealous or all these things. But also, the same is sort of true if you're being abused, is you also can't blame all your problems on them. You do ultimately need to be the one who takes care of yourself. And hopefully you have a good support system to help you do that.
Dedeker: Yeah. Yeah.
Dedeker: So one last thing to point out about abuse is the fact that it can hide behind some very, very good sounding reasons. As in it couldn't be like, you know what? I just want us to have a healthy relationship where we both feel safe. And part of me feeling safe is exerting all this control on you. Or it can be something like, I just want to make sure that our relationship stays primary, nobody threatens that. And part of that means controlling any other secondary partner that you want to bring in. Or as we talked about, it could be controlling a narrative. It could be like, well, I think the best and most effective way to be polyamorous means doing this, which can all be really good sounding motivations, but then the behaviors behind them can actually be abusive, which again feeds into the whole thing of why it's so difficult to identify emotional abuse.
Jase: Mm-hm.
Dedeker: Yeah. Yeah.
Jase: And so lastly though, we want to leave you with, this is from a blog post by Ginny Brown on everydayfeminism.com, and it's that healthy and non-abusive relationships deal with conflict and hurt in ways that respect each other's feelings, needs, and personal autonomy. So we wanted to leave you not just focusing on all the bad, but what good relationships look like. Notice that it doesn't say never has conflict or never gets hurt. It's that it deals with conflict and hurt in ways that respect each other's feelings, needs, and personal autonomy. In another article I was reading that it's about being co-creators of the relationship rather than a power dynamic of one controlling the other, but that you're working together to create something. And that doesn't mean it doesn't have its ups and downs and all that, but that you are dealing with them in these more respectful ways, even if you are upset.
Dedeker: Well, we made it through.
Emily: That was an intense one, guys.
Dedeker: a bummer episode on the abuse.
Jase: I know.
Emily: All right.
Dedeker: These are all things I wish that I had known.
Jase: Oh gosh, me too.
Dedeker: Right? So long ago.
Emily: Yeah. It's like... Yeah.
Jase: it kind of hurts to talk about because you're like, man, I wish I knew all these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dedeker: I hope we can give this to someone else.
Jase: Yeah, exactly.
Dedeker: so that they can recognize these things either if they're on the receiving end of abuse or if they're on the giving end of abuse. Sometimes learning about these things can really wake you up to some
