Trigger Warning: This post is about relationships and abuse and if you are particularly sensitive to those conversations this may not be for you right now.

There are lots of different ways to talk about toxic relationships. That’s a large spectrum on which we see relationships with workload imbalances and relationships with physical beatings. Every single thing on that spectrum is BIG enough to justify ending that relationship. If a relationship is not satisfying or is causing you anxiety, you do not have to continue that relationship regardless of the various forms of fallout that may come with ending it.

I see all kinds of issues along this spectrum in my work as a divorce attorney.

Changing the Rules: I see couples who had a particular relationship dynamic when they got together. Often, one person was the one taking the instruction/direction and the other was the one making the decisions and being the boss. If that is your chosen relationship dynamic and you both agree that that is what you want, more power to you. However, I have seen more relationships end because someone that started with this dynamic decided they didn’t want to be dictated to anymore. This imbalanced dynamic then shifts and the new dynamic isn’t acceptable. You changed the rules. This is significantly healthier for the person who has decided to change the rules – they hare happier, empowered, satisfied. It is distinctly less satisfying for the other partner.

The less toxic version of this rule-changing relationship is that the bossy partner is able to adjust and absorb and, through some decent communication, realizes that the adjusted dynamic is more satisfying and equalizing for them both. Those are the awesome ones to see.

Power and Control: Often I learn about a relationship through a police report or a victim statement, or my work with trafficking victims. I am constantly amazed at the ability of people to explain away behavior that most of us find shocking. In relationships we have a profound ability to minimize problems or red flags, with explanations and promises of better days that are usually us lying to ourselves.

If one person in the relationship is solely in charge of money it’s ok because they have the better knowledge of such things. If one person has the only vehicle or only access to it, it’s fine because he’s the one that has to go to work and s/he will usually give me rides where I need to go. If one person is angry or threatening to the kids or their partner, it’s just that they’ve had a hard day at work or someone pushed their buttons. If one person constantly is drinking or using other substances, it’s just to cope with how hard things are for them or how much responsibility they carry. Or it’s a mental health issue. Or it’s stress. Or it’s one of a million other seemingly-temporary things.

We see caricatures of these relationships in film and television. We see angry, drunken characters screaming and throwing things in one moment and then apologizing and begging for forgiveness the next. What we don’t see on the screen are the tiny incremental ways it gets worse and worse so that you don’t really realize how far you’ve come because you’ve normalized this relationship in your mind.

But the same things works the other way. Things get incrementally better too. When you’ve gotten out from under the power and control and isolation and excuses that you had convinced yourself was fine, you see just how far you’d fallen. Not long ago I had a client, like lots and lots of other clients I’ve had over the years, that was living in her car and using meth with her boyfriend. Her lifestyle revolved around who had a place to stay, who had drugs to share, and where she could park her car for the night. And those three questions took up most of her day. But not that long before she’d been married to someone else, living in a home they owned, and raising her children as a stay-at-home mom. She had changed her entire life in small little ways every day because of the influence of the men in her life and the control they had over her. When I met her, she was convinced that her life was pretty normal. She struggled to even recall the “normal” life she lived in a home with her children because the “normal” life she was living with her boyfriend in a car was so standardized at that point.

Because that’s what happens when we’re abused. And yes, it’s abuse even if it isn’t a physical attack in the moment. We normalize and justify abuse in whatever forms it comes. We’ll use disbelief or justification or martyrdom to justify why this person we love treats us this way and why it’s ok.

It is not ok. Figure out a plan. Talk to people. Get financial help from friends or family or take out a credit card in your own name and have it sent to an address the other person can’t get to. But stop making excuses. Staying for your children is not a kindness to them or a reason to stay. Things will get better after XYZ happens – no they won’t, there will just be a new reason they find to treat you this way. And yes, they did mean to hit you. No, that shove wasn’t an accident. You should not have to walk on egg shells in your own home.

Find a way. Save yourself. Save your family. It might be hard, but it is worth it. Power and Control is not a relationship. It is servitude. Find your strength. Think about what you want. Think about what your kids and family deserve. If someone is not treating you the way you should be treated or not treating your kids the way they deserve to be treated, then you need to make a change. Somehow, some way, you need to be the change.

Nothing is impossible and you deserve better.