Esther Benbihy

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Abuse Awareness: Is My Partner Manipulating Me?

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Abuse Awareness: Is My Partner Manipulating Me?

Did you know that abuse within a romantic relationship is not as uncommon as many people think? The kind of abuse that’s talked about openly – physical abuse – is actually not as common as other forms of abuse. Emotional abuse, financial abuse, and many other forms happen all the time. As a couples therapy professional, Esther Benbihy finds it important that people are aware of any abuse that may be taking place in their lives. Let’s take a moment to check in. Is your partner manipulating you?

Manipulation Misconceptions

When you think of manipulation, do you think of ultimatums and threats? Many people view manipulation as the kind of thing a covert supervillain would do in an action movie. Unfortunately, it’s not always that grandiose and can slip under the radar of the average person very easily.

Manipulation, most of the time, isn’t something you’re aware is happening. Coercion is not the only kind of manipulation. So, what is manipulation, really?

Everyday Manipulation

Manipulation is not necessarily something that is planned out in some kind of evil scheme. It’s often times done subconsciously by people who have little or no respect for the boundaries of others. It can also be done by people who have a fundamental misunderstanding or lack of empathy and compassion for others.

Manipulation can start off very small, the manipulator testing the waters. When someone proves that they’re willing to lower their guard around the manipulator and make exceptions in their boundaries, the manipulator sets up shop. In romantic relationships, this can be seen in love bombing.

What Is Love Bombing?

Love bombing is a common kind of manipulation seen in romantic relationships. The manipulator will start off being incredibly sweet, gaining the trust of their new partner with gifts, encouragement, reassurances, and so much more. 

However, once the victim of this tactic has reached a point in the relationship where backing out is difficult, the manipulator begins to pray on the insecurities of their partner. This can mean subtly withdrawing their affection and reassurances when they’re displeased. It can be only giving gifts or praises when the victim goes out of their way to please them. Another form is giving the cold shoulder when the victim tries to enforce any kind of boundaries. Then, they force the victim to beg for forgiveness and give in to their demands before they’ll stop being upset.

Is Your Partner Manipulating You?

The question is, what does manipulation look like when you’re neck deep in it already? It’s hard to see these things objectively when you’re so sure that your partner doesn’t mean any of it badly.

Here are some signs that you may be being manipulated:

  • Do you feel like the amount of work you put in is unfairly high?
  • Do you feel like you have to ask if you’re allowed to have a certain boundary, rather than just stating it?
  • Does it feel like you’re never doing enough, even though, factually, you know you’re doing more?
  • Do you put in more time trying to fix your partner’s upset than they do for you?
  • Does your partner ignore your own negative feelings?
  • Does your partner rarely show you affection unless you’ve just done something for them?

If you said yes to any of these, your partner manipulating you might be more of a reality than you realized. Your partner manipulating you doesn’t necessarily have to be the end of a relationship. If your partner is doing this subconsciously, couples therapy might be enough to break the pattern of emotional abuse.

Give us a call if you feel like you’re being manipulated and would like to seek counseling with your partner.

4 Ways to Rebuild Your Marriage

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couple-therapy-toronto

Your marriage has trust as its basis. However, broken trust can damage a marriage beyond repair without professional intervention and hard work. What can you do to restore your marriage? From going to couple therapy in Toronto to learning how to truly connect to your spouse, you can help mend your relationship.

1. Don’t Do It Alone

In today’s web-saturated society many couples feel that they just need to Google “how to fix my marriage” and find all the answers. The truth of the matter is that your relationship deserves the help of a professional who trained as a psychotherapy, sex therapy, and relationship therapy. You can find healing with couple therapy in Toronto. Your therapist will act as a mediator and guide to help you build trust, improve communication, and ultimately help address the issues that brought you to this point in your life.

2. Rekindle the Romance

Over time relationships suffer from a roller coaster of emotions. The fiery passions from early in our relationship may wax and wane as work, responsibilities, children, and bills take away our attention. Too often couples forget to prioritize each other. Instead work, stress, after-school activities, hobbies, and even exercise take the place of our spouse. This leaves room for emotional attachments with members of the opposite sex outside of your marriage or even affairs. How can you rekindle the romance? Try these simple date ideas:

  • Surprise your spouse with babysitting and night out on the town
  • Find a hobby you both enjoy together like the cinema or camping and make a point of engaging in the hobby once a week
  • If possible, be sure your bedroom is clutter free, kid-free, and private to help facilitate togetherness and connectivity
  • Plan a weekend getaway where you only focus on each other
  • Take weekly walks, just the two of you, and talk
  • On cold nights, cuddle together and enjoy a hot cup of cocoa. Just enjoy the physical closeness
  • Make a life list of goals for this year and the next five years to help focus
  • Encourage each other to compliment each other at least three times a day
  • Try something new and exciting together like salsa dancing classes
  • Cancel activities that take you away from each other like unnecessary after school activities, business meetings, and social gatherings. Instead, for the next few months, just focus on spending as much time together as possible doing things you both enjoy.
  • Don’t forget the importance of physical intimacy. Connect physically with each other regularly. If this is difficult, you may need to speak with our sex therapists about overcoming challenges in the bedroom

3. Reevaluate Your Social Circle

You might want to look at the makeup of your social circle. Are your friends or family recently divorced or single? Take the time to develop friendships with married couples in healthy relationships. Why? You can find that marriage is easier in community. Find an older couple for mentorship. By surrounding yourself with friends that have committed to marriage, no matter the difficulties, you can find help and hope for your own marriage.

4. Be Realistic and Honest

Many couples enter marriage believing they can change their spouse. However, that rarely happens. Instead, resentment builds over time, cracking the foundations of marriage. With the help of a marriage counselor, be honest and vulnerable with each other. Discuss your expectations for the marriage. Discuss the situations that led to the break in trust. Your therapist can help mediate strong feelings and make the experience positive and fruitful for both of you.

Follow these simple suggestions, along with professional marriage therapy, and you may find that you and your spouse can rekindle the romance. Enjoy the journey together.

How To Keep a Healthy Relationship After Having Children

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How To Keep a Healthy Relationship After Having Children

As parents, we love our children and consider them to be beautiful blessings. But let’s be honest: they make most things more complicated than they used to be. Simple stuff like going to the store or watching a movie can seem nearly impossible. And, with all the demands that kids put on us every day, it can be especially tough to maintain a healthy relationship with our partners. Here are some great ways to keep a healthy relationship after having children.

Make Time for Each Other
When each day is filled to the brim with diaper changes, rinsing bottles, and endless loads of laundry, it can be easy to go for long stretches without spending some one-on-one time with your partner to simply talk and share a moment that doesn’t revolve around children or to-do lists. Schedules and routines are great for children, and they can also be the perfect way to make sure you carve out some time to be with one another. Put it on your calendar and stick to it. Be sure to focus on each other completely – no chores!

While You’re at It, Do Some Sex Scheduling
I think most of us can agree that Google Calendar isn’t exactly an aphrodisiac. And scheduling our most intimate moments can make it feel more like a trip to the dentist. But the truth is, if you don’t make an effort to put it on the calendar, it may never happen, and physical intimacy is vital for the health of a relationship. In fact, you don’t always have to have sex during these times. You can cuddle, snuggle, spoon – whatever you want. The point is simply to ensure that you make time to be physically intimate with each other.

Go on Dates
I do mean real, actual dates. You don’t necessarily have to get dressed up and go to a fancy restaurant (although that sounds pretty nice). But you do need to have the babysitter, friend, or relative come over and watch the children while the two of you go enjoy a kid-free activity. Go to the movies, grab some cocktails, and have dinner without a highchair at your table. You can do whatever you like! The only rule is that there is that you’re not allowed to talk about the children. Keep the focus on yourselves while you can, because just like Cinderella, your special night will end before you know it. Then it’s back to reality.

Do you notice a pattern between the three suggestions? It’s all about making an effort to have time for each other. Show your partner that you love them by making them a priority in your schedule. You’ll be amazed at the powerful effect you’ll see!

How To Speak Your Truth To Your Partner

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how to speak your truth to your partner

Communicating with your partner is hard work! It takes constant effort and a willingness to be honest. It’s difficult to know what another person is thinking, and if it’s been a while since you last had a meaningful conversation, a lot can be brought up. If you want to speak your truth to your partner, but aren’t sure how to get started, here are a few suggestions.

Communication versus Avoidance

When it comes to relationships, we often shy from speaking our truths because we don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings. But that issue then never gets the opportunity to resolve itself. As a result, we tend to avoid either the action we don’t like, or even the person causing it. And the end result can be resentment or disappointment and potentially the end of the relationship. But isn’t that more hurtful than actually talking to your partner? The first step in being able to speak your truth to your partner is to think of your end game – a better relationship. Yes, feelings may get hurt initially, but if communication becomes more open and respectful, there is a possibility for resolution. If nothing gets said, will there still be hope for the relationship in the future?

Think First

Think about what your truth really is. Are you angry because your partner always leaves dirty socks around the house? Or are you frustrated because you spend more time on household chores than they do, and as a result, have less free time?

The more you can think about your feelings, the clearer they will come out in a conversation. It’s also a really good idea to write your thoughts down to better organize them. When you speak your truth with your partner, there are a lot of emotions. It can be hard to focus and remember what you wanted to say in the first place. Write down your thoughts to better make sense of them.

Ask for help

It’s hard to start communicating if you’re out of practice. Seek a neutral place and a therapist that can guide you through the process. This is especially important if you or your partner has a habit of listing a series of grievances or blames the other or is left feeling unheard and misunderstood. A therapist can act as a mediator and teach you effective communication skills. They can help focus the conversation on the issues at hand and make sure that each person has a turn.

You can try on your own, but if you realize that you’re not making any progress with your partner, but still want to work on your relationship, then a therapist can help lead to better understanding. There’s no shame in seeing a therapist. In fact, the opposite is true. It shows that you are willing to take the time to invest in your relationship and work together to make it better.

4 Ways To Improve Your Self Care

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4 ways to improve your self care

Who you are is the most important part of yourself. Take away all your possessions, your career, your friends and family. What is left is you! So why not make the most of this person? To improve your self care, you need to acknowledge your own importance and then look at what will make you happy. You have control over your life; it’s time to start taking it.

Put yourself first

There’s the old adage that in an airplane emergency, you need to put your oxygen mask on yourself first. If you try to help anyone else but don’t have enough oxygen, then you will both suffer. The same is true in life. You may be worried that too much time spent on yourself means not enough time for others. But, if you run out of oxygen, how is that other person going to be helped?

The first step in putting yourself first is to recognize that you deserve to be fulfilled. You deserve to be whole. You deserve to be happy! When you focus on yourself, you can then unleash your full potential.

Ask for help

There is no shame in asking for help. Think of it this way. If your friend asked you for help, would you judge them? Or would you immediately help them? The same holds true for you. Friends and family members want to help you. However, they might not be aware if you’re struggling. Open the lines of communication and let others in. It will feel so much better once you do.

Be specific

Once you’ve asked for help, try your best to be specific about your needs. Remember that no one is a mind reader. The truth is, it’s hard to know exactly what you need to change or what you specifically need help with. This step might need a bit of soul searching. Look to the moments when you feel the most overwhelmed. Then, try to think about what may have triggered those feelings. Look for patterns to see if there are internal factors or external factors. The more aware you are of your needs, the better you can communicate them to the people around you.

Set a personal goal

Think about the kind of person you want to be. Then, work towards that goal. Is that person happy? Is that person energetic? Creative? Helpful? Think about how you want other people to describe you and take the steps to become that person. Once you have a vision of who you want to be, look at the steps needed to accomplish your goal. Do you need to exercise more to become energetic and healthier? Do you want to volunteer your time in something you feel passionate about? Do you want to pursue a creative interest?

You can be happy with who you are and still want to improve your self care. The point is to keep working at being the best version of yourself.