Men Get Abused Too

This essay is also available as a video. Watch the original video essay here.

Just Because It's Common Doesn't Mean It's Normal

Many men minimize these experiences by joking about them with other men. "That's just women." "Happy wife, happy life." "That's marriage."

Um, no. Just because something is common doesn't make it healthy. If unhealthy behavior becomes normalized through memes, jokes, movies, or cultural expectations, it doesn't suddenly become acceptable. Emotional abuse is still emotional abuse, even when people laugh about it.

What Female-on-Male Abuse Can Look Like

When people hear the word abuse, many immediately picture physical violence or visible injuries. The reality is that abuse is often quiet.

It slowly chips away at your confidence, your identity, and your peace until one day you realize you're exhausted, anxious, depressed, or emotionally numb. You may notice you've lost your spark. You stop expressing yourself. You start choosing peace over honesty because conflict simply isn't worth it anymore. You become less of yourself just to keep the relationship functioning.

I can assure you that many of the jokes and memes about "typical girlfriend" or "typical wife" behavior are not cute when they're your everyday reality.

Understanding the difference between healthy relationship dynamics and unhealthy ones is essential. There is a difference between emotional closeness and emotional dependence, between vulnerability and control, and between insecurity and abuse.

For example, people joke about women "jumping to conclusions" as though it's simply part of being in a relationship. It isn't. Occasionally misreading a situation is human, but living with constant accusations, relentless suspicion, jealousy, paranoia, false narratives, or perpetual victimhood is something entirely different. Those behaviors often point to deeper emotional or psychological issues that deserve attention, not normalization.

And no, it is not your job to spend your life managing someone else's distorted perception of reality.

If your relationship revolves around constantly proving your innocence, calming irrational fears, defending yourself against imaginary accusations, or changing your behavior to prevent another emotional explosion, that isn't intimacy. That's emotional exhaustion.

Over time, you may find yourself constantly nurturing, accommodating, apologizing, or shrinking yourself simply to manage another person's emotions. Without realizing it, you may begin enabling controlling, manipulative, or emotionally abusive patterns. Some people genuinely don't recognize that their behavior is abusive until they are confronted with it, while others know exactly what they're doing. Either way, the impact on you is real.

Patterns That May Indicate Emotional Abuse

The following behaviors are not normal, healthy, or acceptable in a relationship:

You constantly walk on eggshells because you're afraid of upsetting your partner. You agree with things you don't actually believe simply to avoid another argument or lecture. You are blamed for your partner's insecurities or extreme jealousy until you slowly stop being yourself.

You receive ultimatums, the silent treatment, emotional withdrawal, withheld affection, or demands to apologize simply to restore peace. You are expected to apologize before you've even had time to process what happened because of the popular myth that couples should "never go to bed angry."

Listen, stop spreading that advice as though it's universally healthy, cute or loving. Some people genuinely need time to think, sleep, take a walk, regulate their emotions, or reflect before having a productive conversation. Forcing immediate resolution often benefits the person demanding it in that moment, not the relationship and certainly not long term.

You are insulted, yelled at, sworn at, belittled, mocked, or criticized until your self-worth slowly erodes. You avoid liking social media posts, talking to certain people, seeing friends, or interacting with other women because you know another accusation is coming.

You feel pressured to post couple photos, grand romantic gestures, or relationship milestones online to prove your loyalty rather than because you genuinely want to. Your partner constantly criticizes your friends, particularly women in your life, invents motives that don't exist, jumps to conclusions, or creates an unhealthy "us versus them" mentality to reassure themselves.

Your partner threatens to leave, take your children, damage your reputation, or use money against you whenever conflict arises. These are not signs of love. These are forms of emotional abuse.

Mental Health Is Not a Free Pass

Having anxiety, ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder, trauma, depression, or any other mental health condition does not automatically make someone abusive. Likewise, having a diagnosis does not excuse abusive behavior. Mental health can explain why someone struggles, but it does not remove personal responsibility.

If your partner repeatedly uses their diagnosis to justify controlling behavior, manipulation, emotional abuse, or refusing accountability, that's a serious problem. You are their partner, not their therapist.

Many people with significant mental health challenges maintain loving, respectful relationships because they take responsibility for their behavior. Others, unfortunately, weaponize mental health language to avoid accountability or manipulate situations. Those are two very different things.

Some people even selectively quote or misrepresent what their therapist supposedly said because they know most partners won't question it. This is one reason couples therapy, alongside individual therapy when appropriate, can sometimes be beneficial.

It's also important to remember that diagnoses are not personality templates, and no two people experience the same condition in the same way.

Having the same diagnosis does not automatically mean having the same behavior. I have ADHD, and I am autistic, and just because you are with or have had a partner with the same diagnosis doesn’t mean we have the same presentation. It’s a spectrum, and quite frankly, there are other neurodivergent individuals I have met with the same diagnosis as me that I do not get along with at all. There are many other life factors that also shape an individual. Even in my own family, we share diagnoses and have differences.

And keep in mind that while therapy can be life-changing, simply attending therapy doesn't guarantee change or success with an individual or a partnership; things may lead to going separate ways.

Progress depends on many things, including the quality of the therapist, whether the therapist and client are a good fit, how honest the client is, their level of self-awareness, and whether they're genuinely willing to do the work.

Some people remain trapped in a victim mindset for years, and some never leave it.

If you notice a consistent pattern of burned bridges, repeated conflicts with family, friends, colleagues, or previous partners, or you find yourself constantly apologizing just to restore peace, pay attention.

You cannot heal someone who refuses accountability. You cannot fix problems you didn't create. And no amount of guilt, sympathy, or love can do someone else's inner work for them.

So I encourage you to be honest with yourself. How much change have you actually seen, and how long are you willing to wait? Don't lose five years of your life waiting for growth that realistically could have happened in one.

Educate yourself by reading, joining support groups, and considering therapy or coaching. A neutral, informed perspective can help you trust yourself again after years of second-guessing your own reality.

You deserve peace, respect, and a relationship where you can fully be yourself instead of constantly managing someone else's emotions.

This essay is also available as a video. Watch the original video essay here.