Thomas P Seager, PhD
2 min readFeb 4, 2020

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These are dangerous misconceptions. None of the points you list constitute “abuse” Michelle Zunter.

  1. Romance creates “anxiety”. Love creates anxiety. Commitment creates anxiety. Don’t project your anxiety onto your partner.
  2. “Feeling controlled” is not the same thing as being subject to coercion, bullying, or extortion. Your feelings are not a reliable arbiter of realty. That’s a common cognitive distortion called “emotional reasoning,” and it’s going to keep you isolated from loving relationships and miserable.
  3. Sexual possessiveness is normal. We are evolved to experience jealousy. That’s not some kind of cultural construction. When your partner does NOT feel sexual possessiveness is when your relationship is in trouble.
  4. A lack of empathy is a difficult standard to apply. There are three different kinds of empathy: cognitive, affective (emotional), and conative. I think what you wrote is more consistent with contempt, which is a dangerous emotion, and the death knell of any relationship — but not abuse.

Your “warning signs” post is a misdirection based on a misconception that will encourage your readers to make misplaced moral judgments of healthy relationships and the partners in them.

This is better advice:

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