Something that you may start to notice after you leave an abusive relationship and start speaking about things that happened is that hindsight is 20/20. You will likely start to recognize many of the things that your abusive partner was doing to you. You will start seeing and piecing together what happened.
How I Started to Recognize the Conditioning
After I left my abusive relationship, I started to see and recognize what happened with my ex-husband and some of the things that just weren’t right.
I remember one of the first moments that I realized how conditioned I had become. My very good friend and I went out to eat together. When we went to sit down at a table, I paused to let her choose where to sit. She asked me if I ever got to choose where I sat when I went to eat. I thought about it for a second and said no. Truthfully anytime I did choose where I wanted to sit, without thinking through what my ex-husband would want, he would make it a big deal and have me get up and switch seats with him. I had become conditioned to let him choose or to think through exactly what he would want and choose based on his preferences instead of my own.
This is only one of the many moments that I started to recognize after I left. To this day, I am still working through behaviors that I do because I am conditioned as such.
Feelings About Recognition
Although there is a lot of validation for your departure once you make it to the recognition phase, it can still be hard. It can be very challenging once you start to recognize what all has happened.
- You may start to wonder how you didn’t see it
- You may feel at fault for not leaving sooner
- You may start to feel like you are stupid for falling for an act
It is important to remind yourself of the phrase that hindsight is 20/20. What you can see in hindsight is not what was visible before. There are many reasons why your brain was not able to piece these things together at the time. What is critical is that you did piece it together and you did get into a better place.
