Unhealthy Relationships- The Devastating Effects of Verbal and Emotional Abuse

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The statement “A relationship is only unhealthy if it becomes physically violent” could be supported by people who feel that because verbal abuse, lowering of self esteem and other repercussions of mentally or spiritually unhealthy relationships are not directly threatening to your physical health it remains “healthy”. A healthy relationship can be defined as being a reciprocal relationship where there is respect, empathy, compassion, acceptance, cooperation and listening for both people in the relationship. (St Joseph’s University Philadelphia, 2005) the other point of view is with out all of these elements a relationship can not be considered healthy, not just because of physical violence. In this essay I will be discussing how relationships that are bought, involve loss of interaction with family and friends as well as relationships which include verbal abuse all equate to unhealthy relationships. Physical Violence is not the only cause of an unhealthy relationship.

An unhealthy relationship can be a relationship where one of the persons in the relationship is consistently buying gifts for the other. The negative implications of this behaviour are the attempt to “buy” the other person, to treat them as a possession rather than as another human being and when the other person wants to break-up, go out with friends etc, the partner may hold these gifts against them causing them to feel guilty. This guilt can cause feelings of worthlessness and lead to issues such as low self esteem and depression. (Kaszina, A. 2005)

An example of this type of behaviour is when a guy buys his girlfriend a new phone, when the he rings her while she is out with friends she might choose to hang up instead, he later makes comments such as:

“I bou...

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