Are you disregarded, disrespected or unappreciated?

In your most intimate relationship do you feel disregarded, disrespected or unappreciated? These are early warning signs of patterns of abuse that manifest in intimate relationships.

The key to true intimacy is knowing your intimate partner and fulfilling their needs to be seen, recognized and appreciated in all aspects of the relationship. In my book If I Had Known I articulate the full spectrum of early warning signs that reveal patterns of an abusive personality. Sometimes this occurs due to complacency, however, in many cases of overt abuse this occurs due to notions about women and their place in relationships and the power and autonomy of men. It can result from social conditioning or cultural values. Over the years women including Black women have sustained a dominant role in managing domestic relationships and men have fought to hold them in their place of servitude by attempting to seize power and authority over their women. Women, however, in general have persevered to take on more control to achieve balance of power in relationships and some women have pushed the pendulum to the extreme to dictate the terms of the relationship. We all know some women like that.

Being disregarded manifests when  one partner’s needs or desires or preferences are completely ignored in decisions that impact the quality of life and the terms or distribution of power in the relationship.

Disrespect is the overt or covert (behind your back) lack of esteem or loyalty for an intimate partner either directly or in the ways they treat or speak about their partner to others, friends or family members.

Appreciation is the life blood of validation and necessary for someone to feel valued and esteemed in the relationship where all your vulnerabilities are exposed to your partner. If appreciation is not communicated AND DISPLAYED through words and overt acts to demonstrate appreciation the message is that the partner is not appreciated. no one should ever have to assume that someone appreciates them. it should be clear as day and if asked “Does your partner appreciate you?” it should be easy for that person to articulate all the ways appreciation is demonstrated toward them. The lack of appreciation will definitively corrupt the quality of the relationship over time.

For more information on early warning signs of abusive personality check out for an available book on Amazon click here