“I remember when I first met him and we were in a supermarket shopping. We were packing groceries at the checkout. I remember him saying over and over again throughout the marriage that he looked over to me and saw how beautiful I was and couldn’t believe I was with him. He said I looked embarrassed to be with him because he was older and very ordinary.”
These words, repeated like a broken record over the span of 32 years, weren’t just idle self-deprecating remarks. They were the emotional roots of a darker truth. What might have initially sounded like admiration or self-doubt was, in fact, a clue to a deeply embedded fear: the fear of not being enough.
And from that fear, abuse grew.
🧠 The Neuroscience of Insecurity and Control
When someone believes they are unworthy of love — especially when paired with low self-esteem and unresolved attachment trauma — their brain enters a state of hypervigilance in relationships. The amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for detecting threat, becomes overactive. Even simple, harmless actions (like a moment of looking away, a laugh at the wrong time, or perceived confidence in the partner) can be interpreted as danger: rejection, abandonment, betrayal.
Over time, this threat response wires into a distorted belief system:
- “She’s too good for me.”
- “She’s going to leave me.”
- “I have to make sure she won’t.”
But instead of soothing this inner panic with healthy vulnerability or self-reflection, the insecure partner may begin to control what they cannot emotionally regulate. And that control often comes in the form of abuse.
From Thought to Weapon: How Fear Becomes Abuse
“He obviously could see something which bothered him and made him feel threatened throughout the marriage. So he used physical, emotional and financial abuse to make himself feel safe, to ensure I would never leave him.”
This is a tragically common pattern. In psychology, this is called coercive control — a deliberate pattern of behavior used to strip someone of their autonomy. The abuser doesn’t need to consciously say, “I’m doing this to make her stay.” But at a survival level, that’s exactly what the brain is trying to do: stop the perceived threat of abandonment.
Here’s how that fear manifests in each type of abuse:
- Emotional abuse: Constantly repeating phrases like “you looked embarrassed to be with me” serves two purposes. First, it places the guilt and responsibility on you. Second, it wears down your self-esteem — so you begin to internalize his insecurity as your truth.
- Physical abuse: Violence is often the last desperate act to regain control when emotional manipulation no longer works. It’s an external outburst of internal chaos.
- Financial abuse: Keeping you financially dependent limits your options, creates helplessness, and ties your survival to the abuser — reinforcing the false belief that you can’t leave.
🧠 Why the Brain Stays in Abuse
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Why did I stay?” — please know that the answer is never simple, but always human. Trauma bonds are real. The nervous system becomes conditioned to cycles of hope and harm. Neurochemically, this creates a rollercoaster of cortisol and dopamine — fear, relief, fear again — that wires dependency into the brain.
You may have stayed because:
- You hoped he would change.
- You were exhausted.
- You were trying to help.
- You were trauma-bonded.
None of this was your fault. Love should never be something you have to survive.
But Was It All In His Mind? Or Was It Real?
“It was all in his mind… or maybe it wasn’t.”
That doubt is the seed of gaslighting. When abuse is disguised as insecurity, it becomes a maze of contradictions. Sometimes he really did feel unworthy. Sometimes he really did believe you would leave him. But that doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. His projections were never your responsibility.
What was “in his mind” might have been very real to him — but the damage it caused to your body, mind, and soul was very real to you.
❤️🩹 The Healing Begins When You Name It
Naming what happened is not about blame — it’s about truth. The more we understand the psychology and neuroscience behind abuse, the more we can unravel the guilt, confusion, and trauma it leaves behind.
So if you are still healing from a relationship like this, here’s what I want you to know:
- You didn’t imagine it.
- You didn’t cause it.
- You stayed strong through things no one saw.
- And you are allowed to be free now — emotionally, financially, physically, spiritually.
Healing doesn’t mean forgetting the grocery store moment. It means reclaiming the woman you were before fear shaped her into someone small.
You’re not small anymore.
