Ok i dont even follow SU anymore but this whole debate as to wheter or not mutual abuse is real, growing up in both an mentally/physically abusive home, (1/2)
im gonna tell you that yes both partners in the relationship can be abusive. Watching the shit my parents did to eachother for 16 years has scared me from ever wanting to be in a relationship
okay, i really wish people would stop mistaking the difference between an unhealthy relationship and an abusive one. anon, i feel you. i grew up in a mentally/emotionally abusive home until i was thirteen. this is in no way an attempt to invalidate what you went through. but there’s a difference between your experience, and mutual abuse.
the very nature of an abusive relationship is that there’s an imbalance in power. if both individuals in a relationship are equal, they can be toxic and harmful for each other, and the relationship can be an unhealthy one, but it can’t, by the very nature of the term, be abusive. abuse is when one individual specifically has power over the other. mutual abuse isn’t real.
edit: i realized there’s something else i forgot to say. if there’s a relationship like that where the couple has a child, it is abusive to the child, because the parents are in a position of power over the child. such as in anon’s case and mine. the relationship between the two people is not abusive, but the child is in an abusive situation. everything else i said still stands
i talked way more on the subject in this post, so i recommend you click on that because it includes extensive explanations + sources