You are crazy, egoistic, and pretentious. You are too demanding, too sexual, too vain. Your writing is superficial. Your style choices are bad. Your beauty is not stunning. You will never be a great teacher. Your cooking needs improvement. Your friends are not cool. You are an embarrassment. You are obsessive and disconnected from reality. You are not creative. You are not fun when you are not high on drugs.

These are some of the things I heard from abusive partners.

When I reflect on my abusive relationships, I realize how weak I was in these relationships and how they served my growth as they forced me to get stronger. Luckily, I learned my lessons and eventually entered a beautiful, loving relationship. So, what did I learn, and how did I become stronger in my relationships?

When you love someone, you trust them and value their opinion, including their opinion of you. When they say you are not good at something you are insecure about, you believe them. If you’ve never heard anyone telling you otherwise, you believe them. You slowly shrink into a small version of yourself that they portray. You start thinking that you are everything they say you are, and they are doing you a favor by being willing to put up with you.

Even when I found the strength to leave my abusive relationships, I was still afraid that I was making a huge mistake and that I would never find anyone who would love me as these people did. But as I emerged from their dark, enchanting power, I could finally breathe in and feel I got my life back.

Scorpio guides us through areas where we have adopted harmful psychological patterns and need to learn to release them. It helps us embody the strength to deal with these situations wisely. Strength does not mean a lack of fear; on the contrary, it acknowledges our fear and allows it to manifest. Strength means being afraid of something but not being afraid of fear itself.

I often asked myself how I did not tell my abusive partners, “I am smart, beautiful, talented, and stylish. I am healthily sexual. I have a good, caring, loving heart. I have the most incredible friends. I am open to healthy, constructive criticism, but I will not let you diminish me and call it love. I am out of here.” It would have been terrifying to say these things, especially in the first stages when abusive behavior started raising its head. The love was still strong, and the nature of the situation was not yet so clear.

With the wisdom I have today, I would not let anyone hurt me like that, but I learned to be compassionate with myself for not being as strong as I am today back then. In my childhood and early adulthood, I hadn’t received the support I needed to be strong – I had to get stronger the hard way. No trustworthy authority figure had told me how amazing I was and assured me that I deserved someone who would reflect my awesomeness to me. I had to learn it all by myself – my abusive relationships were my teachers.

Being strong in relationships means being willing to be vulnerable. I was afraid to share my wants, needs, thoughts, and feelings because I was afraid to reveal my weaknesses. I wanted to stay in control and appear strong. I did not want to show my partners that I got hurt. I did not want to tell them I was insecure and needed them to help me gain confidence, not make me doubt myself. I was ashamed to ask them to show me love, not to appear dependable and pathetic.

When I met my husband, I was not afraid to tell him, “I gave you my number so that you use it,” after he hadn’t texted me for a day. I told him I did not like his text message when I found it ambiguous. Right from the start, I told him I was insecure and needed constant assurance that he loved me. I embodied strength by not being afraid to appear weak and dependable. This is Scorpio’s secret recipe for intimacy in relationships.

This week of Scorpio season, cultivate strength and intimacy in your relationships. Review all the things you are afraid to share with others, look for ways to be vulnerable, and speak about them. Tell others how you feel and what you need from them. If anyone in your life mistreats you, stop allowing that. Talk with them, tell them how you feel, and decide if you want to stay in this relationship or need to leave. Face your fears and speak up.

I’d love to hear about your experience with abusive relationships, how you came out of them, what you learned from them, and how you implemented these lessons in your life.

Have a wonderful week,

With love,

Yael