Signs and ways to prevent being exploited in a romantic relationship.

Is your partner exploiting you in your romantic relationship?

Have you ever been in a relationship where you ended up feeling exploited? In any relationship, it’s only paramount that you feel loved, secure, respected, and free to be who you indeed are. This article will learn about the signs that you’re being exploited in a romantic relationship.

We know that relationships aren’t always smooth, and they can be complicated at times. You begin to feel that everything is so one-sided, conducive to the other person, and when you mention it, you’re often told flippant stuff, including ‘stop being so selfish’.

What is Exploitation?

Exploitation is the abuse of someone by their friend, partner, or family member to take advantage emotionally, mentally, physically, financially, or psychologically.

Exploitative relationships involve one party benefitting from the other. For example, the person uses the emotional power to dominate the other or irrationally takes advantage of the other’s weaknesses or insecurity.

Exploitation can be extraordinarily deceitful and sly. However, if you can see the red flags, you’ll be able to prevent them before it becomes uncontrollable and prey on you.

Sign You’re Being Exploited in a Romantic Relationship

1. They are only interested in certain things

This is the most obvious sign that you’re being exploited in a romantic relationship. Your romantic partner may only need certain things from you. Indeed, some relationships are synergetic because of some aspects. But your whole relationship mustn’t depend on what you can give them.

Your partner may be going out with you for egotistical reasons, to win something from you—for example, sexual intimacy, financial favours, etc. If your partner appears to be persistent about sex without your will and continues to demand it from you, it’s a sign!

2. They are controlling

This is another sign that you’re being exploited in a romantic relationship. Your partner is attempting to control you emotionally. They may make you believe that they don’t have any say in any matter.

It becomes their habit to begin an emotional power play. Such an emotional game further leaves you responsible for fixing your partner’s problems. Your partner might be doing this by always taking over the attention and making sure to expose your weaknesses. And they may be controlling you to get money, sex, or psychological assistance.

Your partner may be doing it through manipulative techniques or playing the victim card. You may not recognise this initially because you will be leaving everything to help whenever they need you. This distances you from your family, friends, and most importantly, yourself!

3. They only call at Night

This one is obvious, especially in dating: the strangely scheduled text message. Unless you agree on evening flings and last-ditch dates, don’t be content with such treatment.It’s usually a sign that your partner is only hanging around until someone better arrives. Now that can hurt bad.

4. They rope you in

Anyone can use this ancient move. For example, consider the partner who ignores you only until you’re on the verge of asking for a breakup and quickly invites you to spend time. It’s the typical trick that signals that your partner keeps you around for ulterior reasons.

5. They feed on insecurity and inferiority complex

Maybe the most prominent is how they provide and stoke on your insecurities and inferiority complex. An emotionally cunning individual, such as your partner, is oddly committed to making you sad about your life.

They continue to push you down regardless of how much you try to please them or work on yourself.

Also Read- Set healthy boundaries with your ex

6. They implement indirect punishment

You may not quickly notice the Indirect punishment.  It doesn’t integrate any explicit behaviours such as shouting, hitting, or spoken words. Instead, it includes passive aggression.

The negativity will pierce your positive outlook. In this way, an exploiter can punish you while keeping a guiltless and thoughtful face. Examples of indirect punishment are- silent treatment, keeping from you the things important to you, maintaining silence during difficult conversations, etc.

7. They constantly lie, or Gaslight

Exploiter lies while they breathe. They purposely fool you into gaining the results that they desire. There’s no boundary to what they may tell.

When your partner can’t figure out how to twist their statements or lie, they will shift the spotlight on you. This is called gaslighting. Your partner may then begin talking about when you might have messed up. They may make you question your perception of the world or situations.

However, some exploiters won’t get tired of lying and degrading you and making you the centre of the problem.

8. They are passively abusive:

Although this term has been in hiding due to all the spotlight on active abusive behaviour, passive abuse is an important thing to discuss while discussing the signs of you being exploited in a romantic relationship. Yelling, shoving, hitting, verbally abusing, etc. are all parts of active abuse. However, passively abusive behaviour includes a partner degrading the other in inactive ways, like by calling them a control freak, a maniac, or disrespecting them in front of their mutual friends and family. Imagine this, you have guests over and your partner is sitting on the couch ordering around or demeaning your efforts without making a single dent. That is passive abuse. Never cleaning after themselves after eating, expecting the other person to do your job for you, singling their insecurities or mocking them in front of friends or relatives, etc. are passive abuse.

Ways To Prevent Being Exploited

There are ways to learn the signs of your partner exploiting you in a romantic relationship. But, in addition, It takes a lot of unlearning and defying the ‘normalised’ behaviours.

Similarly, there are ways to prevent from being exploited. Take a look!

• Establish Limitations – Setting boundaries and limitations is one of the most important ways to prevent your partner from exploiting you. The underlying reason that they are abusing you is that your partner can drive farther past specific lines. Boundaries can help stop that from recurring.

• Practice Saying No – Saying “yes” is pretty natural when it’s your romantic partner. If you’re naturally a kind person, someone may have mastered to take advantage of that positive aspect of you. However, learning to say “no” is extremely powerful. It takes only one ‘no’ to smash their exploitation on their face. 

Also Read- What to do and not to after break-up

• Repel Sweet Talks– You can do this by brushing off those hypocritical words and urging them to get to the point, or you can overlook the false praise entirely and not let it enter your thoughts.

• Respect Yourself – When you respect yourself, others also respect you. When you take yourself for granted, others will see what you’re doing to yourself. Hence, they will not hold back. In addition, the very effort to gain respect by being benevolent to others could induce others to look down on you, your kindness, and your selfless nature.

• Take your Stand – It’s natural to want to sit around the fence when in a romantic relationship with an exploiter. But, instead of doing that, allow yourself to be as honest and blunt. We understand you may not like to hurt your partner’s feelings. But you must also know that the person deceiving you has never much cared for your feelings.

In Closing

Although the person you are with may cover their exploitive acts as harmless. However, you need to see and recognise the truth of your relationship and your partner.

Suppose you learn that your partner controls, manipulates, and exploits you in a romantic relationship. In that case, it’s time to take matters into your hands to prevent yourself from being used.

Once you decide to leave the person, no matter how painful it may feel at the moment, you can try these things to maintain your sanity and emotional well-being!