The relationship abuse checklist
In the years since I read it, I still haven’t come across a better relationship inventory than Anton Fulmen’s in The Dominance Playbook. (Leave it to the kink community to nail down the dynamics of abuse.) I reference it all the time, and what I like most is it applies to any interactions between people, not just sexual or romantic relationships.
It’s such a niche book for a niche audience, but this kind of knowledge needs to be shared far and wide. I’m going to copy the list in full below.
Here are some questions to ask yourself when you’re involved in any type of relationship:
(this can include power exchange relationships, love affairs, marriages, friendships, or interactions with any authority figures, like a boss, parent, or spiritual guide)
- Are they interested in your needs, limits, and desires, and do they prioritize meeting your needs, respecting your limits, and supporting your desires?
- Do they tell you how you ought to think and feel, and try to force you into that mold?
- Do you feel fundamentally safe?
- Can you have a direct conversation, and tell them what you really think and how you really feel? Do they listen?
- Do they express their emotions in a healthy way? Do they allow you to express yours in a healthy way?
- Do they take responsibility for themselves? Do they place blame on you when something goes wrong?
- Do you feel any fear, tension, or a heavy, dreadful feeling that you wish you could avoid?
- Do you feel fulfilled and happy around them?
- Do they have your best interests at heart, or do they repeatedly put their own interests above yours?
- Do they encourage you to get other perspectives and seek other sources of support? To read books, make friends, participate in the community, etc? Or do they try to cut you off and make you dependent only on them?
- Are you confident it would be safe for you to change your boundaries in the relationship, or to end it if you wanted? Would they take it well and respect your decision?
- Does it feel good? Every relationship has its challenges and stresses, and can mean not getting your way about a lot of things. But it should always be something you want to be doing. Not just something that you endure for the sake of love or approval, or that you accept because you are afraid of the consequences, or because it’s what you’ve been told you should do.
If you are at all uncomfortable with your own answers to these questions, then something about your relationship is off and needs to change. If it can’t be changed, perhaps it needs to end.
- see also: abuse is best recognized by the effect it has on the abused, because the closer you are to someone, the harder it is to see when the dynamic is unhealthy
- paired with the BITE model, this could be such a good barometer for cult-like authoritarian control too
- see also: the trust checklist, behaviors that indicate someone is trustworthy