How Relationships Become Dangerous: The Slow Shift from Toxic to Deadly

Kerry: [00:00:00] Abusive relationships rarely start off with violence. Usually, there's a pattern of escalation. Well, today, Lisa Sunny joins me to talk about what this pattern looks like and how to recognize if maybe you're in danger. Today is a tough topic because I know that a lot of people minimize it. And maybe it needs a trigger warning that we're going to talk about domestic violence and physical abuse. But I know, Lisa, that a lot of people will say to me that they're not really in an abusive situation. It's just that their partner throws things and maybe sometimes they rush them and get in their face, and maybe they even raise a fist and shake it at them. But they're not actually being abused because nobody's touched them. They often will minimize that and say that they don't consider that particularly threatening and think that their partner isn’t dangerous. Nothing about what I just described is safe, but they may even say they don't feel like they're at risk. Yet, you and I both know that's not the case, and this is actually an escalating pattern.

You shared a little bit of your story. That's how it started. I bet there was this ramping up that happened. Do you want to talk more about what you've seen and what's happened with your clients or yourself in this situation? Do you see that as risky?

Lisa: [00:01:00] Now, of course. And I think that the lesson I always want people to really understand is that abuse is progressive. I would have bet every dollar I have ever made in my life that he would never have put his hands on me. I would have bet anything. When I say safe, I think I didn’t have a good understanding of what safety was. I'd never thought about it in the context of emotional safety. I definitely was unsafe the entire time, but from the perspective of physical abuse, I was safe. I absolutely knew that he would never put his hands on me, and for me, I missed all the warning signs. We'll talk about the specifics that I look at now and see, but it went from emotional abuse to strangulation in one argument. It escalated in the most violent, intense, terrifying way. And I will admit that I still, even having been strangled, did not realize how bad it was and didn’t realize what a sign that was for future abuse.

And I paid for that lack of knowledge because there were more assaults that continued, but what I missed was the progression. People genuinely don’t talk about that. You put people into these categories of narcissists as emotional or psychological abusers. Well, my partner was diagnosed as a narcissist. So in theory, what we think we know is that it's just going to be psychological abuse. And I don’t mean just—it's horrendous—but you think that you're not going to experience physical abuse. Not all narcissists are physically abusive. I get that, but mine was. And so it was quite an experience to go through.

What I learned was that the progression I missed was the screaming at me, the throwing things. You know, I've had a hole in my wall from a metal water bottle, a fist in a wall, slamming doors, just overall physical aggression. If I would try to leave an argument or leave the room, he would block me with his body. That was very intimidating. And sleep deprivation was something that I didn't recognize as physical abuse. I mean, one could argue it's psychological abuse too, but it affects you so physically. So I was abused in all of these ways, and I never made the connection that these things were an issue.

Additionally, substance abuse escalation can also be a good indicator that they're going to start to feel more powerful, and that will lead to physical abuse. But I missed it all.

Kerry: [00:04:00] There is a video that just recently was published that someone, I think, put on TikTok. Maybe it was even Ro. Ro might have done it where she showed up. Someone surveyed their home, and it had been destroyed. I mean, holes in walls, doors damaged, maybe even knobs pulled off. It just looked trashed, and she said, "This is a sign that you're next," or something like that. It was really powerful. I didn't see that either. I completely missed it as well. And thinking back to my relationship, I know now because I interviewed the past wives, at least one of them admitted he'd been physically abusive to her, probably pretty horrifically. And he admitted to me that he strangled one of the other wives as well, but in my relationship with him, it went pretty quiet, very pleasant, civil.

And interesting— we never yelled. There were no screaming arguments in our house, no name-calling. But now that you're saying all of this, I recognize there had been a pattern of escalation. It started out with throwing phones against the wall. He once rushed me, got right into my face, and raised a fist and said I was really lucky. Or storming out, but I later learned that he was storming out and trashing property around us, like public property, and destroying stuff when he got away from me.

You know what was a tipping point for me? He escalated to a personal attack near the end and started screaming at me about how stupid I was, and I didn’t think. And I realize now, just as you were talking, I had this flash of, "Kerry, if you'd stayed, it would have continued to worsen." That was actually the next step. That was the next progression. And it wouldn't be long before he would be putting his hands on me. He'd put his hands on other women. Why wouldn't he put his hands on me? We were going to get there. And I think what was so powerful about your story is the length of time that it took. This wasn't overnight. This wasn’t over a weekend. This was, I think, seven years?

Lisa: [00:06:00] Yeah.

Kerry: Seven years.

Lisa: Seven years he didn’t put his hands on me. And I said, I never in a million years would have thought that he would. The escalation was absolutely shocking because what you hear is that abuse is progressive. It escalates, and they punch the wall, they snatch your purse, they block you, they pinch you, push you, pull you— and then strangulation. So it was quite an intense jump, and I didn't recognize even that. But I wish that I had. I should have left before the strangulation, but I certainly should have left immediately after. And the consequence of that was that I didn’t, and it continued.

I mean, there was a chunk of time where he didn't put his hands on me again after that first incident, about a year. And then it started again, and not strangulation, but other quite major assaults. But even between that, I was still experiencing the blocking, the stalking, and just things that you don't quite recognize that will escalate to physical violence. You know, I recognize now he very much saw me as his property. The amount of times that he would refer to me as his partner— "You're my partner," "My partner is doing this," "My partner called the police," "My partner is hurting me, harming me, keeping kids from me." It was constantly in that language. But that possessiveness is also a sign of escalation. The ownership increases.

Kerry: [00:07:00] Oh yeah. I was— I was his wife. "My wife." He would refer to me as "My wife." You're right. There's a possessiveness. And then he gave me a pet name, which he called me "Gorgeous," and he constantly referred to me— like multiple times in a sentence, he would use the word "Gorgeous." It was ad nauseam. I mean, it was a ridiculous amount. And I just had this insight— and I don't know, I'm just throwing this out there as a hunch— is that even that, that he named me. He didn’t use my name, he named me. You see what I'm saying? So it was like he got to put his stamp on it because he put a name on this. Just like you get a dog or get a pet, you name them. I just had— oh my goodness, this is just like mind-blowing.

Lisa: It's dehumanizing. And I think that’s what allows them to be physically abusive because you’re not a person— you belong to them. So even that ownership is an escalation of the violence. Mine also stripped me of my name and used the nickname. You see that pretty commonly. And it’s not always just "baby," right? But there’s an ownership, and the abuse that followed— it still constantly escalated. Pacing in the driveway even after we split up— the post-separation aspect of it, the violence [00:08:00] was still there. It was really scary.

Kerry: Why do you think we miss it? Why do you think we don’t see it?

Lisa: I think because of its progression. I mean, it really speaks to the conditioning and the grooming. "I didn’t abuse you," or "I mean, mine wasn’t abusive— don't be ridiculous." Because throwing something, isn’t that the message? The message is, "You’re next." The message is, "I can cause harm." I didn’t cause harm to you, but it gives them a way to evade the accountability because they didn’t actually touch you. But they were meant to scare you. And even in Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft, some of those men that he studied admitted, "I was driving recklessly because I wanted to scare her." "I punched a wall because I wanted her to know my power." They want you to be afraid. It’s, I think, an escalation specific to gaining compliance. They want control, so they use fear to gain that. But as you are not falling into line or pushing back in any way, they will push harder. Punching a wall used to work, now they have to push you.

Kerry: [00:09:00] I have a little bit of a different perspective. So here’s another possibility, and I do think that absolutely is true in some cases. I think also that they're moving through their own disinhibitions. Initially, when they first meet you, yes, they want to acquire you— you aren’t theirs, but there’s a sense, at least, that you’re separate. Maybe they don’t see you as human, but they at least see you as not attached to them. And then, as you get into a relationship with them over time, I think that sense of ownership increases. You become more "theirs." And as you, in their mind, become more "theirs," they think they have more rights to exert their control and entitlement over you, which then gives them permission.

Here’s another theory, too, and this is one of the big caveats I want to say to everybody listening. Please don’t oversimplify things. Humans will never fully understand any human being— there are so many variables occurring at the same time. But here’s another possible variable that may be impacting it: It may be that they have an inhibition in themselves. This may be a new behavior that they feel they have a right to, but they've not done it before. So they have to overcome their own sense of taboo. They have to overcome that this is a wrong thing to do and become increasingly comfortable. And every time they cross a line and there aren’t any consequences for it, they feel like, "Okay, I can cross that line again." And they become increasingly comfortable with crossing lines.

It’s as if they desensitize themselves to the bad behavior. And in our lack of calling it out— not meaning to be gender-specific, but women in particular tend to have been socialized to "be nice," "don’t make people feel uncomfortable," "model good behavior, and that will get good behavior back." We have been socialized to think that we can affect people's behavior in these passive ways, not realizing that it's not a language they understand. They need direct communication of, "No, that’s wrong, don’t do that." And when we don’t do that, they essentially see that as us giving permission, or at least accepting it. So then they think, "She’s never complained, so why is there an issue?"

Lisa: [00:11:00] "Why do I have to stop now?"

Kerry: Exactly. I think there are a lot of variables that come into play here that really make it challenging. And it is interesting how we diminish that. I think, culturally, we don’t like to admit that people are violent, that there is a dark side to people, that there’s sadism. So we tend to write it off as, "Oh, they had a bad day," or "They’re hungry," or "He probably was too stressed." They’ll put the responsibility on the victim, gaslighting them, saying, "What did you do to incite that? You must have done something, because people just don’t do that." No, actually, often there’s nothing that happens dynamically between the two of you.

In fact, the incident that happened for me near the end— he was fighting with a chair, an outdoor lawn chair embedded in the rocks. It had been sitting there too long, and the lawn had kind of grown over the rungs because it’s one of those chairs, like a rocker. He was fighting with it, and then he started screaming at me because he was fighting with the chair. I had nothing to do with that. I was in the pool having a quiet swim, and suddenly it was, "What’s wrong with you? You’re stupid. You never think anything through." I'm thinking, "Jeez." So I think there are a lot of things that happen culturally where we minimize this behavior, and we give abusive people passes.

Lisa: [00:13:00] We do. I know I did. And you know something that's really, I think, interesting— I share this story because anyone that I’ve told this to, they’re like, "Oh, I really needed to hear that." But I did not call the police for nine months after one of the most major assaults. And the story that my abuser will tell people is that I was fine with that, it never happened. Then nine months later, I just randomly go to the police because I was mad that he left me. Now, the part he skips is that he assaulted me maybe 30 times in between when the major assault happened and when I called the police. And the reason I called was not because I just randomly decided on some Tuesday to finally do something about it. I was actually threatened using Children's Services. They were like, "People can lose their kids if you’re exposing them to abuse."

Kerry: Yeah.

Lisa: Which is a whole separate topic that is wild— that I would be in trouble for exposing them, not the person who’s perpetrating the abuse. But that aside.

Kerry: Yeah, they call it collusion.

Lisa: [00:14:00] Right. Which is such a hard topic. And I try to see it that way. It’s hard when you’re in the situation, but I didn’t recognize it as abuse. Even still, despite a major assault, despite strangulation, despite having my head bashed into my kitchen sink, despite being dragged out of bed by my feet and onto the floor in the middle of the night— all of these things. And when I was talking to Children’s Protective Services, she said something about him having beaten me. And I was like, "Well no, he didn’t beat me, that’s not what happened." She was like, "Can I just stop you for a moment? I think you're really minimizing and downplaying what happened." You know, I was getting into the specifics of the word she used— that he beat me. But because he didn’t use his fists and attack me, I was rationalizing, "Well no, it wasn’t a beating. He dragged me out of bed, it wasn’t a beating. He bashed my head, and he strangled me." She was like, "You have been assaulted. You have been abused." The way she said it— I can remember, I’m almost getting goosebumps even thinking about it— it was such a powerful moment that I realized that in some way, I was still defending. I was still saying it wasn’t abuse, even after all of that, and it’s because it had been so slow. It’s like, "He wouldn’t abuse me, that’s not— it was too heavy for me." And I think we also deny the escalation or deny that it could be what's going to happen to us because we're afraid. Maybe because of cognitive dissonance, certainly because of a trauma bond. But we're afraid— that can’t be real. We just deny that it could ever happen to us.

Kerry: [00:15:00] I think it’s even more insidious than that. I think it’s that we haven’t learned to recognize disrespect as a form of dehumanization, which is a form of abuse. So, you just shared with me recently a TikTok— I think it was yesterday— about a woman who wondered if she was the asshole because she divorced her husband over tightening the jar lids too tight.

Lisa: Yes.

Kerry: That was so powerful to me. So, let me share what that TikTok was about. This woman had been with her partner for seven years. It was not a short time— that's my point. It wasn’t short. Maybe five to seven years. But he had a tendency that all the jars in their house, he overtightened to the point that she couldn’t open them. And she’d asked him multiple times not to do that. When he wasn’t around, she’d often have to resort to opening a new jar or going to the store to get a new jar because she’d be so frustrated because the jar was impossible to open. When he was around, he could open them, but he kept doing it, claiming he didn’t know why he was overtightening the jars. So, he happened to go out of town for 10 days. And she, of course, hit a jar she needed to open and couldn’t. She asked the neighbor man to come help, or he happened to stop by and he helped. And then he said, "Hey, let me know if you have another jar that you need help with."

So, he said, "Why don’t I open all the jars in the house? Just so you have them all open so that you can use them while your husband’s gone." And what they found— and this guy said this wasn’t intentional— that one of the jars her husband would have never even gotten into (it was way back in the back of the refrigerator) was overtightened. It was specifically for one dish, only used to make one dish. So, it wasn’t something you’d use for a sandwich, it wasn’t something you’d put on toast. He would never have opened this jar, but it was overtightened. And so the neighbor said to her, "Ma’am, you know this was intentional because every jar, every jar in the house was overtightened." And it was that realization that she knew her husband had done this. Maybe he’ll never own that he was that aggressive or that sadistic— which it is, it's a form of sadism— but he had purposely gone through the refrigerator and maybe everywhere and overtightened every single jar in the house.

Lisa: [00:17:00] Yeah, we miss that as disrespect. He’s basically saying, "You don’t count. I get to set the tone and the rules in this house, and you’re going to need me." And I was even thinking just this last week— I was looking at houses because my son and I are buying a house together. And I was uncomfortable, and in that moment, I thought, "I'm making a funny joke about my son and using my son as the butt of the joke." Because I grew up, we did that to each other, and I caught myself and said, "Why would you do that to somebody?" I'm feeling now emotional. "Why would you do that to somebody you love? You're uncomfortable, so don’t throw somebody else under the bus to lighten the mood so that you feel less stress." That's cruel. That doesn’t show love. Love doesn’t do that.

And I think we’ve gotten acclimated to not recognize that any of this behavior— all of it— is wrong. It’s wrong to diminish somebody. It’s wrong to invalidate them. It’s wrong to gaslight them. It's certainly wrong to lay hands on them or throw things. It’s amazing how we’ve been taught, "Well, people just do that. It’s normal." No, it’s not normal. And all of this— you cross those lines— we’re also being desensitized. We're being desensitized to think it's okay to be treated this way. We fail to recognize that we’re allowing ourselves to be dehumanized.

Lisa: [00:18:00] It’s hard to see it that way, though, in the moment. You know, I remember— like when he... well, frankly, all of the stories are going to be, "He was drunk." But the strangulation— like, he was drunk, and we were arguing, and I yelled at him. I did. I didn’t attack him. I didn’t come at him, but I absolutely yelled. And somehow that means I get strangled?

Kerry: Yeah.

Lisa: It’s crazy.

Kerry: Did you hold yourself responsible for that? Like, "Because I yelled at him, therefore it was my fault." Did you do that?

Lisa: No, I didn’t. But I did associate it with him being drunk. It was because of the alcohol.

Kerry: Yeah, one of the things you and I both know is that this escalation is a bad pattern. Do you happen to know anything about it? Maybe you know the statistics about it. I don’t mean to put you on the spot. I know that I— I haven’t looked them up, but I do know this: strangulation is one of the worst warning signs. If somebody has put their hands on you and choked you, for one, it’s dangerous. I don’t think most of us appreciate that. That risks harm, literal harm. It can stop oxygen and cause brain death as a result of that. So that's never to be taken lightly. Not ever.

Lisa: [00:19:00] The statistic is that you are 500 times— 500 times— more likely to be murdered.

Kerry: Wow.

Lisa: It is a near guarantee that the next step at some point— it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And sometimes I have these moments, and— talk about getting emotional— but like, I shouldn’t be here to tell this story. I shouldn’t be here to be able to talk about this. If he had it his way, at some point, I would not be here. And so, you know, people all the time will kind of minimize it, or like, "Yeah, but you know, he didn’t kill you," or "It wasn’t that bad," or even in my specific circumstance, "He was strangling me, and then he just stopped. He just stopped." And I think probably he had a moment where he realized he was, I don’t know, too angry. I ran out of the house with plans to never come back. And of course, I was back in like two hours. He didn’t even apologize. And I felt like, "Well, he must be sorry because any normal person would be sorry." He just struggles to say the words. He struggles to control his anger. I was still making all these excuses, but I definitely know the statistics.

And something that’s interesting about strangulation as well is that people think that if you didn’t die in that moment, okay, phew— you know, you’re home free. There can be damage later. If you couldn’t breathe for a period of time, that can cause brain damage. What if you passed out? It can do damage to your throat that could cause problems later. So it’s not just like a, "Woo, you survived that, you’re all good." You’re at risk of being murdered, and you should seek medical attention immediately. But we don’t seek medical attention because you don’t think it was that bad, and nothing happened, and you’re fine, and you don’t want to get them in trouble, and you can’t break up your family, and all the things that we tell ourselves.

Kerry: [00:21:00] And I think that there’s a big psychological block for many of us to accept the reality that we're living with a partner who may sometimes not want us to exist. That’s a very hard thing to swallow. I truly believe that mine was intentionally trying to kill me. And that he was slowly, over time— in fact, I was just looking at the details of that, looking at my list of symptoms and the hospitalizations that were occurring around that— he was trying to do away with me. And the idea that I had been sleeping next to somebody who quietly, insidiously, was trying to do away with me... it’s really hard to swallow. It’s sickening because on one level I end up thinking, "How could I have missed this? What was wrong with me?" We're not seeing that this person really truly didn’t love me.

But it also is just unfathomable to think that somebody would have that kind of potential— that duality— because they act so kind and loving and sweet. You think that a murderous person should consistently look like a villain, and they don’t. They actually look really wonderful, like the best person you could ever meet in your life. So this dichotomy just makes no sense. And I think we then say, "Well, it can’t be real. If it doesn’t make sense, it just can’t be real." So I’m just going to do away with the part that feels too difficult. I know that’s what I did. I remember, Lisa, looking [00:22:00] up— sitting next to him— the signs of arsenic poisoning. I remember sitting there next to him, googling, trying to find what causes white lines across the fingernails. And yet I continued to live with him and plan a vacation. If you look at my behavior and my thought pattern, it makes no sense, but I couldn’t make it make sense. So it is easy to deny. "It just isn’t happening." "He didn’t really mean that." "I must be, you know, overreacting." Even now I’m like, "Did that really? I mean, I remember it happening..." but even now, I think, "Did that really happen?"

Lisa: Absolutely the same. Like, I know that my head really hurt the next day. I know. I remember the headache. I remember the feeling of a bruise because it was under my hair, but I remember this. And he will constantly say that he just pushed me into the kitchen to get me to talk to him in the kitchen.

Kerry: Yeah.

Lisa: [00:23:00] No. It doesn’t align with the bruising. It doesn’t align with how I felt, but you still are like, "But did that happen?" Because the conditioning... people don’t really realize how painful it is to accept reality. And sometimes that's why. We just can’t accept it. It’s too painful. It’s all subconscious. It’s not a decision we make to not believe it.

Kerry: No, no. In fact, Jennifer Freyd, in her book Blinded by Betrayal, says it’s betrayal blindness. That literally the mind says in that moment, "I cannot hold this truth. It is too distressing psychologically. So I will pretend that this truth doesn’t exist." And in that moment— she uses the word "blind" literally— we cannot see it. We are blind to the truth. And I know I was blinded to the truth. I was blinded to a lot of the truth. And that’s super scary.

Well, this has been, I know, a very big topic. What I’d love to do is jump over to the podcast extra with you and talk about what to do if you start to see that there’s an escalating pattern, or even what maybe is the first sign of the pattern, and where the escalation is going to go. But I want to give some [00:24:00] practical strategies so that people know how to manage this if this is something they recognize in their life.

Thank you so much for this conversation today.

Lisa: Amazing, thank you.

Kerry: Well, that’s a wrap for this week's episode. Are you following me on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube? Find me at Kerry McAvoy PhD. And whether you're in, considering leaving, or have left a narcissistic relationship, find community support at my Toxic Free Relationship Club. You can learn about this resource as well as others at kerrymcavoyphd.com. And I'll see you back here next week.