Consistent Contradiction
1 min readSep 22, 2021

I think your question is really complicated so I'm just going to go for it. :) So, first, ordering anyone to do anything is problematic. (Barring some consensual sexual context.) Ordering someone around sounds both angry and infantilizing. So I'd bet on "ordering" as an abuse indicator.

Sleep on the sofa? What's the context? Does she have COVID? Did he just discover she is cheating on him? I give these two specific examples because I think that sometimes one person asking a partner to sleep on the couch can be a one-off indicator of gosh I'm really angry with you or I am freaked out and frightened, and not abuse. If it happens 2 or 3 times, yeah, abuse. But if she just came home and said she was having an affair, and he reacts by angrily ordering her to sleep on the couch, he's just reacting.

Being ordered to leave the house is more extreme, but in the scenario above, I think he's responding to abuse by drawing a boundary. Maybe his response is imperfect, but I don't think it's abusive in that case.

This is a best guess - talk me out of my view! Yeah!

Is there a pattern of this jerk ordering her to sleep on the couch or get out? Then he's abusive. (She guessed again. Boldly.)

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Consistent Contradiction
Consistent Contradiction

Written by Consistent Contradiction

philosopher, psychedelics enthusiast, cat lover, communist, passionate about TV writing for social change.

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