Is This Really Love?: Recognizing When You're in a Coercive, Controlling, and Emotionally Abusive Relationship—and How to Break Free

It’s time to take back control. If you’re in a coercive or emotionally abusive relationship, this trauma-informed guide can help you gain clarity—and courage to break free.

Do you suspect you’re in a coercive, controlling, or emotionally abusive relationship? Does your partner have unreasonable expectations of you, or cause you to feel anxious or stressed? Do they make you feel guilty for spending time with other people? Are they manipulative, blaming, gaslighting, and shaming when they don’t get what they want? Do you want to leave, but feel like you just can’t ? When we think of emotional abuse, we usually think of verbal aggression and yelling; but often it can also be subtle, nuanced, and difficult to recognize.

Written by a psychotherapist and relationship expert, this trauma-informed guide spotlights the red flags of coercive control , and provides powerful tools to help you break free from a toxic love relationship and gain the autonomy needed to live your life fully—without fear, guilt, or intimidation. Drawing on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), EMDR, motivational interviewing, and self-compassion skills, this book will help you identify your core values, rebuild your confidence and self-worth, and learn to set essential boundaries.

Coercive control and emotional abuse create an unequal power dynamic—giving your partner power and creating anxiety, confusion, self-doubt, fear, and a sense of entrapment for you. But you can change course and take back your life. This book will show you how, step by step.