Is This Really Love? How to Recognize Coercion, Control, and Emotional Abuse in Relationships and Leave Them

Do you feel like you’re living in a relationship where you’re controlled or emotionally suppressed? Do you constantly feel tension and anxiety? Does your partner demand the impossible, and when you don’t meet expectations, press, manipulate, blame, make you doubt yourself, or humiliate you? Do you find yourself pulling away from friends and family just so you won’t “ruin” the relationship?

If this describes you, this isn’t about love. It’s about coercion and violence. Acknowledging it is painful, but that’s exactly where the return to yourself—and to your own life—begins. This book by Lia Aguirre will help you recognize the “red flags”—signs of emotional abuse and control—and find your inner support so you can set boundaries and get free from other people’s demands.

You’ll learn tools from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), as well as practical exercises to support your self-esteem and help you put your own needs first. Getting out of toxic relationships is possible—even if it feels unreachable right now. This book will be a careful and reliable guide to freedom and inner resilience.

What the book covers
The book explains how emotional abuse works and what it leads to. At the beginning, you’ll understand how a healthy partnership differs from an abusive one, what forms emotional pressure takes, and why it’s so easy not to notice in the early stages. A dedicated section focuses on the abuser: their motives and internal mechanisms—so you can understand why change is most often impossible or extremely unlikely.

Then you’ll turn inward to your own experience: you’ll be able to make sense of the feelings you lived through in the relationship and see how they affected your sense of safety, self-esteem, work, friendships, and relationships with loved ones. You’ll encounter cognitive dissonance—the clash between love and hope and the reality of pain and chaos—and you’ll be able to honestly acknowledge your expectations and illusions.

Separate chapters address leaving abusive relationships: why breaking up is so hard, where guilt comes from, how a partner may resist, and why it’s vital to establish clear boundaries. You’ll learn the principles of assertive communication and develop self-protection skills in difficult situations.

A great deal of attention is given to the consequences of emotional abuse. You’ll learn what complex trauma is, how it manifests in the body and psyche, and why—after a breakup—you may feel both relief and grief at the same time. Next, you’ll revisit the deep beliefs formed under the influence of violence and begin the path toward self-compassion and recovery.

The final chapters focus on growth and the future: returning to your own values, recognizing your rights, moving from codependency to interdependence, and creating a life that truly fits you. The book includes exercises for independent practice.

Why you should read this book
Emotional abuse rarely begins abruptly—it builds up slowly and gradually becomes “normal.” At some point, you notice: Why do I feel so bad? Why does my partner seem to “come alive” when I’m struggling? Why do arguments start exactly when I manage to do something well? Sometimes a thought flashes through your mind: He does it on purpose—to hurt me and put me in my place. But then doubt follows: “That’s strange… Why would he do that? Maybe I’m exaggerating…” Meanwhile, stress is eroding your health. You’re blamed, you explain yourself, you defend yourself—and you can no longer tell what exactly you’re being accused of. A sense of helplessness and defeat appears, as if you’ve lost touch with your former self.

This book clarifies what for a long time seemed like a fog and helps bring order to what was chaos. After reading it, you will:
• learn to recognize coercion and control—the key markers of emotional abuse;
• notice common but hard-to-detect patterns in these relationships;
• understand why leaving is so difficult and why doubt doesn’t make you weak;
• learn how to prepare for a breakup, especially if you share a home, have children, or depend financially;
• begin rebuilding self-esteem and trust in your own feelings;
• get exercises that will help you better understand your needs and desires.

The author—a trauma therapist with extensive clinical and personal experience—will carefully guide you through the key stages: from recognizing what’s happening to setting boundaries, preparing for separation, and recovering afterward. The book includes many real-life examples that support you and help strengthen inner resilience on the path to freedom.

Who this book is for
This book is for you if:
• you are in a relationship involving control, manipulation, and emotional pressure;
• you’re not sure whether your relationship can be called healthy and you want to honestly sort things out;
• you want to break out of the repeating cycle of relationships with manipulators, controlling partners, or abusive partners;
• you want mature, respectful, and open partnership—but you keep running into pain and dead ends;
• you work with people as a professional (psychologist, psychotherapist, consultant) and want to understand more deeply the nature of emotional abuse and safe exit strategies.

Why we decided to publish it
We chose this book because physical abuse is easier for most people to recognize and condemn, while emotional abuse still often remains unnoticed. It doesn’t leave visible traces, but it destroys your sense of safety and reliance on yourself. Many people live with this experience for years without finding words for what’s happening, taking it for “just ordinary relationship difficulties.”

We wanted to offer readers a precise, honest, and professional orientation. This book calls things by their real names, shows the subtle mechanisms of control and coercion, yet does so gently—without pressure or accusations. The author combines evidence-based therapeutic approaches with real stories and support for those who find it hard to admit the truth and commit to change.

This book helps you restore your inner support: it offers knowledge that can change your life and brings acceptance to where loneliness and shame usually remain. This is an important conversation for society—and we’re glad to help make it heard.

About the author
Lia Aguirre, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker. She primarily works with people who have experienced complex trauma, including childhood abuse, domestic violence, and abuse in romantic relationships. In her practice, she uses trauma-informed approaches, including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).

Key concepts
psychology, relationships, feelings, abuse, violence, emotional abuse, abusers, healthy relationships, relationship psychology