After 15 years of gaslighting, how can I be sure I wasn’t the problem?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
Release Date: 06/29/2025
After 15 years of gaslighting, how can I be sure I wasn’t the problem?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who spent 15 years in a marriage marked by gaslighting—and is now left questioning whether he was truly the problem all along. Angela explores: • What gaslighting actually is, and why it’s so damaging • How gaslighting erodes your ability to trust your own reality • Why people who worry about being good are rarely the problem • How internalized voices of abusive partners keep us stuck in cycles of self-doubt • Why proving your goodness never leads to...
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Why won't my partner take emotional responsibility in our relationship?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who’s grown through self-reflection and personal responsibility but feels stuck with a spouse who avoids doing the same. Angela explores: • Why trying to convince your partner to change often backfires • The difference between blame and honest self-reflection • What emotional responsibility looks like in healthy relationships • How to speak your truth without getting pulled into defensiveness • Why it’s not your job to manage your partner’s growth • What to do when...
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I grew up with constant fighting. Now I shut down during conflict. How can I work through this?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
What do you do when your body goes into shutdown mode during relationship conflict—especially when you want to do better but feel frozen in the moment? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who struggles to stay engaged during difficult conversations with his girlfriend: shutting down, freezing, and going blank under stress. Angela explores: • Why your nervous system may interpret conflict as danger • How the “freeze” response is a trauma-based form of protection • What it means to expand your “window of...
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My spouse and I both have past trauma and poor communication skills. Is it possible to get better together?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
Is it possible to heal old wounds and build a stronger relationship—even if both you and your partner have past trauma? What happens when one person is ready to grow, and the other is unsure? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener wondering whether it's possible for a struggling marriage to heal when both partners bring communication struggles and unhealed trauma into the relationship. Angela explores: How relationship patterns rooted in trauma often run on autopilot Why the first step toward change is gaining awareness...
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How do I foster growth in my relationship without my partner’s help?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
What do you do when you want to grow closer—and your partner keeps putting you off? Can you improve your relationship when your partner isn’t willing to work on communication? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who feels stuck: she keeps trying to have real conversations with her partner, but he avoids every attempt, leaving her feeling unheard, frustrated, and blamed for being “too emotional.” Angela explores: Why you can’t fix communication problems by working harder alone How avoidance and deflection...
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How do I stop being so defensive in my relationship?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
Why is it so hard to stay open when your partner brings up something that’s bothering them? Why do even small criticisms feel like attacks—and how do you change that pattern? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who wants to learn how to stay present and listen when her partner shares concerns, instead of falling into automatic defensiveness. Angela explores: Why defensiveness often starts as a survival strategy in early relationships How our bodies react before our awareness can catch up Why honoring your defensive...
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How do I let go of the hurt from being treated badly by someone I loved?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
How do you grieve a relationship that wasn’t all bad—but wasn’t good for you either? How do you heal when your heart is broken not just by loss, but by the way you were treated? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who asks how to release the grief and hurt of being treated badly by someone she deeply cared for. Angela explores: Why breakups after hurtful relationships trigger a unique and complicated grief How to hold space for both the good memories and the painful reality Why friends’ well-meaning support can...
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How do I get over trust issues and stop ruining my relationships?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
How do you stop sabotaging relationships when your trust issues keep getting in the way? Can you really learn to trust again after betrayal—or are you doomed to repeat the same painful patterns? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who is struggling with deep trust issues that continue to harm his relationships, even when he knows his fears aren’t based in reality. Angela explores: Why betrayal trauma rewires our ability to trust How fear and anxiety can masquerade as intuition Why seeking constant reassurance from a...
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I have complex trauma from childhood. How do I learn to love myself?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
How do you begin to love yourself when you were never properly nurtured? What does healing look like when you feel like you don’t even know who you are? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener struggling with complex trauma from childhood—and the painful realization that self-love feels almost impossible. Angela explores: Why missing early nurturing makes it harder to know—and care for—yourself How childhood survival strategies often lead to codependent patterns in adulthood Why getting to know yourself is the first...
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Why do people ghost after intimacy or conflict in relationships?
Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma
Why do people suddenly disappear after a deep connection—or after a conflict? Is it about you, or about their own fears? In this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who asks why men often ghost after intimacy or when tensions arise. Angela explores: Why ghosting is often a fear-based response to vulnerability, not a personal rejection How trauma histories can make intimacy feel dangerous instead of safe Why conflict, even minor conflict, can trigger fight, flight, or freeze responses in relationships How ghosting can function...
info_outlineIn this episode of Ask Angela: Relationship Advice for Love After Trauma, Angela Amias responds to a listener who spent 15 years in a marriage marked by gaslighting—and is now left questioning whether he was truly the problem all along.
Angela explores:
• What gaslighting actually is, and why it’s so damaging
• How gaslighting erodes your ability to trust your own reality
• Why people who worry about being good are rarely the problem
• How internalized voices of abusive partners keep us stuck in cycles of self-doubt
• Why proving your goodness never leads to healing—and what to do instead
• Practical tools for reclaiming your inner trust and building a compassionate relationship with yourself
If you’ve ever struggled to trust yourself after emotional abuse, this episode offers grounded, hopeful guidance for finding your way back to your own heart.
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✫ Because love after trauma takes a different kind of wisdom—and you don’t have to figure it out alone.
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