How to Reframe from Victim to Empowerment in Your Relationships

By Laura K. Connell.

If you grew up in a dysfunctional home, you may find yourself in all kinds of toxic relationships as an adult. You may believe, and have even been told, that you “attract” these dynamics. But, the truth is, sometimes toxic people target you because they want what you have.

In this article, we’ll discuss how you can make the shift from a victim to empowerment mentality when it comes to relating. And how you can break free from old patterns and make conscious choices that create healthy connections in your life.

Why is it important to change from victim to empowerment?

A victim mentality tells us that things happen to us and there’s little we can do to impact that. It’s the reason you might get into toxic relationships over and over again or say that you have a “faulty picker”.

Feeling like a victim keeps you stuck and prevents you from making choices that could free you from a life you don’t want. It has you believing that you keep attracting the same types and there’s nothing you can do about that.

Or it prevents you from standing up for yourself in a relationship or making plans to leave. Neither of these is easy, and sometimes both can be dangerous (when dealing with a narcissist, for example). 

But keeping things the way they are will never make your life better. Chances are, you will shrink, and your circumstances will only get worse.

Playing Small

When you feel like the victim in your relationship, you will inevitably play small. You focus on pleasing the other person and doing whatever it takes to keep them happy.

Your needs get put on the backburner as you contort yourself to adapt to what the other person wants. But, they’re never happy anyway. As a friend of mine said, “I’m a people pleaser, but no one’s ever pleased with me!”

How do you make the shift?

Moving from victim to empowerment mentality does not mean you have not been victimized. As I wrote at the beginning of this article, you may not “attract” toxic people as much as they target you.

Toxic people, especially narcissists, set their sights on people who have something they want. They didn’t pick you because you’re broken, quite the opposite. 

You lend them status or something else that feeds their need for supply. That’s why they executed a manipulative campaign to get you to fall for them (sometimes referred to as “love bombing”).

That’s the first place to make a mental shift. Realize that a toxic person may have pursued you, not because there’s something wrong with you, but because there was so much right with you.

Some toxic people seek out highly attractive, empathic, and successful partners. The higher you are on the pedestal, the more sadistic pleasure they get in making you topple off.

Establish boundaries early

In victim mode, you relax your standards because you’re afraid of losing someone. For example, you said you would never have a relationship with someone who does ‘x’ but when they do, you make an exception.

Instead of heeding red flags, you overlook them and make excuses for the person. Or you take everything they tell you at face value, even when things don’t add up.

One way to become more empowered is to set your standards ahead of time and reinforce them early in the relationship. Boundaries are the best defense against a toxic person and prevent them from getting in.

Unfortunately, a victim will decide it’s better to keep the person and not set the boundary. Empowerment knows that boundaries keep bad people out and good people in, and there are hefty consequences for not having them.

Be honest with yourself

Are you telling the hard truth about your circumstances? Or do you engage in fantasy thinking, seeing the relationship through rose-colored glasses?

When you first meet someone, you want to observe them to see if you are compatible. That’s normally based on values, and you have to know yours to be able to make this assessment.

Be truthful with yourself about what you really want and don’t settle for less. Pay attention to your intuition when it tells you something is off instead of brushing it away because you’re afraid to be alone.

Self-fulfillment

Understand that no one and nothing outside of you can fulfill you. That’s an inside job and it’s essential to become the source of your own happiness if you want to avoid toxic relationships.

When you are content with yourself, you lose the desperate need to escape loneliness. You no longer believe you need someone else to rescue you from your isolation.

Last Words

Now, you know how to reframe from a victim to empowerment mentality when it comes to relationships. You have the power to change the nature of your connections.

It means taking the blinders off and doing the hard work of establishing boundaries and being honest with yourself. Instead of entertaining fantasies, you tell yourself the harsh truth about the reality of the situation.

From there you can make new choices that produce better results. And that’s how you get the life you want.

Laura K. Connell is a trauma-informed author & coach who helps you recover from the devastating impact of narcissistic and family scapegoat abuse. Take the Dysfunctional Family Roles quiz here: https://www.laurakconnell.com/dysfunctional-family-roles-quiz