Private Self Assessment
Is This My Life?
For women who know something is wrong but cannot find the words. Read each statement slowly. Mark how often it reflects your experience.
For women who know something is wrong but cannot find the words. Read each statement slowly. Mark how often it reflects your experience.
There is no score. There is no threshold you have to reach before what you are experiencing counts. This is not a clinical tool. It is a mirror. If you find yourself saying that is me more than once, keep reading. That recognition matters.
This page does not save or store your answers. Nothing you mark here is visible to anyone else. This is entirely private.
Work through it at your own pace. Your first instinct is usually the honest one.
| Statement | Never | Sometimes | Often | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I hold my breath when I hear his key in the door because I do not know which version of him I am about to face. | ||||
| I feel a sick, nervous feeling in my stomach before I get home. | ||||
| I feel relief when he is not home. | ||||
| I lie awake at night after an argument still carrying it while he sleeps like nothing happened. | ||||
| The next morning he acts like nothing happened. Somehow, I am the one who ends up apologising or getting over it. | ||||
| Home does not feel like somewhere I can exhale. | ||||
| I am always bracing for something even on the good days. |
| Statement | Never | Sometimes | Often | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I rehearse conversations before I have them so I do not say the wrong thing. | ||||
| I can tell what kind of night it is going to be within seconds of walking through the door. | ||||
| I monitor his mood constantly and adjust my behaviour to manage it. | ||||
| I have become an expert at preventing or avoiding the arguments before they start. | ||||
| Before I even put my bag down I am already assessing whether tonight is going to be peaceful or punishing. | ||||
| I spend more energy managing his moods than I do on anything else in my life. | ||||
| I know exactly which topics will start something so I avoid them entirely. |
| Statement | Never | Sometimes | Often | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| He says things that are so personal and cutting I cannot unhear them. | ||||
| The things he says go to the bare bones of who I am. He knows exactly where to aim. | ||||
| He can switch from the worst version of himself to completely normal in minutes. | ||||
| I have started to wonder if I am imagining things because he seems so certain it did not happen the way I remember. | ||||
| I find myself apologising or dropping the subject even when I did not do anything wrong, just to make the tension stop. | ||||
| I have said things to myself like: at least he does not hit me. | ||||
| The arguments leave me feeling worthless in a way that takes days to shake. |
| Statement | Never | Sometimes | Often | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everyone who knows him thinks he is wonderful. Funny. Charming. The person everyone wants around. | ||||
| If I tried to describe what happens at home nobody would believe me because of who they think he is. | ||||
| He can perform warmth for others and then close the door and become someone completely different. | ||||
| I have become very good at acting normal in public even when everything is not normal. | ||||
| I smile and say thank you when people tell me how lucky I am. | ||||
| I have sat in meetings, given presentations, attended events on the same day I was not sure I was going to be okay. |
| Statement | Never | Sometimes | Often | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I feel competent and capable at work but completely unable to manage what is happening at home. | ||||
| He makes me feel like my professional confidence is the problem in our relationship. | ||||
| I have stopped trusting my own memory because he sounds so certain when he tells me I am wrong. | ||||
| At work everyone thinks I am great. At home I am made to feel useless. | ||||
| I have started to believe some of the things he says about me. | ||||
| I am so ashamed of what is happening that I cannot tell the people who could actually help. | ||||
| I keep thinking if I could just explain myself better, be calmer, be softer, maybe this would stop. | ||||
| I have been performing a version of myself that is fine for so long I am not sure who I actually am. |
| Statement | Never | Sometimes | Often | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I have to justify where I spend money even though I earn it. | ||||
| He lives his lifestyle without question while I account for every purchase. | ||||
| I have no real idea what our financial position is because I am kept away from it. | ||||
| I earn a salary but I have less financial freedom than people who earn far less than I do. | ||||
| I am given an amount and expected to manage within it. | ||||
| He decides what the household needs. I get what is left. | ||||
| I would not know where to begin if I had to manage my finances alone. |
| Statement | Never | Sometimes | Often | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I have stopped seeing friends as much because it is easier than dealing with his reaction. | ||||
| When I do see people I go alone and make excuses for why he is not there. | ||||
| I have stopped telling people things about my life because explaining it is exhausting. | ||||
| I have made myself smaller to avoid conflict with him. | ||||
| The people closest to me do not know what is actually happening. | ||||
| I feel lonely even when I am surrounded by people. | ||||
| I have lost friendships because I could not sustain them and manage him at the same time. | ||||
| I cannot remember the last time I made a decision without thinking about his reaction first. |
| Statement | Never | Sometimes | Often | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I worry about what the children are absorbing even when they are not directly involved. | ||||
| He puts me down in front of the children and I smile and pretend it did not happen. | ||||
| I work hard to protect the children from what is happening between us. | ||||
| I have caught myself wondering what they are learning about relationships from what they see at home. | ||||
| The children come home from time with him unsettled in ways I cannot ask about. | ||||
| Sometimes the hardest part is pretending everything is fine for the sake of the children. |
| Statement | Never | Sometimes | Often | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| My body knows something is wrong even when my mind is still making excuses. | ||||
| I carry tension that does not release. | ||||
| I am exhausted in a way that sleep does not fix. | ||||
| I start feeling anxious days before events that are supposed to be happy. | ||||
| I feel physically unwell at the thought of certain conversations or situations. | ||||
| He has been physically violent or threatening on at least one occasion. | ||||
| I have told myself: at least it does not happen often. | ||||
| I have minimised physical incidents because everything else felt bigger or more constant. |
You just sat with a set of statements that most people never say out loud. And some of them will have landed in a way that is hard to explain. A recognition. A relief. An "I thought it was just me."
It is not just you.
The experiences in this assessment are not personality quirks or relationship difficulties. They are recognised patterns. They have a name. And they are more common among women who, from the outside, appear to have everything together than most people know.
The statement "at least it does not happen often" is one of the most common things women in coercive relationships say to themselves. It becomes the bar. The threshold below which everything else is tolerable.
There is no threshold. The damage that comes from living inside a relationship where you hold your breath at the door, manage someone's moods as your primary occupation, perform yourself for the outside world while disappearing inside your own home, that damage is real regardless of whether there is physical violence. Regardless of how often.
You did not need to tick every box. If you recognised yourself in this assessment, that recognition is enough to take the next step.
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