Interaction between people happens dynamically. Healthy people should be able to adjust their behavior appropriately based on the responses and reactions from the recipents. For damage to occur, emotional abuse needs to continue with a recurring pattern where the same behavior repeats and the damage deepens.
I can't see how healthy, functional people can create a dysfunctional family and become an abuser without them first becoming dysfunctional and unhealthy. Wouldn't it be normal that healthy and functional people should be able to resolve their incompatibility in healthy and functional ways, (sometimes that would mean separation), other than creating an abusive environment as a by-product?
Normal?
Desirable, yes. But, normal, I don't think so.
A dynamic can flip, easily.
For one, you have to throw out the concept of rationality in people as long as there are emotions involved. That responses and reactions are rational, and can be traced back and understood, this is based on the premise that it is easy for people to read emotions and understand their meaning when this isn't the case for many observers and even those experiencing those reactions as something that they themselves express.
Just for fun, sometimes, I use the line "You are being hysterical". There are enough people out there who actually completely dismiss emotional reactions with that line, and mean it. They don't even TRY to understand strong emotional outbursts. And that behavior can't be called unhealthy, because within society, it's "normal". It's the outburst of emotions that is seen as unhealthy, irrational, and therefore meaningless. Imagine what this does to a feeler.
Communication is also based on perception, and if we perceive the world in fundamentally different ways communication will always be hampered by that. Two examples that come to mind.
Person A is a feeler and thus places a high value on emotional support. Person A is working on something. Person B on the other hand is focused on concrete external achievements and criticizes what person A is working on. Person B believes that criticism is helpful while Person A sees it as undermining of the very drive to achieve something.
Overcome with joy person A sheds tears. Person B is distressed because tears are an external expression of sadness. What to do? How to fix? Bs distress causes the moment of joy to be lost for A.
Tiny things, but over 3000 days, this "corrosion" can lead to some deep, dark places.
You'll find people trapped in hells of their own making. In dynamics harmful to both parties, undermining self esteem, self worth, self image. Drastic defenses are raised to protect what is left. Aggression fueled by frustration, rationalizations fueled by needs that aren't being met.
"It's not cheating if she doesn't find out." "I only read his mail because he never tells me how he feels."
Trust dissolves and a partner becomes the enemy in the relationship that has now become an arena rather than a shared foxhole.
One must keep in mind the potentially
insidious nature of dynamics that reinforce negative traits in a relationship between people, so even aware observers may not find their dynamics lacking until the hole is already dug deep enough for pitch black oil to spew forth explosively, them asking themselves the question, "how did I get here? How did it comes to this? I was blind, and only now I see."
Separation might not be an option to many people, for financial, cultural, religious or other reasons. How many people have stayed with the wrong person for 20 years because they've already invested 10? Or a lifetime? Or because there are children part of the equation now?
You'll find countless external factors pressuring onto relationships adding their own spice into the mix. Expectations by friends, family and society.
And so on and so forth. I'd go into dramatic live changing events and how they can work as masks for dynamics shifting in connection with emotional support, how things aren't cut and dried, black and white, easy to read, even good relationships hard work, but I'm le tired. In any case, it's quite possible for healthy, intelligent people to end up in dynamics that turn harmful, and if left unchecked, for long enough, abusive. Emotionally, and physically. Explosively the entire nature of a relationship can change, from one day to the next, if it is under pressure, strong enough, long enough. And that explosion might then not even be aimed at others. Also something to take into account, that abuse might then be self directed.
(with this view it's probably easy to see why for the longest time I thought I was never, ever, ever going to get married. F that noise, not me, not ever)
