Emotional abuse can take many forms in relationships. It involves any behavior that is intended to control, isolate, humiliate, shame, coerce, manipulate or intimidate another person. Emotional abuse chips away at a victim’s self-esteem and sense of self-worth over time. While the signs are not always obvious from the outside, emotional abuse can be just as damaging as physical abuse. Here are some examples of emotionally abusive behaviors in relationships:
Put Downs and Name Calling
One of the most common forms of emotional abuse is the use of put downs, insults and name calling to make the victim feel bad about themselves. The abuser might say things like “You’re so stupid/ugly/fat/clumsy”, use profanity or compare the victim unfavorably to others. This slowly breaks down the victim’s confidence and feelings of self-worth. The put downs are often disguised as “jokes” in front of others, but are intended to humiliate or shame the victim privately.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting involves the abuser denying or minimizing their abuse, making the victim question their own reality, memory or perceptions. For example, after yelling at the victim, the abuser might say “I didn’t raise my voice” or “You’re too sensitive, that didn’t happen”. Over time, this can lead the victim to distrust their own judgments and perceptions. The abuser might also hide or take belongings and then claim the victim lost them, in an effort to undermine the victim’s sanity.
Isolation from Friends and Family
Abusers often try to cut off the victim’s relationships with loved ones in order to exert control. They might prevent the victim from seeing family and friends, monitoring their phone calls and emails, discouraging or outright forbidding contact. This isolates the victim from sources of support, making them more dependent on the abuser. The abuser may claim jealousy as an excuse for isolation, or claim that family and friends are harmful in some way.
Extreme Jealousy
While some jealousy in relationships is normal, abusers often display pathological jealousy and make false accusations of infidelity to justify their control. They may call the victim frequently during the day demanding to know their whereabouts, accuse them of looking at others, check mileage on the car, eavesdrop on conversations. This communicates that the abuser does not trust the victim and tries to isolate them further.
Monitoring and Stalking
Abusers may monitor the victim’s movements through checks on mileage, cell phones (frequent calling/texting), social media spying, checking email/call logs, or even physical stalking. Some abusers enlist others to watch the victim or install spyware on devices to track activities. The implicit message is that the victim cannot be trusted and must be monitored at all times.
Unpredictable Behavior
Abusers often switch between being loving and affectionate and angry and threatening unpredictably. This keeps the victim perpetually uneasy about the abuser’s potential reactions. They may act perfectly friendly one minute and explode in anger the next with no obvious provocation. This instability is very psychologically destabilizing for the victim.
Love Bombing
“Love bombing” refers to over-the-top displays of attention and affection intended to influence the victim. Abusers do this manipulate the victim’s emotions and gain control early in relationships. They may send constant texts, flowers, gifts, compliment and declare their “undying love.” This hooks the victim emotionally before the abuse begins. When abuse does start, the victim is confused if this is the “same person” they fell in love with.
Rage
Abusers often have outbursts of rage or anger out of proportion to the situation at hand. They may throw objects, scream profanities, make threats, slam doors or destroy the victim’s property when they feel they are not being obeyed or are upset. The victim often feels like they are “walking on eggshells” to avoid these emotional, verbal and sometimes physical explosions.
Financial Control
Abusers may tightly control family finances. Tactics include withholding money, giving an “allowance”, not allowing the victim access to bank accounts, preventing employment or taking any income earned by the victim. This forces the victim to rely on the abuser financially so they cannot leave.
Threats
Abusers commonly threaten consequences if the victim does not comply with demands. Threats may involve harming the victim, children, family pets or loved ones. They may also threaten suicide, filing false criminal charges, or ruining the victim’s reputation if the relationship ends. Any resistance or attempt to leave may be met with severe threats.
Sexual Coercion
Some emotional abusers use sexual coercion, control and shame to exert dominance over the victim. Tactics may include making demeaning comments about the victim’s sexuality, forcing unwanted sexual acts, withholding sex and affection or sexually coercing the victim into unlawful acts against their will.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse where the abuser manipulates situations to trick the victim into distrusting their own memory and perceptions. For example, the abuser might:
- Lie about something the victim knows is true and insist the victim is wrong, crazy or lying.
- Disguise abusive behavior as a “joke” when called out.
- Deny something terrible happened, even though there is evidence of abuse.
- Claim the victim said or did things that never actually happened.
- Suggest the victim has a mental illness or memory problems.
This causes the victim to question their own judgments, perceptions and reality. Over time, the victim comes to rely on the abuser as the only credible source and becomes isolated from external support.
Projection
Projecting involves shifting blame for one’s own objectionable thoughts, emotions or actions onto someone else. Emotional abusers may constantly blame the victim for things that are not the victim’s fault or project their own negative traits onto the victim. For example, an abusive spouse may accuse their partner of being controlling or cheating – when in reality, the accuser is the one controlling and unfaithful. Projection confuses the victim and deflects accountability away from the abuser.
Trivializing
Abusers make light of emotional abuse and its impact on the victim. They might claim that obvious insults, outbursts, threats or intimidating behaviors were “just a joke” and tell the victim to “lighten up.” Abusers trivialize and minimize their abuse to make it seem like not a big deal, when in fact it is causing substantial harm.
Shaming
Emotional abusers shame victims into silence about the abuse. They might say “What will people think of you if you talk about this?” or “I can’t believe you would air our dirty laundry.” Such comments convey that the victim should feel ashamed for openly discussing the abuse. This discourages the victim from seeking help and allows the abuser to continue the behavior unchecked.
Neglect
Emotional neglect involves failure to provide basic psychological and emotional necessities in a relationship. Tactics may include ignoring, withholding affection, depriving attention and warmth or disregarding the victim’s feelings and emotions. This communicates to the victim that their needs are insignificant and undeserving of care.
Conclusion
Emotional abuse manifests in many forms, many of which can be subtle or easily dismissed by outsiders as normal relationship issues. While physical abuse may leave visible scars, the wounds of emotional abuse are invisible and can be just as, if not more, painful and long-lasting. Examples like insults, isolation, threats, intimidation, coercion, neglect, projection, denial and gaslighting all constitute emotional abuse when used as part of a pattern of power and control over a victim. Being able to recognize different emotionally abusive behaviors is the first step in seeking help and ending the cycle of abuse.