Emotional abuse

Recognizing the symptoms in your relationship

Not all relationship abuse is characterized by extensive physical violence; sometimes, physical violence may be rare or threatened. However, all relationship abuse includes extreme emotional abuse.

An abusive partner will railroad discussions, so that you don’t have time to think about what’s right and what’s wrong in their behavior. Take a moment to consider these questions.

Your partner might have behaved as though these things were okay, even though it’s obvious that they aren’t okay:

  • Do you feel that you can’t discuss with your partner what is bothering you?
  • Does your partner frequently criticize you, humiliate you, or undermine your self-esteem?Does your partner ridicule you for expressing yourself?
  • Does your partner isolate you from friends, family or groups?
  • Does your partner limit your access to work, money or material resources?
  • Has your partner ever stolen from you? Or run up debts for you to handle?
  • Does your relationship swing back and forth between a lot of emotional distance and being very close?
  • Have you ever felt obligated to have sex, just to avoid an argument about it?
  • Do you sometimes feel trapped in the relationship?
  • Has your partner ever thrown away your belongings, destroyed objects or threatened pets?
  • Are you afraid of your partner?

The process of control: Brainwashing

One aspect of emotional abuse is that it eventually brainwashes the victim.

  1. The brainwasher keeps the victim unaware of what is going on and what changes are taking place.Your partner might control your finances, make plans for you, or not tell you what his plans are until the last minute. Your partner may talk about you to others behind your back, to isolate you from them.
  2. The brainwasher controls the victim’s time and physical environment, and works to suppress much of the victim’s old behavior. The victim is slowly, or abruptly, isolated from all supportive persons except the brainwasher. Your partner might have insisted that you stop certain social, hobby, or work activities. You might have gotten moved to a new location, farther away from your family and friends. Or you may have been asked (or told) to reduce or stop contact with specific supportive people in your life.
  3. The brainwasher creates in the victim a sense of powerlessness, fear, and dependency.Verbal and emotional abuse creates these emotions, and they become stronger and stronger over time.
  4. The brainwasher works to instill new behavior and attitudes in the victim.Your partner trains to you behave and gradually makes you feel differently about yourself, and erodes your confidence in yourself.
  5. The brainwasher puts forth a closed system of logic, and allows no real input or criticism. In other words—What your partner says, goes.

To consider whether your partner emotionally abuses you, look at the information available on physical abusers. The patterns are similar:

Common characteristics of abusers

  • Your partner was verbally abused as a child, or witnessed it.
  • Your partner has an explosive temper, triggered by minor frustrations and arguments.
  • Abusers are extremely possessive and jealous. They experience an intense desire to control their mates. 
  • Your partner’s sense of masculinity depends on the woman’s dependency upon him. He feels like a man only if his partner is totally submissive and dependent on him.
  • Abusers often have superficial relationships with other people. Their primary, if not exclusive, relationship is with their partner. 
  • Your partner has low self-esteem.
  • Your partner has rigid expectations of marriage (or partnership) and will not compromise. Abusers often expect behavior to meet their expectations of what a partner should be like; often the way their parents’ relationship was, or its opposite.
  • Your partner has a great capacity for self-deception and projects the blame for relationship difficulties onto you. Abusers often deny the need for counseling because there’s nothing wrong with them.
  • Your partner may be described as having a dual personality—either charming or exceptionally cruel. A major characteristic of abusers is their capacity to deceive others. The partner is usually a symbol. The abuser doesn’t relate to their partner as a person in their own right, but as a symbol of a significant other. This is especially true when the abuser is angry. They assumes that the partner is thinking, feeling, or acting like that significant other—often a mother.