What is Emotional Abuse?

Physical abuse is fairly easy to diagnose, while on the other hand, emotional abuse is more vague and can be confusing for someone who is not experienced in determining what is emotional abuse.

Physical abuse and emotional abuse share the same cycle of abuse. In this way, they are similar, though emotional abuse is often confused with difficult communication which is a necessary component in a successful relationship. It is important (non-abusive and respectful of the relationship) to understand what constitutes emotional abuse.

The effects of an emotional abuser often go unnoticed at first and build over time in a relationship, until it finally dawns on the victim that emotional abuse has occurred. Also, it is so easy to jump to a conclusion when your partner suddenly says or does something that you don’t like, then to accuse them of emotional abuse. Doing so would be a form of emotional abuse. ‘Ere the need to have your wits about you and know what is and what is not emotional abuse.

What is Emotional Abuse?

Emotional abuse comes in basically four categories, disrespect, controlling, accusatory, and isolative.

Disrespect

Disrespectful emotional abuse includes an underlying tone which threatens how you feel about yourself, is often critical, makes you feel valueless, or humiliated. Some of the verbal tools used by the emotional abuser may include words like, stupid, idiot, or retard.

They will assault your character, call you childish, or when they don’t like what you’re saying or doing, challenge you to, “act like a grownup,” suggest you, “put on your big boy pants,” or, “man up.”

They will take pot shots, embarrassing you in public, are sarcastic, insulting, and make you the brunt of their jokes in public. Off-screen, they assure you they were just joking, so you shouldn’t take it personally. After all, he or she was just having fun (at your expense).

They are patronizing, like, “Oh don’t worry your little self. No one would expect too much from you. You’re just doing the best you can with what you have.” Possibly accompanied by an eye-roll or some other gesture which communicates exactly how disrespectful they are being.

They push your buttons, to make you fly off the handle, then accuse you of lacking sanity or self-control.

And the worst of them are loud. They raise their voices, assert threatening postures, and/or other body language to intimidate or threaten you.

Controlling

Threats are a huge component for controllers. They will threaten to take off with your child, harm you (fully awake or in your sleep), your family, your friends, or pet, and if that doesn’t work, they may threaten to engage in self-harm or threaten to commit suicide to get you to comply with their demand, or threaten to leave and abandon you.

They need to know everything about you all the time; what you’re doing, where you’re doing it, in the presence of whom, and for how long. Often demanding a minute by minute play by play reporting. Any lack of verifiable evidence is cause for suspicion and false accusations, putting you on the defensive.

They are paranoid, always suspicious, and are susceptible to spying, digital monitoring, may even demand access to your phone, social media accounts, browsing history, and email.

They make promises they have no intention of keeping, and make decisions without consulting with you, which may include making plans, canceling plans, making financial decisions, or any other method of usurping their control over you with no regard for you or your input.

They go on and on, lecturing you to utter boredom, when all you can do is hear the dull roar of a sociopathic monologue, then they get mad and attack you because you’re not paying attention.

Controllers bark their demands, then expect you to “snap to,” in complete compliance without questioning their authority.

Expect controllers to suddenly blow up or emotionally explode when you forget the slightest detail of any demand they may have had (then brace yourself for another lengthy lecture or a laundry list of threats).

Trying to accommodate a controller might be enough to drive you crazy because they will be so constant and relentless with their demands and expectations, that no normal person could possibly keep up with it, which makes you inadequate in their eyes, and they won’t be shy about letting you know that you let them down, reminding you of your shortfalls periodically along the way.

Accusatory

You are to blame for everything while they remain superior and flawless. Better get used to everything being your fault.

They excel at being green monsters of jealousy with the potential to go into an accusatory rage because you are an unfaithful cheater and cannot be trusted.

They will flip any unfortunate circumstance to be your fault, even if it was clearly their doing that presented the difficult situation.

Do not accept any responsibility from the accusatory emotional abuser because they never do anything wrong. If it’s not you they are blaming, it’s someone or something else. They are always the victim.

If you try to get them to own up to their abuse, oh no, it’s not their being abusive, it’s you who is the abuser. Wake up and get it straight.

You will always be indebted to them so they can use guilt to persuade you to comply because of what they did for you, and you owe them.

And if you caught them red-handed in the act? Nope. Didn’t happen. They weren’t even there and had nothing to do with it. It’s all just your jealous overactive imagination and unbridled insecurity which makes you crazy and delusional.

Isolative

They will create a social vacuum for you to exist within, where nothing else exists except for you and the emotional abuser. Say, “goodbye” to family and friends because the emotional abuser wants you totally dependent on him or her for any of your needs.

And your needs will never be as important as the emotional abuser’s needs, so don’t expect many of them to be provided because his or her needs will always come before yours.

The emotional abuse will be framed in a construct of militaristic restraints. You will be expected to comply with your emotional abuser’s demands, or else. Not unlike an abusive Drill Sergeant, you are expected to, “Jump when I say jump.” And your response better not be, “Why?” It better be, “How high?” followed by your body being in the air or else you will suffer the consequences.

Alternatively, the isolative emotional abuser will isolate you from him or her, punishing you by cutting you off, ignoring you, refusing to communicate with you, or withholding positive attention, intimacy, or sex.

If you try to express your concerns, they will belittle you, accuse you of being needy or immature. If you react by responding emotionally or be moved to tears, they will not acknowledge your feelings and ignore or act annoyed by your being emotionally expressive, which is clearly unacceptable behavior.

What is not emotional abuse?

Emotional abuse is not your partner’s response which is not what you want to hear. Everyone is different, we all have our own ideas about what we want and how we expect to be treated in a relationship. You must respect your partner’s right to express him- or herself in any way that works for him or her.

Disagreeing, arguing, even fighting amongst couples is not necessarily emotional abuse even though it can cause you emotional pain. Difficult conversations even fighting are necessary parts of a deeply personal relationship between two different people.

When someone asserts how they feel, which may be blunt, and can potentially hurt your feelings, try not to take it personally. Everyone is entitled to feel how they feel, and you should feel blessed that they feel safe enough to let you get access to these deepest parts of them which are probably hidden from others in their life.

Yelling does not indicate emotional abuse, although a hysterical emotional outburst would probably be a tool used by the emotional abuser. In a healthy relationship, if someone temporarily loses emotional control, a healthy couple will take a break, allow the emotions to calm, then talk it out.

Raising one’s voice can be a learned method of communication for expressing one’s self. As this person grows, he or she might be able to learn new methods of communication as you grow as a couple and learn more positive forms of communication.

Unless it is a threat used to control you, it is not emotionally abusive to end a relationship. This happens and should be honored, with as much grace as your ability to muster, even though it may feel as if it is devastating.

Healthy communication is the holy grail of successful relationships.

What Can You Do if You Catch Your Partner Lying?

Everyone lies. We do it for all kinds of reasons; to make life easier on us, on those we care about, on the behalf of someone else, to be polite, and to outright deceive and defraud on purpose. But what can you do if you catch your partner lying?

You love and trust your partner. Without trust, where is the love? When you catch your partner lying, you feel as though you’ve been stabbed in the back, punched in the gut, or so disrespected or disregarded that you don’t know if you can think straight. What can you do?

Nobody will deny you your right to feel bad about being lied to, that’s a given. We’ve all been in the same boat, for who of us has made it through life without being lied to of deceived. Sometimes people can be harmfully deceitful without saying a word, as is the case of lying by omission.

Yes, even not saying anything is in order to cover something up or avoid being truthfully honest (lying by omission) is a venial sin. It doesn’t mean you have to be rudely open and honest, just to tell the truth, and if you love someone, be honest lovingly. Tell the truth in a way that respects your partner. Be gentle and speak your truth with grace and love, even if it is difficult. Nobody expects you to be perfect.

If you’ve caught your partner lying, don’t sweep it under the carpet or try to gloss it over. Dishonesty in a relationship will cause your trust to rust, and leads to the erosion of your love, especially if you’re harboring the truth about your knowledge of the deceit or dishonesty and not saying anything about it (lying by omission). Even you are a guilty enabler by engaging in the dishonesty.

Get it out in the open. Relationships go through periods of varying levels of comfort and discomfort, it’s the nature of two people sharing one life. It is all part of the growth process. If there is no conflict, there can be no growth, which leaves you with stagnation. Where is the life in that? You might be able to get by, but you can forget thriving in a relationship which is a cesspool.

Grab your grown-up skivvies and get ready for some gentle conversation about your awareness that something’s not adding up. As in all difficult conversations, create a safe space to frame the conversation and avoid being accusatory. This is about creating an environment where its safe to be honest. Avoid jumping-in, interrupting, or otherwise preventing your partner from fully sharing. Take notes on paper, if you have to, but let them speak their truth in peace.

Let them say whatever it is, without interruption, or else he or she will get defensive, and the flow of open communication will stop if your partner feels like he or she needs to take the defensive position.

Once you’ve actively heard what your partner needs to say, and you’ve affirmed that you’ve understood the key points by paraphrasing them back to him or her, now your partner owes you the same respect to hear what you have to say about it.

Check with your heart and center yourself. Take a cleansing breath, then speak your heart in love. Again, be honest, but try to avoid being harsh. If your feelings have been hurt, say so, but try to use words that are not abrupt or frightening. Remember you are expressing how you feel, so start your sentences with “I,” or, “I feel like,” and avoid starting any statement with, “You.”
Trust your intuition. When you feel like something just isn’t right. In most cases, something isn’t right. If your partner gives a perfectly good explanation, and it doesn’t feel right, you probably know by experience that something has most always been amiss when you’ve had feelings, like that, in the past.

Deciding whether you can live with this or not is only something you must decide for yourself. Everybody’s different, and we all can tolerate different degrees of what our partners are allowed to do or not do within the confines of our relationships.

Even though magazines and tabloids will gibe you a list of do’s and don’ts in black and white, there really is no strict guideline for what is and is not acceptable in a successful relationship. Each couple must figure out for themselves what works for them.

Forgiveness in a loving relationship goes a long way. For the repeat offender, you might think about negotiating new paradigms for the expansion of your relationship, or if you are unable to come to a workable compromise, it might be time to look for a better match for your true love to emerge.

It’s your love life. It’s up to you.

Love, love, love. Love like it’s all that matters because it is. And if you dare, think about loving unconditionally.

I love you no matter what.