Key Points
Emotional abusers use words and behaviors to intimidate or cause emotional pain or distress without physically assaulting them.
Emotional abuse can manifest itself in the form of verbal abuse, passive aggression, gaslighting, or social isolation.
Emotional abusers tilt the balance of power in a relationship, entering a position of “power.”
While some abusers may derive pleasure from your suffering, they may also use abuse to get something they otherwise couldn’t.
In her memoir, A Brief Life, Ariel Lev tells the story of her relationship with her emotionally abusive mother. Her mother was extremely needy for affirmation and would go to great lengths to get it from her daughter.
Moreover, her temperament was completely unpredictable. One moment she would tell Ariel how much she loved her and the next how much she hated her. Verbal abuse was common. When Ariel was just six years old, her mother told her, “When I die, you’ll be all alone because your father doesn’t want you.” You know that, right?
Oh.
Emotional abuse doesn’t just show up in parent-child relationships. It can happen in all types of relationships—intimate partners, friends, siblings, ex-spouses, co-workers, neighbors, elders and their caregivers, etc.
Almost no one is immune to emotional abuse. Even a control freak may encounter someone who is more power-hungry or better at using subtle abuse tactics to their advantage.
The first step to learning how to spot emotional abuse is to recognize: (a) what emotional abuse looks like and (b) what makes the abuser do it.
WhatEmotionalAbuseLooksLike
Although some emotional abusers also engage in physical abuse, emotional abuse itself is not physical abuse. Rather, emotional abusers use words and behaviors to intimidate you or cause you emotional pain or distress.
Over time, you may develop a siege mentality that makes it difficult for you to trust others and form close relationships.
So, what does emotional abuse look like? Here are four ways it can manifest itself.
- Verbal Abuse. Emotional abuse can take the form of verbal abuse. Verbal abusers use words or other vocal expressions to intimidate or emotionally hurt you. Types of verbal abuse include yelling, name-calling, intimidation, and threats, among many others.
Example 1: Immediately after visiting your mother, you learn that a close contact of yours has tested positive for COVID-19. When you call your mother to tell her, she starts screaming, accusing you, and cursing you. Example 2: When you tell your wife you want a divorce, she threatens to sue you for full custody of the children.
- Passive aggression. Emotional abuse can also take the form of passive aggression. Those who engage in passive-aggressive behavior use indirect ways to communicate their negative attitudes toward the target.
Example 1: You’re late for a date with your friend Zola. She apologizes, telling you not to worry about it. But then she’s angry or quiet all evening.
Example 2: Suddenly, your partner refuses to hold your hand or touch you, or starts sleeping with their back to you to indirectly express their anger.
- Social isolation. The third type of emotional abuse is social isolation. This type of abuse is designed to keep you from connecting with others, which can leave you feeling lonely and depressed. Examples might include:
Whenever you have plans to meet friends or family, your partner pretends to be sick or begs you to stay.
Your partner tells your friends and family that you’re unstable and that it’s best not to contact you for a while.
- Emotional manipulation. The fourth type of emotional abuse is emotional manipulation. Emotional manipulation is a subtle form of abuse that denies what you feel you know for sure, making you question your senses, judgment, and reason. Examples might include:
Your spouse throws away a book they know you’re reading and then insists they never saw the book.
Your partner breaks your phone screen when you’re not looking and then insists they saw you drop it.
How Abusers Hold Power: The Power-Respect Dilemma
Emotional abusers use abuse tactics to intimidate or mentally disturb you—thus tilting the balance of power in the relationship in their favor.
By varying the amount of abuse based on your behavior, abusers train you to treat them with respect and deference, which means you act as if they are in a position of authority over you. To respect their “power,” you must follow their orders and requests or accommodate their wants and needs.
In the short term, you may benefit from adopting an attitude of apprehensive respect toward your abuser. This is the kind of respect we are advised to show toward the environment because it is powerful, unpredictable, and potentially dangerous. Likewise, to avoid provoking your abuser, maintaining an attitude of vigilance can help you stay mentally alert so you can deal more effectively with your situation.
What’s in it for the abuser?
What makes abusers act? Let’s review some motivations:
Your abuser gets a “high” from controlling you or seeing you suffer. Feeling powerful and in control gives some abusers immense pleasure. Abusers may also enjoy seeing you suffer.
Narcissists, psychopaths, and sadists may be drawn to emotional abuse because of the pleasure they find in controlling others or seeing them suffer (Brogaard, 2020).
Your abuser may benefit from your disability. Your abuser may also engage in emotional abuse, because of the benefits of your disability.
Repeated emotional abuse can cause psychological distress and impair your ability to function. You may lack the energy, motivation, or clarity of mind to carry out your normal duties—or even agree with your abuser that it is in your best interest to be admitted to a mental hospital.
Your abuser may gain custody of your child or access to your money through your disability.
Your abuser wants attention or sympathy. Some abusers use emotional abuse to gain attention, validation, or sympathy. This is what makes a “martyr” come alive. People who play the martyr role engage in self-sacrifice to gain sympathy, validation, and guilt in their targets.
Example: You visit your sister and offer to help her clean up after a party she threw. She declines and does everything herself in an act of self-sacrifice. Afterward, she expects you to feel sorry for her. When you don’t, she begins to feel guilty toward you.
Your abuser wants revenge. Even if you haven’t hurt your abuser in the past, he or she may feel that you have. In this case, he or she may use verbal abuse to avenge the actual or imagined harm.
Unlike sadists, an abuser seeking revenge may not enjoy seeing others suffer in and of itself. His or her pleasure lies in his or her revenge.
Your abuser wants to move up the ranks. Emotional abuse in the workplace—or workplace bullying—may be designed to tilt the balance of power among coworkers, because they envy your success or want a promotion you might get. If a bully has succeeded in gaining power over you by inducing fear or distress, he or she can use that power to make himself or herself look successful and you look like a failure.
