20 Signs of Emotional Abuse in a Relationship – Part 2

Emotional abuse in a relationship is a silent killer. The sooner you recognize it and take action, the better for your own mental wellbeing and of those who love you. After 20 Signs of Emotional Abuse in a Relationship – Part 1, in today’s post we deal with the last 10 crucial signs of emotional abuse in your relationship that you should watch out for.

Emotional abuse in a relationship – Symptom #11. Sexual manipulation

Your partner forces you to engage in sexual acts you don’t like, but not directly. They use manipulative tactics like telling you they want you to explore the limits of sexual pleasure with you. They promise you’d like it. If nothing works, they might even compare you with other people and accuse you of being sexually selfish.

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Emotional abuse in a relationship – Symptom #12. Physical abuse

Naturally, emotional abuse is often accompanied by physical abuse. It may not be regular. Your partner might subtly hint at a possibility of physical violence if you don’t obey them. When an emotional abuser resorts to physical abuse, they usually apologize profusely later, and claim that they “lost control” for a moment. This may be true in some cases, but studies show that if physical violence has occurred once it’s likely to occur again.

Emotional abuse in a relationship – Symptom #13. Isolation

The abuser repeatedly expresses their disapproval of the certain friends or family members of yours. Usually there’s no clear reason for such malice, apart from your closeness to these particular people. Without saying it in as many words, the abuser hints that avoiding these people would be beneficial to your mental health. Thus, one by one the abuser eliminates your closest people from your life until the only person you’re left with for support is the abuser.

Emotional abuse in a relationship – Symptom #14. Negative memories

While attacking you verbally, your partner brings up all the old blames. You may have said and done things long back which your partner had no issues with back at the time when they happened. You’d find your partner bringing them up out of nowhere (usually to your utter shock) and criticise them savagely.

Emotional abuse in a relationship – Symptom #15. Belittling

No matter what you do, your partner mocks your achievements, making you feel stupid for celebrating them. On the other hand they’re vocal about even the smallest of their own achievements. As I’ve already mentioned, an abusive partner hates the idea of sharing power with you in the relationship. They belittle your accomplishments as another attempt at making you feel under-confident and worthless. They hope this would ensure you don’t even consider yourself worthy of sharing power equally in your relationship.

Emotional abuse in a relationship – Symptom #16. Justification

“Whatever I do is for your benefit.”  That’s the standard line the emotionally abusive partner would parrot when you accuse them of hurting you through some of their acts. They have some fallacious way to make every hurtful act of theirs look like it was meant for your benefit.

“Why do you always oppose me?”

“Because I know what’s best for you.”

“Why do you not let me visit my friends?”

“’Cause I’m crazy for your love and want it all to myself.”

Does that sound familiar?

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Emotional abuse in a relationship – Symptom #17. Unrealistic standards

Your partner sets unrealistically high standards for you. Through a verbal web of flattery and romance they convince you that “you’re the best” and they want you to “realize your full potential.” The full potential would usually mean “being the sexiest babe, the best wife and the shrewdest professional all at the same time”. Or some standard of perfection like that. The way they put it is meant to motivate you to want to live up to those standards and feel bad when you fall short. Given the fact that they’re unrealistic, this is meant to keep you in a perpetual abyss of guilt for not being “good enough” for your abusive partner.

Emotional abuse in a relationship – Symptom #18. Access control

The abuser would restrict your access to important things necessary for survival like money. Their objective is to ensure you have to turn to them for your basic needs. They can even control your phone and internet usage – insisting on going through your messages, calls, emails, online chats etc. This makes sure you can’t tell the truth about the abuse to anyone without the abuser knowing.

Emotional abuse in a relationship – Symptom #19. Denial

If they catch you reading this list, they’d trash it as “just another piece of BS off the net”. They’d never accept that their behaviour could be abusive, and would go back to every old tactic from blaming you for it to describing abusive acts as “one-off”.

Emotional abuse in a relationship – Symptom #20. Emotional manipulation

Well that’s one of the things that they could do, if they catch you with this list. A hard-core abuser would of course do what he always does when cornered – turn it back on you. They’d take you through this list point by point and “prove” (fallaciously of course) that each of them applies to you, and in reality it’s you who’s the abuser! Another classic attempt at disorienting your sense of reality and destroying your self-esteem.

If you’re experience emotional abuse in your relationship, you need to recognize it and take charge of your life now. The solution might lie in counselling, detaching yourself temporarily or if nothing works – leaving. Whatever you choose, it must start with calling the spade in your relationship a spade and taking back control – of yourself and your life.