A definition of abuse: "A pattern of coercive behavior used by one person to control and subordinate another in an intimate relationship. These behaviors may include physical, sexual, psychological, and economic abuse”

—Oregon Domestic Violence Council

Emotional abuse can be one of the murkiest issues to discern and talk about. It's the least clear of the various abuses one can face, and yet it underlies them all.

Non-abusive people can engage in abusive behaviors. Screaming, swearing, disrespecting, blaming, slamming doors, throwing things, criticizing, ignoring, stone-walling. We all have moments we are not proud of.

How can we tell the difference between a relatively healthy marriage that has normal difficulties and one that is abusive? As with all abuse, there exists a systematic pattern of dominance and control. This pattern ties all signs of emotional abuse together.

Any of the remaining 8 signs can exist in a relatively healthy marriage. The question is: Is there a pattern?

Does your spouse behave abusively when:

• he is under stress?
• he receives constructive feedback from you, regardless of your delivery?
• things don't go his way?
• you make a mistake?
• you have social plans?
• he is under the influence of drugs/alcohol?*
• there is no apparent reason?

What happens when you express displeasure at something your spouse has done, regardless of your delivery? Does she regularly own up to her wrong-doing and work on herself in response? Or does she routinely turn it around so that suddenly you are the one who is somehow at fault?

Does she commonly blame you for anything negative that happens? For example, when an item is lost in the house, does she immediately say, "you must have misplaced it."?

(add blaming the victim for the abuse - you did this so I do this you) No

For an abusive person, fully owning her behavior means willingly admitting that she has an abuse problem. It means she is willing to seek outside help. This will require humbling herself, which is very difficult for an abuser to do.

While women generally seek help more readily than men, female abusers are less likely to seek counseling. This is because women are not socialized to take on a stature of control and dominance as men are. When a woman is abusive, it is typically due to a severe and unresolved childhood trauma that leads her to put up a strong wall of self-protection and distrust of others, or she lacks the desire for a true emotional bond with others, which is seen in people who are capable of grave wrongs against others.

We all mind-read to a degree. We infer what someone might mean, want, think, feel. But an abuser uses this as a way of controlling his spouse.

To an abuser, his spouse does not exist as a person in her own right. Her feelings, thoughts, wants, needs, and motives are not valid and do not exist apart from what he says they are. He tells you what you are thinking and feeling, what you really want. "I know the real reason you want to visit your sister." While we can all make the mistake of misapplying our interpretations to the minds of others, the difference is that when you correct the abuser, he will not accept your version of what your thoughts and feelings are. He chooses his own above yours because again, you are not a real and valid person in your own right, apart from him.

An off-shoot to his is he tells you how you ought to feel or think, or what you should want. He does this by invalidating and dismissing your thoughts and feelings. "Your thoughts are dumb." "Your brain doesn't make sense." "Your feelings are stupid." If you cry, you are told you are being manipulative.

Just like our skin sets the boundary on us and not us, our thoughts, feelings, and motives are our own. We have a right to them.

In this system, there is no room for you, with all of your actual thoughts and feelings. There is therefore no true relationship, as a relationship requires two people.

The opposite of this is listening, validating, and honoring you as a separate person with your own thoughts and feelings. There exists a curiosity and a posture of learning and taking in of the person that you are. And when he mistakenly assigns motives, thoughts or feelings to you, he accepts and invites your correction.

“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.” - George Bernard Shaw

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." - Elie Wiesel

When you raise an issue and how you feel, she ignores you. She cuts you down and does not seem affected by how her contemptuous behaviors affects you. She is rude to you. If you say you are hurt, she does not care. Or, she responds with, "well, how do you think I feel..." If you say you feel disappointed, she responds with, "Well, I feel disappointed when you..."

Again, there is no space for you. You simply do not exist.

Children will misbehave as a way of getting attention. Negative attention, even punishment feels less painful than being ignored, not existing, abandoned. Adults do this too.

A healthy relationship is one in which your spouse shows you genuine empathy, kindness, responsiveness, attentiveness and caring. Even if you face difficulties, your partner responds to your pain.

Does she use put-downs, mocking, and devaluation regularly or periodically in her interactions with her spouse?

Harsh criticism

She ridicules

message: there is something wrong with you

Contempt - it's heard and felt. Not just the words but the way they are said.

Humiliate you in front of others

Put-downs

Dismissing

Tone of disgust

Rolling eyes

(see thesaurus.com for degrade synonyms)

As mentioned above, all of the signs of emotional abuse are about control and subordination.

Guilt

Monitoring

Controlling the finances

Not allowing you to have a car

Making all of the important decisions without consulting you like buying a car or inviting family over for a week.

Criticizing you - your style, your outfits, your hair, your manner of completing tasks to the point where you start feeling like there is something wrong with you. You start questioning yourself.

If you protest, he somehow turns it around so that you are the problem. You are too sensitive. You are controlling (because you are refusing his control).

Not liking your friends or people you are close with

Wanting you to change churches - especially if you have support at the church, and if a pastor there has called out his abuse

Gas-lighting - telling the story a completely different way, saying it didn't happen, saying he doesn't remember

Pattern -

crazy-making

Threats to leave you and divorce you because he is not getting his way.

If you

to humiliate you in front of coworkers

to hurt your pet

to turn your children against you

to hit you, with a gesture

by standing in your space, suggesting he can physically hurt you

by throwing things in your direction

by breaking objects that show his strength

by cleaning and displaying his gun

Covert aggression and manipulation are not terms that many therapists like. It sounds too damning. But it does not help anyone to a distorted mirror up to their face. If you've eaten a huge bowl of soup rich in sodium and your face is puffy.

If you want to help an abuser, really help him, you don't placate him.

An abusive spouse is good at flipping the script. He can choose any of these behaviors and accuse you and point at you. But the question is, if he reguarly faces criticism from you is it because he is actually engaging.

Any of these items listed can be used by the abuser to turn it back on you. This is one of the many reasons that emotional abuse gets so murky. The abuser plays and often feels like the victim. Almost anything that is said of the abuser can be turned and twisted to

You might be trying to control your spouse's abusive actions. This is not a good response, and something you must change. But does not add up to an overall picture of power and control of your spouse.

If you are a victim of emotional abuse, you need help to get safe, regain your ability to think clearly, and make good choices.

Call today and start on your path to health and healing:

(312) 313-3236 or email me: eunia [at] chicagolandcounseling.com.

For confidential, anonymous help available 24/7, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY) now.