Emotionally Abusive Relationships are often overlooked because people can’t see the wounds and scars inside your mind and heart. Society equates abuse as a fist or hospitalization, but what about the psychological and emotional torment from family, a friend, or partner that is supposed to love or care about you….For those of us that grew up with abusive households, toxic behavior became normalized in such a way that it can be hard to identify abuse until your out of the relationship and situation. Some cases of emotional abuse occur so insidiously, that the tiny psychological cuts you take don’t hit you until years later.

Here are examples of what emotional abuse can look like:

1- One day your partner says they care, they love you, it’s not “just sex”. The next week they say they never cared and it is “just sex” ( you could be months in, years in, living together, engaged, married, with kids…it doesn’t matter)

2- Your partner will end things, apologize, and then come back pretending to want to work things out…all just to see if they can come back

3- You will feel disposable as if you are not much more than a favorite chair they like to sit in, but could toss any day

4- Will make plans, then ghost you last minute showing no respect for commitments made, your time or your energy

5- Shows no real interest in your future plans and they make plans without any regard for how you fit into the picture

6- Shows no real interest in your dreams and goals, but you show interest in and support theirs

7- No encouragement, but expects to receive encouragement from you

8- No asking about your day after (initial love bombing in romantic relationships)

9- They don’t check on you when sick and go MIA

10- They don’t cheer or support your wins

11- They are not interested in your successes and may even act bored when you attempt to share something important that happened to you

12- Will say their work is the busiest ever, but they find time to add women on social media… while then claiming there is no one else and you are paranoid, crazy, jealous, insecure when you are simply trying to confirm plans they initiated

13- Offers of help that is fake without any follow through

14- One day they want to keep separate at all costs, the next “of course everyone knows who you are and not a secret and you can meet my friends and family”

15- One day day you are just friends, but you are getting treated like you are dating and asked out, then told it is just sex, then told it isn’t, then you are ghosted and it is nothing. Rinse, recycle, repeat

16- Generic heavy interest, compliments and flirting. This is tough to recognize at first, but over time you will see a pattern of flirting that doesn’t apply to you as a person or individual- your nails are nice, I like that shirt, those are nice stockings, but nothing of real substance

17- Seem to realllllyy like you and so you like them back, but then realize they are just flirting with you to get you to like them, not because they are into you. They are interested when it is convenient for them, aren’t trying to get to know you, but share lots of personal information about themselves giving you a false sense of closeness and connection.

18- Seem to be getting off on your interest in them as if your sole purpose is to boost their ego

19- Will say I think she gives him too much leeway if you ask me, but then when try to set boundaries calls you “so mad” then ignores you for daring to share your feelings after being disrespected

20- They recognize what bad treatment it is calling others “aholes”, but then do the SAME behavior themselves. When you try to stand up for yourself and hold them accountable for ghosting ,silent treatments, broken plans, fake promises, no shows, and secretive phone behavior, you get called “controlling, jealous, insecure, crazy”

21- They want you to lift them up while they try to find flaws in you

22- Throwing back family trauma and old wounds in your face to make you feel less than. It could be you not having parents who stuck around or family that made fun of your looks or intelligence. They will take something that hurt you and you had no control over, to further hurt you with their judgement and rejection.

Example: telling someone with no family that “you don’t get family” after they broke travel plans with you the DAY OF a trip because a family dinner/brunch was suddenly planned. This could be after you took time off work, spent the week after work hours trying to clean your whole place, to prep for a guest, go food shopping for special items for them, prepping special outfits, cleared your schedule etc. Instead of keeping their commitment, will cancel, then dig at the fact you have no nuclear family alive/close by or abusive family by insulting your humanity saying “you don’t get family time”

23- THEIR behavior isn’t the issue, it is your reaction to getting treated like garbage. Every time you attempt to share a feeling or need, you are attacked, rejected, or broken up with

24- You feel that unless they are in a certain mood or do exactly what they want (often not even sure what that is), you are worth nothing more than gum on the bottom of their shoe.

25- They apologize, but then repeat the same behavior. However, they do and say things to you, they would never do to others as if they are saving their worst for you

Why do you stay or why are you talking to them others ask as they try to understand it or shame you…well, because they don’t do this all time and when they do, they use excuses aimed at your empathy, compassion and desire to be supportive and understanding, They bring up your insecurities so you make yourself the issue and cause of their crappy behavior. You think you need to do “better”. They blame something you didn’t do right/say right, and then you think, “if only I had…” or “I will do better next time”… They come back with apologies, kind words and throw themselves at you again. You think it was “just a fight” or “just a misunderstanding” and try again. You seek to look for the best in others and want to be a supportive person. You have a family history where this treatment has been so normalized it can be hard to distinguish what should be forgiven, what will get better or what needs to understood as abuse that will never change.