Emotional abuse is a way of hurting someone without necessarily being physical. It's when one person in a relationship tries to control the other person's feelings or thoughts in order to gain power over them.
Emotional Abuse is:
- Put-downs, calling names, telling them they are stupid or ugly, telling them they are not good enough or no one could ever love them
- Frequently cursing or yelling at the other person
- Threatening or intimidating - making the other person feel nervous or scared for themselves or someone they care about
- Frequently criticizing or correcting the other person - the way they look, talk, act, etc.
- Lying or cheating
- Playing mind games or making the other person think they are crazy
- Putting responsibility for your behaviour on the other person
- Making fun of or putting down the other person's family, culture, religion, race or heritage
- Embarrassing or humiliating the other person, especially in front of other people
- Withholding affection as punishment - not giving them love if they don't do what you want them to do
- Controlling behaviour - telling the other person what to do, what to wear, who to hang out with, etc
- Making all the decisions in the relationship and ignoring the other person's feelings
- Guilt trips - trying to make the other person feel guilty when you don't get your way. Especially by threatening to hurt yourself or commit suicide
- Keeping the other person from spending time with their friends or family members or from work or other activities that are important to him/her
- Using the children to get the other person to do what you want
- Being extremely jealous, and using jealousy to justify controlling behaviour
- Threatening to break up with the other person if you don't get your way
- Saying you don't love the other person just to get him/her to do what you want
- Accusing the other person of cheating on you as a way of manipulating him/her to do what you want
- Keeping constant tabs on a person, expecting to know his/her every move
