Signs of Emotional or Mental Abuse in Relationships
Read our blog from last week How To identify Signs of Physical Abuse In Your Marriage.
It can be difficult to know when you’re experiencing emotional abuse. You may not recognize some of the signs. Maybe you’ve been led to believe you’re too sensitive, or all relationships are like this. But when you start feeling isolated, powerless, or worthless in your relationships, you might want to pay closer attention.
There’s never a good reason for you to feel this way. You deserve respect, love, and care.
This is one of the most difficult types of abuse to identify and yet most detrimental to the individual(s) involved as it has the most lasting impact on our psyche.
Most who have emotional/psychological abuse in the relationship do not know it is happening and one may actually start to change themselves or what they do/how they feel without realizing they are doing it because of trying to make the other person happy.
Emotional/Psychological abuse is one of the ultimate forms of abuse to reach control over another by using the following tactics.
Gaslighting
Manipulating
Triangulation
Control
Love Bombing
Pointing out insecurities
Stonewalling
Treating your partner like a child
Dismissing your partner
Coercion/Threats
If any of these sound familiar please talk to someone about your concerns or get advice on relationship red flags and how to help yourself and your relationship.
We offer in-person relationship counseling in Murrieta, CA and Riverside, CA as well as online couples therapy to residents of California. Contact us today for a free consultation.
Gaslighting
A term that is used more often today than it has ever been is gaslighting and that is a form of emotional and psychological abuse. However, this type of emotional abuse has been around and coined its term from a movie and play in the 1920’s that refers to someone turning on and off a light/lantern.
This is a form of psychological abuse in which a person causes someone else to question their own sanity, memories, and reality.
A good example of this is: a partner does not want their other to go out when they get home from work because they want them to stay home and spend time with them. So when their partner gets home the partner who does not want the one to leave will intentionally take and hide the keys while their partner (who got home from work) is taking a shower to go out with their friends. When the partner gets out of the shower and is ready to go they look for their keys and can't find them and ask the partner if they have seen their keys and they tell them no I have no idea where they are “you are always losing those things and if your head wasn't attached you would lose that too.”
Later that night the partner who took the keys returned them to their regular spot (when the other was asleep) and when the partner who thought they lost the keys saw them in their spot (in the morning) they started to question if the keys were there, how did I not see them, “am I really losing it?”.
Gaslighting can take that quick form and example of manipulation which is also referred to as “crazy making”. However, it can also take place long term by consistently saying that everything is the other person's fault because “they are crazy, they don’t remember, etc.”
Gaslighting terms often sound like “That never happened.” “You have always been crazy.” “You’re overreacting.” “It’s your fault.”
Manipulation
Gaslighting and manipulation often go hand and hand but can intensify the ability of having control over a partner. Manipulation often takes place in emotional abuse because it is difficult for some to accept their own actions and behaviors and is a way to blame shift onto the other person. Manipulation is a way to exploit and influence someone as to how they feel and why they feel the way they do. There is often blaming the victim for the abuse and convincing the other person that they are feeling bad because of something they did and second guessing themselves.
Triangulation
Triangulation is another type of emotional abuse and it involves a third person who one will ask to take sides with who is right and wrong.
The way this becomes abusive rather than helpful is that one person in the relationship has already called or gotten the third party involved without the other partner knowing and frontloading that person to see only one side and then eventually take that side when the third person gets involved.
Example: calling a friend after an argument or being worried about the relationship and the friend then saying they know because the partner has reached out and they are worried too about the one who called for help.
Control
Controlling what everyone is doing in the relationship (including clothing, money, job, kids, etc.). Eventually this can lead to one in a relationship controlling daily activities and making sure that the other person feels like or believes that they cannot make decisions without the other.
Love Bombing
Love bombing happens when there has been an argument and one person starts to spoil the other person and spend all their time and shower them with gifts to show their affection.
This is often where we see flowers, chocolates, bailing someone out of jail, jewelry, makeup sex, etc. We also refer to this as “love confusion” because it plays on the emotional part of thinking that this person really feels bad for what they have done and how much they care about me. Our mind gets very confused and muddied because of the chemicals that are released when we are upset, angry, sad, etc. when someone hurts us and then the feel good chemicals are released when we begin to feel happy and that someone “loves us” or has made us feel good.
Pointing out insecurities
Another part of emotional/psychological abuse is playing on one’s partner's insecurities. Examples include if someone knows that their partner doesn’t like their stomach and the other partner is constantly talking about the stomach or how someone could do better if they had a nicer stomach. Another example would be if a partner knows that the other person has a rough relationship with their mom and when they are not happy with that partner they tell them they are just like their mother.
Stonewalling
Stonewalling is a part of emotional/psychological abuse that can sometimes get confused and/or often be called the silent treatment. Stonewalling is a little bit different in the way that it is done and why it is done. It is done by completely shutting down when there is a disagreement or a conversation that one person does not want to complete or is using as a form of punishment towards the other person. Stonewalling is different from taking a time out or a break/breath; it is instead someone leaving another person or just shutting out the other person with no want or means to communicate again about whatever matter it is that someone is shutting down. Stonewalling can lead to feelings of abandonment and attachment difficulties.
Treating your partner like a child
Being treated or having a partner treat the other like a child is a form of emotional/psychological abuse.
The reason being that one person is placing themselves in a higher, more intelligent and better “role” in that relationship.
If someone treats a partner like a child one will feel that they are less than and their intelligence is not up to the standard of the other person as well as placed in a state where they have to be told what to do because the other person “knows better.”
Dismissing your partner
Dismissing or diminishing what a partner says can be emotional/[psychological abuse as well as a communication breakdown. When a partner dismisses what another is saying or how they are feeling one can often feel unheard but also grow resentment towards each other and the one being dismissed and/or diminished may feel that no matter what their opinions do not matter and begin to affect self esteem and feel less than and bad about themselves.
Coercion/Threats
Coercion and threats is a severe form of emotional/psychological abuse. With this can come threats that one partner will harm themselves if someone leaves, hurt the kids, hurt the dog/cat, hurt family members, never allow the parent to see their kids, etc.
This is at times the last ditch effort of something to maintain the highest amount of control over another because it works on the emotional and empathetic part of the brain that if someone is going to harm those that we love or those that we are in a relationship with the more difficult it is to leave or see a way out without causing further harm.
If you have experienced many of these in your relationship or previous relationships it is possible that there has been or that there is emotional/psychological abuse. We know that this may be shocking but also validating and eye opening but want to help you and/or you and your partner heal in order to prevent, make sense of, or avoid this in the future. Remember you are not alone, we are here to help.
It can be hard to recognize the signs of abuse and then take steps to actively stop it especially when it’s with someone you love. You are not alone and we are here for you! We help couples every day deal with situations just like yours. Contact us today or click the button below to schedule a free 15 minute phone consultation with our Intake Coordinator.
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Lindsey Ritter-Ingorvaia, AMFT, APCC
Lindsey specializes in helping LGBTQIA+ couples by providing couples with honesty, trust, and compassion as well as understanding that there are parts of your identity and experience that don’t fit heteronormative roles or expectations. Lindsey offers in-person couples counseling and marriage therapy in Murrieta, CA and online couples counseling in California.
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