10 Telltale Signs of Emotional Abuse

Whether you love reading about human psychology in general or came across this article because you’re in dire need of answers, I’m glad you’re here. Emotional abuse is part of the world we live in, yet many people have no idea it even exists.

Sometimes people are born and raised in homes that wittingly or unwittingly normalize abuse. Yelling, deflection of requests for help, shutting down emotions, and closing people out after hurting them are behaviors that are the tragic normal in some circles.

On the other hand, perhaps you were born and raised in a family that exercised healthy boundaries, clear communication, and genuine trust and respect. Now you’re here, reading this article, because for one reason or another, you’ve been treated wrongly (or have witnessed the abuse of a friend or family member) and need help.

If you’re reading about emotional abuse for the first time, bear in mind that it’s not just about “someone’s feelings getting hurt.” Though hurt feelings are real, they aren’t the same as emotional abuse. A friend or coworker may say something that bothers you, and after a quick conversation you can get the misunderstanding resolved. You’re both better off for it, and in most cases, trust hasn’t been broken.

Abuse, on the other hand, is both intentional and longer-lasting. An abuser wants to make you feel guilty, lonely, hurt, or angry because it’s their only sense of power in life. Emotional abusers employ a variety of tactics in subtle, often invisible ways that erode your confidence, trust, joy, and sense of safety in relationships.

Unless you’ve read about what these tactics are, they’re difficult to spot and even harder to label. My goal is to give you language to describe what’s happening so you can take the conversation to a trusted counselor, pastor, or leader. Without further ado, here are 10 telltale signs of emotional abuse:

1. Gaslighting. Gaslighting is one of the most insidious forms of messing with someone’s mind. The tricky part of it is, you may have been gaslit before and not even know it happened. Gaslighting is any form of psychological manipulation that, when used over time, causes a victim to feel doubtful about their own thoughts, feelings, experiences, and questions. For example, perhaps you have an agreement with your spouse to share cleaning responsibilities at home. It’s their week to clean the bathroom and at the end of the week, you take a look and the sink and toilet are dirty. You go to your spouse and say, “Hey, I noticed the bathroom hasn’t been cleaned. Any reason why?” They respond with, “I already cleaned it.” You think to yourself, maybe they cleaned it a couple days ago and it just got dirty again. But then two to three weeks later, the same pattern is happening. You start to realize they haven’t been cleaning it and have been trying to make you believe something that isn’t true. This is gaslighting in a nutshell.
2. Ignoring your efforts to communicate. Another favorite tactic of abusers is pretending they can’t see or hear you. When you’re irritated about something or simply want to get a bad experience off your chest, it’s natural to want someone to confide in. Who better to talk with than your significant other, right? If they’re an abuser (whether you’ve discovered this or not yet), unfortunately you’ve walked into a trap. Emotional abusers intentionally reject your efforts to communicate and connect because it gives them “power” over you. One person reaching out to someone else requires the other person to exercise humility and vulnerability. Emotional abusers are incapable of vulnerability because in most cases, they would just break down or go completely rigid on you. This may be due to traumas they experienced in their past, but it’s never an excuse to treat someone in their present with disdain and contempt. By pretending your communication doesn’t exist, they can continue on their way without affording any effort or energy for your needs.
3. Dehumanization. Dehumanization is any bodily behavior that someone uses to remove or downplay the human elements of a conversation. Not making eye contact, avoiding verbal affirmations (Mmhms and Uh-huhs), and pretending to ignore you are all examples. The abuser uses these tactics to discourage you, and — even worse — try to make you forget about what you wanted to talk about in the first place. Dehumanization can be unimaginably discouraging at times, because it feels like you’re talking to a robot or a brick wall. The other person is there in the room with you, but they’re willfully blocking you out. You’re trying to reach them and all they’re doing is keeping a barrier between you.
4. Minimizing your needs while demanding that theirs be met immediately. Another telltale sign of emotional abuse is downplaying your needs. Abusive people use anything they can to try to make themselves feel more powerful. One method they employ is pretending other people’s needs don’t matter, namely your own. If other people don’t have needs, then theirs become the only ones by default. This is a power play that’s doomed to fail from the beginning, though, because of its self-centered nature. If an abuser were to meet someone’s needs, that would mean they have to be humble and human. By not meeting your needs, or saying and doing things that imply they don’t matter, they can shift focus away from you back to them. A side effect of this tactic is that you may begin thinking your needs don’t matter, or stop bringing them up altogether. They may also treat the smallest inconveniences in their lives as the biggest priorities, expecting you to drop everything just to make their life a little less painful. This further distorts reality, which shows us that not all needs can be met at the exact same time.
5. Treating others well in public and treating you terribly in private. Number five is one of the most insidious and infuriating forms of emotional abuse. In order to support how they desire others to perceive them, abusers act kind and hospitable in public. If others saw how they really are, they would never “get along” with anyone or get anything done. Instead, they give positive breadcrumbs to everyone else to keep them at bay, while treating you horrendously in private. They may give others gifts, compliments, or smile and laugh with them — but with you it’s a whole different story. They’ll complain, whine, cry, or go stone cold silent on you for no reason — expecting you to put up with it all. Deep down they know there’s something wrong with their behavior, so they save face with surface level actions in public while unleashing all of their bitterness, anger, jealousy, and insecurity on you — likely the only truly healthy and reliable person in their life.
6. Saying one thing and doing another (inconsistency and hypocrisy). A favorite of emotional abusers is being hypocritical and hoping you don’t notice. For example, if you’re married to your abuser, it’s a normal desire to want to keep your living space clean. If you’re the first (or the only) person to bring up messiness, at first they may agree to help in keeping the area clean. After a couple weeks go by though, you’ve found that you’re the only one who actually cleans rooms and puts effort in. When you bring it up to them, they have a laundry list of reasons why they “can’t” help out. “I’m tired / I get home from work late / I’ll do it tomorrow / I’m really stressed right now” may have been things you’ve already heard. There are key differences between a normal human and an abuser, though. Someone who’s legitimately worn out won’t constantly put the burden on you. If they really can’t do it, they’ll follow through when they say they will. An abuser will come up with every excuse as to why they aren’t going to do it, then laugh to themselves at your misery.
7. Idealizing you one minute, then complaining or attacking you the next. This form of manipulation is common among emotional abusers. They are aware that they can’t get away with constant, overt abuse of you and your personhood, so they balance their torture of your emotions with the occasional compliment or seemingly genuine praise. You may say something one day to which they might respond, “You’re overreacting, it’s not that big of a deal” — only to give you an out-of-the-blue compliment a couple days later. Maybe you successfully completed a work project or promotion, and they’ll take advantage of that to make you think they actually like and respect you. As soon as something goes awry later on though, they’ll be sure to get in your face about it. Forgot to bring the mail in? They’ll get irate on the spot. Felt like taking a night off from doing the dishes? They’ll say something to make you feel lazy and selfish. This unpredictable cycle repeats until you’re fuming in a pile of loneliness, hurt, and confusion.
8. Expecting you to grow, but never putting in the effort to do so themselves. Emotional abusers LOVE pushing all of the discipline they should exercise over their own life into your life. Since abusive people don’t have a healthy sense of self, the desire to grow, or any sense of relational intimacy, they will find crafty ways to get you to do all the work. When inevitable arguments and differences in view come up, they may say things like, “I just don’t know what to do…” or “I’m so tired of this.” You — being a good person — offer a solution, to which they quickly agree. On the outside, it seems like they’re just happy to take your recommendation. On the inside, they’re secretly relieved that yet again, you’re taking responsibility for what should inherently be a shared responsibility. After you have participated in the course, book, class, or counseling sessions with them, you’re as confused as you’ve ever been. That’s because they’ve been using you as a facade for their lack of effort. You’ve been genuinely working towards a better relationship while they use your authenticity as cover for their hidden abuse and total absence of care.
9. Complaining or crying about their problems but never offering you support when you need it. This is another form of hypocrisy that abusers love to utilize. They expect you to be right there when they are experiencing a difficult time, but when you’re dealing with something painful, forget it. Take a difficult day at work for example. If your significant other comes home and starts crying about the awful day they had at the office, it would be reasonable to offer them consolation. This is what the average person does, as it’s good to offer comfort when a loved one isn’t doing well. But with an abuser, if you don’t offer comfort as soon as it’s needed and “in the right way,” they will start getting angry because you weren’t “perfect.” Never mind the fact that you already offered support and did so in an appropriate way. Then, when you’re dealing with a rough day, they may not even acknowledge your emotions. If they do, they may say something entirely cold like “okay” or “got it.” As if that is enough to express real concern. You’ll never get real support from an abuser; only their expectation that you be flawless.
10. Avoiding personal responsibilities. Last on this list but certainly never least is avoiding responsibility. An abuser never wants to follow through on things they need to do in a relationship because that would indicate they have something they can work on. Many abusers suffer from deep inferiority complexes, which is the belief that one is fundamentally inadequate in life. This typically results from how they were victimized in their own childhood, but again — it’s not an excuse to treat you the same way. To combat the inferiority complex, abusers “endow” themselves with a false sense of superiority, which is what makes them think they don’t need to improve. Someone that’s already “perfect” doesn’t need to follow through on commitments, be honest, seek growth, or even ask for help. In a relationship, this leads to you being the only person who’s actually responsible. If you’re not careful, you may end up taking on responsibilities that aren’t yours in an effort to avoid conflict. Over time, this exhausts you as your partner or spouse continues to enjoy a largely responsibility-free life while you’re picking up their slack.

As you can see, any one of these are severe enough to wreak havoc on a relationship. Through your abuser’s subtle tactics, you may start believing your needs don’t matter, your thoughts aren’t real, and your feelings are invalid. If enough time has passed, an abuser can turn a neurotypical human being from a healthy, confident, and happy individual to a hopeless, resentful, and bitter one.

That’s why it’s essential to get educated and get help. As soon as you notice any abusive pattern — whether from the behaviors above or something else — talk with someone you trust about it. You need an “out” not only to explain what is happening, but so those who truly love you can rally around you and help bring an end to your abuser’s cycles.

Though some abusers change (and any of them can with proper healing and working on the self), some never change. Acknowledging how one was victimized but then turned that onto others is extremely difficult, and often takes years of intentional practice with counselors, healthy relationships, and deep humility.

You can never do for an abuser what only they can, and must, do for themselves. Don’t try to heal or fix them; simply enact boundaries in your life and let them see the consequences of their actions.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional counselor or mental health expert. The contents of this article are based on real-life experiences of my own, as well as hours of conversations with licensed counselors, pastors, reading, and academic research. While this information is intended to help those dealing with an emotionally abusive situation, it should not be used as a substitute for qualified conversations with licensed professionals and trustworthy pastors. Please reach out to the aforementioned type of individual and/or call the domestic abuse hotline at 1.800.799.SAFE (7233) if you’re facing immediate danger.