Would you recognize Emotional Manipulation In Your Marriage? Check the signs of Emotional Manipulation In Marriage and how you can stop being manipulated.
Rachel doesn't know what's wrong with her relationship, but it doesn't feel right or healthy. Darren tells her he loves her, and that the things he says and does are for her good, but they don't feel loving to her. It all seems so off that she's started to wonder if she's in an emotionally abusive relationship.
Recognizing an emotionally abusive relationship isn't easy. If you've got a black eye from your partner hitting you, that's pretty obvious abuse. But if it feels like you're being manipulated, humiliated, or controlled, that's not always so easy to see, especially if you're on the receiving end of it.
There are lists out there of the signs of an emotionally abusive relationship, but often if you're in the middle of one it's hard to recognize those signs. I've found that a better way to help people identify if their relationship is emotionally abusive is to explain to them what it feels like to be in one.
How does it feel to be in a relationship that's emotionally abusive? Here are some of the most common feelings. You can feel:
I had a front row seat to an emotionally abusive relationship last week in my office. A couple in divorce counseling was meeting with me. They had been fighting all week over his response to finding out that she had a man sleep over at their house. He says he's fearful of what could happen to his kids with her bringing "men in my house." However, it was one man, when the kids weren't there, and it's no longer his living space. In some ways he looks like a caring parent who only wants to protect his kids, but the manner in which he expressed his concerns revealed it to be much more.
Nick didn't express his concerns and have constructive conversations about them with Chloe, instead he made threats about moving back into the house and going to court to get more visitation, while barraging her with endless questions and accusations. Rather than sending a few texts over the 4 days as would have been usual, he sent more than 100. Before moving out he had installed a security cam to watch the front door to the house and was now using it to question her about everyone who entered the house, even other family members. He flipped from being a disconnected father who didn't know his kid's bedtimes and took a nap on the sofa during some of his visits, to being an overly protective, alarmed dad.
This is what emotionally abusive behavior can look like. It's excessive, unnecessary, self-centered, and unloving. What it feels like for Chloe is controlling, smothering, embarrassing, and scary. She doesn't know what to expect from him next.
Here's another example:
I can use any advice or guidance you can give me. 7 years ago my husband suddenly changed. He started staring down young girls in front of me like he was undressing them. Since then he has been taking care of himself to always look good. The whole 7 years he has been full of anger, rage and blaming and criticizing me and being very psychologically and emotionally abusive. He turns everything he does and says around onto me and says I hurt myself with my thoughts and that I'm the one doing everything to him that he's been doing to me. I believe he has been cheating and think he's in a relationship with someone at work. He's always hiding something and acting suspicious. I have never worked in the 29 years were married I was a stay at home mom and wife, I have no education, career or money and he is withholding his pay checks and money from me. We have tried marriage therapy which we were still currently in and nothing has changed in 7 years. He has become more cruel mean and abusive though he so far has never hit me. I have lost so far 21 pounds the last couple of months from stress and anxiety and have a hard time eating from feeling this way. My 3 kids are hurting as deeply as me with all the fights and arguments between us. He has had a full work up with blood work and genetic testing and all his testosterone and everything else is fine. So I don't know if this is a midlife crisis or the new him and what I should do because after 7 years he's not getting any better he's just getting more cruel toward me, he has no empathy and outright has told me I don't give a f*** what you want need or feel and go f*** yourself. He curses me out all the time and calls me fowl things. I have no idea what's going on with him or if he's ever going to change after 7 years of being like this and rather get divorced then do what anything I need in the marriage. It's seems to be his way or no way and only about his wants, needs and feeling and not mine at all. I don't know what to do. The wounds and hurt are so deep and wide open. I made an appt with a divorce lawyer but I don't know if I should file for divorce or not. Please Please Please tell me what you think I should do." -Lillian
It's pretty clear how Lillian feels -- blamed and criticized, it's all her fault, controlled, abused, not cared for, confused, hurt, and hopeless. Can you relate to how she or Chloe feels?
The biggest reason being emotionally abused makes you feel crazy is that everyone else denies it. Your partner says they love you and don't do the things you feel like they do to you. You're the one who's acting crazy, not them. Their behavior is hidden from others, so family members, friends, and work associates typically think your partner is a good person. The abuser and relationship usually looks pretty normal from the outside.
It's also really hard to believe and accept that the person you love, and the person who often says they love you back, makes you feel this way. Is it them? Or is it you? Maybe it really is your fault?
Being in an emotionally abusive relationship changes your mindset, belief in yourself, confidence, and ability to recognize the truth. It brainwashes you so you no longer trust your feelings or thoughts. Feeling crazy and confused becomes the normal.
Both women and men can be the victims. Although the examples above are both about men being emotionally abusive to women, women do it just as often to men too. This is actually a much more common form of abuse used by women.
If you're reading this article it's very likely that what led you here is the suspicion that you're in an emotionally abusive relationship. Most often people's instinct is right, they just don't trust it anymore. Maybe it's time to trust yours and talk to an expert to confirm your suspicions and get some help.
Would you recognize Emotional Manipulation In Your Marriage? Check the signs of Emotional Manipulation In Marriage and how you can stop being manipulated.
Want to know what Abusive Women are really like? Take a look at 7 behaviors used by Women who are Abusive. Read quotes from Women who Abuse and partners.
No one gets into a relationship expecting to be controlled by their partner.
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HI , My name is janet and six months ago I found that my husband has an affair and he told me that he doesn,t love me anymore and wants to move out ! He didn,t reconize his affair and he said that he desn,t wants to move out for another woman , he wants to move out to be FREE ! I am 50 years old and he is 55 and we are married for 30 years . I tried hard to understand what,s is wrong and I know tat in 30 yeras the thinks between us wasn,t good all the time and we had ups and down , but I love him and i don,t want to lose hime ! So i undestand him , and in the last six months I was very nice and I didn,t push or fight with him ! But he told me many times that he doesn,t feel nothing for me and he still wants to move out and be free ! I don,t know what to do , I believe that is a midlife crisis , beause I read a lot about that and it looks like his behavior ! PLease give me some advice . Thank you for your time !
Janet, I am sorry to hear about your troubles. A mid-life crisis can be complicated. There are a number of underlying issues that can contribute to the behavior. I would need to know more in order to be able to offer relevant advice. Unfortunately, this is not the best forum for that. If you would like to schedule a time to talk, my contact information is at the top and bottom of the web page. Best wishes. -Dr. Kurt
My husband has just started therapy after acknowledging how abusive he is. The paragraph about the crazy making part of emotional abuse is, to me, what others call isolation.
I am so angry and sad. I've been in this relationship for nearly all of my adult life, and if he is dedicated to changing, I will stay. But I need him to tell all our mutual friends and family about this so that maybe I might get my family back.
My husband and I started dating a few months after my ex-husband and I separated. I looked his background up on casenet and saw his violent past. I remember telling friends and family about how strange it was to read about his violent incidence from his past, because he seemed so calm and harmless. He even brought it up and explained what had happened. He blamed it on how mad he was, how awful the bouncer was, and the cold. He never mentioned he was blackout drunk- not in the beginning. He didn’t then mention how bitter he was about it, he brought it up as a thing he wanted to make sure I knew about. He didn’t say he was still angry about it. He acted like he had learned and grown from it. I’m going to call the husband T from now on.
A few months into dating- he snapped at a party we were at. It was my friend’s house, T was talking to my friend’s boyfriend about a cell phone charger, the boyfriend was fairly uninterested. He was dismissive, rude, and kinda arrogant. This sent T into a range. He was yelling and getting aggressive with this man because the guy wasn’t listening, wasn’t impressed, and wasn’t agreeing with T. This embarrassed me, caused the husband of the house to ask T to stop and remind him there were children in the home.
He got mad at my best friend over something political. He discussed something with her for hours, he ended up yelling at her in a restaurant. She left.
His sister told me he is an alcoholic and it’s my fault there’s alcohol in the house. Tells me it’s a disease. And I have to help him. Tells me he can’t drink. Tells me it’s because their mom died. Tells me it’s my problem.
Fast forward to new years eve 2016- T has me in a parking garage in a large city we don’t live in. We had been drinking for hours and he wanted to go smoke weed in the parking garage. Somehow he turned this into his own personal time to scream at me for breaking up with him over a year ago, dating someone else, and then texting that person when T and I had gotten back together. He screamed at me for hours. I was crying and scared and remember thinking people would hear him and beat him up. And then I starting hoping someone would hear him and help me.
He continued to yell, scream, and hold this person against me for years. He started acting like I had hurt him and this made him have power over me. This meant he could try to hurt me back, this meant that anything he did was justified because I had done it to him before. I felt like he was only with me to try to hurt me. I once burned my hand while cooking and was talking about it right after- saying ohh can you help? He goes, well when I burned my hand you told me to suck it up and I was fine. But this wasn’t true. He had never burned his hand and I had never said that.
One night I asked him if we could go to a friend’s house for dinner. It was a Friday night and we normally had this friend come to our house, this night they asked us to come over. T said yes, he’d go. We go and he proceeds to get completely hammered and yells at my friend because she got off more easily than he did with her court/law stuff. We get home that night and he is completely drunk. It’s around 12 and I decide I want to just go to bed because I’m not going to get on his level, and I’m tired. He then turns the music up extremely loud so I can’t sleep. He starts yelling from the bottom of the stairs that he knows he can hear me and I shouldn’t ignore him. I close the bedroom door- in a rage he slams the door open and demands a lighter and goes off about how I am the horrible one that smokes cigerattes and he can never find a lighter when he needs it. He looks me in the eye and says- you’re not my wife, my wife is someone else. You aren’t her. I told him about this the next morning. He said he didn’t remember any of it and that he got so drunk because I had made him go to the friend’s house, he didn’t want to go so to get back at me he got really drunk.
He got mad after day drinking while on vacation in a different state. We were at a restaurant and I asked him to text my mom a question, this set him off. He was mad that I blocked my mom’s number and couldn’t text her. He was mad that his mom died and I chose to not have a relationship with mine. He left yelling, eff you! At me. He left me alone in the restaurant. A nice family came over and the husband told me- real men don’t treat women that way. He continued to yell at me the entire night in the hotel.
He left me at my friend’s house after he came to pick me up. I had been at a wine fest all day, told him I would be drinking, and even said I might be drunk. He came to get me, and after being there for about 20 minutes (we were all hanging out) he left without me. Later he told me he did this because he wanted me to call and ask him to come back.
The next weekend was a Halloween party. We planned to drink and stay the night there. We picked out the spare room we’d sleep in and started hanging out and drinking. A few hours in, T is getting really drunk. He is continually drinking two or more beers in the time it takes me to drink one. He acts like he just doesn’t care and wants to drink faster. He leaves me from the very beginning, he isn’t hanging out with me. I’m often alone at the party just looking around. I don’t know many people there so I’m not really having fun.
At one point T decided to tell a story about how one of our acquaintances had sex with some football player, and how he saw it on her snapchat story and how COOL he thought it was. He told this story in front of many friends. (Back story- T knew I didn’t like this lady, and knew I thought she was a whore. Over the summer I had over heard T another male and this woman talking about her getting breast implants, I had told him that night I didn’t like what I heard and it made me uncomfortable- he got mad and said I was being ridiculous.)
After T’s story was over I politely asked him to speak to me. I told him I didn’t think his story he told was very nice to me, and was disrespectful. He told me I was overreacting and I could see the conversation was going no where so I stopped it, he was going to get mad and argue with me and I didn’t want that to happen at the party.
The girl arrived at the party not too much longer- and he came up to her in front of me and many others and high fived her and started yelling about how cool it was that she had sex with this football player and how cool it was that he got to see her snapstory. I was just numb. T then started asking people for their number (girls). It truly was feeling like he was trying to upset me.
Fast forward hours and I’m tired and drunk. I try to get T to go to bed with me but he won’t he says he’s enjoying himself and wants to keep drinking. So I go to bed alone. I wake up at 4:15am alone. I look at my phone and see 2 missed calls from T from around 3:30. I call him. He tells me he left me because the house was locked and he had no way to get in. He says he’s coming back to get me. He shows up in like 15 minutes and is very drunk. He tells me he tried to get in and everyone had just left and locked him outside. He then drives dangerously and over 90 miles an hour. I tell him I am sober and want to drive. He refuses to let me drive.
I ask him the next day what happened (after trying to get him up--- he’s hungover). He couldn’t account for 4 hours of him night where he apparently was drinking in the shop of the party with everyone else. I just don’t see how he was able to get locked out if he was drinking with everyone? The next day he also told me he was trying to be mean to me and upset me because I had gotten drunk the week before with my friend. He said he wanted me to be sad.
We go to my parent’s house for deer camp, there’s drinking there. I asked him before we go- please don’t leave me. Please be able to maintain yourself. He proceeded to get too drunk, act like an idiot, get too loud, pass out before 10:30 and piss on the bed.
I fear that there is a pattern. It’s scary. I don’t know what to do.
I found this blog very instructive, especially as to the "crazy” aspect of how emotional abuse can make the non-abuser feel. A few examples.
First, how your spouse (for me, my wife) can tell you s/he loves you but then show absolutely no signs of love, while knowing full well your love languages and how you perceive and receive love, whether affection, gifts, service, time, touch or whatnot. It causes extreme confusion, especially when living in a near-sexless marriage, void of intimacy or affection about 29 days out of the month.
Second, how your spouse treats you when you want to have real, sincere dialogue or discussion about things going awry in your marriage - things that need improvement, and being challenged to "give examples” or refuting the absence of intimacy in the past. OR even that s/he won't have that conversation with you. That leaves you feeling stupid, confused, ignored/unwanted, or thinking you've mis-remembered key events or omissions. This has caused me to go full-force into journaling how I feel, what I experience, etc. - lest I fall subject to thinking I truly misremembered things. (However, the downfall of this is that to your spouse, you look like you're keeping score).
Third, silent treatment absolutely stings, and it kills the relationship. There is nothing that causes a feeling of being unwanted and unloved than that employed by your spouse.
So, thank you for these thoughts. Emotional abuse is subtle, and the abuser believes s/he is justified in his or her actions (or withholding), further causing the non-abuser to feel stupid and unjustified in his or her feelings of inadequacy, unwanted-ness and being unloved, and down-right crazy at times.
I feel you dude. Hows that going?