Emotional abuse always
accompanies, and in most cases precedes, physical
battering. Targeted, repeated emotional abuse can
severely affect the victim's sense of self and of
reality. Here is a list of emotionally abusive
behaviors abusers use against their partners:
Abuser makes hostile
jokes about the habits and faults of women
Ignores the victim's
feelings
Withholds approval as a
form of punishment
Yells at the victim
Labels the victim with
generally insulting terms: crazy, bitch, stupid
Repeatedly delivers a
series of insults specific to the victim and designed to
inflict maximum psychological damage
Repeatedly humiliates
the victim in front of family members and others
Isolates the victim
socially, perhaps geographically as well (for example, by
moving the family to a remote location)
Blames the victim for
all the abuser's troubles and failures
Threatens physical
violence and retaliation against the victim, children or
other family members
Puts down the victim's
abilities as a mother, lover, worker, etc
Demands all the victim's
attention and resents the children
Tells the victim about
his sexual affairs
Constantly accuses her
of having affairs, even when she does not have the desire or
freedom to have affairs
Gives the victim the
“silent treatment”
Threatens to abuse the
children and/or get custody of them
Tells the victim she
must stay with him because she needs him and she couldn't
make it without him
Accuses the victim of
being violent if she acts in any way to protect herself
Questions her sense of
reality
Forces economic
dependency: He prevents the victim from working - either by
forbidding her to get a job or by making her life so chaotic
that she gets fired - and/or he takes her money
Puts down or denies the
victim's history, heritage, faith, values
Hits the wall, not her,
to display his power
Breaks personal items
that have sentimental value to her as a message that he can
break her too
Threatens, tortures or
kills her/their pets
Threatens suicide if the
victim doesn't stay with him or do what he wants
Spends hours cleaning
guns or knives in front of the victim
Threatens to kill her or
her children
Destroys victim's self
esteem
