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Ways An Emotional Abuser Controls

Emotional abusers employ a number of tactics to bring you and keep you under their control. These may include:

1. By Always Being Right.

Most emotional abusers truly believe in only one perspective: their own. They believe that they are always right, which means you are always wrong when there is a difference between your opinion or perspective and theirs. They gain and keep their power over their victims by having their way and the final say in everything.

2. They Have a Sense of Entitlement

Although they may be terribly fragile and ultra-sensitive on the inside, emotional abusers have tremendous ego’s which helps them believe that the world around them exists strictly as a means to get what they want and need. Abusers don’t see you for who you are, only for how you will fulfill their wishes and demands.

3. They Make You Feel Guilty

Because emotional abusers are experts at playing the victim, they know how to manipulate their victims to get them to apologize for something, even though you know you haven’t done anything wrong. By making you feel guilty for things you haven’t done, they get to make you feel like you are the actual abuser in the relationship.

4. They Always Play The Victim

Emotional abusers are really good at messing you up and hurting you while making you feel sorry for them at the same time. By presenting themselves as the tragic victims of a vast conspiracy of people, (friends, siblings, parents, former lovers), they get you to feel sorry for them and excuse or ignore everything bad they have done and are doing to you.

5. Threats And Manipulation To Gain Leverage

All emotional abusers are highly manipulative. The use a punishment/reward system of withholding what you need and supports you as your punishment (negative reinforcement) and making promises to give you what you hope for and desire as your reward (positive reinforcement). They will also use threats and scare tactics to carry out emotional blackmail.

6. Verbal Pummeling

Emotional abusers will assault their victims with a non-stop verbal barrage of anger, complaining, yelling, insults, pestering and communicating disappointment in you to establish and maintain control and power in the relationship. The most common insults are: “Your so slow”, “You can’t understand”, “You’re taking too long”, “That’s why I have to handle it”, “Did you remember?”, “Look at you!”, “Did you forget again?”

7. Gaslighting

Emotional abusers will alter your reality to manipulate you to doubt your own sanity. They will try and instill self-doubt at every opportunity until you no longer trust what you think or who you are. This eventually leads a victim to automatically trust their abuser more then themselves until they no longer have their own identity anymore.

8. Constant Check-Ins

Abusers always want to know where you are, who you are with and what you are doing at all times. Over time they will exert their control over you by trying to limit your choices or outright forbidding you from going certain places or being with certain people, especially family members or close friends because they are “looking out” for your well-being.

9. I’m Just Joking

When they say things that hurt you and you complain about it,  they will follow it up with comments such as “Your being too serious”, “Your so sensitive” or I’ was only joking.” They will mask all of their cutting and insulting comments with this rhetoric.

10. They Go From Hot To Cold

Emotional abusers will be intensely affectionate and attentive one day and then totally disappear, ignore you and give you the silent treatment the next. This is designed to make you feel guilty for making them mad or offended so you will start paying even more attention to what you do and say around them. You do this because the hot days feel so incredibly good and you are trying to prevent them from going cold on you again.

11. They Knock Your Accomplishments

Nothing you have ever done or do will be good enough for an emotional abuser. They will belittle, trivialize and rewrite your accomplishments, from a different perspective to make sure you feel like you’re not good enough, no matter what you do. They will refuse to acknowledge your strengths because they want you to think you are weak, incapable and stupid.

12. They Get You To Lose Control

Emotional abusers will often display out of control emotions to frustrate you and get you to respond by losing control yourself in order to make their point or win an argument. This allows them to snatch the conversation and control away from you. If they step back, shut up and smirk at you, then they know that they have accomplished their mission.

13. An Excessive Display Of Emotions

You know those moments. When you watch the tears roll down their cheeks as they turn the tables on you and blame you for making them feel bad. By pretending to be hurt, they get you to think that you must be the monster. The tears instantly dry up the minute you capitulate, apologize for something you haven’t done, or give them what they wanted in the first place.

14. You Deserve The Abuse

Emotional abusers are extremely good at getting their victims to doubt themselves and accept the blame for everything that’s wrong in the relationship. This leaves the victim feeling so positively worthless that they start to believe that they actually deserve the abuse.

15. Oops, I Forgot

This form of passive-aggressive behavior is subtle, but it is a deliberate failure to accomplish promised tasks. Driven by contempt and a lack of respect for their victims, emotional abusers will make it next to impossible for you distinguish between normal forgetfulness, distraction or stress; all with the distinct purpose of punishing their victims.

16. Displaying Contempt For You.

Contempt-based emotional control most often takes the form of public shaming in front of other especially friends and family. It is designed to humiliate you and make you look like a worthless idiot so that the abuser will look smarter than you and in a better light. This strips you of your dignity and keeps you quiet so they can grab all the attention.

17. I Hate You

A more private form of shaming and contempt designed to make you feel like a piece of dirt. Comments such as “Look at me when I’m talking”, “I love you but I don’t like you”, “I said no”, “Shut up and let me talk”, “It’s none of your business”, “You always act like the victim”, “I’m so disappointed in you.”

18. Jealousy

Most emotional abusers are extremely jealous of everyone, especially their spouses or partners. They will often accuse them of cheating even though their victims would never remotely do so, nor have acted in a manner that would give the abuser a valid reason to be jealous.

19. Tracking and Monitoring Devices

Emotional abusers often demand passwords to their victim’s social media accounts so they can feed their distrust and insecurities by monitoring their partners activity. They will often insist on placing tracking devices on your phone (or doing so without your permission and placing security cameras throughout the house to monitor you and let you know they are in control.

20. Because I Love You

Emotional abusers will often justify their toxic and hurtful behavior by saying that they are doing it in the name of love, for your benefit, to make you a better person or because it’s in your best interest. All because, they insist, that they deeply love you. Of course.