What to Do if You Are Emotionally Abused in a Relationship

Emotional abuse in couples is a complex phenomenon encountered, unfortunately, in many contemporary couples. However, it is difficult to present a concrete statistic, considering that this phenomenon is not a visible one, it is a subtle action of pressing the life partner.

Emotional abuse cannot be measured and characterized, it is often invisible to those around the couple, being such a subtle form of violence that sometimes even the victim is not fully aware that she is being abused.

But the effects of such symbolic violence are just as real and not very different from those of physical violence: the victim feels isolated, cornered, and submissive, losing the freedom to behave like herself and living in constant fear. 

Emotional abuse is all the more dangerous as this form of violence is not visible, the aggressor will never go to court and not even the victim will be able to describe exactly how she is assaulted.

Although there are no concrete statistics because it would be impossible to achieve, the cases show that, usually, even in the case of physical violence, the woman is the main victim of emotional abuse.

There are two forms of abuse: subtle and violent. The first way in which the aggressor manipulates his victim is the most dangerous, being even more difficult to observe.

The partner comes to dominate the victim, to control and control his actions, but in a subtle way, using veiled threats. In time, if his actions are always controlled, the victim will be able to see his thoughts controlled by the subtle presence of his partner: "I better not do this, he might find out and not like it."

Those around you will only perceive a couple in which one of the partners is a little more dominant, but the reality is different. In such a couple, the emotional abuse makes any communication impossible, the relationship will be like: the master gives orders, the slave executes.

It is a subtle and refined method of manipulation, manipulation based on fear, fear of physical violence, or, most often, the uncontrollable fear of the victim to be abandoned if he is not "good".

The power thus belongs to only one of the partners, who can control everything, from what the house looks like to the couple's activities to the children's education, using subtle threats.

The victim will obey even before she realizes that she is dominated in a brutal style, she will get so used to responding to her partner's orders and pleasing them that it will seem like a normal situation!

Have you ever met a couple in which the man orders at the restaurant for both of them, without asking her what she wants, in which he talks continuously and answers all the questions alone, while she smiles and approves; in which when she tries to say something, she is suddenly interrupted or contradicted in a very fun way? Most likely, there is emotional abuse in that couple!

The victim of abuse ends up doing only what he knows will suit his partner, he will never be free to express his preferences and ideas.

Another form of emotional abuse in a couple is less subtle, as it involves forms of verbal violence. The aggressor destroys his partner's self-confidence by constantly repeating speeches in which he offends him, minimizes him, turns him into the garbage.

After days, weeks, months, years when the victim has to listen to how she is good for nothing, how she can't do anything like the world, how stupid and useless she is, her self-image will be horrible. And the one who tells her those things is the closest person, the one who should know her best! Then he's probably right!

The human mind is sensitive to repetition: if it hears a thing many times, it comes to consider it a reality!

Such violent emotional abuse results in the creation of a weak person, dependent on his partner, to whom he obeys because, according to him, someone else would not tolerate him. As in the case of subtle abuse, the victim does not protest for fear of being abandoned.

Maybe the first time she will respond to the insults with insults, but after a while, she will learn that it is easier to be silent and to obey.

Why is this phenomenon possible? Because some people need to be dominant, to feel superior (a need coming from a masked inferiority complex) and so they are looking for and intentionally finding weak partners, whom they see as influential and insecure.

But the victim of emotional abuse is not innocent either, in fact, he is an accomplice. Destruction of self-esteem and the formation of a negative self-image would not have been possible without the "help" of the victim.

She suffered from a lack of self-confidence from the beginning and instead of analyzing the situation and taking action when the first signs of emotional abuse appeared, she preferred to submit! Because, in a dark corner of his mind, he thought he deserved what he was getting. Well, no one deserves that!

But just as it is difficult for physically abused women to break away and leave, it is difficult for an emotionally abused woman to react. Because she has become addicted to her husband and is no longer herself.

But the worst thing is that most of the time, she doesn't even realize that she is a victim of emotional abuse. He simply got used to the situation and endured it every day…