11 Ways You May Be Emotionally Abusive Without Even Realizing It

Aug 07, 2018

Emotional abuse is often misunderstood and missed. The following are 11 behaviors of emotional abuse. Check them to see if any of them match your behavior. Emotional abuse is a harsh and damaging thing. Nobody wants to be guilty of such a thing. However, you may be prone to implementing emotional abuse if you have low self-esteem or experienced emotional abuse in the past.

If you are having extreme relationship problems, you may want to review your own behavior to see if you might be emotionally abusive without knowing it. If the answer is yes, you can take steps to resolve it and learn better tactics. Here are some signs that you may be emotionally abusive without even knowing:

Partners are supposed to help to build each other's confidence and self-esteem. They're supposed to encourage each other and celebrate their successes. You may be emotionally abusive if you find yourself tearing your partner down and hardly ever complimenting or supporting that person and anything that he or she does. You may be enacting emotional abuse that is rooted in insecurity or your own low self-esteem.

You may want to review your actions if your partner keeps accusing you of being selfish in bed. Lovemaking is all about giving and taking. You are supposed to enjoy each other. You could be emotionally abusive if you are just taking from your partner and not concerning yourself with whether he or she enjoys it or not.

You may want to re-evaluate things if you notice that your partner has become a people pleaser. People pleasers tend to do what they do because they want to avoid abuse. It's a common characteristic of the partners of abusive individuals.

It's okay to have a cooling off period through an argument or a rough time. However, you might be being abusive if you use the silent treatment all the time, and you never actually tell your partner would he or she has done wrong.

Cutting down other people to make yourself feel better is a common coping mechanism of abusive individuals. You may want to examine yourself if you're doing this as there are healthier ways to make yourself feel better that don't involve damaging someone else's self-esteem.

If you have a reputation for having a sharp tongue, you may be emotionally abusive. Verbal abuse is just another form of emotional abuse because it causes emotional pain, and it can't be taken back once it's done.

Yes, we are all supposed to be honest, but sometimes it's better to plead the Fifth than to hurt another person. If you find yourself being overly blunt or "keeping it real" to the point of causing your partner pain, you may be a bit on the abusive side.

You might be emotionally abusive if you find yourself hitting below the belt when it comes to arguments with your partner. Every couple has disagreements, but to intentionally try to draw blood, so to speak, is a sign of an unhealthy coping mechanism.

Some people are overly dramatic with the use of the term "controlling." However, if almost everyone that you come in contact with calls you controlling, then you may want to review the way you interact with people. It's possible that you are controlling.

Gaslighting is a technique that abusive persons use to convince their victims that they are crazy or that their experiences are not real. Actually, it takes a lot of brain power and calculation to gaslight somebody. If you find yourself doing it, you really need to look at your tendencies because gaslighting is a severe form of manipulation.

Minimizing problems is another pattern of abuse. It made be a clue to your behavior if you find yourself trying to make serious problems smaller than they really are. An example is if you try to make the abuse that you inflict on the other person "not such a big deal."

Finally, if you never take responsibility for having any parts of the problems in your relationship, you may have an issue with emotional abuse. It takes two persons to make a relationship work. No problem is ever just one person's fault.

Don't be too harsh on yourself if you find that some of these behaviors match your personality or your actions. There is still much time to get help and to stop doing it as it may hurt others. Pass this message to anybody that you feel can benefit from it and start learning positive behaviors today.