Emotional and Verbal Abuse IS Domestic Violence: The 20 Most Common Tactics of Emotional and Verbal Abuse

Emotional and Verbal Abuse IS Domestic Violence: The 20 Most Common Tactics of Emotional and Verbal Abuse

Sooo many people, especially women, believe the lie that just because they are not being hit, they are not in an abusive relationship.

But here’s the truth: emotional and verbal abuse IS domestic violence.

Emotional and verbal abuse is prevalent in 100% of abusive relationships. Emotional and verbal abuse are part of every abusive relationship because it is so easy to inflict and so easy to deny, justify, or minimize.

We naturally do not want to believe that domestic violence is part of our own relationship. That happens to other people, we want to think. So, we engage in mental gymnastics to keep from labeling as “abuse” behaviors and words which are toxic, hurtful, and destructive behaviors. We deceive ourselves and tell ourselves, “He’s got a strong personality,” or “He’s an alpha male,” or “He’s just high maintenance,” or even “He’s under a lot of stress.” Anything to avoid recognizing that what we are enduring is actually domestic violence.

Domestic Violence is about power and control. Abusers will use any means they can to exert power over someone else and control them.

So, what does emotional and verbal abuse look like? There may be hundreds of ways to emotionally and verbally abuse someone, limited only by the imagination of the abuser. Below are the 20 most common tactics of emotional and verbal abuse.

Name-calling and insults. Let’s start with something that’s pretty easy to identify. If your partner calls you anything other than a term of affection like “Sweetheart” or “Darling,” it qualifies as name-calling. Sadly, people who chose to inflict domestic violence almost always use derogatory names for their partner and children. The name itself often carries with it an insult: “idiot,” “a**hole,” “ugly,” “stupid.” But, of course, it can get much worse. Abusers feel a great deal of contempt for others, and feel entitled to put others down. No one, and I mean no one, deserves to be insulted or called horrible names.
Lying and Deception. Toxic people are pathological liars. One of their primary characteristics is deception and lying. This is how they manage to get a lovely woman into a relationship with them – he pretends to be Prince Charming to deceive her into believing he is someone he’s not. Their goal is to get her emotionally and financially attached. Once they tie the knot, or have kids together, or buy a house together, or start a business together – basically anything in which she is emotionally and financially tied to him – the mask comes off. An abuser will lie about anything to get what he wants. From telling a potential dating target that he is single when he is, in fact, married to lying about income and concealing assets in a divorce. Abusers will lie in business dealings as well.
Gaslighting. Many people have never even heard of gaslighting (I know I hadn’t until I did some research). Gaslighting is when a toxic person uses manipulation designed to make their target doubt their own perceptions, experiences, reality, or sanity. The most common example is when an abusive person does or says something that is hurtful, and then denies he said or did it when his victim calls him out. Hearing a steady stream of “I never said that!” over the years makes a person question their own sanity. It also makes them want to have a video recorder on 24/7 to capture the truth.
Projection. Projection occurs when a toxic person accuses his target of the very thing he is most guilty of himself. Because toxic people are so dark and untrustworthy, they assume that other people are just as dark and untrustworthy. So they accuse others of what they would do in the same situation, even when there is no reason to believe the accusation is true. You can usually tell what an abusive person is doing by listening to what he accuses you of. Abusers commonly accuse their partners of infidelity, hiding money, mental illness, and alienating the children from them. And, of course, these are the same things that they are doing themselves.
Anger, Rage and Intimidation. Abusers will use anger, rage, and intimidation to make their victims comply with their demands. While emotionally healthy people can become mildly annoyed or frustrated when things don’t go their way, abusers go from 0 to 100 on the anger scale. Toxic people are like 2 year olds having a complete temper tantrum in order to make everyone around them do what they want. When they are not raging, everyone around them is walking on eggshells trying to avoid whatever may set off the next raging incident.
Threats. Toxic people use threats to control others. To get what they want, they threaten to divorce or break up with a partner, to sell a beloved pet or house or other treasured item, or to not pay for college or other important item. They will often threaten a wife that she will get no money and will be homeless if she initiates a divorce. Some even threaten to harm their victim or the children if she leaves him. Others threaten to harm themselves if she leaves him. Threats of harming themselves are rarely carried through. However, threats to harm others should be taken seriously and the victim should seek legal protection.
Parental and Social Alienation. Toxic people will lie about their victim to garner favor with their children and social circles. The smear and slander campaign against her is guaranteed if she ever dares to leave him. There are few things more evilly satisfying to an abuser than to turn a victim’s children, as well as her family and friends, against her. He will use outrageous lies, insults, or anything else at his disposal to destroy her most important relationships. He knows the most important thing to a mother is her relationship with her children. So, he uses them as pawns in an evil chess game to win them over to his side, while destroying her. He will do the same to her network of family, friends, and even business associates.
Isolation and Triangulation. Keeping their victims isolated from friends and loved ones is one way for toxic people to control their victims. Toxic people will often physically take their victims away from their support network, refuse to let them talk on the phone, and tell them that they can no longer associate with long friends. If an abuser does not explicitly forbid a partner to associate with a friend, he may make it so uncomfortable that his partner just gives up on the friendship. Abusers also use triangulation, that is, pitting people against each other by telling each of them false things about the other. For example, he may tell his partner that her friend has been spreading horrible rumors about her, and he tells her friend the same thing about his partner. Or he may tell his partner that she has no friends, and they all hate her. That way, he will destroy their relationships and have more control over his partner.
Division and Chaos. Toxic people love to create chaos and division. They simply cannot stand peace and calmness. They will create drama and conflict in nearly any situation so that they become the center of attention. This is especially true around the holidays.
Playing the Victim. Toxic people are bullies. And quite proud of it. They will brag about being the meanest, most vindictive, most cut throat, intimidating badass. But when they get caught and have to pay the consequences, they immediately turn into the most sniveling, pathetic, victims imaginable. They will play the pity card when their own actions have caused their own predicament. The acting often works. It is hard for unsuspecting people to hold someone accountable who presents himself as a pitiful victim of circumstances beyond his control, even when he created those very circumstances.
Crazy Talking in Circles. Attempting to have any logical, reasonable conversation with a toxic person to resolve an issue can be the most frustrating experience. It is hard to describe the illogical, non-sensical, confusing, redirecting, deflecting, blaming talk that comes out of an abuser’s mouth. It is hard to describe other than crazy-talking-in-circles. A toxic person does not want to resolve an issue. They have no interest in conflict resolution – which requires both parties to listen to and understand the position of the other side and come up with a mutually beneficial way forward while maintaining a relationship. Abusers only want to win at any cost. If they destroy the relationship in the process, they don’t care.
Stalking and Surveillance. Toxic people often feel like they need complete control over their victims. They have an extreme sense of entitlement that they “own” their victims and must dominate every aspect of their lives. To do this, they stalk and surveil their target, excessively text and call, demand to know their whereabouts and who they are with at all times. They may try hacking into their victim’s email, phone, bank accounts, or other private accounts. They put surveillance apps and GPS tracking devices on phones and cars to track their victims. Abusers will put recording devices in cars and homes and purses to surreptitiously record their partners. They hack into smart homes to surveil their partners, and close doors and adjust thermostats to intimidate and scare them.
Contempt, Criticism, Stonewalling, Defensiveness. These 4 characteristics are often called “The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse” because signal the end of a relationship. Dr. John Gottman, a marriage expert, can predict with over a 90% accuracy when a marriage will fail. When these tactics are used, a relationship will very likely fail. The most tell-tale sign of the oncoming end is contempt of a partner, as demonstrated by an eye roll, talking down to a partner, a sneer, and just plain arrogance.
Lack of Conscience or Empathy. Toxic people simply do not care if they hurt someone else. To them, people are objects to use, not gifts to be cherished. If someone gets hurt while the toxic person gets his way, he does not care about the collateral damage. As one former abuser told me, “I don’t care about you, I don’t care what you think, and I don’t care what you feel.” That pretty much sums up their attitude and actions. So many people drive themselves crazy wondering, “Why does he do that?” When we try to make sense of their actions, it is impossible, because we try to impose the rational thinking of normal healthy people who have a conscience and empathy for others onto someone who has no conscience and no empathy. In other words, when they hurt others for no reason and things don’t make sense, feel free to firmly categorize their actions as evil. Because evil is simply what it is.
Denying, Justifying, Blaming, or Trivializing their Abuse. Toxic people hate to be called out on their abusive actions. They know they are abusive, and are quite proud of it. Some of them even brag about how “mean and nasty” they are. But they don’t want others to call them out, because they want to see themselves as perfect. So, when someone exposes them, they will either deny their actions altogether (that is, lie completely), justify why they were entitled to act like they did (“I had to do that because you gave me no other option.”), blame others (“It’s your own fault I hit you, you made me mad!”), or trivialize it (“I was only joking,” or “You’re too sensitive,” or “At least I’m not as bad as John.”) Sometimes, to downplay their heinous actions, they will compare it favorably to something even worse (“I know I fondled her, but at least I didn’t rape her!”)
Unreasonable Demands and Rules. Because toxic people want to be in control, they make up demands and rules on others that are impossible and unreasonable. However, they never plan on playing by the rules themselves. When someone gets close to complying with the impossible demands or rules, they shift the rules, so no one else can win. Winning and making other lose is always their goal.
Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. Toxic people, especially narcissists, want to look good in front of others. So they put on an Oscar-winning performance in front of the people they want to impress. But they are completely different to their partner behind closed doors. This double mindedness is often why others do not believe a woman who exposes the abuse of her husband. They only see the friendly, outgoing, life of the party. They do not see the toxic person that their partner and family gets to see.
Sabotage. Whenever you are dependent upon another person for the success of something, you are vulnerable to them. And a toxic person will take full advantage of that vulnerability to hurt others. There are many things in life that take the cooperation of two people: marriage, a relationship, buying a house together, building a business together, raising a child, planning or attending an event, even a job sometimes requires the cooperation of a partner at times. A toxic person will refuse to cooperate and continuously do whatever it takes to make these things difficult or impossible. He will then blame you when it fails.
Excessive Litigation. If you have parted ways with a toxic person, you already know that excessive amounts of litigation is one way abusers emotionally abuse their victims. They take unreasonable positions, they refuse to settle, they refuse to follow court orders. Even when a divorce is finalized, they will refuse to pay maintenance and child support, refuse to co-parent cooperatively, and bring their ex-spouse back to court again and again. They do not care about how it harms the children. Again, their sole aim is winning and destroying a former partner.
False Apologies. One way that abusers keep their victims in a perpetual state of uncertainty is false apologies and promises of change that they never intend to keep. After a toxic episode, the abuser may feel that his partner will leave or withdraw. So, to keep her in the toxic relationship, he may apologize, promise to go to counseling, promise to change, or claim that he has “found God.” But, he does not actually take responsibility for his actions, admit his wrongdoing, or repent of his ways. He may say “Mistakes were made,” or “I’m sorry you felt that way.” But those are not apologies. Repentance actually requires that the offender take full responsibility for his actions, admit his wrongdoing to his partner and others, put his victim back in a better place than she was before he hurt her (that is, replace her vase that he broke with an even nicer one, reimburse her for money he took plus some, repair the relationships that he destroyed, pay her back plus some for the job interview he destroyed), and permanently change his harmful, selfish ways. And that is something an abuser is unwilling to do.

In upcoming blogs, we will go into each of these in more depth.

If you have found yourself in an emotionally or verbally toxic relationship, please know that emotional and verbal abuse IS domestic violence. Also, know that abuse always escalates over time. What may start out as emotional and verbal abuse can escalate to physical and sexual abuse. Please seek out help from your local domestic violence organization. You are not alone.

You can live a life of peace and joy, but you cannot do that while living with a toxic person.

With love and truth, Charlene Quint