Guilt can be a positive emotion, but it's also often used as a tool to control or manipulate.
Part 1 of 2
Abuse in relationships can take many forms. Physical abuse is what we often think of because in many cases it’s obvious. But verbal abuse happens much more often than physical and more than many people realize.
Verbal abuse is a common form of abuse in many relationships. However, it can be very subtle and hard to recognize, so much so that often victims don't even know it’s happening. Many will assume, or be told, that this is what’s normal in a relationship. And because of that belief wait an extremely long time before seeking help, if they ever do.
Verbal abuse is often disguised or explained away as something else, such as humor ("I was just making a joke") or love ("you know I love you"). A skilled abuser can destroy your self-esteem while at the same time making you believe that they really care for you. Verbal abuse can also become so regular that it becomes normal communication.
Victims often confuse verbal abuse with communication that occurs during arguing or normal disagreements. But verbal abuse goes far beyond disagreement and there is nothing normal about it. A verbal abuser seeks to control his or her partner with words and intimidation. They routinely seek to undermine the confidence and independence of their victim, causing them to question their own abilities and live in fear of doing or saying the wrong thing.
A common problem for victims of verbal abuse is that the abuse makes them confused and they don't know what to believe - their own thoughts or the abusers' words. Their sense of self and personal identity becomes reliant upon what their abuser tells them.
So if verbal abuse is so hard to recognize, are there any verbal abuse signs? Yes.
Below are 8 verbal abuse signs. These are from the article How Can Someone Identify and Respond to Verbal Abuse? by Cathy Meyer.
Do you recognize any of these verbal abuse signs in your relationship? If so, in the next post we'll take a look at some of the things you can do to stop the verbally abusive behavior in your relationship.
One of the things you’ll need to do first, however, is recognize and accept that you're in an abusive relationship. Verbal abuse can be very easy to explain away, but doing so will mean that not only will things not change, but they’ll very likely get worse. Abusers don’t typically change their ways without intervention and help. And unfortunately, verbal abuse can often escalate into physical abuse.
The next thing to do is get some help. If the verbal abuser won’t get help then get it yourself without them. There are things you can learn do to change their behavior and lessen the toll on you.
If you feel that you or someone you love could be in a verbally abusive relationship it’s time to get help.
This is the first article of two on verbal abuse and signs of verbal abuse. In the next article, Verbal Abuse - 8 things You Can Do To Stop Verbal Abuse, we'll identify things you can do to stop verbal abuse. Sign-up for our blog at the bottom of this page and be sure not to miss future articles like this one.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published August 27, 2010. It has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Guilt can be a positive emotion, but it's also often used as a tool to control or manipulate.
Guilt is a powerful emotion and not always a bad one. It can nudge us to do better, apologize when we’re wrong, and keep us from being deceptive. But when guilt is used as a tool to control or shame someone, or to maintain the upper hand in a relationship, it becomes dangerous and detrimental to emotional health.
Would you recognize Emotional Manipulation In Your Marriage? Check the signs of Emotional Manipulation In Marriage and how you can stop being manipulated.
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Amy, He's got to decide when he's going to wake up and see what's going on and make changes. No one else can do it. It's very painful to watch. All you can do is tell him in different ways what you see going on. -Kurt
I just to the quiz for my husband he scored 51 when he took it after saying. he don't have time he made a 68 I really want it to work I'll say something to him about something that hurt me he gets angry and I find myself apologizing to him for accusation n for making him stressed out n it goes over n over again, he mainly just listen make a few comments then appear to be stressed out, he really is a easy going hard worker. Pays all the bills loves to fish and hunt but Is too tired if I mention us going to the movies or something but if I mention fishing he all for it in which I do a lot just to spend time with him but I want what I want sometimes...please help his email is ratler45@Yahoo.com
I truly feel that I am in a verbally abusive relasonship with my boyfriend. We've been together & living together for just over one year & things where great,he always treated me respect & he always talked to me respectfully where we where home and it just be the two of us or if we where at a Resturant or grocery store or at the cell phone store to make a payment! But that all has changed with him,the change in him seem to basically come over night,one day he was the man oft dreams & the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with,i saw my future being with him. The next day I woke up to feeling's of uncertainty & depredation & constant sadness with in me and it's only got worse progressively & very quickly I felt & saw things getting much worse,I felt now deeply depressed & riddled with angsity & panic&angsitiy attacks that I've always had but that I had been very much under control of my angsitiy disorder & now all of a sudden I wasn't in control of my disorder anymore & it was getting worst significantly worse as he continued to miss treat me,respect was no longer present from him! That is and had always been my main issue,my biggest issue by far that he treats me with such disrespect and it started being a problem in November of 2014 and here it is July 2015 & well ill just say this,"I feel very inadequate as a person as a women as a girlfriend/partner,I am very depressed & my angzity disorder has been & still currently is very much not under control,my angzity is so bad at times that it's crippling & my life now is very much partly controlled & dictated by my angzity & my angzity&panic attacks. My self esteem is almost to the point of nonexistence,I do not feel good about my self inside or out anymore. I feel like a shell of the person I used to be,I do not even know this person who is staining back at me when I look in the mirror. I cry all the time and I find the longer this has gone on the more I cry in total privet,meaning so that my boyfriend as no idea that I'm crying or when I cry or how often I cry because when I cried in front of him I felt it only made things worse & only made me look venerable & week and I felt he wasn't compassionate in anyway when I showed my true raw emotions such as crying that it made crying in front of or that he new I was in tears only made me feel twice as bad because he wouldn't listen to my pain,my hurt,no matter how much in how many different ways I tried to telling him that what he was doing was hurting me deeply & breaking my spirit! I feel like a broken record as I keep writing,I feel as thou I'm talking in circles as I do in my head say this stuff and relive it and go over & over in my head how,how can I help him to see that what he is doing is hurting and destroying me as a person,it's very hard to shut my mind off of this because it is my life!
Kristina, "How can I help him to see that what he is doing is hurting and destroying me"? You need to see that more yourself more than you need him to. You can't change him; you can only change yourself. The place to start chaning yourself is learning why you continue to accept being treated like this. -Kurt
Verbal abuse in marriage
I am not sure whether my father is verbally abusing me or if I am simply being too sensitive to things. I do not want to go around telling people that I am being verbally abused if it actually just common arguing, however, I do not want to continue with things the way they are. I feel like I have to tip toe around him and watch everything I say and do because he can snap at any moment. He has never threatened to hurt me, but he has repeatedly put me down, shamed me, and blamed me for everything that has gone wrong in his life. When he gets into his 'moods' he will not listen to anything I say. He rants on and on and any attempt I make at a response or trying to calm him down only seems to get him more worked up and make things worse. If I refuse to respond at all and just try to let him rant it out, he gets even more aggressive and demands responses from me repeatedly asking things like 'why aren't you saying anything huh?' or 'yeah just sit there quietly and say nothing'. When he is in a 'mood' and asks me about things just to start I fight I dodge his questions by saying things like 'I don't know' or 'I'm not sure we should talk about this,' but then he retorts back with something like 'quit playing dumb' or 'you never seem to know anything'. When I don’t understand something or ask him a question he tells me to ‘quit acting stupid’ or ‘I thought you were smarter than this’. He has a way of making me feel guilty for things that aren’t my fault and, being a very self-conscious person, I tend to believe him. He blamed for his last relationship ending badly all because I refused to move in with him and leave my mother behind. I was afraid to live with him because of his explosive tendencies and sudden bursts of anger. Every time I spend time with him he snaps on me turning into this other person who I don’t recognize as my father. Most times he blames it on lack of sleep or says that he had a bad day at work. I don’t know what to believe. He is my father and deep down I love him, but lately I cannot seem to bring myself to be happy when I am around him. Can I have some outside opinions on whether or not this is verbal abuse? Am I being too sensitive to things or should I be concerned?
Jess, Yes, this is verbal abuse and how you're thinking and feeling about it are the symptoms. "I feel like I have to tip toe around him and watch everything I say and do because he can snap at any moment." That's what victims say and it's not because they're too sensitive. Please read the other articles under the topic Verbal Abuse on the right side of the page. -Kurt