By Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D.
Some emotional abuse is so subtle; it blind-sides you before you have identified it. And you remain overlooked, devalued and confused. Sound familiar?
I often hear women say, “I can’t understand why he won’t let me out of his sight; let’s face it, the guy can’t find anything good about me.” “So why must he have me around, if he hates me?” they wonder.
He doesn’t REALLY hate you; rather he hates himself in the moment he’s devaluing you. But it doesn’t look that way from the outside looking in.
An emotionally responsible person might share their sense of vulnerability in the moment or not. Whereas, an emotionally abusive partner will rush to find your shortcomings, and then carrots his affections ostensibly in the face of your flaws.
What does this do and how does this benefit the battering partner? It keeps him in control, no matter what he feels about himself or how he feels about you.
His emotional abuse toward you is not about you. However, it doesn’t always look that way when you are on the receiving end of emotional verbal abuse.
Emotional abuse, even in its most subtle form, is part of what an abusive partner does to establish and maintain control in the relationship. And the possessive behavior is yet another aspect of the same dynamic characteristic of intimate partner abuse.
What shall you do in the face of these signs of emotional abuse?
Maintain your perspective and realize it’s not about you. With this, you remain in a position to see things as they are while not losing sight of who you are. Often when we are on the receiving end of emotional verbal abuse, we are blind-sided by the subtle control maneuvers in play and instead assume our partner’s projected emotional state.
And the longer we do this, the sooner we find ourselves trying to regulate the emotional abuse as though it is our responsibility. It’s not.
If you find yourself in the cycle of emotional abuse, seek to see the larger picture of your relationship and understand the dynamics in play. Find out if you are in an abusive relationship. With this understanding, you will be in a better position to break the cycle of abuse.
Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D. is a 25 year seasoned psychologist, author, speaker and leading expert in identifying intimate partner violence. Author of All But My Soul, Dr. King developed the Intimate Partner Abuse Screen, available online at http://PreventAbusiveRelationships.com, to help people properly identify abusive relationships and end the cycle of emotional abuse.
©Copyright 2007 Dr. Jeanne King Consultants, LLC www.PreventAbusiveRelationships.com All Rights Reserved.
This article is available for reprint so long as the author’s copyright, bio byline and contact URLs are included.
This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 8:35 am and is filed under Abuse Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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