Phrases Emotionally Abusive Partners Use To Control You

Emotional abuse is achieved through the manipulation of language. Listen in and learn about the red flags you need to watch out for. Emotionally abusive phrases can cause you to doubt you are being abused.

Transcript

So today we're going to be talking about the things emotionally abusive partners say.

And the reason I think it's important to consider the types of things that emotionally abusive people say is because in everyday life,

Relationships are so important.

You see it in the animal world,

You see it just in the human world,

Relationships are important.

And the better we are at picking up on cues when relationships aren't as healthy as they could or should be,

The healthier we are as people.

How many of us have been emotionally manipulated and or abused and we didn't even know what was happening.

We are naturally inclined to want to bond with other people.

If you're a trusting person,

An empathic person,

A forgiving person,

Then you naturally trust other people and you just assume that everybody that you're speaking to is as honest and upfront as you are.

And in that case,

When you become the victim of emotional abuse,

You don't even see it happening.

You don't even understand that over time you're being manipulated into disowning yourself.

You are being manipulated into worrying and obsessing about what someone else thinks about you.

And you may be becoming trauma bonded without even identifying.

And what this means is that over time you lose your ability to be objective about your relationship.

So some of the things that emotional abusive partners say are,

I need to know where you are at all times because I love you.

I love and I care about you and if you cared about me,

You'd understand why I need to know where you are all the time.

I'm nervous when I don't know where you are.

I have to know where you are at every minute of every day because I love you.

It makes me anxious to not know where you are.

This type of a person needs to keep tabs on you.

This type of a person is making you feel loved on the surface,

But in reality it really is all about them believing or thinking or wanting you to even believe and think that they own you,

That you owe it to them to tell them where you are every minute of every day.

And this becomes suffocating.

This becomes a way that your partner can manipulate you into fearing having any independence or any personal identity.

Have you ever heard someone say to you,

We need to stick together.

No one will understand our relationship,

People will try to turn you against me.

My friends warned me about being with you,

But I went against my gut and I went against them because I loved you more than them.

This is the type of person who is trying to bond you in a way and make you feel indebted to them for being with you.

So it's a way that an abusive person is exhibiting dominance,

But the language is very seductive and it's not easy to pick up on,

Especially if you're somebody who suffers from codependency or you're somebody from an abusive background who really wants to feel seen and really wants to feel loved.

This type of language is very seductive and if you're not careful,

You may not see that you're being dragged in,

That you are being sucked in and that you are being psychologically abused to discount your own senses.

And again,

You're losing the ability to be objective about the person you're dating or living with or married to.

You are losing your ability to be objective about the way you feel.

You are being brainwashed to fear a red flag.

In other words,

Like we can feel a red flag,

But if you're dealing with a highly talented,

Emotionally abusive partner,

You won't even be able to acknowledge the red flag because this person has created so much pain around this idea of confronting the possibility that this person is not who they represent themselves to be.

So let's say you have a family member who questions your relationship.

Immediately what you're going to hear in your head is,

Ah,

She warned me that people would try to drag us apart.

He told me people wouldn't understand our relationship.

And instead of being able to really be objective about what's happening in your relationship,

An emotionally abusive partner has groomed you over time to make you fear even questioning how you feel or your gut instincts about what is being said.

So you may have some inkling.

Your spirit may be trying to tell you,

Oh,

This isn't good or I feel like I'm being manipulated.

But what will happen is the pain that this person has created within your psyche to even dare question that they're not altruistic,

That they don't have your best interest at heart,

That'll create such pain and cognitive dissonance that your mind will go right into backwards rationalization and justify that this person,

You know,

Why this person is saying this.

Of course this person loves me,

You know,

And they gave up their friends for me.

My friends are just jealous or my family just doesn't understand.

The goal of an emotionally abusive person is to really just scramble your brain so that you no longer have your own thoughts.

And the goal is to offer you the sense that you owe it to them to be their emotional,

Psychological,

Financial,

And sometimes in some cases even sexual and physical slave.

Another thing that emotionally abusive partners say is that,

You know,

I know you had a screwed up childhood but I took a chance on you anyway.

So what an emotional abusive partner will do is they will remind you of your flaws,

Especially when you are in a confrontation with them or they sense that you're annoyed or they sense that you're finding the courage to confront them.

Suddenly they're talking about the story that you told them when your mother called you crazy when you were seven or suddenly they're bringing up a past relationship where an old partner cheated on you.

Suddenly they're talking about your childhood and they're saying things like,

You know,

I know you're damaged goods but,

You know,

I love you anyway.

Oh,

I know your last relationship hurt you but I don't think that I should have to suffer because you're still scarred by that.

And so the sense is that they are reminding you of just how messed up you are.

And what you may not realize because it's so shaming and it activates all the abandonment wounds,

It activates the shame,

And when this stuff is activated you are very easily manipulated,

Right?

You want to please your partner,

You don't want this partner to leave and an emotionally abusive person understands this dynamic.

And reminding you of your flaws makes you fear them leaving you.

And what you may not notice is that there is a lack of empathy and compassion and respect and understanding for your wounds.

Healthy people don't stick their fingers in your wounds.

Healthy people don't talk about the vulnerabilities that you've shared for their own psychological gain which is a gain over you.

So it's very important that people understand that healthy people don't do that.

And the reason this is so important for me to put out there is because we don't understand this,

Right?

I remember in my relationship with my ex-husband all of these things that I shared with him while we were dating,

I shared because I wanted us to be closer.

I wanted him to know me.

I wanted him to know the experiences that shaped me.

And unfortunately for many years,

I was married for 12 years,

Unfortunately during times of stress or conflict it was then that he took all of these things that I shared with him and he used them against me.

Your father told me not to marry you.

Your mother thinks you're crazy.

Your brother thinks you're selfish.

You don't get along with your own family.

No wonder you can't get along with me.

I get along with everyone.

You're just a negative person.

Remember when you told me when your mother said this,

Now I know why she said that.

I didn't even understand what was happening.

I was so crippled by the trauma that he was bringing up and I was so crippled by the idea that this person that I married and I loved and I told him these things in confidence,

He was now using them as weapons and I didn't even see it happening.

Another thing that emotionally abusive people say is your friends aren't my people.

Your family judges me.

I know your friends are jealous of our relationship.

So these are things that an emotionally abusive person will say to justify isolating you from people who love you or isolating you from people who will encourage you to have your own thoughts.

So people who are abusive will say things that will make it sound like your family,

Your friends,

Your coworkers have something against your partner and they will say things like I know she doesn't like me.

You should have seen the way she was looking at me and you will have not seen anything but an emotionally abusive partner will come up with stories to justify why they are judging your family,

Your friends and your coworkers and if you're not keen,

You won't pick up on that.

Another thing that emotionally abusive partners say is I love you,

Right?

You know I'm a good person,

Right?

I only remind you of the things that you're doing wrong because I love you.

So emotionally abusive partners are abusive.

They don't want you to acknowledge that and so they have to come up with ways to gain praise from you,

Reinforcement from you and in this way what's happening is they're slowly brainwashing you to believe in this narrative that they are amazing.

You know oh I do all this stuff for you because I love you and again they're brainwashing you to believe that doing all these things whether it's cooking or whatever,

They might be doing diddly squat for you but in your head you will emotionally and psychologically just accept that this person is doing so much for you so you lose the ability to be objective about what's really happening in your external experience because an emotionally abusive person is constantly looking for you to tell them how wonderful they are and to instill in them this idea that you think they're perfect,

That you think they're awesome,

That you think that they're intelligent.

They say things like I went to work today and you know she was so jealous of me and you know it was so obvious that she was so jealous of me and that's why she didn't compliment me and so there's this sense that everyone is against them because they're so amazing.

And you know if you pull it apart what's happening is you have a partner who is trying to get you to psychologically build together a schema,

A psychological schema that builds this narrative around this person as just being amazing and you end up feeling like you are the luckiest person in the world because you have this dynamic person in your life that everybody is just jealous of.

So these are just some of the things emotionally abusive partners say that you might miss,

That you might not even catch especially if you are a kind and forgiving,

Empathic person.

Another thing that emotionally abusive partners say and do is they tend to deflect,

They're very dismissive,

They will not give you the validation you seek.

Let's say you come up with a great idea on how to save money on a vacation.

Your partner will minimize the fact that that was your idea.

Let's say you win a prize at work or you've done something and you know you deserve praise for it and validation for it.

Your partner will downplay your accomplishments.

So you have a partner who is sensing that you're edging up,

That you might be beginning to feel confident and have self-confidence and this is a threat to an emotionally abusive partner because their goal is to keep you subservient.

And the thing is that this type of domination in a relationship is very,

Very subtle and I think it's more damaging than someone who is overtly jealous or someone who is overtly narcissistic or overtly abusive.

This type of emotional abuse is like carbon dioxide.

You can't see it,

You can't smell it,

But it's deadly.

Another thing that emotionally abusive partners say is,

Oh my God,

Are you seriously thinking about that right now?

Could you really believe that?

You don't really believe that.

Oh,

Come on,

That's ridiculous.

So you tell a partner how you feel and then you're dismissed.

What you're saying is just seen as ridiculous and it's never taken seriously.

And this again,

You'll see this type of language come up when you begin having a conversation about some conflict or if you are,

Let's say,

Driving home from an event and you have a different opinion of an emotionally abusive partner and they are threatened by your opinion.

Let's say,

Oh my God,

That you say something like,

Oh my gosh,

That speech that she gave was amazing.

An emotionally abusive partner may feel threatened by the fact that you like the way this speaker spoke,

Maybe it was about independence or confidence or whatever,

And an emotionally abusive partner will minimize your experience of that person.

This is about dominance,

It's about control,

It's about scrambling your brain and reducing your ability to be objective about your relationship.

The last thing I want to talk about is how emotionally abusive partners maintain the energy or control the energy in a relationship.

The one thing that I've noticed in my own life and in certain situations and certain relationships as well as a life coach who's coached hundreds if not thousands of people personally and inside my online coaching programs is that there's this element or this need for an emotionally abusive partner to control the energy of the relationship.

You can walk in the house really,

Really excited and you could be excited about going to an event or a party and an emotionally abusive partner has to ring you in.

They have to pull you down.

They have to suppress the mood.

They have to make sure that you are not on this happy vibe and that you are somehow yanked down this emotional scale.

You are depressed,

You are upset,

Or you have gone from thinking,

Wow,

This is going to be a great evening to completely worrying about how the emotional abusive partner feels.

Again,

This is done to maintain and control the energy of the relationship.

You can be the happiest go lucky person and come home to somebody who just senses that you're happy and is like,

Oh no,

No,

No,

No.

I can't control this happiness.

I'm not inside their mind.

I'm not inside his head.

I'm not inside her head.

I've got to say something to yank the ability for them to stay high flying because in that space I'm not controlling what they're thinking.

That is why an emotionally abusive partner will say something,

Do something,

Maybe even start an argument just so that they can control the mood of the relationship and the energy of the relationship.

Thank you so much for being here and I hope that this short podcast has enlightened you and inspired you to think above your fears and think beyond what you're experiencing today so that you can gain more control over where you wish to move in the future.

Namaste.

I'll see you next time.

Reviews

Very natural explanation, all true and relatable

Excellent talk: brief, simple, poingnant, clear. If you’re unsure about your partner’s (or your own) emotionally abusive behaviors, this discussion lays them out in a nutshell. Thank you! 🙏🏼

This was very much helpful. Thanks a lot, Lisa! I more and more recognize these patterns accepting my toxic ex-relationship and letting go. 🙏🏼

Knowledge truly is power. Thank you so much for the gift of what emotional abuse sounds like. It makes releasing shame and unlocking self-forgiveness and self-compassion so much easier.

Thank you so much for this! I can see how I need to do a better job at expressing my emotions so that it doesn’t come out as emotionally abusive. How can one healthily communicate healthy boundaries without coming out across as “needy,” or that your partner did something “wrong?” And how can I remain at peace when your partner isn’t aware that they are being emotionally abusive as well? Thank you so much for your insight 💙🙏🏽

I have been questioning whether or not we are narcissistic or if WE got it from our parents growing up from a lack of structure and different forms of abuse mentally, physically, and emotionally.

The part that makes me feel like we aren’t is that with time and a little space. We both take the time for self evaluation and realizations. Then make the change or commit to making it and put in the work.

Is it possible to have some narcissistic traits but not be a full blown narcissist?

Thank you for this insight. I will be listening to your other podcasts to dive deeper. Eye opening for sure.

Thank u

Very insightful

This 🙌🏼
Thank you for sharing 💖

This was very helpful. Thank you very mucho!

TY TY

Very informative about subtle cues on emotionally abusive language
Namaste Peace 💃Shalom🐒

Absolutely incredible, life-saving advice.

Controlling the emotional energy. Very enlightening and powerful. Thank you.

Thank you for the work you do! I could not move on spiritually until I started breaking the habit of being abused. The thing that happened is even though I got out of the relationship, I continued the work for my ex and my mother. My self talk continued. "Oh no, your happy, you shouldn't feel happy, you are this, this and this. You can't do it without guidance from someone who knows more"

Even now healing tears are flowing washing out all of that crap. It has taken listening to you and people like you and taking self mastery trainings that I am starting to see my own value, worth and power.

Thank you. Thank you! Thank you! ☯️🙏💛

On point! Thank you. 💜

Excellent talk! Thank you Lisa!

This was so enlightening to why my marriage lasted as long as it did. When it ended turned into a trainwreck. ...... A female friend traveled and shopped with me, her husband had great trust. Showed me what low stress relationships could be.

At first I was triggered and annoyed, then I realized I may have done some of these things in the past. Thank you for bringing me more insight to myself, and helping me be a better partner.

Thank you. You may just have saved me from years of anguish.