by Carole Ligi

Created on: August 17, 2010

It is not easy to tell that you are being emotionally abused by your spouse until the abuse is firmly set in place and has been occurring for years. Emotional abusers are good at what they do and you may not realize that you are a victim of this type of abuse until it has become a way of life.  While not all inclusive, Reading this provides a list of the habits to recognize emotional abuse.  More often the emotional abuser is a male, but females can fit into this pattern.  

The abuse starts off subtle with mind games.  Critiquing how you did preparing dinner on a nightly basis or subtle name calling that the abuser laughs off as he was just joking.  It could be how clean the house is to the abusers satisfaction, your choice of friends or how you dress.  Of course the abuser never pitches in to help with the housework.  You simply are not doing it correctly.  

It starts slowly escalating into telling you that you were already informed of certain events or schedules or that you have never mentioned something before making you start to doubt yourself.  In other words it becomes a constant bombardment of mind games. 

Once this level of abuse has become a pattern the emotional abuse increases.  If the victim is a stay-at-home parent and the emotional abuser is the income provider then the abuse can take on a new level.  But women who work outside the home are victims of emotional abuse as well.  The patterns are similar.  The abuser will take control of the money and threaten to withhold money for groceries.  They want gourmet meals for themselves, but provide as little money for even the basics of food and clothing.  

They start buying themselves gifts, but deny their family even the basic necessities at times.  If they are the sole provider then the abuser justifies it is his money and he earned it.  The emotional abuser will use the words me or my frequently in the conversations as oppose to saying our.  You will often hear my money or my house instead of our money or our house.  In his mind you have no right to anything and even the clothes you own belong are his property.  The abused spouse will be told that she has no friends and that no one likes her because of the miserable person that she is.  The words miserable and the word starting with B are heard often.  

The name calling becomes cursing out their spouse on a continuing

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