The things abusers say and do put you on the defensive, make you feel crazy, and to wonder if you are the abuser in the relationship. Your best ammunition against the things abusers say and do is knowing the answer to What Is Verbal Abuse? If you can say to yourself, “Hey! That’s abuse!” then you’ll more easily detach from the abuse emotionally and find a psychologically or physically safe place. Safety planning can help protect you against things abusers say and do (Hurtful Words Don’t Define You).
The things abusers say and do are designed to control you. Whether abusers say and do these things knowingly or unconsciously, the result is the same: you feel lower than dirt, afraid, and intimidated. In your weakened state, your abuser finds it much easier to gain power over you.
The following statements and actions are common things abusers say and do. Contribute your comments and take a look at everyone else’s comments too.
Name Calling
- Idiot, Stupid Cunt, Go sit in the corner where you belong (dunce)
- Crazy Bitch, Psycho
- Whore, Slut
- Heartless Ho
- Stupid
- Worthless
- Lazy
- Says “woman” or “man” in a sarcastic tone or demeaning tone.
- On the flip side, they may refuse to say your name at all to deny your existence
Intimacy Breakers
- “It is none of your fucking business.”
- “Why don’t you fucking leave?” or “Get the fuck out of my house.”
- “Shut up”
- Says “I don’t care about your feelings.”
- Often leaves you hanging when they promised to do something with you.
- Consistently puts their desires and schedule above yours.
- Breaks up often then comes running back, begging for forgiveness.
- Interrupts you when you’re talking.
Tells You What You’re Doing
- “Yes, why don’t you stuff your feelings inside.”
- “You’ve got your priorities screwed up.”
- “Stop being a drama queen!”
- “Stop crying – we both know you’re faking it to get your way!”
- Tells you what your intentions are, what you intend to do, and what you really meant when you said/did something.
Plays Word Games
- Interrupts you when you’re talking.
- Repeats “your exact words” but takes them out of context or makes up something that you did not say or mean.
- Challenges you to remember “exact words” but you can’t (or tells you you’re wrong) because the conversation is so confusing you don’t know exactly what they’re talking about anymore.
- Changes the subject to divert your attention.
- Tells you what you really mean to say.
- Drones on for hours, repeating the same points, getting nowhere, until you’re so exhausted you want to agree just to get them to be quiet (brainwashing).
- Re-defines words to mean what they want them to mean.
- Denies saying what they said (even if you’re playing it back to them from a digital recorder, they may deny meaning what they obviously meant).
- Uses tricks like abusive anger to get you to be quiet or listen.
Tries to Appear Better Than You
- “You have no money; without me, you’d be lost.”
- “At least I have a job.”
- “You know nothing about the real world!”
- “At least I know how to make friends that matter.”
Insults People And Pets You Love
- “Why don’t you leave, and take your geriatric dog too? I hope he falls dead.”
- “I hope your dog gets killed in the road right in front of you!”
- Uses threatening gestures toward your pets.
- “Your kid is such a sissy!”
- “Your mother left your dad to chase cock and you’re going to do the same to me!”
- “I’m really concerned that your sister will influence you to be a bitch like she is.”
Sexual Insults And Injuries
- Rapes you (it is possible to rape you even if you are married to the abuser).
- Makes you wear clothing that makes you feel uncomfortable.
- “You were just a good fuck.”
- Turns their back to you while laying in bed to show a withdrawal of affection.
- Lies incessantly about porn or cheating, even when faced with proof.
- Makes you feel “dirty” during or after sex with comments they know you don’t like.
- Uses sexual or racial slurs because they know you don’t like them.
- Tells you to go to a party alone and then insults you, withdraws, or sexually assaults you when you come home.
- Knows the meaning and value that you tie with having sex, but breaks up with you right after sex saying they lied about their feelings to get you into bed.
- Uses crude names for your body parts and knows you do not like them.
Insults Your Ideas and Dreams
- The churches, restaurants, movies, etc. that you choose are not good enough.
- Your career interests are “fluffy” or not real jobs.
- Insults the gifts you give or acts disinterested.
- “That is never going to work.”
- Mocks and makes fun of you.
A private place to write it down
If you already know why you’re here, there’s a private log built for exactly this: the Verbal Abuse Incident and Pattern Log. Write things down before you second-guess them, in a document made to stay yours.
Purchase “Recipes Digital Download” $8.99There is also a bundle offer at the end of this article.
They Do Not Care About Your Medical Issues
- You’re hurt after a fight with them and say you should go to the emergency room…the abuser’s response is “Quit your whining and crying and leave”.
- Major medical issue comes up and the abuser unavailable to comfort you or just disappears.
- Acts like a $10 co-pay for your doctor visit is going to break the bank.
- Makes fun of your medications (happy pills, crazy pills, etc.)
- Tells you that depression is in your head and if you appreciated them like you should you wouldn’t be such a sad sack.
Thoughtless of Your Needs
- Makes lunch for themselves without asking if you want any (on purpose).
- Doesn’t help with the kids or household chores.
- Does not ask you about your day.
- Does not start and/or engage in thoughtful communication.
- Keeps you up all night “talking” or raging. Interrupts your sleep for tiny things they could handle alone.
Gifts Are Not From the Heart or Used As Tools
- Gives gifts that did NOT come from the heart, isn’t wrapped, has a price tag on it, tossed at you with no emotion but scorn, etc.
- Gifts given after fights to gain your forgiveness.
- Ignores (“forgets”) your birthday or holidays that are special to you.
Disrespects Your Belongings
- Destroys things that are important to you.
- Destroys or makes you destroy pictures, diaries, letters, or anything else of sentimental value from before the relationship with you.
- Throws away your clothes that either you love or the abuser hates.
- Gaslighting (purposely moves your things or changes your environment and then denies doing it).
- Hides your personal belongings and denies knowing where they are.
- Steals your jewelry, pawns it, then brings another piece home to place in your jewelry box and pretends it is the missing piece.
- Insists you promised to do something that you know you didn’t promise.
- Engages in crazy making behaviors at your expense.
Withholds Financial Information or Money
- Demands that you shop for the household but doesn’t give you enough money to cover necessities.
- Makes you give them your paycheck.
- Doesn’t give you access to the bank accounts.
- Makes you believe that you cannot budget or save, that you waste money, or generally cannot figure out how to handle your financial matters.
- Gives you complete access to the bank accounts and allows you to make financial decisions, but uses your decisions as a tool to verbally and mentally abuse you.
- Closes joint bank accounts with no notice.
- Finds a way to close your bank accounts using your passwords and security information.
Threatens Or Intimidates You
- “Maybe I should just do pot, porn and date other women so you will leave me.”
- “I should run you through the wood chipper out there!”
- “If you don’t shut your ever-runnin’ mouth,…”
- Says “This is YOU!” and hits something or says nothing but you know they’re hitting things to scare you.
- Jerks the steering wheel from you when you’re driving or drives like a crazy person with you in the car.
- Spits on you.
- Threatens to take you to court over issues they know they will lose, but be able to waste your time anyway.
- Seeks attention by threatening suicide. Intimidates you into doing things by threatening suicide.
Abandons and/or Threatens to Abandon You Physically
- Pushes you out of the car and leaves you in a strange place without your personal effects (i.e. cell phone, purse, wallet).
- Takes you to their family’s home far away and then leaves you at their mother’s house for two days while partying with cousins.
- “Maybe I just won’t come home tonight!”
- “I’ll take our kids and leave you on the street!”
Physically Insults or Assaults You
- Spits on you.
- Blocks your exit.
- Drags you.
- Grabs you and makes you stay in one place.
- Hits, punches, or slaps you.
- Kicks you.
- Makes you hold pillows so they can “practice” fighting/self-defense.
- Pinches you
- Squeezes you too tightly.
- Chokes you or puts you in a position where they could easily choke you.
You just read what’s been happening to you.
Here’s somewhere to put it.
Reading a list like this is one thing. Writing down what’s actually happening in your own relationship, in your own words, is another.
That’s what the Verbal Abuse Incident and Pattern Log is for: a private, structured place to record what’s said and done to you, so there’s a record you can trust, even when your memory feels less certain.
What’s inside:
- Quick Capture pages for when you only have thirty seconds and need to get it down before you forget, or before someone’s back in the room.
- Detailed Record pages for later, when you have more time to write.
- Pattern Review pages that help you see what’s repeating, not just what happened once.
- A Summary page, built to hand to an advocate, counselor, doctor, or attorney, without having to explain everything from scratch every time.
It’s not a diagnosis, and it’s not a legal document. It’s a way to keep your own record straight, whether you’re still deciding what this is, still living with it, or getting ready to talk to someone about it.
Privacy. Not everyone needs to hide that they bought this, but every download works the same way regardless. Needing that privacy, or not needing it, has nothing to do with how much what’s happening to you matters.
The download opens with a couple of pages made to look like a recipe file before the real Log begins. PayPal will send you a purchase confirmation email, but even that uses a discreet product name, not the title of what you bought.
Getting it. After you pay through PayPal, you’re brought right back here to a download page where your file is ready and waiting.
Price. $8.99 on its own.
Purchase “Recipes Digital Download” $8.99If you also want the Domestic Violence Safety Plan Workbook, the two together are $18.99, or $3 less than buying them separately. The Safety Plan Workbook covers what to do before, during, and after leaving; the Log covers what to write down along the way. Get one or both, whichever is useful to you right now.
Purchase “Recipes from Mama's Kitchen Bundle” $18.99The file name for the Verbal Abuse Incident and Pattern Log is recipes-mamas-kitchen.pdf and the cover of your downloaded document will say “Recipes from Mama’s Kitchen”. It’s the same for the Domestic Violence Safety Plan Workbook, except the file name is more-recipes-from-mamas-kitchen.pdf and the title showing is “More Recipes from Mama’s Kitchen”.
Written by Kellie Jo Holly Close, who has worked in domestic violence advocacy since founding VerbalAbuseJournals.com in 2008.
I am sending this on to my niece, She has A boyfriend that trashes her all the time And she has a wedding venue that he wants
Half of it or he wants her to buy him his own business. They aren’t married and he thinks she writes everything. She’s been paying him cash all the way along for any work. He did for her, but he doesn’t want to settle for that and he makes you feel like trash and fights with her every night and she puts up with it. I will send this on to her. You take care and I thank you very much.
I married a woman just like that. I fell in love with her & it got worse. I stayed a7 did my best to please her but it got worse. But ai tried even harder. She knew I would never leave her. I became her total slave.
I’d like to leave my name out of it if it’s okay. My partner and I started dating when I was 19 and she was 32. In the beginning I was “mature for my age” and ever since it’s been a roller coaster. Now to her, I am “too childish”, and she throws a lot of my trauma back in my face in a very “I’m all you have” way. She talks terribly about my exes but has been in contact with hers for our entire relationship. I’ve been insulted by her entire family because I have “talents” but have not advanced where they want me to be as fast as they want it.
On Christmas Eve, we all had a lot to drink, but the alcohol wasn’t sitting in my belly at all, and I grew sick in a guest bathroom for a while: when I got out, my partners stepmother was wasted and said in front of her entire family that I was a broken mess, needed therapy, that I should’ve been left a long time ago, that I’ll never be who my partner needs me to be. My partner didn’t defend it. She sat there silently as her stepmother berated me, even getting angry that I was coming upstairs.
“Look, now she’s coming up here. She can’t do anything for herself!”
Afterwords, my partner took me back downstairs and got angry with me, saying that maybe they were right and that i had no right embarrassing her. I kept pleading that I was only sick, but no one believed me, and in that moment I was swiftly reminded that I will always be an outsider.
It was a silent car ride home, or rather, back to my partners stepmothers house. I didn’t want to go back there. I even told my partner that it was okay if she went back because it was Christmas. But no, I was forced to come back and receive gifts with secret strings attached I never knew were there. My partners grandmother kept joking about how I had too much to drink and that I don’t take care of myself. My partner didn’t defend me. Her stepmother didn’t even talk to me. And it was all so awkward.
Fast forward now, my partner believes she defended me in her own right, which meant not talking to her family: I thought this statement was incredibly forced. They already weren’t talking because her stepmother doesn’t know how to apologize. Now every conversation we have is “maybe we shouldn’t be together then.” Or “ I don’t want my family to be right about you” or “I hope I didn’t stop talking to my family for nothing.”
It makes me feel so crappy about myself. My partner and I could talk about anything and everything. My childhood trauma is unfortunately a lot of the reasons why I do what I do and act how I act. People have set me up for failure over and over again and I am too exhausted to pick myself up as the weight of everyone’s expectations for my life is overbearing.
When I first met my partner, I was very suicidal and very depressed. I’ve committed plenty of times but only once when our relationship was fresh. I didn’t believe I deserved good things and she was such a blessing. She waited by me in the hospital and came to pick me up in a tux with flowers and a bear.
Now, three years into the relationship, I’m wondering if I am really ruining this persons chance at a successful future, or if this person is making me feel so low about myself because they’re miserable being with me. I’ve wondered for two years if I am worth it or if I should’ve never moved away from my family. Every day has been the same and I haven’t been able to keep a job because of that one Interaction. No one supports us. No one wants us together. And we aren’t proving people wrong.
My partner asked if I was her safety blanket. The context is that her ex was hers. My partner didn’t love her anymore and treated her terribly, which caused her ex to cheat and them to be in an on and off relationship for 5 years after that.
I was 18 when we started having intercourse. 19 when we dated. My ex is older than her and worked at the same job before she was fired. And the only reason she keeps mentioning my ex is because she feels like she’s doing me better. But we rarely have intimacy anymore. We did yesterday but it felt so forced I felt disgusted with myself. She quite literally hopped off and did no aftercare.
Sometimes I’m sad for no reason at all. My partner says I don’t know who I am. I saw a quote that said “if you don’t know who you are, the world will tell you for you” and it made me realize that she might be right. I don’t. I’ve tried to integrate my personality into our relationship but are met with dead ends every time. She turns off the movies I put on or says they are too childish, but prefers something with drama and lots of sex. I get uncomfortable with sex scenes but she says she grew up with it and it shouldn’t be a problem. I even tried watching porn with her because I felt so detached from her and I wanted us feel normal again, but nothing.
There was one time she even told me to stop wearing makeup or I’m basically asking to be raped. For context, this is my trauma and I was working dayshift at a gas station. She didn’t like that I put any makeup on and said I was trying too hard. She says her ex used to do everything for her and I can see that she gets frustrated I don’t pick up where she left off.
I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to be. And I’m struggling because our govt makes it clear they don’t care either. So how am I supposed to keep going if I can’t be who they all want me to be?
Thank you. Ive just had a lot of my personal experiences validated here. Ive been sharing my diaries with my lawyers, leaving a lot out by questioning myself if it was really abuse.. if it was my fault. If asking a question, asking it in the wrong way or wrong time caused this.if I brought up that his words damaged me. Even small things like going to the pharmacy to come outside to be left there. Lots of things, plus a lot of the worst.
You become accustomed to being treated like rubbish. No wonder I can’t fathom having a relationship. The insidious nature of control, is just slowly grabs on to you.
I googled a bunch of keywords, the name calling and phrases. This is all bang on. It took me years to even contact police, but I’m free around 3 years now. If you’re in this place, find somewhere to go. It just gets worse if you stay.
I went back, too. But finally free. And life is a lot less stressful. Good luck, I feel you.
I’ve been the target of persons hollering and yelling at me while calling me names, possibly. Can you help, mostly I Used to call the military or 911. I feel weak on certain areas and I can’t barely say anything back or sue about anything. It’d be good if I could have security but It is difficult to afford.