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.
But what can one do? I am so trapped-and will be for years still.at least 2-3 years.I was adopted at 10 days of age into a very strange and abusive family.I was verbally abused and beaten through my childhood-broken down and made to feel I was worthless and a curse.Till I was so depressed as a teenager that I could’nt even train/study for a job/career.There was”nt money for studying of any kind anyway.
To the point,these adoptive parents withdrew from my life in my 20’s,and their family never kept contact either.They always looked at me like I was some freak anyway,it was clear to see they had a distaste in me.So I was all alone,in a trainwreck of a life-had 2 bad marriages to very abusive men,but left when it became too intenable,in each case.
I had a child by then,and not being qualified for any job that payed enough to pay rent,food,support a child etc,and no family members like normal folks have,I had to go into prostitution-which is where I met my current husband,whom I’ve been married to for 17 years.I thought he was my rescuer but I could’nt have been more wrong.He is absolutely abusive,and my life is lonely,sad and isolated.We live in South Africa,in a very geographically isolated part of the region anyway,so except for my 2 children,I have hardly any contact with the outside world.
He does’nt allow me to know what his salary is,bit we are always battling financially-which of course he blames on me-although I don’t have access to his autobank card,pin number,wallet or bank account.I literally do not have a life,just a sad lonely existence.He treats me like shit,and if I try to tell him how he is hurting mny life,I get the well-worn old answer:”If I am making you so unhappy,you are welcome to leave+find some one better”
Knowing full well I would have to leave my children,as I would be on the pavement.I cannot even get to legal aid in the capital city,as I never had the opportunity to get a dtiver’s license-and he refuses to teach me to drive,saying I’d just f up his car.Also I have only one friend,an elderly lady I get to see about once a month,and she does’nt drive either.I don’t have money for a regulat lawyer either,I don’t have a cent of my own,and no relative or friend who can help.
I am so trapped and bitterly unhappy-i long for death,as what I have is not life anyway,just a bleak little poverty-ridden lonely existence.I so wish I could just die,every day,even while I try to be cheerful for the children’s sake.I won”t commit suicide,I would never do that to them-but as I’m almost 50 now(had my children later in life,my 2 youngest) and suffer much ill health,I am hoping I will pass on not much longer than 10 years from now,my youngest will be 18 then.
I cannot leave,as I have nowhere else to go,and my children are still young,and I am penniless,disenfranchised and unemployable except for the most menial and low-paid wages,and at my age I would be considered too old for even those. I have no opportunity to maybe meet some one else-and quite frankly I am too wary now,to ever go into a realtionship again.All my relationships,whether boyfriends when I was younger,or the 3 husbands have been unhappy,or downright abusive.I seem to be a magnet for abusive men,men who cheat,once or twice downright psychopaths,I won’t take a chance again,not at my age and with ill health.In my country medical insurance is a must,the state hospitals here are a joke,so many people die unnecesarily,due to the theft,ineptitude and corruption rampant in this country’s government-and at least this man I’m married to,has me on his medical insurance..I see no hope,no rescue,no deliverance-except death.
I wanted to write this,to warn women who are pretty much alone in the world,with financial difficulties,especially if they have children-please be careful-there are men out there who will find a lonely,desperate,broken woman-and proceed to completely crush them underfoot.
I have been with my guy for 6 years and I’ve had to call the police a few times and so has the neighbours but blames me for them getting them involved . He hasn’t hit me in 2 years , however now I’m not capable of making my own decisions. I have tried to talk to him regards to past but won’t accept that he hit me just roughed me up ( I don’t understand the difference ) I though getting your thumb broke or being picked up and threw through the wardrobe , making me feel I have taken this out of pro portion , I tried to leave the other day as he says I’m fat and he is totally discussed said I was going to leave and now is threating violence towards my famliy ……………… The house is in my name I rented from landlord and cos I earn the money he would have no where to go plus I don’t think I could get him out as towards people outside ( especially our landlord he’s a prince among men and I’m very lucky I dint feel it . ) what can I do , without causing a scene or a fight I hate this
I have been with my boyfriend 6 months. He constantly calls me a slut and says everyone thinks it too and he’s embarrassed to be with me. He doesn’t let me see my friends. He doesn’t let me on any social networking site and always says I’m lying even about having food in my bag or having change on me.
Today we’ve had a big arguement causing me to split up with him but we spend 24/7 with each other but he says he doesn’t care if we split up and again I’m a slut.
Last time we split up he said he wanted to kill himself etc
Everytime we argue it always my fault because I always push him to say these things
We do get a long and I love him to bits and he does look after me but what do I do
My husband has demonstrated the “correct” way to slit your wrist in front of our Son after a suicide attempt. He advised our son that he better succeed the next time he tries to kill himself. He has woken everyone of our children in the middle of the night to either begin fighting with me or discipline the children. He tells me it is best to wake them with a spanking so they will remember what they have done is wrong. My husband has not worked since January of 2012, since this time he has threatened his former boss and co-workers, stated that a “voice” told him to write a book, solve the worlds problems, save baseball. In July of 2012 our oldest son was admitted into a in patient drug rehabilitation center my spouse said the staff was trying to brain wash him. He informed the administrative staff at the facility that God has instructed him to re write the AA/NA books because he had a better cure using marijuana. I have been called every name mentioned on this page and if at any time I would cry about my 18 year olds situation he would call me a dumb f….ing enabler. My husband was arrested on January 11th for threatening his former employer and his family. He has been baned from an entire county for barging through security to sit next to our governor&smoke some marijuana. On March 27th he was arrested for battery/domestic violence. A week prior to his arrest he woke my 8 year old son at 1 am to tell him he was going to be in the garage sitting in his “Running” car The next day he held a knife to his wrist in front of our children. On March 30th I obtained a 4 year restraining order on my husband and filed for divorce. My husband has been gone for 3 months and still is able to find a way to make me miserable. I stayed a very long time in this situation because I feared for the safety of my children. My husbands family has a ton of money he would always remind me of his wealth and how I could never leave in peace because of this. We are now filed for divorce and my worst fears have come true DESPITE his legal record. I do not have the money to pay my Attorney much less the Guardian ad litem the court has appointed. I feel that my journal documenting 2 years of abuse along with police and school reports would have been enough to prevent my children from having to spend unsupervised time with my husband. My husbands Attorney is claiming that he is just a little quirky but not dangerous. On Monday I will attend a second meeting with a guardian ad litem to explain why I feel he should not be around the children unsupervised. The judge has however, ordered on a temporary basis that the children have supervised visits until our next court date. I dread going to yet another meeting to only feel more powerless than before this process started. I am so frightened to take the chance that the judge will not grant supervised visits that I am contemplating putting the divorce on hold and going back to him. It is sad to me that in the end it really does matter how much money you have 🙁 In addition to the above incidents he continues to violate the restraining order. I lost my job at a healthcare facility because he continued to visit a particular resident and send several text messages asking about me and the hours I work. Yes this was turned into the police and DA.
You guy’s really annoy me….you think it is only poor sad women that get abused,!!!!!!! my wife is controlling, threatening, violent and for ever wishes my closest family dead, we had a huge argument one night outside where she bit, scratched and punched me, I never, and never have retaliated, neighbor called police they came (both female I add !!) but it was me who was made to feel like a monster !!!!!! even as my wife continued to shout, swear and attempt to kick me all they kept asking was “what have you done to annoy her” !!!!!! As soon as I said she does this to me all the time, they just grinned and said sure !!!!!…………………….you should all think about this and realize that men get abused too but they have no defense when it comes to the law !!!!