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 from Mama's Kitchen” $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 from Mama's Kitchen” $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.
There are already so many comments on this article as it is, but I recently learned that my husband quit paying on our first and second mortgages back in 2011, because his dad – who passed away in 2012 and from what I can tell absolutely hated women – advised him to in order to teach me a lesson. The lesson? Don’t go off getting a college degree (while working full time and raising a toddler) in something that your husband deems as “silly“ only to land a well-paying job six months later but not immediately offering to combine your finances (I had a bad experience with my first husband getting arrested for DUI and ruining both our credit). Part of my father-in-law‘s rationale was “Separate accounts and she doesn’t even share your name… How committed to the marriage can she possibly be?” Well, back in 2011 I WAS very committed, but trying to discern frantically why my husband and I were constantly fighting and why he was withholding sex and affection from me, as well as sincerely believing that he was too broke to help pay bills, despite the fact that we made the same money.
Our first mortgage is, as of the moment, current. But we cannot refinance out of our very high interest rate because our HELOC has been charged off since 2012. I did not learn about all this for years because my husband was intercepting the mail, based on his dad’s advice.
He also, at that time, wrote a long message board post on the website of a well-known author of a book on sexless marriages. In it, he describes all the reasons why he withholds affection from me, one of the major ones is that, in his opinion, I did not respond strongly enough to 9/11 (we live on the West Coast and did not know anyone directly affected by the tragedy).
By contrast, last fall when my hometown burned down and several family members were left homeless or evacuated and our son’s school burned down, he very calmly and unemotionally watched TV while I sat across the room from him, sobbing.
My husband does not name call in the way that it is necessarily illustrated here… He will say things as a “joke” and accuse me of having no sense of humor when I call him on it. For example, he will say, “Woman, you need to… “ or he will, in a very long winded and verbose way, tell me exactly what is wrong with my behavior… He is highly intelligent and can drone on for hours. Despite what you may think, I am also highly intelligent, and I can also go on and on for a long time… This is not seem to matter, however. If he doesn’t get the last word, he storms out of the room, offended.
Back in May, he invited me to take an extended vacation with him in order to celebrate my birthday. A couple of weeks later, he withdrew the invitation because he decided that I was acting “cold and uncaring” toward him. The week before he left, he spent blocking my path when I was attempting to exit the room, informing me that he’s decided that I have borderline personality disorder, and other similar shenanigans.
I spent the two weeks he was gone talking with: a domestic violence counselor, my therapist, a family lawyer, and numerous friends. He returned at three yesterday morning, and already, the following has occurred:
He scooped up all my shoes that were lined up neatly and out of his way, and dumped them in a pile in the corner of the bedroom (he did this at 3am!!)
He informed me, “I missed you for the first five days I was gone, but then you stopped responding to my texts” ( he had tried to get me to sext while I was at work, and I just did not feel authentic about doing that)
He watched a video I posted to social media while he was gone, in which I spoke about how good my therapist is and that I really enjoy seeing her, and informed me last night that he masturbated frequently to that video. He also asked me as “a joke“ yesterday whether I am having a lesbian affair with her.
He made a joke yesterday about wanting to have sex with one of our cats. Not the first time he’s made a similar comment.
I have many, many, many more examples of some of the behavior over the years… I am in my early 40s, and he is in his early to mid 50s and this behavior started around the time that I got pregnant in 2002.
I literally had someone tell me the other day that I am delusional about how happy other people are, and that I probably am just going through “a midlife crisis”. Other friends have said to me “abuse is a strong word” or something along lines of “Married people need to stay together! You need to work things out!” I know hi feel; trying to bolster my support network is a challenge, as is trying to determine where I’m going to live.
My husband is a very loving man……as long as no alcohol is involved. When he drinks he screams, yells, name calls and has left our home on numerous occasions. With no regard for how myself and the children feel. He binge drinks so this behavior can go on for hours or even days. Then while he is drinking he will start fights with me when I don’t give in. That’s when the name calling begins. I ignore his calls so he will text. Calling me a w!!!!, s!!!!, and any other degrading thing he can come up with. Then he threatens me that he wants a divorce but I need to go file so it will be easier for him(he works out of state). I feel no care or concern for him anymore and I believe my only option is to block him so I can get myself together and my well being.
Yes I have a narcotics ant-sociopath and syphcopath , shellshot abusive , coervive, manipulation, boyfriend that like targeting single married independent woman.
I think that after calling the police on an ex partner who would not leave my house and was violent in view of a witness, then after getting arrested instead of my partner, with the police audio magically missing.my testimony and the witnesess, and after enduring my ex.partner commit 5 felonies against me before the trial that the Prosecutor refused to prosecute, (including destruction of exculpitory evidence); that evaluating my behavior and trying to own my part has become extremely cloudy as the negative emotions described above naturally manifest and surface in ways that are incredibly difficult to manage and give the appearamce of being the originator of abuse.
Accountability.is different than control but if the other party wants to, requests for accountability after being victim to abusive behavior can be manipulated to look like control to others even when language and actions are civil.
I think our Justice System has erased the presumption of innocence in domestic violence cases resulting in biases that fail to protect those whom may be victims instead of perpetrators of the behaviors you describe above.
This all breaks my heart. I feel that ive also been the abuser.. I had a very disfunctional upbringing woth alot of abuse, ive worked so hard emotionally and mentally just to be sitting here today under the impression i am a somewhat functional human being. However, it truly seems that although I am the one that’s being abused I have been the abusive one as well. But the good news is after reading this article I realize that I was also the abuser and that I need to reevaluate how I treat my partner sometimes, or what is now my ex-partner I guess once again he has left me for something that he’s done wrong. This article is also giving me the tools to know what not to do in my next relationship and how to treat people that’s loving and kind and not in an abusive way. It breaks my heart to read this because I truly do love my ex-partner I really thought that we had something but knew that there was something wrong to. Every time I saw that little bit of light in his eyes it gave me hope and I was holding on to hope. But my grandmother taught me you can’t teach an old dog new tricks and he’ll never change. Because in his eyes he feels that he is perfect., and that I am the one that needs to change my ways according to what he feels or needs or satisfies him. Thank you for the Learning lesson and opening my eyes so that I can be a better person.