Emotional and Verbal Abuse
- Dictate what you do, whom you see, or where you go and when
- Call you names, put you down, or humiliate you
- Make you feel ashamed, isolated, wrong, stupid, scared, worthless, or crazy
- Act jealous, accuse you unfairly of cheating, flirting, or having affairs
- Threaten you or make you feel afraid
- Punish you by giving you the silent treatment or withholding affection
- Constantly criticize you and your children
- Make you feel like you are “walking on eggshells” all the time
- Blame you for everything that goes wrong
- Make it hard for you to stay connected to friends or family
- Make you feel guilty for spending time with someone else or on interests outside the home or relationship
- Threaten to take your children from you
- Throw or break objects, punch walls, kick doors or do other things intended to frighten you
- Intentionally make you late or unable to get to appointments, meetings or other things in your schedule on a regular basis
- Continually harass you with texts, calls, e-mails or other types of messaging
- Demand immediate response to calls/messages regardless of where you are or what you’re doing
- Destroy or sell your personal property (especially items with great sentimental value)
- Use your immigration status or personal history against you
- Insist on accompanying you to medical and other appointments or speak for you when you are asked questions
- Tell you that they cannot live without you and threaten to harm themselves if you leave
- Insist that you are nothing without them
- Tell you that you are lucky to be in the relationship or that no one else will ever want you
- Threaten to physically harm you, your children, or pets
- Insist you do all housework and childcare-related tasks
- Threaten to leave you if their demands are not met and their rules are not followed
- Encourage your children to act disrespectfully or abusively to you
- Disrespect or mistreat you in front of children
- Tell you that you can try to leave but that you will never be able to get away from them
- Act lovingly and apologetically after verbally or physically harming you in order to keep you hopeful that things are going to get better
- Use profanity or other vulgar/upsetting language in a disrespectful or harmful way
- Lie, break promises, betray trust
- Play mind games, rewrite history (sometimes called gaslighting) to suit their purposes
- Make light of or minimize their abusive behavior
Financial Abuse
- Take your money or make you ask or beg for money when you need it
- Spend large sums of family money without talking it over with you first or refuse to let you participate in financial decisions
- Refuse to add your name to the lease/mortgage, car title, bank account(s), credit card(s), or other family assets
- Run up bills or make other decisions that negatively impact your credit score
- Refuse to pay bills that are solely in your name
- Interfere/cause problems with your ability to work or go to school
- Make you account for all money you spend
- Withhold money for household expenses (including rent/mortgage payments, food, personal care items, baby/child care items, utilities, clothing, etc.)
- Force you to work or prevent you from working
- Take out and use a credit card in your name without permission (identity theft)
- Take sole control of finances
Physical Abuse
- Push, slap, bite, kick, spit at or strangle you
- Use a weapon against you or your children
- Drive recklessly with you and/or your children
- Prevent you from leaving any space when you want to go
- Handle your body roughly during caregiving
- Take away or restrict your access to assistive devices (wheelchair, walker, glasses, hearing aids, etc.)
- Threaten to use your mental health history against you in court or medical settings
- Withhold your medication or give you too much of that medication
- Prevent you from accessing healthcare by refusing to give you money for co-payments, making it difficult or impossible to see a healthcare provider or taking steps to have you taken off the family’s medical insurance
- Prevent you from calling 911 for law enforcement or medical attention
- Interfere with your sleep
- Manipulate or force you to do things you are not comfortable with
- Force you to participate in strenuous activities (workouts, hikes, moving heavy items, etc.) when you don’t want to or when it is medically unsafe to do so
- Interfere with your participation in a substance misuse recovery program
Technology Related Abuse
- Continually track your whereabouts by cell phone or other device
- Go through your texts, voicemail, email, direct messages and other communications
- Monitor your browser history or online activity in real time
- Interrogate you about phone calls you made or ask why you spent so long on certain calls
- Post as you on social media without your permission
- Use an internet-connected device to alter the temperature, lighting or other aspects of your home without your permission (for example, turning on lights or the television in the middle of the night or unexpectedly making your home uncomfortably warm or cold)
Sexual Abuse
- Force or pressure you to have sex or be intimate against your will
- Refuse or sabotage birth control and other methods of safer sex
- Insist you do things that make you uncomfortable
- Mock or insult your body; negatively compare your body to another person’s body
- Insist on taking nude or semi-nude photos/videos or recording sexual activity
- Share pictures or videos of you without your consent
- Is rough or deliberately inflicts pain without your consent during sex
- Withhold sexual intimacy as punishment
- Demand sex in exchange for basic need/requests (such as money for groceries, medication, diapers, other needs)
Identity/Spiritual Abuse
- Threaten to reveal your sexual orientation or gender identity without your permission
- Mock your accent, family or home country
- Make fun of you for not having a high school diploma or college degree (or make fun of the school where your diploma or degree came from)
- Prevent you from worshiping at the time when -- and in the place where – you want
- Say that you aren’t practicing your religion correctly or that you belong to the wrong faith
- Ignore or make fun of religious/cultural values or beliefs that are important to you
- Use or threaten to report your immigration status to your employer or government officials
- Interfere with faith-based rituals or practices that are important to you or keep you from a faith community you would like to be part of
- Force you to practice a religion that you didn’t choose
- Use religion/scriptures to justify abuse
- Use racial, ethnic or gender-based slurs and stereotypes to belittle you
Consider reaching out to a domestic abuse program or hotline if your partner treats you in any of these controlling and abusive ways. Domestic abuse programs provide both direct assistance to people experiencing abuse AND consultation for friends, family members, co-workers, community professionals, and other community members. Broadly speaking, domestic abuse programs do not require that you are in the process of leaving or have left (or are even intending to leave) in order to receive services. You can call an organization’s hotline just to talk about your situation and learn more about what kind of support they offer.