What are some subtle ways of being abusive?

Ignoring someone is a pretty good way to mess with someone. Making up lies also can push someone away.

There is nothing more subtly abusive as constantly flinging a frowned look seething with hate.

Using words with double meanings. It can be meant one way, but you mean it another. And then mask it with an innocent face.

It’s crazy making at its highest peak.

Being overly critical and controlling of another.

Sending vibes and looks of disapproval as a means of manipulating someone through guilt and shame.

Talking ‘down’ to someone, or speaking to another adult as if they were a child being scolded. Condescending behaviors and words.

Never taking responsibility for even the smallest of things

Using tears and guilt trips to control others

Being unhealthily jealous and possessive

Never showing or speaking words of appriciation only criticism

There are lots of ways to be emotionally abusive that are subtle, and without knowledge of such can be confusing to those that are not aware of all the various ways people can abuse each other.

What Coloma said.

Being really friendly and sweet some of the time and cold and ignoring at other times.

Some bugger farting during ones backswing while playing golf is the absolute epitome of bad manners, I find.

Constantly flaking, like saying you’ll do various things and then not following through, or making the other person beg you to do it, or talk you into doing it repeatedly.

Trying to manipulate a person’s relationship with someone else.

Intermittent reinforcement.

Constantly staring at someone, only to avert their eyes the moment the staree looks back.

Saying: “You are our favorite girl!” accompanied by a facial expression that says: (not).

The best barometer of someones mental and emotional health is how consistently they show up in word and deed and emotional stability.

Moodiness and running hot & cold are bad signs that someone has abuser potential.

I know someone who used to tell me to “remind” him repeatedly to do something he’d already promised to do. I didn’t, because that’s called nagging. But if I had, he would have pulled the “stop trying to control me” card. What a jerk.

One of my biggest pet peeves and a red flag is lack of asking and low conscientiousness!

I have an old flame that dropped in a few weeks ago and I noticed how respectful he was in closing my gate when he left. I meant to tell him not to bother as my animals were not out in the yard, but, he left my house as he found it, with the gate closed. I noticed and told him how I had always appriciated his respectful manners.

On the flip side, someone I don’t know well, that had never been to my house, but KNOWS I have cats and geese, showed up with their dog, without even bothering to ask if that would be okay.

Not only that, but when I told him his dog had to stay out on my deck, he allowed her to follow him into my house and the, BIG RED FLAG of boundary ‘testing’, he simply made the statement ” Oh, Crackers came in.” Then he made NO effort to put the dog out again. I definitely got the vibe he was testing my boundaries. He was also very pushy in pressuring me to invite him over.

Needless to say, he will NOT be coming back to my house. lol

@Coloma Indeed. You can tell a lot about a person from if they always just assume they know what you want and what’s ok (aka thinking they can read your mind), vs someone who is good about asking even when they think they probably know the answer.

Being passive aggressive.

This one is really petty and awful and (I hope) only really happens among teenagers. Passive agressiveness in the form of Facebook statuses or something else similarly public. People will post stuff on Facebook like “Ugh, some people are so annoying” or similar, never being specific and leaving all their friends to wonder if they’re being secretly resented. The worst is when they post that immediately after talking talking to somebody, so the person knows the statement is probably about him.

Passive aggressive harping in the guise of “constructive criticism”

Verbal undermining in public with the cover of humor.

Using silence/avoidance as punishment.

I have found that if you point out a persons faults and mistakes with a smile on your face, it takes them quite a while to understand the criticism.

A true diplomate can tell a person to “go to hell” so that they will look forward to the trip.

@Ron_C

Haha, so true. I might be at about the 70% mark for that skill. It’s a work in progress.

I joke a lot these days about taking the “psycho-spiritual” approach,......

Namaste, fuck off! haha ;-)

@Ron_C I hate creepy people who smile and hand out criticism. It’s very passive agressive.

Always spilling and dropping things that break, or making a worse mess when you supposedly are “helping” clean up, such as spilling the cleaning liquid or using up all the cleaning rags to clean one small spill.

Tickling children while they scream, stop, stop, stop. Grabbing little children when they walk by and squeeze them really hard, while saying “I love you”, even when they say “let me go”.

Playing on the computer and ignoring your children, while they find markers and completely scribble up the hall way, or spray Raid all over the bed.

Gaslighting – Subtly twisting the victim’s perception on reality by making them doubt their thoughts and perceptions.

@sinscriven Yep, been there, done that about the gaslighting thing. It’s truly crazy making. I lived like that for years. Turns out I was the sane one, and HE was the nut case.

By the way, eventually I saw the light and told him, “It’s divorce or counseling, but you’d better choose quick, or you won’t get to choose.” He chose counseling, and for a while there it got worse. Then one day he came to me in tears and said that God had been speaking to him. He said he never realized what he had been doing to me, and he was sorry. I forgave him, but I told him that there was NO room for backsliding, so don’t even think about it, or he’d be out on his ear.

Covert abuse
This is a really good article I found to help me figure out what I was living with for 12 years.

There IS a lot of covert abuse going on—just as a society, women often are expected to accept it and/or are not sure what they’re up against.

never heard of gaslighting, thank you for sharing!

Gaslighting is abusive, but I think it’s important to note that gaslighting refers to someone consciously and purposefully creating a false reality for someone else for the purpose of making them doubt their own mental trustworthiness so as to better take advantage of them. Most people who might come across as gaslighting aren’t doing it on purpose, but rather as a subconscious reaction and a way to deal with their own crap. For example, a typical abusive parent doesn’t actually stay up at night creating new ways to create instability for their child, they just get terribly scared when they realize the child is growing up and will leave them and decide to make the separation less painful by a “leave them before they can leave you” tactic. This is very different from the Machiavellian tactics of gaslighting, and should be treated as such in dealing with such cases.

@snowberry “It’s very passive agressive.” Yes it is, effective too. -)

@Ron_C effective or just labels you as a douche-bag? If it happened to me, I’d pick douche-bag, and respond accordingly. It wouldn’t take long either.

@snowberry in my defense, I only do it rarely when I feel that I am being given the “run around” by that person. I would say that it is a defense against douche-bags; I don’t feel that I am one. I think you judgment is a bit harsh.

@Ron_C I don’t think being passive-aggressive is ever an appropriate response, especially from an adult.

@SpatzieLover Well I disagree (said with a smile)

I’ll agree with @Ron_C in one circumstance. It is impossible to deal with a passive-aggressively abusive spouse in a straightforward way. They don’t response to discussions or bluntness. They divert it with falsely innocent comments, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ comments, or will appear to be listening, only later to ignore and disregard. It drives the victim nuts and if they get upset, there’s that ‘You’re overreacting, I’m not doing anything’ BS. There is no way a discussion can happen in an adult way with this kind of person. If they get any inkling you’re on your way out, they will ‘innocently’ sabotage.

So, to deal with it and get out, one has to become covert to protect oneself. It feels nasty, I tell you that, because it doesn’t come naturally, but you’re not working adult-to-adult, but abuser-to-escapee.

@linguaphile If someone is so passive-aggressive or unstable that you cannot safely act like an adult on your part, it’s time to end the relationship.

@linguaphile I can say with certainty that my spouse is not in anyway abusive and the only thing that she ever does that is slightly offensive is give me the “checkbook lecture”. Fortunately the ATM and debit cards helped me in that respect.

When I was a kid this big bruiser took a disliking to me. There wasn’t a chance that I could beat him in a fair or even an unfair fight. I did use my passive aggressive skills to lure him into the deep water. The idiot forget that he couldn’t swim. By the time I got dressed and left the pool the lifeguards were administering resuscitation on him. He never bothered me after that.

@Aethelflaed I did :) There’s just the issue of getting his slippery ass to sign the freedom papers.

@Ron_C About the bruiser… LOL! Whatever it takes.

I definitely don’t advocate for passive-aggressiveness, I just recognize there are times that the levelheaded, straightforward approach won’t work.

@sinscriven

Is gaslighting illegal?

@linguaphile

I am confused, are you saying all passive aggressive behavior feels nasty?

@raven860 I’ll say it. All passive aggressive behavior feels nasty. There!

Sometimes the best thing you can do for ‘em is walk away. Don’t feed ‘em. My take on it is these are basically insecure people on a power trip.

@raven860 The passive aggressive person refused to work things out as an adult. I do not use PA actions naturally. So, when I had to use PA behavior to protect myself, it felt nasty. My whole concept is different from: “PA is nasty.”