You May Be Experiencing Emotional Abuse If Someone:

• Monitors what you’re doing all the time

• Unfairly accuses you of being unfaithful all the time

• Prevents or discourages you from seeing friends or family

• Tries to stop you from going to work or school

• Gets angry in a way that is frightening to you

• Controls how you spend your money

• Humiliates you in front of others

• Threatens to hurt you or people you care about

• Threatens to harm himself or herself when upset with you

• Says things like, “If I can’t have you then no one can.”

• Decides things for you that you should decide (like what to wear or eat).

Examining an abusive partner, we can see some patterns:  Paraphrased, but Source.

• Abuse itself is about control, and emotional abuse is a way for an abusing partner to demand more from a relationship then he/she/they are willing to give.
• No matter how much the abused gives, it will never be enough.  He/she will try, and try, and try, only to fail every time.   The reason for this is because the relationship is not about love, but control.
• When an abused partner becomes more independent, the abuser will become more abusive because he/she is losing control.
• The abused will never be forgiven for the slightest of legitimate mistakes even after the argument has ended and the problem resolved, but the abuser will expect to be forgiven for everything regardless of the infraction.
• The abuser will constantly expect change from the abused, and no matter how much the abused changes, it will never be enough.
• This list is by far from complete, but lastly, the abuser will deflect blame to every available source, and for the abuse itself, the blame will go to the abused.

This is from an article you can read here, but it may be controversial to some of my readers.