“Covert” means “hidden” or “secret”. Covert abuse involves tactics of coercive control that are hard to spot, difficult to define, and nearly impossible to confront. This subtle form of emotional abuse usually continues unabated for years or decades before the victim recognizes their own trauma.
Covert abuse happens in all types of relationships: friendships, families, romantic, or business. In this article, we will share what covert emotional abuse is, help you to identify covert abuse by learning its signs and tactics, learn what it does to various types of relationships, and know how you can get help.
Let’s dive in.
How is Covert Abuse the Silent Killer?
The covert abuser takes pieces of reality or known vulnerabilities of the victim and twists them in ways that are designed to weaken the abused’s position in the relationship, make them question their own reality, and deceive them into believing false narratives about what really occurred. These mind games confuse the person being harmed and create significant emotional and physical stress.
The victim often feels as if they are dying inside. The inability to clearly identify the harmful behaviors makes covert abuse nearly impossible to discern or address. While they desperately search for answers, the covert abuse continues. Victims suffer in silence without understanding why. This is why covert abuse is known as the silent killer.
Now, let’s go deeper.
Overt vs. Covert Psychological Abuse and Their Connection
It’s easier to recognize overt abuse. The victim can name the overt act which is harming the relationship. This decreases the confusion they feel. It enables them to more easily explain to their partner and others what is wrong and facilitates their ability to get help.
When both overt and covert abuse takes place, the abuser vacillates between the two types of abusive behavior. Once the overt behavior is challenged, the covert abusers switch to another overt or covert tactic and more to exhaust the victim and gain the power advantage over them.
This is why it’s essential we become adept at recognizing abusive behaviors and developing language to name the abuse tactics being used.
The Signs of Covert Abuse
What a Victim of Covert Abuse Might be Feel
Like you are always walking on eggshells: Over time, the victim believes they can control the abusive outbursts if they are very careful to do everything perfectly. So they start to “walk on eggshells” to avoid the wrath of the covert abuser. Unsure what will set them off, a victim is careful not to do anything wrong. They lay low, keep quiet, and become hyper-vigilant.
Like you can’t get enough sleep: Chances are, you are emotionally and physically exhausted! The stress creates a heightened internal vigilance, over-taxing of your nervous system, adrenal fatigue, and other issues making it difficult to relax or find deep rest. Neverending conflict exhausts your body. No matter how many hours you lie in bed, deep sleep is hard to find.
Like you are constantly running into walls: Covert narcissists make most conversations, especially opportunities to resolve conflict, exceedingly frustrating for the victim. It increases levels of frustration and stress. Any attempt to bring calm into stressful encounters goes nowhere, making the victim feel as if they are always running into a wall. What begins as frustration often evolves into bitterness or depression.
Like you are the “crazy” one: The destructive nature of this form of hidden abuse gives you the sense that you are going insane. Covert abuse tactics, by definition, are crazy-making. The trauma they cause affects one so significantly that over time they are unable to regulate their thoughts or emotions. It seems impossible to understand what is happening to them.
Like you’re always anxious or fearful: Many victims experience intense fear and anxiety daily. Victims of prolonged abuse can remember when they didn’t always feel this way. If you always feel anxious around your partner, consider emotionally or physically detaching from them.
Like you’re depressed and all alone: Many victims become depressed from experiencing covert abuse. The abuser blames the depression for the problems in their relationship. This successfully shifts everyone’s attention onto the victim to cure the relationship. In reality, the hidden abuse is the problem and also is what’s causing the depression, not the other way around.
Break Free from the Maze: Find Clarity and Healing in Confusing Relationships. To learn more about this course from MEND, click here.
Covert Abuse Tactics
Minimization
Minimization is the belittling of the victim’s perspective with the intention to make what they value unimportant, consequently killing their confidence, creativity, and individuality. Minimization is abusive when used repeatedly within a relationship to break down boundaries and to attack the victim’s self-worth and values.
Blame-Shifting
Blame-shifting occurs when the abuser refuses to take responsibility for a situation and instead assigns the liability to others, usually the victim. “Well, I wouldn’t have gotten angry if you’d just done the dishes when I asked you to.” Or after directing a sarcastic joke at the victim, blaming them for being too sensitive when they disapprove. The victim experiences pain first in the originating harm and then when they are blamed. Blame-shifting stifles conflict resolution and helps the abuser shirk personal responsibility.
Avoiding Responsibility at All Costs
Victims rarely receive a sincere apology for the abuse, an act that could bring them significant healing. Even a partial apology is likely to be administered in a condescending tone, making it impossible for the victim to experience emotional safety. The victim is more likely to be blamed for the pain they are feeling.
The abuser is chronically defensive. The self-reflection required for someone to take responsibility for their actions is not built into the abuser’s belief system. They are more interested in powering over the victim and winning arguments than in connecting emotionally or listening authentically.
Instead, a covert abuser will shift from one tactic to another swiftly. As soon as the victim identifies blame-shifting and sets a boundary, they will move to another tactic, such as lying, or withholding. When abusive behaviors are constantly changing it becomes nearly impossible for the victim to identify the patterns. A lack of clarity, and being continually blamed for all the wrongs in the relationship, significantly wears the victim down both emotionally and physically.
The Effects of Covert Abuse on Relationships
Covert Abuse in Marriage and Romantic Relationships
All it takes is one emotionally abusive behavior repeated in a pattern to be destructive to a relationship. Continual lying, playing the victim, or belittling the other person’s concerns – if done repeatedly – will ruin the safety and trust that should exist between closely linked individuals. The solution for the partner whose trust has been betrayed may seem simple to those on the outside. “Just leave”.
But it’s not simple.
The Honeymoon Phase
Where there is a marriage or a romantic relationship with an abuser, the victim knows and remembers the love bombing during the honeymoon phase. They miss the great guy or great gal their lover was when they met.
At first sight, the hurtful behavior may be dismissed as a short-term diversion from the person they thought they married. “They’ve been under a lot of pressure.” “He’s just stressed.” “She’s been depressed.” They belive the positive side of their partner will return. Sometimes it does for brief moments. Many abusive relationships have a continuous cycle moving from periods of abuse to love bombing.
“Love bombing” is when someone uses extraordinary measures within a short time of meeting someone to flatter them: gifts, excessive compliments, dates to all the places you love, and extra attention making you feel like you are the sole object of their affection. It happens in a flash, then ends abruptly when the abuse resumes. When we experience love bombing, we may confuse it for true love and dive in!
Once the honeymoon phase transitions into abusive behavior, the victim is blindsided and confused causing them to doubt themselves and second-guess their observations, and their experiences.
Cultural Conditioning
People’s view on marriage or romantic partnership are molded by many unconscious or overt messages in our culture. In many cultures, but particularly religious ones, marriage is prized above all other institutions. They teach and believe a lover who is committed long-term to their partner will weather any storm with them regardless of its destructive path.
When trust and safety are violated, the victim doesn’t see a solution right away. Perhaps the couple’s problems are the victim’s fault. Maybe they haven’t been a good enough partner, husband, or wife. So they try harder. This is exactly how their abuser wants them to feel.
The deep level of spiritual beliefs regarding the sanctity of the marriage makes it difficult to confront the abuse or leave the relationship.
Covert Abuse Signs in Marriage and Romantic Relationships
There are many signs of destructive power and control within a relationship to help you determine whether it’s abusive. Here are some that are common in marriage and romantic relationships:
You feel you need to ask permission to do anything: It might start simply, “Sweetie, it doesn’t feel like you love me when you don’t tell me where you’re going.” Or, “It makes me uncomfortable when you hang out with your friends because they don’t like me.” It escalates into an angry outburst when you return from a workout with friends for a couple of hours.
To maintain the relationship, you begin to ask before doing anything. Often, the answer will be “no” or, if it’s a “yes”, it will still come with consequences as if they never gave permission.
You are isolated from family members and friends: Similarly, your partner may ask you not to spend so much time with your friends because “they hate me.” Perhaps they give you the silent treatment for several days because you went to dinner with your dad. Or they get really angry when you talk with anyone else about your relationship. Eventually, it seems easier to maintain the peace if you isolate from friends and family.
You are privately or publicly shamed for vulnerabilities you’ve shared: Exposing another’s vulnerabilities is an effective tactic of betrayal and control. Covert abusers may demand access to journals, email and social media accounts to identify confidence they can expose later to shut the victim down. In a healthy relationship, one should be able to let their guard down, but that’s not the case where there is abuse.
If you’ve ever shared weaknesses, fears, or sensitivities with your partner who later shamed you or exposed them publicly to mock or embarrass you, you’re likely in an abusive relationship.
You have little to no control over finances: Financial abuse is a common form of covert abuse. Through it, the victim becomes completely dependent on their partner. When the couple’s finances are shared or joint, you should have access to all accounts, a say in financial decisions, and knowledge about how finances are being used. A lack of access to money makes the victim feel trapped and controlled, often causing them to remain within the destructive partnership.
Your activities are being monitored: A common tactic in domestic abuse cases is to monitor a victim’s every move. Many domestic violence shelters today require scans of all electronics for spyware possibly uploaded by their abuser. Often, trackers are placed on automobiles as well.
You might not realize you are are being tracked. Does your partner somehow know where you’ve been without you telling them? Maybe they repeat things you said during private conversations with someone else and you can’t figure out how they learned that.
Your healthy boundaries are not respected: A common example of this is when you hold things of a private nature in a space that is your own and your partner invades your privacy ignoring the boundary you have placed. It’s entirely appropriate to expect privacy within intimate relationships where your journals or some communications remain for your ears and eyes only. Covert abusers refuse to respect these boundaries, read the journal, and will not apologize when confronted. In their mind, they feel entitled.
After repeated offenses, the victim may become angry and lash out defensively. When this happens, the covert abuser has not only obtained access to private information they may use to exert control but has also found an easy way to shift the responsibility for their problems onto the victim’s reactive anger.
Covert Abuse With Kids
Too many kids are emotionally abused by either their parents or peers (such as in bullying).
Psychological abuse of children rarely gets reported as it’s difficult for outsiders, such as mandated reporters, to recognize the emotional abuse of a child. Emotional abuse in the parent child relationship takes place behind closed doors. Consequently, many abused children do not get help and suffer the consequences of the psychological damage emotional abuse causes.
Many parents use harmful tactics in their parenting without being abusers. The stress and exhaustion of work or life might cause a parent to minimize their son’s or daughter’s accomplishments, hurts, or fears. Or, perhaps they scream at them causing them to become fearful. The minimization or raging is harmful even though the child is not being abused. Healthy parents can recognize their actions have been hurtful, feel guilty, and acknowledge their mistakes. They are willing to apologize and try to stop repeating the behavior.
Abusive parents respond differently. Covert narcissistic parents regularly employ harmful tactics as a means of powering over everyone in the family and drawing all positive attention to themselves. Parents with narcissistic personality disorder require their kids’ complete dependence so that pleasing the parent becomes the sole focus. In time, the child’s identity and sense of self-worth are replaced by self doubt, anxiety, fear, and depression.
The adverse effects of trauma hinder brain development and may be a detriment for the abused child into adulthood.
Covert Abuse In the Workplace
An abusive coworker, for instance, may start leaving a particular colleague out of email threads on purpose so that he or she is unprepared, out of the loop, and seemingly clueless. The covert abuser continues to use various tactics of manipulation, such as scapegoating or undermining, in order to give the appearance that their coworker is incompetent and the abuser is not.
Ideally, it’s best if the victim recognized the abuse and was supported in confronting the behavior which is in plain sight. Many factors make it challenging for a victim of workplace abuse to confront their abuser. Fear of retaliation, job loss, or demotion may hinder someone to speak up against workplace abuse. It’s important that workplace leaders make every effort to create a safe place for victims to disclose workplace harassment and abuse. Victims need to be certain they will be protected.
How to Get Help When You Have Experienced Covert Abuse
Here are some of our thoughts:
Find Community
You likely have been so isolated within your relationship that you don’t feel like you have anyone you can turn to who can help you. Your closest friends likely have been concerned about you for some time but didn’t know what to say or do. They may be relieved to see you opening up. Whomever you approach, make sure you feel secure sharing with that person. If they are too close to your abuser, they might not be ready or willing to hear about what’s been going on.
The most important thing anyone can do for you at this point is to listen. They should listen without speaking allowing you the space to process. If they respond with strong advice, ultimatums, judgment, or doubt then step away. That person is not ready to hold your heart well and their responses might escalate your trauma.
Seek Therapy
Find an individual therapist who is specifically trained and experienced in addressing covert abuse, narcissism, and trauma. Make sure you interview potential therapists before retaining them. You will get a strong sense of whether they have the skill set to help you by how they respond. If they don’t have a deep understanding of emotional abuse or how to counsel victims, find a different therapist. If you discover later that they lack understanding of covert abusive dynamics, don’t be afraid to terminate therapy and move on.
You need someone equipped to deal with the deep emotional pain abuse has left you with, codependency issues, and your potentially faulty beliefs about yourself or relationships in general. Post-traumatic stress disorder and complex PTSD require specialized care, so make sure you are with a clinician able to assess and treat these issues.
Resist the temptation to go to couples counseling with your abuser if the counselor is not an expert in abuse. If you have found an expert counselor it’s okay to attend a session as a couple to get an assessment. However, until the abuser has spent significant time doing deep therapeutic work with an expert therapist who has fully confronted, unpacked, and resolved their destructive belief systems which can take a couple of years, they are unable to engage in couples therapy in a meaningful way without harming you further.
In couples therapy, the unhealed abuser will use the same tactics they used against you behind closed doors but will be additionally emboldened by whatever vulnerabilities you share during couples therapy. This makes the risk of harm too great to bear. Even good therapists can become confused by the “he/she/they said” contributions to therapy which will cause you to feel mischaracterized and abandoned by the therapist.
Reach out to a Domestic Violence Shelter
Reach out to a domestic violence shelter, even if you do not need a physical place to stay. Most shelters have services at no cost for those who qualify whether or not you live there. You can join one of their support groups where you may share your feelings without needing to explain. If you’re not ready to share, you’ll receive validation by hearing other people’s stories. Or consider taking one of their personal empowerment courses which will help you build confidence and relieve trauma.
There’s so much to say. Right now my husband a a protective order against me. I haven’t spoken to my daughters in a month. He provoked me for the last time and I snapped and he videoed me attacking him. He has the system thinking I’m the abuser. Even my case worker whom he reported me while I was in jail is aiding with him. No one cares. I didn’t know what or how this is happening until I came upon this website.
Angela – I am so glad you found our site. I’m sorry for all that you are going through – unfortunately, it’s far more common than you’d think. There is little understanding about covert abuse, let alone reactive abuse, which we call “reactive defense”. You may consider reading the blog on reactive defend or taking a look at some of our free training intensives on The MEND Project YouTube channel – there’s one on reactive abuse there as well. I hope that you are connected to strong support groups of people who will understand and be able to help you in your healing. Here’s the link to the other blog: Reactive Abuse Blog
Angela, I’m so sorry you are dealing with this. It is (sadly) very common for an abuser to be cruel and scary behind closed doors, and then to appear calm, cool, collected, friendly and generous in public (to people who don’t know them well). Meanwhile, the partner they have abused behind closed doors often appears to outsiders like an unstable, volatile person. What you are navigating is so painful and unfair. Some of the best things you can do are: 1. to find support and advice from domestic violence shelter staff and/or a therapist who understands narcissistic abuse and Jekyll-Hyde personalities, 2. to do whatever helps to regulate you and calm you (regular vigorous exercise really helps to both calm people and make them feel more resilient, and it helps to shake off the “freeze response” and dissociation that are often part of trauma), 3. there’s a book by Bill Eddy called Splitting: How to handle divorcing a narcissist, sociopath, or borderline that has concrete suggestions. It also has suggestions for coping with ex-partners that make up poisonous stories about you and separate you from your children. I escaped an abusive scary ex, and it took 8 more years to get my daughter protected, though I had primary custody. I do not know the particulars of your situation, but know that often people like this can’t keep their mask from slipping over time. If you can find a pragmatic lawyer who understands domestic violence and narcissism, that can also help. But the first order of business is to get yourself as calm and sturdy as you can, knowing that your ex wants to provoke you and make you look crazy. I know it sounds impossible at first, but once you realize and accept that your ex can’t be reached emotionally or morally, and that he will mostly behave as your adversary, then you can work on giving him as little reaction as possible (and hopefully you can see him as little as possible!). If you have any friends or family who ever saw glimpses of your ex’s bad behaviors, if they can write brief, factual statements about it to corroborate your side of it, that can really help you. If your friends and family can write statements with examples of your strengths as a parent, that can help. If you can find proof that he lied in court to the judge, that can eventually help you. Lundy Bancroft’s book Why Does He Do That? can help.you to understand the tactics that abusive men use to confuse, intimidate, and discredit their partners or ex-partners. Right now, as much as you can, vent only to safe people who are on your side. Take the best care 9f yourself that you can: exercise, enough sleep, eating well, treating yourself as kindly as you can.
You are not alone, though I know that is of little solace. Although I never believed my husband would do any of the abusive things over the years, I NEVER even thought about him using the police-until the day I was arrested in front of my 8 year old and served a restraining order after I got out of jail. I am so sorry you are going through this, it’s surreal.
Hello. Good article. What about the covert abuser that does take responsibility and validates your feelings, (only after the initial abusive outburst;) or the covert abuser who needs to be involved in every aspect of your life and does like to accompany you and immerse themselves with your friend group, instead of isolate? I feel this tactic is to establish a connection with victim’s support, so they can later be slandered. I feel it’s important to raise awareness of the insidiousness of these tactics too; or the intelligent/diligent narcissist, who has read many articles like these, to know how to avoid “looking” like an abuser.
Yes, absolutely. In this example, they are controlling by never letting you alone with your friend groups so that you have your own community. You might be interested in reading our article on trauma bonding, which addresses the situation of the abuser who takes responsibility and then abuses all over again. Usually, there’s something manipulative about the apology itself. So glad you are engaging with us and finding interest in our blogs.
Wow. I had no idea what has been happening to me for the past 10 years. I thought I was losing my mind. I gained 45 lbs, couldn’t sleep, I was getting my period for almost 2 weeks every month, my anxiety and depression were worse than I’ve ever felt it. My body was trying to warn me but I felt like my soul had left my body. I’m 2 weeks out of that damaging marriage and I would love any resources you might recommend. Thank you for this article!
We are so glad you found our blog and gained clarity and validation from its content! It’s truly amazing how our bodies can be deeply impacted by covert abuse. Even more amazing is how many physicians or other practitioners struggle to determine the cause for an individual’s symptoms without ever recognizing psychological abuse as the source, adding confusion and concern for the victim. So grateful that you are on the other side beginning your road to recovery. I’ll separately email you with some things but for now I think one of the best things you can do is submit your email to be on our list for our upcoming course for anyone in a high conflict relationship or survivors or victims of abuse. The first live lesson is on 10.3! Submit your email and we’ll notify you when registration and scholarship applications open. Go here and scroll down on the page: https://themendproject.com/. Love and healing to you. – Stephanie
I actually believe my husband is unaware that he is an emotional abuser….is that possible??? Or am I just naive???
Yep, it’s totally possible and very common. In fact, in our founder’s story, her husband had no idea he was causing her harm or that his actions were abusive patterns. It took a couple of years of very deep therapy to unveil the truth and more time (along with a willing heart many abusers don’t have) to correct the behavior. As you can see from the 5 pillars of abuse we talk about on our website and in some of our articles or on our YouTube channel, abusers have a faulty mindset and sense of entitlement that often starts very young in their life and can come from many sources teaching that it’s OK. Highlighting the harmful behavior and attitudes can be challenging and it is one of the reasons we recommend long term specialized separate therapy for them to work on those deep issues. It takes time for them to have more than a short-term outward manifestation of change and move into an inside job of true transformation. Praying you find the resources and support you need to navigate what is going on in your marriage. We are having a new survivor course with Annette speaking live each week sharing key stories and lessons to impact change and growth. Join us!
Ya’ll this is EXACTLY what I have been dealing with. I could not figure out why I wasn’t able to pinpoint the actual issue. I thought I was losing my mind. There is a cycle with my husband where he love bombs me. Makes me fall in love with him all over again and makes me feel appreciated and supported and then a switch in his personality because I chose to do something that he disagrees with. IThis goes on like this several times a year in a big way and then smaller ways during the year. He always tells me that I say or do something that I didn’t and then makes me second guess if I really did and wonder if I am losing my mind. This last issue was making me choose between going to my grandbaby’s birthday party and his parents 50th anniversary party. Literally threw the guilt on thick. Made me feel like I was disrespecting him and that I didn’t care about his feelings. His parents may not care if I go but he does. He wants me there. My grandbaby is turning 4 and I want to be there. I have been torn over this for the past month. I decided grandbaby trumps anniversary party where I am not accepted and won’t be missed anyway. He got so mad at me that he punished me. Told me that I was being a spoiled brat and acting like a B—-. I wasn’t doing anything. I just stated that I chose grand over his parents. He went to bed, and I was in the living room and he came in and accused me of turning the heater up to 85 and told me I could not use it to use the small space heater if I was cold then left the light on. I asked him to please turn it off. He says “I will do what I want when I want” and never turned it off. This is just one example. It’s a cycle. As long as I am doing things he wants, we are fine. Once he pushes me so much that I shout at him he makes statements like “why are you acting like this” and accuses me of being in a bad mood all day. Tells me he is done that the discussion is over after he has me all mad about things. And tells me he is tired of my games. Today we have said not more than a few words until he decided to get in my face again and tell me that I am playing games. I told him to please leave me alone and he says in a condescending sing songy voice “no I am not going to leave you alone”. It is really good when it’s good, but mostly I have lost all confidence. He throws money issues in my face. Tells me that he makes more than me and now that I don’t have a job blames me that he didn’t buy his son a birthday gift. Mind you he had a $10,000 Christmas bonus and had ample ability to purchase his son a gift. Also tells me that my son doesn’t care about me. I’m so sad and feel like I don’t matter and that I am worthless. I want out, but I am trapped. No job, my car is broke down and I don’t have money to fix it. His truck’s tags have been out for over a year and that is my only mode of transportation at this point. It’s in his name so I cannot renew the tags. I have nowhere to go and I don’t want to leave my dog. She is my unofficial emotional support animal. I have visited with the local women’s shelter about this issue in the past, but things got good again and I thought I was just over reacting. I know now that I am not, but I don’t know what to do. Luckily, I do not have children at home so when I do leave, I will be able to do so and never have to have contact with him again. I just don’t know when that will be. He will be leaving for work tomorrow morning and will be gone for at least a month and I am sooooo looking forward to it. I am hopefully going to get all my ducks in a row and get things figured out, starting with the women’s shelter. I will be getting an appointment with them as soon as I can.
Wow. I am so thankful you came across this blog and it provided you with the validation you deserve. It sounds like it catapulted you into healthy action to protect yourself and find health and healing from a difficult situation. Please keep us posted and let us know how we can support you best by reaching out to us at info@themendproject.com.
What about the situations like mine: I’m constantly anxious if husband is mad/uncomfortable with let’s say kids mess in the living room. I can read his face and I know when he is super mad but doesn’t say a thing until his next outburst out of nowhere when he’ll remind you he never says anything bad/expresses anger even though there was a mess made by kids I didn’t clean up. What about me being scared if he sees some guys( men coworkers/friends ) texting me and asking me (it could be done with a nice tone) why they are texting me this late/for this reason. I don’t know if I am in abusive relationship but 1 thing I know: I’m feeling anxious or guilty all the time… Maybe it is me being overly sensitive?
Thank you for sharing. It sounds like you are walking on eggshells and that it would be helpful for you to learn about unhealthy behaviors so you can hopefully understand more about what might be taking place within your relationship. People aren’t usually “over-sensitive”. Often, our responses and how we feel in response to what our partner says or does, come out of a history of harmful behavior which builds over time. The subtle tactics of covert abuse are designed to slowly make the person lose their self esteem, begin to question themselves, and make them take the blame for unhealthy behavior. It sounds like you have some really strong instincts that are telling you something is not healthy about how your husband treats you. I would start by trusting your instinct and learning more. Please consider joining our self-paced course for people in troubled relationships who are trying to learn and understand more. Simply check out this link and see what you think (scholarships are also available to those in need): https://themendproject.com/resolving-conflict-in-relationships-course/. Finally, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at our info account (info@themendproject.com) and we can connect you with a member of our team to speak with you. Much love and a big hug to you.
Who do you recommend as a trauma therapist ?
Hi Destiny! Thanks for reaching out. Please reach out to us at info@themendproject.com where we can dialogue a little more and try to find a referral for you if we have one. Thank you!!