Every time my AXH looked me in the eye and lied, knowing he was making me doubt myself, that was emotional abuse. The intentional erosion of my truth so that he could continue to feel comfortable in his disease was diabolical.
Manipulating me with talk of suicide, making sure I lived a subdued life in that kind of fear and anxiety, absolute emotional anguish.
The push and pull, the fleeing or disappearing acts followed up by false promises and love bombing... just to have it happen on a steady repeating loop... so utterly crazy making and abusive.
I could name off hundreds of specific incidents, but I really try not to delve into that anymore... unless a newcomer to SRF&F really needs to hear some ESH.
Worst of all is the fact that I allowed it to keep happening for as long as I did. It absolutely sucks that he could treat me like that, but it's worse that I let him. I was raised by a codependent mother, she was my role model... that's a whole other kind of messy emotion situation.