Calling a duck a duck makes sense. But this logic works against you in an emotionally abusive relationship.
Calling out an abusive person for who they are might just turn the whole thing around on you.
When you’re dealing with a hurtful or controlling person in a relationship, you might decide to work up the courage to call them out, telling them they are being abusive.
However, what follows after that is rarely productive. Instead of them being open to a conversation on their behaviors, these umbrella terms might create an even bigger challenge for you. When you tell someone they’re being emotionally abusive or acting like a narcissist, you’re essentially grouping dozens of specific behaviors under one big label.
The problem with this approach is that it makes everything muddy. The person on the receiving end of that label will often turn it right back around on you. I call this the turnaround game. They’ll say, “No, you’re the narcissist” or “You’re the one who’s emotionally abusive!” And suddenly you’re both arguing about who deserves which label instead of addressing the actual behaviors that are causing the problem.
This is why I rarely use these terms when talking about abusive relationship dynamics in my podcast. Labels are useful and often necessary for understanding patterns and educating yourself, but they may not be particularly helpful in conversations with someone who is actually doing the behaviors.
What works better is identifying the specific actions and their specific effects. When you say something like, “When you call me that name, it makes me feel small and unloved,” you’re giving the other person something concrete to respond to. They can’t easily flip that back on you because you’re describing a specific action and your specific emotional response to it.
I remember hearing from someone who told their partner they were being emotionally abusive. The partner immediately turned it back around on them, saying the same thing. This caused the actual victim of the abusive behavior to wonder if perhaps they, themselves, were the abuser. That’s why labeling someone can go nowhere fast. A label is a high, zoomed-out perspective that groups many components. With abusive behaviors, it’s vital to get into the granular details of what’s actually occurring.
The challenge, of course, is that getting granular requires you to really think about what’s happening. It’s easier to say “you’re being difficult” than it is to say, “When I try to tell you about my conversation with my sister, you interrupt me before I can finish and tell me how awful she is. I’d like to be able to complete my thoughts before you respond.”
The second approach is more vulnerable and more specific, but it’s also much harder to deflect or deny. The other person has to acknowledge (or deny) the behaviors, which shows them you are aware of what they’re doing. This is, of course, not recommended with violent or aggressive people. That’s an entirely different scenario. You need to pick your battles wisely.
When you address the specific behaviors someone is doing, the other person might still be defensive, and they might still try to turn things around, but at least you’re working with something concrete. You’re not arguing about abstract concepts or psychological labels. You’re talking about real moments that happened between both of you.
That Doesn’t Sound So Bad
Someone wrote to me saying that when she tries to explain her relationship issues to friends and family, they don’t seem to think the behaviors are bad. In fact, many of them call these behaviors normal relationship difficulties. She tries to explain his covert narcissism to them, but she can’t seem to convey what’s happening in a way that makes them understand the full extent of what she’s dealing with. She has this constant weight on her chest and feels anxious all the time.
This is one of the hallmarks of emotionally abusive relationships. The behaviors themselves, out of context, might sound minor or normal when you describe them to someone who hasn’t lived through them, but the cumulative effect of those behaviors can be devastating to the one experiencing them.
Covert narcissism, or what some might call covert emotional abuse, often involves someone who has deep insecurities that they refuse to address. Instead of being vulnerable about their fears and insecurities, they push those uncomfortable feelings onto their partner.
I know this pattern well because I exhibited some of these behaviors when I was younger. I had a fear of abandonment, low self-worth, and a desperate need for love and connection. And rather than admitting these vulnerabilities, I became passive-aggressive, played the victim, withdrew emotionally, and made my partners feel responsible for my emotional state.
What makes covert manipulation and abuse so confusing is that the person doing it may not even realize what they’re doing. That’s no excuse, of course. I remember not understanding the full extent of my own emotionally abusive behaviors when I was younger, but I take full responsibility and ownership of who I was and what I was doing back then.
When I was emotionally unhealthy, I thought I was just protecting myself or trying to make the relationship better. But what I was actually doing was making someone else feel like they were the problem so that I wouldn’t have to deal with my own issues.
This brings me back to why specific language matters so much. If someone had told me I was a narcissist back then, I probably would have gotten defensive and shut down. But if someone had said, “When I make plans with my friends, and you get quiet and withdrawn, it makes me feel guilty for having a life outside of our relationship,” that’s something I might have potentially heard and reflected upon. Though I probably can’t give myself that kind of credit because I had very toxic thinking back then.
The other risk with using broad labels is that they often make the person using them feel like they’re not being heard. When you say “you’re being emotionally abusive,” and the other person turns it back on you, you’re left feeling even more confused and isolated than before. You might start questioning whether you’re the one with the problem. This is especially true if the person you’re dealing with is skilled at making you feel responsible for their emotions and behaviors.
Even if you can’t identify the specific behaviors that are bothering you, you will always know how you feel. You will know when you feel small, powerless, drained, and unloved. And sometimes that’s all you might be able to articulate.
If you can’t pinpoint exactly what someone is doing that makes you feel this way, you can at least describe the emotional aftermath. You can say, “I don’t know how to explain the specific things that happen, but I do know that after we have a conversation, I feel like you think I’m stupid and everything is my fault. I want the person who loves me to make me feel lifted up, not put down.”
Don’t label a person – describe what you’re experiencing instead.
Friends and family who care about you will recognize that something isn’t right, even if you can’t articulate what’s going on or they can’t see the specific behaviors from the outside. They know you. And if you’re consistently feeling diminished and powerless in your relationship, that’s a red flag. And friends and family who know you will know something is definitely off.
Emotional manipulation works by keeping you confused and off-balance. The manipulator might even see themselves as the victim in the situation. This is especially true with covert patterns where someone refuses to acknowledge their own insecurities and instead projects them onto their partner.
When I was younger and struggling with jealousy, I didn’t see it as my problem. I saw it as my partner’s problem for doing things that made me jealous. When I felt insecure about her drinking alcohol, I made it an issue about her choice rather than about my own fears stemming from growing up in an alcoholic home.
Emotionally abusive people push their unhealed wounds onto others rather than dealing with their own fears and insecurities.
The question you might want to ask yourself if you’re dealing with someone who exhibits emotionally abusive patterns is: What insecurities are they dealing with? If they’re clingy and possessive, they might have a deep fear of abandonment or rejection. If they’re constantly criticizing your choices, they might be projecting their own self-doubt onto you. This doesn’t excuse their behaviors, but it can help you understand what’s really driving them.
The hard truth is that in a healthy relationship, both people need to be willing to be vulnerable with each other. And that requires feeling safe to be yourselves around one another. If one person is always protecting their vulnerabilities while the other person is expected to be open and honest, the relationship will never find balance. Vulnerability needs to be reciprocal. If you’re brave enough to admit when something doesn’t make sense or when you might be wrong, but the other person always steamrolls you and insists you’re the problem, that’s not a balanced dynamic.
If you’re trying to explain what’s happening in your relationship to people who care about you, remember that you don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to be able to cite specific examples of every single thing that’s gone wrong. Sometimes all you might be able to say is, “I feel unloved and drained, and I know that’s not how I’m supposed to feel with someone who claims to care about me.”
The people who truly care about you will believe you, even if they can’t see the full picture from the outside.
What matters most is that you trust your own experience. If you consistently feel small, powerless, and like you can’t do anything right, that’s information worth paying attention to. And if every conversation leaves you feeling worse about yourself, that’s a pattern worth examining more closely. You don’t need a perfect label to describe what’s happening to know that it doesn’t feel right.
Questions I address in this episode:
Why do broad labels like “narcissist” or “emotionally abusive” often backfire in difficult conversations?
What is the “turnaround game,” and how does it prevent real communication?
How can you identify and communicate specific behaviors instead of using umbrella terms?
What is covert narcissism, and how does it differ from more obvious forms of manipulation?
Why do victims of emotional abuse often struggle to explain what’s happening to friends and family?
How can you articulate your experience when you can’t identify specific behaviors?
What role does vulnerability play in creating balanced, healthy relationships?