What Is Covert Emotional Abuse? – Nadira’s Story

Covert emotional abuse is difficult to identify. If you’re wondering if you’re husband is using covert emotional abuse, here’s what you need to know.

To discover if your husband is emotionally abusive, take this free emotional abuse quiz.

Anne Blythe, M.Ed. Host of The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast, talks to Nadira, a member of the Betrayal Trauma Recovery community about her husband’s covert emotional abuse.

6 Examples of Covert Emotional Abuse

1. Covert Emotional Abuse Is A Lack Of Consideration
2. Neglect Is Covert Emotional Abuse
3. Secret Pornography Use Is Covert Emotional Abuse
4. Lying Is Covert Emotional Abuse
5. Covert Emotional Abuse Looks Nice and Kind
6. If It’s Covert Emotional Abuse, There Will Be No Resolution

Covert Emotional Abuse Is Dangerous Because It’s Invisible

Covert abusers are often charming, confident, and seem to speak and act in a gentle and polite manner. It can be terrifying for victims to suddenly realize that the inconsistent cruelty and confusion they experience is abuse.

Men who covertly abuse women don’t always hit, yell, break things, or lash out. Instead, the abuse is more subtle and hard to pin down. This makes covert abusers appear “normal” and makes victims feel crazy, overly-sensitive, and nit-picky. The reality, of course, is that victims are often under reacting to the gaslighting, manipulation, and crazy-making they are experiencing.

Covert Abusers Lie – And Put Victims In Serious Danger

Because abusive men usually lie about their sexual behaviors, including pornography use and affairs. Women are in serious danger of STD infection. When men lie about their sexual behavior, or withhold information, they commit sexual coercion.

Sexual coercion is an umbrella term for partner rape and sexual abuse. Women are victims of sexual coercion if they don’t have the information they need to give informed consent before sexual contact.

When women have sexual contact without knowing the truth about their partner’s pornography use, past and/or current sexual partner(s), STDs, compulsive masturbation, or other sexual behaviors, they become at-risk for STDs and STIs, sexual exploitation, and the intense trauma that accompanies betrayal.

Covert Abusers Normalize Abuse By Harming Victims Quietly

One of the most dangerous aspects of covert abuse is the way it is gradually intensified and normalized by abusers.

Covert abusers are master-manipulators and often have more self-control than physical batterers. Because of this, they can slowly groom victims into accepting abuse as normal – and even feel grateful during the brief periods when their partner is not inflicting psychological damage.

Covert Abusers Hide Behind The “Sex Addict” Label

Because covert abusers are often pornography users. Men will hide behind the label of “sex addict”, reaping the privileges of being an “addict” while continuing to harm and cast blame on partners.

While some individuals may truly suffer from addiction to sex and pornography (yes, pornography is addictive), all men who use pornography are abusers.

When therapists, 12-step groups, clergy, and others encourage families to view the abusive man as addicted, they minimize the danger of the abuse and enable the abuser. Abusers can change, but not through addiction recovery programs.

At Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we know how maddening, terrifying, and heartbreaking it can be to suffer at the hands of a covert abuser. The confusion and distortion of reality is enough to drain energy, hope, and joy from anyone’s life.

But healing is possible: with self-care, safety, and support. The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group meets daily in multiple time zones to offer victims a safe place to process trauma, share their stories, ask questions, and connect with other victims who get it. Join today and begin your journey to healing.

Transcript: What Is Covert Emotional Abuse?

Anne: Before we get to this week’s guest. We have a lot of women who listen to the podcast, who are not of any faith or aren’t Christians. I want to welcome everyone and thank everyone for listening. When women share on the podcast, I always want them to share from their own personal faith or paradigm. That means I frequently share from my own, and this podcast is not just for members of my church, but for everybody.

We have a member of our community on today’s episode, who comes from a Muslim background, although she converted to Christianity. We’re going to call her Nadira. Nadira and I will be talking about covert emotional abuse. And as she shares her story, I’m going to stop and point out six examples of covert emotional abuse. Welcome Nadira.

Nadira: Hi Anne. I have to say that’s something I appreciate about your podcast, because I know you’re a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And so when I first started listening, I thought maybe it was just for people that belong to that faith. But as I listened to the podcast, I was encouraged that this is for all women from all types of faith backgrounds.

But the truth is, we share this thing in common, in that we’ve all been abused. It’s been comforting for me to hear from all types of women with all types of beliefs.

Nadira’s Early Relationship and Red Flags

Anne: Oh, thank you so much for saying that. Yeah, that’s important to me that everyone feels welcome here. Everyone has different epiphanies based on their experience. I want women to share those. So the other women can hear them and realize they’re not alone. And that we’re all so similar.

Thanks for saying that. I appreciate it. Let’s talk about your story. Did you recognize abusive behaviors in the beginning?

Nadira: What I will say is yes and no. No, I didn’t have a category or the right verbiage for it. But what I knew was something was terribly wrong from the beginning. I’m Middle Eastern.

My dad is from the Middle East, and I was raised Muslim, but came to faith as a Christian when I was 16. I took that decision seriously and devoted my life to my faith. It was life changing for me. And when I met my ex-husband, he was on full time staff with a Christian organization.

He was basically a missionary. We actually took Bible classes together when I met him. He checked all the boxes. He is a master manipulator, like men I’ve heard about on this podcast. And so sadly, I kept thinking, well if I would change, or maybe I’m being ridiculous. I kept questioning myself, but innately, I knew something was terribly wrong.

Honeymoon Incident: First Example of Abuse

Nadira: On our honeymoon, my ex-husband actually decided to play volleyball in a two on two tournament for two days in a row with a totally hot woman in her bikini and flirt with her the whole time. Now, I asked him about it. I’m a person who’s forthright in what I feel, and I told him I felt hurt. I said I didn’t want him to do it, and the next day he did it again.

Anne: Oh wow, wow, on your honeymoon. I’m so sorry. So that’s our first example of covert emotional abuse. It was his absolute lack of consideration for you on your honeymoon. Like he was more into this other person than his own wife on her honeymoon. I am so sorry. I mean, how did the rest of the honeymoon go?

Nadira: I always felt like I was overly jealous in the conversations with him. I was insane. And so right from the get go, there was a precedent set that he could do whatever he wanted and flip it all around. And I would feel like what is wrong with me?

That continued, and so in my gut, I always knew there was something terribly wrong. But my ex-husband, like so many people I’ve heard about on this podcast, which really helped me not feel alone. He’s well liked, by the way. And he’s always been the pastor’s best friend. He’s a successful businessman. He was actually a star athlete.

Emotional Neglect: Second Example of covert emotional Abuse

Nadira: He had this Opie Taylor image, that he was just this aw shucks, unassuming guy, and everyone loved and trusted him. And so I always felt like, what’s wrong with me? And he would say that to me, like, what’s wrong with you? Everybody else loves me. But I was extremely neglected in our home.

I was a newlywed, I just moved across the country. And I felt very alone. We lived in a house built in 1948, so it was very small. He would disappear into the office for hours, and he would work long hours outside the home. And in his free time, he was either in the office. Or he watched TV and I was so lonely. I was seven months pregnant.

And I thought I’m going to leave and see if he even notices. So, I left the house, seven months pregnant, in an unsafe area, by the way. And two and a half hours later, he calls me and says, What are you doing? Where are you at? It took two and a half hours for him to even notice that I had left our little 1, 200 square foot house. So, the neglect was extreme.

Anne: That’s our second example of covert emotional abuse, emotional neglect. Like he didn’t even notice that you were missing. I can imagine in that situation you would feel so alone. I went through that too. Because right after I married, I moved to be with my ex, and I felt so alone too. And he would just take off and not tell me where he was going. What else did you notice early on? Other than the emotional neglect?

Discovering Pornography: Third Example of Abuse

Nadira: Pretty early on, one week before our oldest child’s birth. I had gone downstairs earlier than normal and caught my ex-husband looking at pornography.

Anne: And there is example number three. So the third example of covert emotional abuse is secretly using pornography. It’s covert because you can’t see it because he’s hiding it from you.

Nadira: Prior to marriage, I had actually asked him, which is abnormal at the time. But I had asked him about pornography, because I heard of a story where pornography had invaded a marriage. And so I asked him about his experience with pornography. And of course, he lied to me and said he didn’t have a problem or any issues with it.

I went through all the normal feelings of what’s wrong with me. Why am I not enough? Does he love me? All those questions that are normal. So when I caught him one week before the birth of our first child. At that point, I knew, okay, there is something much deeper going on here. That’s not about me.

Lying and Deception: Fourth Example of Abuse

Anne: Lying is example number four. Lying is covert emotional abuse. You’re resisting the entire time. Knowing that something was wrong, and in your efforts to resist, where else did you turn for help?

Nadira: Yeah, I tried a lot of things. I’m just a proactive person, especially in relationships. From the beginning, I was reaching out for marriage counseling, pastoral counseling, to do marriage workshops.

He worked for a well known Christian organization, and they had resources for us. So we were utilizing all those resources. In all that, he could answer and look like a shining great guy. But no one was in our home to see the neglect. For other listeners who can relate to this, I wanted to share this.

So, my ex-husband was not a screamer or yeller. He did push me once or twice, which is abuse. That was in a really extreme moment, and it was not the norm. He did everything with a smile on his face. So he was always cool, calm, collected, and always smiling. So all the neglect, all the flirting with other women in front of me. And the sexually inappropriate stuff he’s done with our children has all been done with a smile on his face. It was not this ogre like persona.

The Smiling Abuser: Fifth Example of covert emotional Abuse

Anne: Let’s pause here for just a second to point out the fifth example of covert emotional abuse. It doesn’t look bad, it looks nice and kind, he looks like a responsible, upstanding person. And that’s why it’s covert, because you cannot see it. Before we get to the inappropriate things he did with your kids. Can we return to marriage counseling? When you did pastoral counseling, did anyone identify the abuse or him as an abuser?

Nadira: Never, not one time. So to give you a little history, I caught him. Well, then I caught him again. And then he seemed to do well for years. And then the last time I caught him, it had escalated for years. There was a lot I didn’t know, he had been having affairs. He had engaged with prostitutes. Also, he had brought prostitutes into our home on several occasions. He had done all these horrific things to our family. And at that point even, I was told it was sex addiction.

So then we went the sex addiction route for years. Even when he went to treatment, which he did for sex addiction. Which I think was a huge waste of $50,000, because it upped his pathology and made him more dangerous. And then I knew he was going back to “addiction,” even before he got caught again. But the truth was that I didn’t want to be in relationship with a manipulator, a liar, a cheater, a psychologically abusive person.

Sex Addiction Therapy and Its Failures: Sixth Example of Abuse

Nadira: So I filed for divorce.

Anne: Yeah, I hear that all the time. Time and time again, women tell me their story about how their husband went to sex addiction therapy or abuse cessation therapy. It was not only a waste of time and money, but he actually got worse. So it was like paying $50,000 to make him worse. So that is the sixth example of covert emotional abuse, there’s no resolution.

They give you the impression that they’re going to get help, But then they use that proximity to you and their promise to you that they’re going to change as a way to continue to exploit you.

Nadira: It was traumatizing, because here I had all this hope for help. And it ended up being more dangerous for our family in the long run. And yet, I believe the people at treatment had good intentions. I think it may work for someone, I don’t know. But in our case, it really upped his pathology, and he’s that much more dangerous.

Anne: When do you start to recognize it’s abuse?

Recognizing Abuse Through the Podcast

Nadira: Well, I’ll be honest, Anne, it’s been listening to your podcast. My therapist recommended your podcast to me. I’ve only been listening to your podcast for six months. So it’s only been the last six months, and it’s been a complete paradigm shift for me. And it’s actually totally changed my life.

This is why: when it was sex addiction, there is this idea that he’s a sick person and needs empathy. It’s just a sick person who has like cancer, for example. And so that’s how we treated it as a family. In the meantime, he’s still doing horrific things to the children. And so it was listening to every one of these podcasts. It really made my whole paradigm shift and go, you know what? It’s not sex addiction. It’s just an extremely abusive, I believe sociopath is what I believe he is.

He lacks empathy, which allows him to do horrific things to his family and children. Like introduce his children to prostitutes with a smile on his face. On a regular basis, he would become aroused around the children when playing with them. And not when they physically touched each other. What I mean is, like, they weren’t body on body. He would just become aroused.

And that was something I had addressed before he ever got caught in full blown sex addiction with prostitutes. I had been talking to our pastor, to our counselors, and everyone was like, that’s weird. But you know, they would just tell him, like, get away from the children. But that had been going on for years.

Covert emotional Abuse Impacts on Children

Nadira: Since our two oldest children are four years old and two years old, he would be aroused playing with the children. I never caught child pornography, but I’d only caught him using pornography twice. And they were like four years apart. We had covenant eyes and all that, but he is a master manipulator. He lived a whole double life. I will tell you, everyone who found out our story in our friend group was like, he’s the last person I ever expected. He was always the pastor’s best friend.

Anne: That’s why they’re so dangerous. When I talk to people about how pornography use is abusive. If you catch them, you don’t know what else is going on. They’re not going to tell you.

Nadira: They only admit what they get caught with. Even if it’s “just pornography,” unless you’ve agreed on that in your relationship. That is abuse. That’s lying and coercion. That’s manipulating. I want to read you this quick, from the Domestic Violence Victims Handbook. I picked it up at Children’s Services. So it describes abuse, right? And under the different headings, there’s like coercion, making the victim feel guilty, pushing the victim into decisions, sulking, manipulating children and other family members.

Always insisting on being right, making impossible rules and punishing the victim for breaking them. Talks about emotional withdrawal, economic control. A lot of these behaviors described in this are exactly what I went through and what our children went through and still go through. And yet, he’s not a physically abusive person. He does it all with a smile.

He spent all our money

Nadira: I was told, and I know I’m not alone in this. That if I would be more loving and kinder, and there’s a passage in 1 Peter 3 that talks about submitting without a word, That he would be a more loving husband.

The purpose of abuse is to silence your victim. It silenced me. I literally felt like I was dying inside, and he went off the rails. When he got caught, like really caught, we were broke because he had spent all our money on women. So me trying to do whatever it takes to save my marriage hurt me in the long run. Because literally at the end of the day, we were broke. He had destroyed everything. He had sexually abused our children.

If we’re friends and you come to me and say, I’m being abused. I want to help you get help and get to a safe place. But if you come to me and say, you know, my husband is a sex addict, there’s a whole different approach. And your safety is not the main concern, which is crazy to me. The main concern is him. Which is just enabling him to, like in our case, up his pathology and become more dangerous.

So your podcast has made a huge difference to me. It’s changed everything, because instead of treating it like addiction and all the ways I was taught. Because I went to Al Anon for years and stuff like that. I am treating it like, no, we are victims, he’s an abuser, and we need to be safe.

The Need for Safety & Protection

Nadira: And we are currently in court over custody issues. He’s lost complete custody of our oldest. We’re trying to free the younger children from the abuse. It’s a totally different perspective, because I don’t treat it like an addiction, and he just needs help. I actually don’t believe there’s help for him. I believe he’s a sociopath and that literally we just need to get safe to a safe place.

Anne: Even if there was some kind of help for him. The point is still the same. If the person isn’t safe, it doesn’t matter if they can become safe or not. They’re not currently safe, period. We need to protect ourselves. With your ex, I tend to agree with you. He’s never going to change, but if he could, hypothetically, it would not matter.

We still need to protect ourselves, because he’s not safe. That is the most fundamental thing that most people don’t understand. They think if somebody can become safe, we don’t need to protect ourselves. And instead, we need to be patient, kind, and loving. And I’m like, no, no, no, no. It doesn’t matter if they can change or not. That’s not the issue. The issue is I need to protect myself now because they’re not safe now, period.

And that’s why I wrote the Living Free Strategies, because they give women enough space to observe. To see, am I safe now? And then, it also teaches women strategies to protect themselves. To get more information about that, click on this link.

Anne: In your case, you filed for divorce to protect yourself. And I’m so sorry it’s still a struggle to keep your children safe. That is such a common problem.

Faith and Misguided Counsel for covert emotional abuse

Anne: After what you’ve been through. Knowing what you know now, what insights could you share with women in your same situation?

Nadira: My faith had a lot to do, I believe, with a lot of the decisions I made. And God does not value marriage over my relationship with God. And that seems like a very obvious point. But I kept feeling like the counsel I received from pastors and lay people was that I needed to do whatever it takes, including extreme abuse, to stay married and keep a family together.

And yet, my children endured more abuse because I was trying to please God in that way. And marriage in many ways in some churches or communities of faith is held above a woman and children’s safety, emotional and mental well-being. Because, you know, that kind of abuse long term, I got to really desperate places.

I got to places where I didn’t want to live anymore. It took me to those places. I believe everything happens for a reason. But I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I would have gotten out of that abuse a long time ago.

The hard thing though is that Sodom and Gomorrah looked evil, and so did the Egyptians, right? But in our case, he looked, like literally, the best guy ever.

The Broader Impact of Pornography

Nadira: The thing that’s discounted or not talked about a ton, and you do a good job of talking about it here. Is, yeah, okay, let’s say he is just looking at pornography behind your back, lying to you and coercing and manipulating you. Well, what are the effects of that on the family? It doesn’t happen in a black hole by itself. It’s not an isolated event. It affects how he treats you and the children. It affects how he sees you and the children.

And It affects so many areas of your life, your time, your money, it’s not an isolated thing. It affects everyone. My ex-husband getting aroused around our children. And he would grab our boy’s testicles. I told counselors, and guess what? There’s not been one report about it. No one’s done anything about it. He’s told them because when he “was in recovery,” all that was out in the open. I mean, we probably told ten therapists. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Milton Magnus model. We did that too.

Anne: Oh, I’m so sorry. We’ve heard horror stories here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery from women talking about sex addiction therapists. But we’ve also heard horror stories from abuse recovery therapists as well.

Nadira: Well, one of the reasons you need to get safe right now, I’ve learned from you, is that when he is abusive, there’s so much that you don’t even realize is covert emotional abuse. Because it’s all foggy. In my opinion, you need separation so you can begin to see more clearly.

Addiction treatment promises & Hopes

Nadira: Like with children who have been abused, let’s say it is a father, uncle or grandfather, like a relative. That maybe the family wants them to see eventually again. They’ll advise the parents, like, that the child needs to not be in a relationship with that person for at least a year. They need to literally get physically away from the abuser. So they can get clear on what happened.

I still can’t see clearly what’s going on. I mean, believe it or not, in the horrors of our story, I still wanted the marriage and a family. Because there are pieces that I love. After all, I married him, right?

Anne: Me too. No woman wants a divorce.

Nadira: But then sex addiction treatment made all these promises and hopes. And then my ex-husband was like a star treatment performer, so I had all this hope too. I’m well versed in sex addiction, because we’ve had so many experts that did so many models. And we’ve used polygraphs. We went to a really reputable treatment center, et cetera, et cetera. And you know, the whole thing about sex addiction is that he’s sort of a victim himself of his compulsive behavior and can’t stop.

We don’t ever put that same label on a domestic violence person. In other words, we don’t say to someone who physically abuses their family members, oh, well, you can’t stop and it’s compulsive. You don’t have the power to stop that. We expect them to stop that behavior. Or they will go to jail.

Covert emotional abuse: Empathy For Addiction

Nadira: With sex addiction, we don’t expect them to necessarily stop. There’s a lot of empathy and a lot of just like, well, do your best and you know, keep coming back. But we don’t put that same kind of pressure on sex addiction. We treat it as a sex addiction, that it’s a problem that they’re powerless over. However, if it’s domestic abuse, it’s completely different. I think there’s a huge disconnect.

Anne: Yeah, at the beginning, you read a brochure from a domestic violence shelter outlining these behaviors. So there’s a huge disconnect between the sex addiction industrial complex and abuse experts, because the sex addiction industrial complex does not recognize it as abuse. And then one of the reasons for that disconnect, apart from the fact that they know squat about abuse, is that abusers are manipulative.

And when they get caught. They have a “reason” for why they did it. They say things like I’m so broken, or I was abused as a kid. We all know someone who was abused as a kid, and they’re not an abuser. It is a lie that it caused him to be abusive. He chose to be abusive. And the sex addiction industry has decided to take these lies at face value. And they’ve made an entire industry around it. I mean, you and I felt shame. We felt a ton of shame.

But we didn’t sexually abuse our own children. There are no excuses for this. They are too unsafe for their wife and children, the end. Like it does not have to be this complicated. It is just abuse. And he hides it because it’s covert emotional abuse.

The Addiction Model doesn’t Protect victims

Nadira: It doesn’t have to be so complicated. He lied to me. He manipulated, and it affected our whole lives. I mean, it’s totally affected our socioeconomic status. Everything’s changed in our life, and our children have been abused. And yet, he’s considered a sex addict, not an abuser.

Anne: And that’s wrong. That’s why I started podcasting. And that’s why I’m on this mission. I want to educate women about abuse. If you’re in a relationship with an active pornography user, he is abusive. And you are a victim of his abuse. I’ve interviewed so many women, and they tell me over and over again, the behaviors they are experiencing. They’re all things that are easily identifiable as abuse by abuse experts.

And after interviewing all these women over the years, I know personally that the sex addiction model is not protecting victims of abuse. It is not.

Nadira: Well, if I had your podcast 10 years ago, I would have had tools to say, no, this is not about he said, she said. Or how do we love each other better? Or the five love languages or any of that. I married an abuser. I don’t know about you, but I grew up thinking, if you’re married to an abusive man, he hits you and yells at you. But mine’s the most subversive type. If you’re a listener and you can relate to me in that. You know, he didn’t really smack me around. I have no bruises or broken fingers. He didn’t yell at me.

Therapists & Clergy Failures

Nadira: He was aggressive and argumentative. He lied to me, manipulated and coerced me. He told me at one point, true story, that he was always four steps ahead of me. Four, think about that. Think about being four steps ahead of someone. They do this, I do this, they do this, I do this, they do this, I do this, they do this, I do this.

That’s insane, if I had that, I could have identified it. Because again, I was married to Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. I have a smile on my face while I’m getting aroused with the children. The effects on our children and family have been grotesque. It’s really bad, right?

Anne: Yeah, it’s horrific. You have been through so much. Not just his abuse, but all the abuse from the therapists who were not helping. And clergy who were not protecting you. I’m so sorry. I’m so glad that you found my podcast.

Nadira: So this has been monumental for me. Because we spent thousands of dollars, tons of time, and just every resource trying to help my ex-husband recover from sex addiction. It was the wrong path, honestly. But with that, your podcast and listening to the guests on your podcast have helped me wake up to this is just an abusive person. And to treat the whole thing from a different perspective.

One of the things about your podcast, you know, it’s called Betraya Trauma Recovery. So I’ve recommended it to several friends who have been abused. But everyone thinks it’s about just betrayal, right? And I tell everyone it’s not, but that’s the thing. I think about it a lot, by the way.

Pornography as a covert emotional Abuse Issue

Nadira: Pornography, you know, is it freedom of choice or just abuse? Because that’s the big thing about pornography. People say it’s a first amendment thing, right? Like it’s freedom of speech. But if everybody came together, you and everybody came together. And talked about, in our culture, we’re allowing this abusive, destructive, national health crisis. We literally have a national health crisis on our hands. The masses aren’t educated.

Anne: Everywhere I go, I say pornography is an abuse issue. It’s not a first amendment rights issue. or an addiction issue. It’s not a sex issue. Pornography is an abuse issue. It always needs to be addressed from an abuse perspective. When I started Betrayal Trauma Recovery in my area, all the women dealing with their husband’s pornography use were labeled as having betrayal trauma.

And so part of what I wanted to do in labeling this podcast and the organization Betrayal Trauma Recovery was take that term and turn it into what it really is. We are healing from abuse. So I’m trying to make the term mean what it should mean. Which is when you are recovering from betrayal trauma, you are recovering from abuse. And the reason you’re recovering from abuse is because any betrayal of this type is abuse.

Finding the Right Path to Recovery

Anne: It could be called abuse recovery. But so many people right now don’t see pornography as abuse. And so instead, they say, Oh, she’s suffering from betrayal trauma. Then they go down the sex addiction route. And I wanted to be like, anyone looking for stuff on betrayal trauma, or going down the sex addiction route, I wanted them to find this podcast. So that they could get the truth, instead of spending years and hundreds of thousands of dollars going down the wrong path.

So I wanted to make Betrayal Trauma Recovery the place where any woman emotionally or psychologically abused. Or the victim of sexual coercion could come and get the help she needed. Thank you for sharing your story today. We appreciate your insights.