Concealed Behaviors An Abusive Person Displays Before Revealing Themselves

Jun 11, 2021 by apost team

A relationship should be a partnership that helps both parties grow and should foster an environment of safety, trust and love. It is natural to have some conflict in a relationship, but if the conflict is what defines a relationship, then it may turn into a toxic partnership that makes one party a victim. When two healthy people are involved together, there are ways to come to a healthy breakthrough, but when a person is involved with an abusive person, things are not that simple.

It is reported that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men have faced some abuse in their life according to the National Council Against Domestic Violence. This is not a small number at all, and it can be difficult to comprehend that so many people are in abusive relationships. When it comes to abusive relationships, it is also heartbreaking that many people feel afraid to leave, thus propagating a cycle that can be hard to break. 

Looking out for the behaviors of abusers can help to identify a bad situation. The following behaviors are generally imperceptible, but can be looked out for: 

When thinking about people who are abusers, people have an idea that they must have an evils streak that makes them want to abuse all the time, such as keeping their partners locked in their homes and maybe even physically harm them more often than not. However, abuse does not come in just a physical form but also in many other forms that can stop a person from recognizing the situation they may be in. 

For example, a partner who constantly guilts the other person for the smallest of things, such as wanting to spend time with someone else, can be an early sign of an abusive relationship in the future. According to the Power And Control Wheel, there are multiple ways a person can dominate and keep a toxic cycle intact, including economic, emotional, financial and even intimidation. 

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Abusers know how to manipulate and get their way most of the time, but most importantly, their relationship with other people in their lives can the stark opposite of how they treat the person they abuse. This is partly also the reason why public claims of abuse are met with disbelief by those closest to the abuser; the abuser is not the same person with their friends or family at all. Abusers need to be selective of their victims because if they show their violent personas to every person they come across, no one would get close enough to them for them to manipulate, control and enact their abuse upon.

This can be a huge red flag for a victim as well. If you find that a person acts very differently around other people they care about, it may be time to look deeper at the relationship. 

An abuser is just a regular person, and when you first get involved with them, there may be absolutely no flags. They may even be the most understanding and supportive person right at the beginning, which is why so many people end up being abused without knowing what they have gotten into. Outside the eventual cycle of abuse, an abuser lives a perfectly normal life; a successful and suave businessman that is loved by the neighborhood, as well as a social butterfly who hosts parties, both could have a tendency to abuse. 

The main thing to look out for is a person who plays the blame game really hard. If a person is placing the entire responsibility for their unpleasant actions, consequences and feelings on another person or external event, and insisting that others agree this is blame as they are not taking any responsibility for their own actions. An abuser will soon turn the blame on their partner for everything and create an abusive cycle. 

One of the more prominent red flags of an abuser is that they have a string of failed relationships between which there is hardly any time to recuperate. Without a victim, an abuser has no one to abuse and so, they may constantly be on the lookout for a new person to dominate. While a long string of failed relationships is not the case for every abuser, it may be an important indicator of the person's ability to actually hold a healthy relationship down. t also speaks volumes about a person’s reliability and trust in the long run.

If a person has many of the above traits, it may time to reevaluate the relationship.

Do you know any other behaviors that can be added to this list? Tell us about your thoughts, and be sure to let others know about this list if you think it might help them.