Harmful relationship patterns often develop gradually. What starts as occasional behavior becomes the norm, and it can be hard to see clearly when you're inside it. This library helps you identify specific patterns—not to label your partner, but to understand what's happening and decide how to respond.
How to Use This Library
Each pattern below includes what it looks like, how it affects you, and why it matters. As you read, consider:
- Which patterns feel familiar in your relationship?
- How frequently do these occur—occasionally or constantly?
- Are the patterns getting more intense over time?
- How do these patterns affect your wellbeing and sense of self?
Jump to a Pattern
Accusations & Suspicion
Moderate to SeverePersistent, unfounded accusations about cheating, lying, or having hidden motives. The accuser may check your phone, question your whereabouts, or interpret innocent actions as evidence of betrayal.
What It Looks Like
- "Who were you texting? Let me see your phone."
- "Why did you take so long at the store? Who did you see?"
- "I know you're lying. You always lie."
- Going through your emails, messages, or social media
- Accusing you of affairs with no evidence
- Interpreting friendliness with others as flirting
How It Affects You
You may start avoiding innocent activities, isolating from friends, or over-explaining everything. You might feel constantly defensive, anxious, or like you're walking on eggshells. Some people start to believe they must be doing something wrong.
Why It Matters
Chronic suspicion erodes trust and intimacy. It creates an exhausting dynamic where you can never prove your innocence. No amount of transparency will satisfy someone determined to find fault.
Threats & Ultimatums
SevereUsing threats to control behavior or punish disagreement. Threats may be explicit (divorce, taking kids, financial ruin) or implicit (withdrawal of love, public humiliation). Ultimatums leave no room for discussion or compromise.
What It Looks Like
- "If you do that, I'm leaving and taking the kids."
- "I'll tell everyone what kind of person you really are."
- "Do what I say or I'll make your life miserable."
- "You'll never see the kids again if you leave."
- Threatening self-harm to prevent you from leaving
- "If you loved me, you wouldn't [set that boundary]."
How It Affects You
Living under threat creates chronic anxiety and hypervigilance. You may feel trapped, unable to express your needs or make independent decisions. The fear of consequences keeps you compliant even when you're unhappy.
Why It Matters
Healthy relationships involve negotiation and compromise, not threats. When someone consistently uses threats to get their way, it's a form of coercion—regardless of whether the threats are carried out.
Surveillance & Monitoring
SevereTracking your location, monitoring your communications, or using technology to maintain constant awareness of your activities. May be done openly ("I just want to know you're safe") or secretly.
What It Looks Like
- GPS tracking on your phone or car
- Cameras inside the home pointed at common areas
- Demanding access to all passwords and accounts
- Checking your location app constantly
- Reading your texts, emails, or messages without permission
- Showing up unexpectedly to "check on you"
- Installing spyware or monitoring apps
How It Affects You
You lose privacy and autonomy. You may feel watched constantly, unable to have private conversations or independent activities. This creates anxiety and erodes your sense of self.
Why It Matters
Adults in healthy relationships maintain individual privacy. Surveillance is about control, not love or safety. Technology-facilitated abuse is increasingly recognized as a serious form of domestic abuse.
Isolation
SevereSystematically cutting you off from friends, family, and support systems. May be direct (forbidding contact) or indirect (making contact so unpleasant you give up).
What It Looks Like
- "Your family is toxic. We should limit contact."
- Making scenes when you want to see friends
- Criticizing or insulting your friends and family
- Creating conflict before or after you spend time with others
- Moving you away from your support network
- "You spend too much time with other people."
- Demanding all your free time be spent together
How It Affects You
Without outside perspectives, it becomes harder to recognize what's normal. You lose the support system that could help you. Loneliness makes you more dependent on your partner, even if the relationship is harmful.
Why It Matters
Isolation is one of the most dangerous patterns because it removes the resources you'd need to recognize problems or leave. It's a key indicator of coercive control.
Scorekeeping
ModerateMaintaining a mental ledger of wrongs, favors, and contributions. Past mistakes are catalogued and weaponized during conflicts. You're held to debts that never seem to be repaid.
What It Looks Like
- "Remember when you [mistake from 5 years ago]? You owe me."
- "I do everything around here. What do you even contribute?"
- "After everything I've sacrificed for you..."
- Bringing up past issues during unrelated arguments
- Keeping track of who did what favor
- "I supported you through [difficult time], so now you have to..."
How It Affects You
You can never move past mistakes. Every argument becomes about everything that's ever happened. You may feel perpetually indebted or like nothing you do is enough.
Why It Matters
Healthy relationships involve forgiveness and moving forward. Scorekeeping keeps the relationship stuck and gives one person perpetual leverage over the other.
Stonewalling & Withdrawal
ModerateRefusing to engage, discuss issues, or communicate. May involve silent treatment, leaving conversations, or shutting down emotionally. Different from taking a healthy break to calm down.
What It Looks Like
- Silent treatment lasting hours, days, or weeks
- Walking away whenever conflict arises
- "I'm not talking about this" with no alternative offered
- Acting like you don't exist
- Refusing to acknowledge problems exist
- Emotional withdrawal as punishment
How It Affects You
Issues never get resolved. You may feel desperate to restore connection, leading you to over-apologize or abandon your own needs. The uncertainty of when engagement will resume is itself distressing.
Why It Matters
Note: Sometimes stonewalling is a stress response (freeze) rather than intentional manipulation. The difference is often in the intent and pattern. Chronic, punitive stonewalling is harmful; overwhelm-based shutdown needs different support.
Emotional Volatility
Moderate to SevereExtreme emotional reactions that seem disproportionate to triggers. Rapid mood swings, explosive anger, or intense reactions that keep you off-balance and walking on eggshells.
What It Looks Like
- Rage episodes over minor issues
- Going from loving to furious with no warning
- Unpredictable reactions—can't anticipate what will trigger anger
- Extreme emotional responses that hijack conversations
- Crying, screaming, or shutting down to avoid accountability
- The household revolves around managing their mood
How It Affects You
You become hypervigilant, constantly monitoring their mood. You may suppress your own needs to avoid triggering them. Children often become similarly vigilant and anxious.
Why It Matters
Living with volatility creates chronic stress. While some volatility may stem from mental health issues, the impact on you and any children is significant regardless of cause. The person is responsible for managing their emotions and seeking help.
Control & Micromanagement
SevereDictating details of daily life—how you dress, what you eat, how you spend time, who you see, how you parent. May be framed as "helping" or "having standards."
What It Looks Like
- Dictating what you wear or how you look
- Controlling household decisions without input
- Criticizing how you do basic tasks
- "You're doing it wrong. Let me tell you how."
- Making decisions for you without asking
- Not allowing you to make choices about your own life
- Undermining your parenting decisions
How It Affects You
You lose confidence in your own judgment. You may stop making decisions to avoid criticism. Over time, you may feel incapable of functioning independently—which is often the point.
Why It Matters
Control removes your autonomy. What may seem like "preferences" or "standards" can actually be a systematic stripping away of your independence and self-trust.
Gaslighting & Reality Distortion
SevereCausing you to question your own memory, perception, or sanity. Denying things that happened, rewriting history, or insisting your reasonable perceptions are wrong or crazy.
What It Looks Like
- "That never happened. You're imagining things."
- "I never said that. You're making things up."
- "You're too sensitive. That's not what I meant."
- "Everyone thinks you're crazy."
- Denying obvious facts or twisting conversations
- "You're remembering it wrong."
- Accusing you of mental illness when you express concerns
How It Affects You
You start doubting your own reality. You may feel confused, "crazy," or unable to trust your own perceptions. This is one of the most psychologically damaging patterns.
Why It Matters
Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse. If you frequently question your own memory or feel like you're "going crazy," this pattern may be present. Documentation can help you maintain clarity.
Contempt & Degradation
SevereTreating you as inferior, stupid, or worthless. Eye-rolling, mockery, name-calling, public humiliation, or consistent messaging that you're not good enough.
What It Looks Like
- Name-calling or insults (even "joking")
- Eye-rolling, scoffing, or dismissive gestures
- Mocking you in front of others
- Bringing up your failures or insecurities as weapons
- "You're so stupid/useless/pathetic."
- Comparing you unfavorably to others
- Constantly criticizing or finding fault
How It Affects You
Your self-esteem erodes. You may internalize the criticism and believe you are defective. Research shows contempt is one of the strongest predictors of relationship failure and is deeply damaging psychologically.
Why It Matters
Contempt communicates disgust and superiority. It cannot coexist with respect. If this pattern is consistent, the relationship is causing active harm to your sense of self.
Financial Control
SevereControlling access to money, limiting financial independence, or using money as a tool of control. May occur even when both partners earn income.
What It Looks Like
- Controlling all finances, giving you an "allowance"
- Requiring you to account for every purchase
- Hiding financial information from you
- Running up debt in your name
- Preventing you from working or sabotaging your job
- Using money to reward/punish behavior
- Threatening financial ruin if you leave
How It Affects You
Without financial resources, leaving becomes practically difficult. You may feel trapped regardless of how bad things get. Financial abuse can have long-lasting consequences on credit, career, and security.
Why It Matters
Financial abuse is recognized as a form of domestic abuse. Having your own access to money and financial information is a basic right, not a privilege your partner grants.
Weaponizing Children
SevereUsing children as tools in the conflict—turning them against you, using them to spy, making threats involving custody, or putting them in the middle of adult issues.
What It Looks Like
- Telling children negative things about you
- Using children to deliver messages or spy
- "The kids agree with me that you're the problem."
- Threatening to take the kids or limit your access
- Undermining your authority with the children
- Making children choose sides
- Using custody as a threat or punishment
How It Affects You
Fear of losing your children can keep you trapped. Watching your children be put in the middle is additionally painful. The children themselves suffer significant harm from this dynamic.
Why It Matters
Children should never be weapons. This pattern causes lasting harm to children and is recognized in custody evaluations as a form of abuse. Document this behavior carefully.
What to Do With This Information
Recognizing patterns is clarifying but can also be overwhelming. Here's how to proceed:
If You Recognize a Few Patterns
Some patterns occur in many relationships, especially during stressful times. Consider whether these are occasional incidents or consistent dynamics. If occasional, couples work or individual support might help address them.
If You Recognize Many Patterns
Multiple patterns, especially from the "severe" category, indicate significant problems. This goes beyond normal relationship challenges. Consider speaking with a professional individually (not couples counseling) to assess your situation.
If You Feel Unsafe
Trust your instincts. If reading this made you realize you're in danger, please visit our Get Help page for resources. You don't have to figure this out alone.
Educational Disclaimer
This content is for educational purposes only. It is not therapy, medical advice, legal advice, or a substitute for professional treatment. Always consult qualified professionals for your specific situation.