Humiliation is woven through many abusive relationships, influencing both how you experience yourself and how you believe others see you. It chips away at dignity, unsettles your sense of what is real, and creates a power imbalance where your value starts to feel uncertain and dependent. It can unfold in private moments or out in the open, through words, behaviour, or situations carefully orchestrated to leave you feeling small, exposed, and diminished.
This piece is grounded in the voices of survivors who have spoken about what they endured. Their experiences are shared here because they matter, and because the patterns they reveal help bring this often hidden tactic into clearer view.
The Psychology Behind It: What Drives This Behaviour
To make sense of humiliation as a tactic, it helps to look at how an abuser positions their partner in their mind. There is often a strong sense of entitlement, alongside an expectation that their partner exists to meet their needs, enhance their image, and stay within the limits they set. A partner who feels secure, confident, or recognised by others disrupts that control.
Humiliation becomes a direct way to manage that disruption. By making their partner feel foolish, inferior, or ashamed, the abuser achieves multiple outcomes at once. They wear down the partner’s sense of worth until it begins to feel unstable. They communicate that stepping outside expectations will come with consequences. And they shift the focus of the relationship, so the partner becomes preoccupied with avoiding conflict rather than living freely.
There is also a more immediate reinforcement. For some abusers, their partner’s distress brings a sense of relief or satisfaction. One survivor described it simply: “He provokes for no reason, and when I respond emotionally, that’s when he feels most at ease.” The reaction becomes proof of control, and maintaining that proof is what sustains the pattern.
Beliefs rooted in ownership, superiority, and entitlement allow the abuser to justify their actions. Humiliation is reframed as something deserved or necessary, and any response from the partner is then used to reinforce the idea that the partner is at fault.
What Happens Behind Closed Doors
Some of the most severe humiliation happens out of sight, where there are no witnesses and no external limits on behaviour. In these private spaces, the cruelty can be intense while leaving no physical trace.
One survivor shared: “He poured water in my bed and told me I deserved to sleep in piss.” Another described how her abuser chipped away at her sense of desirability, listing reasons he would not be intimate with her, blaming her for each rejection, and then accusing her of infidelity. She wrote: “My anxiety and confusion in those days was off the charts.”
Humiliation can also be highly targeted and subtle. One survivor spoke about how her abuser fixated on her resemblance to her father, a man he claimed to dislike: “He’d keep calling me ‘Andrew’ every time he thought I sounded like him. He’d repeat what I said, mimicking me in a dull voice meant to sound like my Dad. This became more and more frequent.” The intention was precise. Even her voice and way of speaking were turned into something to be criticised.
Another survivor shared some of the statements directed at her: “You can’t educate pork,” “You are untrainable,” “You don’t have enough money to buy paper to wipe your backside.” These were said by someone who claimed to care about her. Words like these are not accidental. They are selected to hurt, and the person using them understands their impact.
When It Happens in Front of Others
When humiliation is brought into public spaces, the impact deepens. The presence of others becomes part of the dynamic. The partner is left managing their reactions while feeling exposed, often unable to respond without escalating the situation or drawing more attention.
One survivor described how this was done deliberately: “He would try to embarrass me while I was out in public, especially in Walmart. He would push all of my buttons in the hopes that I would freak out.” The aim was to create a scene where she would be judged by others.
Another survivor described a recurring pattern in social situations: “When we were in a group setting, he would cut me off mid-sentence and say to everyone that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and then proceed to talk about what he wanted.” Each interruption reinforced her diminishing presence while elevating his own.
One account highlights how threatening an abuser finds their partner being valued by others. After receiving a simple compliment from another man, the aftermath was immediate: “You ever meet him for lunch and I’ll kill you.” Nothing had happened beyond a passing interaction, yet it triggered a threat. The message was clear. Her value in the eyes of others was something he intended to control.
Using Technology to Amplify Humiliation
While humiliation has always been part of abusive dynamics, technology has extended how and where it can happen. Some abusers use online platforms to expose private moments or to shape a narrative where they appear wronged. Others use recordings or images as tools of control.
One survivor described how her abuser documented her distress: “He would walk around, phone in hand, ridiculing me and telling me I was worthless, a horrible mother, a crazy person. When I broke down, he’d film me and use those videos to threaten me, saying he’d get custody of our children. He’d even show them to friends to make them feel sorry for him.” He created the reaction and then used it to support his version of events.
Another survivor shared a different form of violation: “He got hold of my journal where I wrote about some of my most embarrassing moments and things that traumatised me that I was trying to heal from, and copied some entries and filed it with the court when I tried to leave him.” What had been a private process of healing was turned into a weapon.
One survivor described a moment that captured the same pattern: “He took pictures of me semi-naked in the pool and told me his mate would enjoy these.” A private moment was taken and shared as though her autonomy did not exist.
The Lasting Impact on Your Sense of Self
Repeated humiliation reshapes how you see yourself. When you are consistently told, in different ways, that you are inadequate or unworthy, it can begin to feel believable. One survivor described how her abuser “mocked my standards constantly, telling me they were too high and that I was stuck up and so far from reality. It was very destabilising.” That sense of instability is intentional. It disrupts your trust in your own thinking and perception.
Another survivor shared a statement that captures this clearly: “Whose body is it anyway?” said when she pushed him away. The aim was to make her question her right to boundaries, to create shame around something that should have been entirely hers.
When this pattern continues over time, it begins to influence how a person shows up in every area of life. Even after leaving, many survivors describe second-guessing themselves, holding back in conversations, or feeling uncertain in situations where confidence is needed.
The effect becomes internal. The voice of the abuser no longer needs to be present because it has already been absorbed. Rebuilding a sense of self separate from those messages takes intention, awareness, and time.
Recovering from Humiliation
Recovering from humiliation is a gradual process, and it involves recognising that the shame never truly belonged to you. It was introduced, repeated, and reinforced by someone else. They chose the words, created the situations, and targeted what mattered to you. That speaks to their need for control, not your worth.
A starting point for many survivors is naming what happened. Several of the people who contributed to this piece have done exactly that. They wrote down what was said, shared it openly, and chose not to carry it in silence. One survivor said: “I wrote a list of the things he said and published them in my book.” In doing so, she shifted those words from something that diminished her into something that documented the truth.
Naming these experiences matters because humiliation relies on silence to maintain its hold. It depends on the belief that it is too personal, too uncomfortable, or too insignificant to speak about. When you name it, you move outside that structure. You are no longer the person defined by what was said. You become the person who can recognise it, place it where it belongs, and decide what holds truth for you.
* Quotes are drawn from survivor experiences shared publicly on the Shadows of Control Facebook and Twitter pages and have been lightly edited for spelling, grammar, or clarity.
