Most depictions of abuse we're used to seeing are physical — bruises and black eyes — but emotional abuse can be just as damaging, and much more subtle. So subtle, in fact, that many people might not even realize when a partner is emotionally abusive.
That's why Interval House, a Canadian shelter for abused women and children, teamed up with ad agency Union to create a video to help people recognize the signs of emotional abuse, and to fight back against the idea that a partner being possessive or controlling is romantic.
The video opens with seemingly innocent guys lamenting lost loves. “I miss her smile, I miss her friendship,” one man said. It would be sweet if it wasn't for what he said later. "I'd call, and call, and call, and call, and call," he said.
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It doesn't seem like too big of a deal, but his obsessive calling is a form of emotional abuse, as are the ways the other men featured in the ad described their partners.
"She was too dramatic, you just couldn't talk to her," one said. "She's my girl," said the other. "She's not gonna be with anyone else."
Statements like these show the guys' possessive and obsessive tendencies.
“Possessiveness isn’t romantic, it’s controlling and that emotional control is a form of abuse," Rachel Ramkaran, communications associate at Interval House, told The Huffington Post. "And it may be subtle to people on the outside but you can see the signs of it, as you do throughout the video.”
Woven in with video of the men talking is a statistic from Interval House that it takes an average of five attempts for someone to leave an abusive partner, highlighting the importance of being "the one who got away" from emotionally abusive partners like these men.