This is when your boyfriend or partner puts you down, ignores you or calls you names. It may be about what you are wearing, or how you're acting. He may want you to stop spending time with your friends and question you on every detail of what you've done without him. He may use jealousy or anger to intimidate you or to control your behaviour, or he might deliberately humiliate you in front of others. Another form of emotional abuse is when he threatens to hurt himself or other people if you break up with him.
Emotional abuse can be just as damaging as physical abuse.
This involves physical acts such as hitting, slapping, pushing, kicking, pulling your hair or choking you, or threatening to harm you in any way. It could involve using a weapon or an object to threaten or hurt you, smashing things or driving a car dangerously to frighten you. Hurting someone physically or threatening to hurt them is a criminal offence. This involves pressuring or forcing you to do sexual things that you don't want to do. It is also sexual assault if you have been drinking or taking drugs or if you were asleep or unconscious and you were not aware of what was happening.