#MaybeHeDoesntHitYou throws light on emotional abuse in relationships

The word ‘domestic violence’ usually brings to a mind a picture of a heavily battered woman at the mercy of a violent partner. But not all forms of domestic abuse involve hitting or slapping. Sometimes the deepest wounds are those that scar without leaving a mark on the body. Twitter recently went abuzz with the #MaybeHeDoesntHitYou which aims to spread awareness about the reality of emotional abuse in relationships.

The tweets using the hashtag listed hypothetical scenarios that indicated signs of verbal and emotional abuse that a woman might face at the hands of her partner. Such forms of abuse include body shaming, passive aggressive statements and non-violent controlling behaviour. A point that should be noted here is that emotional abuse also includes efforts by the partner to socially isolate the woman from her family and friends.

One must remember that more often than not persistent emotional abuse could end up as a precedent to other physically violent forms of behaviour in a relationship. For example, a man who insists on restricting his partner’s social interactions so that she is left without a support system when the relationship eventually becomes physically abusive.

Check out some of the #MaybeHeDoesntHitYou tweets below: