A Study on Emotional Abuse in Relationships among Young Men in Chennai City

Psychological or emotional abuse is a major but frequently covert manifestation of domestic violence impacting the mental and emotional health of victims. Behaviors like manipulation control jealousy verbal abuse and emotional invalidation are often mistaken for acts of love and concern which can obscure emotional abuse in a relationship. Recently, evolving social connections and modes of communication have led to an increase in emotional abuse outside of marriage. Society tends to ignore young men as casualties because the stereotypes of masculinity prevent them from showing emotional suffering or getting help. Consequently, emotional abuse in young men is still underreported and under-researched, especially in the Indian setting. This research investigated how common emotional abuse is in young men what their views on relationships are what they went through in their own relationships and how much emotional abuse they suffered within those relationships . The research design employed was quantitative descriptive and analytical collecting data from 230 young men between of 15-25 years old through structured questionnaires and modified Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory-Short Form (PMWI-SF). Analytical methods employed include frequency, percentage, correlation, Chi-square and One-Way ANOVA tests.The study found that emotional abuse was widespread in the sample population. Nearly 70% of the sample considered controlling conduct a demonstration of love while almost 75% of the sample were in marriages or relationships even though they were unhappy. The study studied all vectors of emotional abuse in the population like verbal, monitoring, Jealousy, blaming, and emotional manipulation. The study found that the participant’s age, educational status, the type of relationship and duration of the relationship were highly significant in association with emotional abuse. The study also emphasized that awareness of emotional abuse, compulsory and gender sensitive counselling programs, and gender-sensitive intervention programs can bring about positive change in the emotional health of the community and break the cycle of emotional abuse.