Their emotional cruelty reminds the photographer of his childhood abuse by his father, whom he eventually telephones for an excruciating confrontation.

Even after years of beatings and emotional cruelty, it can be nearly impossible to get them to testify to the abuse.

He is equally direct about his emotional cruelty to women and his need to control them.

It is Hippolytus' emotional cruelty which pushes Phaedra to suicide.

She reveals Stieglitz's emotional cruelty to his first wife and daughter, and his manipulation of the press to inflate artists' prices.

Sadism can also include the use of emotional cruelty, purposefully manipulating others through the use of fear, and a preoccupation with violence.

"Skating Rink" (1922) shocks even today by its intensity and emotional cruelty.

There were charges and counter-charges of unfaithfulness, drunken violence, emotional cruelty, and "clobbering."

Schiele's emotional cruelty is exposed as he shuns Wally as she nears death.

We used it to describe any minor act of emotional cruelty by a friend or teacher or someone supposed to be supportive.