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Physical and verbal abuse are forms of “visible” abuse. Scars and bruises, raised voices and demeaning and hurtful words are signals to others that something is not quite right in the relationship. It’s also easier for a wife to see and recognize that’s she’s being abused.
Emotional abuse, however, is much more insidious and not quite as visible. Certainly, a wife’s self-esteem and spirit are battered along with her body in the case of physical and verbal abuse, but a husband can kill his wife’s spirit without even raising a hand or voice against her. For this reason, many women don’t even know they’re being abused, or if they do it’s a long and difficult battle not only to work to repair the damage done themselves, but to get the abuser to recognize the harm that he’s done.
What are the signs of mental abuse?
“Emotional abuse is any nonphysical behavior or attitude that controls, intimidates, subjugates, demeans, punishes or isolates another person by using degradation, humiliation or fear” (www.focusonthefamily.com).
“Nonphysical behavior or attitude” can safely be interpreted to mean neglect, invalidating another’s thoughts and feelings, and refusing to acknowledge the needs of the other (whether intentionally or not). Over a period of time, this kind of emotional climate in a marriage can squeeze the life out of a marriage and out of a wife.
There is a difference between experiencing or inflicting emotional hurt and being emotionally abusive—it is important to make this distinction. Abuse is a cycle. It is not a once-in-a-while event that happens and hurts someone else. In many “ordinary” hurtful cases, apologies can be offered if truly sincere and heal the rift that the hurt has caused. Many hurts are unintentional, and if they were, there is (hopefully) remorse on the part of the person who inflicted that hurt, once the anger, frustration, etc., calms down and cooler heads prevail. With emotional abuse there is none of this. Like other forms of abuse, there can be apologies and promises to never do it again, and there is hope in the beginning that behaviors and attitudes will change—often referred to as the “honeymoon phase”—but somewhere in the back of many a wife’s mind, she knows that it’s only a matter of time before the abuser settles back into old routines.
The Profile of an Emotional Abuser
At the heart of an emotionally abusive husband is his need to ultimately be in control. He feels inadequate and harbors distorted beliefs about women and marriage, usually learned from an abusive father or other dominant male influence, or sometime due to lack of decent male role modeling in how to treat women. In many cases, but not all, an emotionally abusive husband can be manipulative and heavy-handed in keeping his wife “under his thumb”. The abusive husband is “self-referenced”, which means he only sees and considers things from his point of view; he deliberately refuses to or is incapable of looking at things from another’s perspective. “Selfish” and “self-referenced” are two different words and can be described this way: the “self-referenced person would give you the shirt off his back, but he doesn’t know you need it. The self-referenced person frequently violates the marriage partnership by acting without thoughtfully considering his partner’s point of view and needs” (Amy Wildman White). The abusive husband is also emotionally dependent on his wife; that is, his feeling of self-worth comes from being married. Most emotionally abusive husbands are unable to look at and examine themselves and why they engage in such spirit-killing behavior against a person they have avowed to love and cherish.
The Profile of an Emotionally Abused Wife
Women who find themselves in an emotionally abusive situation often have low self-esteems even though they may appear confident and in control of everything. An emotionally abused wife “looks to her husband’s acceptance of her as the measure of her worth” (White).
Unlike a man, who typically finds his identity through work, and academic or athletic achievement, “[a] woman’s identity is often based on her relationships” (White) this makes her vulnerable to abusive relationships.
One of the most common characteristics of an emotionally abused woman is that she is unable to enjoy sexual experiences with her husband. This is due to the deterioration of the trust and the lack of friendship and intimacy over the time of the relationship. Add on top of this societies’, her husbands’ and the church’s views that she’s not a good wife if she doesn’t meet her husband’s sexual needs and she may feel perpetually trapped in her marriage. What many people (including counselors and pastors) fail to realize is that “[t]he wife in these situations experiences intercourse as an indignity, almost as rape, because the physical and the deeply personal, loving aspects of sex…[i]ntimacy and trust, which lay the necessary foundation for a woman to respond sexually, have been removed from the relationship” (White) and she is left to emotionally detach herself from the situation just to survive—at the cost of her soul and spirit.
Call to Action
It’s time to lift the veil from these situations and recognize how much a person’s soul and spirit can be damaged without physical and verbal abuse. Abuse doesn’t have to come in the form of acting out a form of punishment, or lashing out with temper and words. Abuse can also be withholding affection, or never saying a kind word. It takes a strong woman to stand up against what everyone is telling her is her duty and recognize that this kind of situation is not okay, and to talk about it until somebody listens.
If you believe you are in an emotionally abusive marriage—which can take many forms to keep a wife dependant on a husband (a virtual prisoner in her own house)—or you’re not even sure if what you’re experiencing is emotional abuse, please join us in the Marital Discovery and Recovery group and share your story.
Sources: www.focusonthefamily.com; “The Silent Killer of Christian Marriages” by Amy Wildman White (http://www.safeplaceministries.com/pdf/The Silent Killer of Christian Marriages.pdf)
Add a Comment380 Comments
Thank you for sharing your story and your encouragement. It continues to astonish me the sheer number of women (although certainly men can find themselves on the abused side of the equation as well) who've commented and identified with the content of this article. It scares me really that people who claim to love another are behaving this way.
March 13, 2015 - 9:27amThis Comment
Hi I am in a similar situation and actually can't believe it's happening to me, I never thought I'd be the abused woman...even though I grew up with abuse and have heard many times what u see and grow up with you repeat in your marriage, hell I didn't see it because my soon to be ex was/is a charmer, Mr Nice guy he had everyone fooled, mostly me and I'm still in denial i literally talk to everyone, anyone who will give me an ear and say what do you think and everyone thinks its abuse and oppression and i still don't believe it thats how brainwashed i am and i really need to wake up, i have two kids with this serial bully and i don't see any change since the day we got married which was 5 years ago. He has emotionally mentally psychologically and most of all financially abused me but will never ever admit it he lives in denial and will never take responsibility for his own self. Instead he will turn the tables "your rubbish with money" "rubbish wife" "babysitter" its disgusting and demeaning and now he's about to lose us but will not even fight for us so the way it goes for the abuser is they use you then discard you and discarded he has. They say though never underestimate an abused woman's power and strength and i am getting stronger each day for my children. Im glad i came across this site and thanks for allowing me to share my story it is healing for me. Im not perfect but i do strive to have a balanced healthy mutual respect for another and that is not how my ex wants to operate, it is sad and still feels very surreal but something in me has snapped and I'm not going back to abuse no more.
February 24, 2015 - 3:22pmThis Comment
Good! Stick to your guns! Keep us posted on how it goes.
March 13, 2015 - 9:30amThis Comment
His psychologist has just told me that although I went through emotional abuse from my perspective, from what my husband has told her, his behaviour was not abusive. Is this possible?
February 22, 2015 - 5:35amThis Comment
Is it possible that you just imagined it, as his therapist says? No. What is completely possible is that your husband has completely manipulated the therapist. Someone like this, as I've described in this article, is a master manipulator. They make it appear to all the world that everything is normal and happy and everything negative about the relationship is just something you've concocted.
This is why I laugh at some people who suggest marital counselling. I'm like, "No, you don't understand. No amount of counselling will be able to get him to see what he's doing." It's impossible to get a truly self-referenced person to see anything from someone else's perspective. They will project the kind of image they want everybody to see, create their own version of the truth and believe it without having the capacity to understand that their truth isn't what everybody else sees and someone as important in their life as their wife has a very valid perspective on the dimensions of the marital relationship. That not everything is as rosy as he paints it. A normal guy would hear his wife's opinion and be very sorry for having created those feelings and strive to change whatever his role has been in creating that environment ... not painting over it by saying, "Oh, it's really not THAT bad."
March 13, 2015 - 9:37amThis Comment
Because it is his therapist he can tell the therapist any lie or thought he can think of. This is why counseling doesn't worlse when married to or dating a guy like this.
February 24, 2015 - 11:34amThis Comment
You are absolutely right. Therapists often believe whatever people tell them. My (now-ex) husband tells his therapist things and has the therapist convinced that it was HE would was abused by me. That is why individual therapy does not help marriages--marriage counseling (which my husband refused to go to) may help, but not individual therapy. His counselor is only concerned about his well-being--he never asks him how I feel or what is best for our marriage. While it may be possible that you are overreacting by calling something abuse, you cannot determine this by listening to HIS therapist. Marriage counseling is the way to go with a therapist who is concerned about the marriage, the "us" not just your husband.
February 28, 2015 - 6:30amThis Comment
I've been married for almost 25 years and my husband used to be the kind of person you wanted to be around. we used to do all kinds of things together even if it was just to go to a park and walk around. everything was good even when I had our daughter. then 5 years ago everything changed. there were 2 deaths in my family(my mom and brother) which took me a long time to accept. I didn't work for 4 years but I did find a job that I was at for 3 months before I left. my husband has been giving me the silent treatment and blaming me because according to him there's not a lot of money coming in and it's my fault. I've been sleeping on the couch for the past 5 years because he doesn't even want in the same bed as him. and as for our sex life, it has been non-exsistant for 5 years also. feel like I'm a failure
February 20, 2015 - 11:56amThis Comment
You are not a failure. He is failing you by not recognizing the classic signs of clinical depression and getting you the help you need and being the husband that you need. I'm with Susan Cody, who commented below. Take full advantage of the internet and seek out counselling and psychiatric resources in your area. I would highly recommend getting books on depression by Mary Southerland. While her books are from a Christian perspective, she's struggled with clinical depression most of her life and has become an amazing speaker. I had the opportunity of hearing her talk about her experience and then hold an extra session after the main teaching just for those who had questions about depression. I think her resources could be of great encouragement to you.
Please keep us posted on how you're doing.
March 13, 2015 - 9:51amThis Comment
I have been imprisoned with an emotionally abusive male person (I stopped viewing him as a man years ago). He now screams out how he cheats and its my fault he cheats. I hate him and struggle with the fear that the things he cheats with will abuse my children. I feel trapped and bound with little happiness in sight.
February 18, 2015 - 4:43pmThis Comment