Uncovering Emotional Abuse (Part 1)

Is It Abuse? Is Emotional Abuse really a thing?

As we continue to look at the different kinds of abuse in marriage we now move to Emotional Abuse. Emotional abuse in marriage involves manipulation, control, or degrading behavior that damages a spouse's self-esteem or mental well-being. This and the articles following are largely taken from Darby Strickland’s book ‘Is It Abuse?’ 

First a story.

“I first met Emma because she was struggling with intense anxiety. She was a very young mother who had four small children under the age of seven and had been having low-grade anxiety attacks for about a year. She felt tense most of the time and she worried about her children, since she was snapping at them. Every week during counseling, she would confess her anger and the many ways she had failed as a mother and a wife.

“Nothing in our initial conversations would have suggested that she was being oppressed–except the abnormal amount of guilt that she carried. She did not report that Phil, her husband, would verbally attack her, that he would often ignore her for days, or that he would scream at her babies and toddlers when they needed to have their diapers changed. She failed to mention that if she asked him for help with household maintenance, Phil would lecture her about her ineptitude and nagging ways for hours. Instead she talked about her anger and her belief that she was dishonoring the Lord because she felt so anxious.

“I have seen this again and again in my work. Often oppressed women do not share with me the information that I believe to be most relevant. While shame may contribute to the fact that they don't speak about the horrible ways they are treated, I think there is something else keeping them from talking about what they endure. They often believe that the way they are being treated is reasonable.

“Emma did not tell me about the cruel and manipulative ways in which Phil punished and controlled her because she felt that he was right to be frustrated with her. Sure, sometimes she thought he got carried away in his anger– but who wouldn’t, if they had to put up with her all the time?

“Emma’s understanding of herself was formed by the words that Phil sneered at her: worthless, stupid, inept, weak, worrywart, lousy mother, ungodly, judgemental, self-righteous, crybaby. After ten years of marriage, Emma’s perceptions were difficult to challenge. She no longer saw herself as being worthy of Phil’s love and care – she was a disappointment and a failure on every level. And that is what she was communicating to me: her belief that she was faithless and incompetent.

“How do we help wives like Emma, who cannot see that oppression is the underlying cause of most of their distress? It takes tender patience to uproot the false narratives that these women believe. There are many women like Emma who need us to help them to slowly identify the lies that are shaping their reality.”

Is It Emotional Abuse? 

“Emotional abuse, which can also be categorized as mental, verbal, or psychological abuse, is a pattern of behavior that promotes a destructive sense of fear, obligation, shame, or guilt in a victim.

“Emotionally oppressive people seek to dominate their spouses, and they do so by employing a variety of tactics.

They may

neglect,

frighten,

isolate,

belittle,

exploit,

play mind games with,

lie to,

blame,

shame,

or threaten their spouses.

“Their behavior is driven by the same root of self-worship and entitlement that drives other forms of abuse. Oppressors seek to control others for their own gain and comfort; emotionally abusive behavior says. ‘You do not matter to me– you are something for me to use.’ It demands. It mocks. It does not love.

“As is true of all abuse, emotional abuse is not a relational problem – not a symptom of an unhealthy marriage (although it causes an unhealthy marriage). It is a heart problem – one that stems from an abusive person’s un–Christlike drive to attain and maintain dominance.

“Emotional abuse is a broad category that encapsulates many forms of non- physical control. But we do not want to wrongly expand this label or overapply it. There are many good marriages in which cruel words are sometimes exchanged and many bad but non-abusive marriages in which couples fight in detrimental ways.

“When we are seeking to determine whether emotional abuse is happening, we cannot solely rely on the presence of behaviors like name-calling, blame-shifting, and cruelty. We should all be relieved that the occurrence of things like this does not automatically mean that abuse is happening, because we have all done them. We have all sinned against our spouses–but most of us are broken by our sins. We are moved by the pain we have caused another, and eventually we are convicted. We repent, seek to change our behavior, and desire to love our spouses better.

"Not everyone’s sin patterns are characterized by unrepentant coercive control. Remember that control is key to the presence of abuse – we are looking for ways in which the mistreatment of a wife is about dominance. We must link sinful patterns of punishing behaviors to what they accomplish for the oppressor.” 

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If you have questions about your relationship or if this story hits close to home, please reach out to us at dahelp@havenofmercypr.org or call us at (616) 287-536

Now that we have given a definition and example of emotional abuse in marriage, next time, we will talk about the dynamics of emotional abuse.