Emotional Abuse in Your Marriage
Stacie Watts, MS, LMFT
Would you know if you were dealing with emotional abuse in your marriage? The effects of physical abuse are easier to detect than emotional abuse because there are obvious outward signs. Many times emotional abuse is harder to detect. Emotional abuse is about controlling another by use of power, control, and fear. Emotional abuse includes verbal abuse along with criticism, manipulating, and ‘crazy making.’
Common signs of emotional abuse are as follows:
· Being continually put down, degrading
· The use of ‘crazy making’
· Being controlled through the use of intimidation
· Your feelings, thoughts, beliefs are continually invalidated
· Isolation (Kept from family, friends, hobbies, etc), restricting
· Instilling fear, intimidating
· Denying any emotional care or support
This list is not inclusive of all types of emotional abuse, but it paints a picture of what emotional abuse may look like in a marriage. Emotional abuse is highly under reported, but needs to be viewed as a serious problem in any relationship. If you are the abuser, stop and think about what it is you are wanting and what you are trying to do. Why do you feel this behavior is necessary or even appropriate? What steps can you take to reduce this kind of behavior?
If you are the abused, you may be struggling with how and what you are feeling because you have been degraded and intimidated for so long. Do not sit by waiting for your spouse to change. It is important to seek help to stop the cycle of abuse from continuing. You need to speak with someone who can help you discover what you are thinking and
feeling because for too long it has been decided for you.
The emotional abuse may not cause you to lose your marriage; however, if it continues you will lose yourself. Do not allow someone to make you feel like your thoughts and feelings do not matter - Do not be persuaded to feel like you are crazy - Do not forget that you are a child of God; and because of that, you are special and loved, no matter what.