There is one emotional abuse clue that brings such a painful shock, we all try to rationalize and process it fast.
It's the shock women feel the 'first' time he screams, name calls or insults her. He is angry, shouting and facing her with his entire wrath. Let’s remember this shock; the first indication that the promise or marriage (“to be together to love and respect each other”) was not taken seriously, but were only words.
As a spouse, you have to feel shocked; hurt and totally blindsided by his attack. There is no way we can cover up and deny the total effect of this aggression on us. It is sudden, unexpected, and leaves us with a sour taste afterwards….how to make sense of this aggression in the midst of a marriage we deem happy? How to recover the lost sense of security being with him, when you don’t know if this terrible anger episode will repeat itself?
Almost by mandate, then we immediately run to forget the incident or make excuses for his behaviour to cover it up.
Why would a spouse cover up this abusive behaviour? It is too big a signal that there are huge hidden personality issues not recognized, but working underneath. Either because fear of the unknown aspects, or inability to address them, we choose denial and cover up by saying: “he was stressed out; too tired; under a lot of pressure, etc.”
This is the first mistake: not taking this violation of interpersonal limits seriously, and so, taking care of healing the verbal and emotional abuse impact.
Because by staying you are sending him the message that says it is 'OK' to treat you this way. That he has not crossed your boundaries in a way that is not acceptable, then giving him permission to do it again. And he will... The more deep interpretation of this interaction is:
- He is yelling at you;
- You accept; understand him and forgive him;
- He is testing your limits, seeing how far he can go dominating you with his anger or cold anger explosions
- You show that there are no protective limits around your self; you show yourself to be weak and not self-protective.
-He feels it as a one-upmanship game: how far can he go putting you down up until you react?
Let’s see how far down can she go? And he ups the ante with the violence. You think you are showing him love by staying put; he sees only one thing, you are just as weak and pathetic as he thought you were.
The truth is that his behaviour shows that he has an internal problem of self-control and respect for others and you can't fix it by staying. There is no amount of “love” you can give him that will solve this challenge; he needs to work at self-control and respect everybody, not only you.
In your marriage, it 'never' gets better and it 'will' get worse.You have to trust that the 'first shock' is the right answer, stop the denial and act on it by leaving. Either you continue or not the relationship, this is the only unequivocal message that tells him: “Abuse is NOT allowed here.”
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EMOTIONAL ABUSE IN MARRIAGE
