See this list?  All of these items represent adverse issues victims of emotional abuse experience. Each item, if experienced on its own, might not necessarily be complicated to treat.  But emotional abuse eventually culminates in a very complicated case of un-health. The soul-crushing experience of being dismissed, unheard and unseen, belittled and silenced culminates in becoming a dead man walking. 

I do want to give this quick disclaimer:  I do work with men who have been emotionally abused, and the impact is as devastating to them as it is to women.  For the sake of simplicity, I do often refer to the victim in feminine terms, but you could just as easily substitute masculine.

Our working definition of emotional abuse is that it is an ongoing pattern of selfish, destructive behaviors used to gain and maintain control over their spouse for one’s own benefit at the expense of their spouse. Underlying this pattern of behavior is a strong sense of entitlement to use others regardless of the cost to them.

What a victim’s experience is like daily:  Oppression from every angle

Love ceases to be love when free will is taken out of the picture.  I could preach a sermon about that, but marinate on this.  The whole point of life where eternity hangs in the balance is: a free choice to surrender to God OR do what is right in our own eyes. Without FREEDOM TO CHOOSE there is no meaning.  That is true for being in relationship with God, and in relationship with others.

But emotional abuse is a bully.

         Relational coercion.  If I ask my clients to give me a word to describe their marriage, I get words like: Disconnected. Lonely. Isolated. Hell.  Dangerous. Chaotic. Unsafe. Manipulative. Hopeless.  I think all these words could boil down to oppressed.  In an emotionally abusive marriage, it’s not that there are arguments or yelling and screaming, or selfishness in and of itself, it is that one person is bullying the other into an isolated, disconnected, voiceless box. The bully gives the other no voice and no choice.

Many of us were taught as children that the highest form of perfection was compliant obedience. The “favorite” was the kid who never disrupted, never questioned, never hesitated to obey.

As an adult trying to be in a marriage, compliance does not build connection.  There is no reciprocity, mutuality, or freedom. When she acts out of her own sense of self, her own ideas, thinking, perceptions, she is opposed, fought against, constrained, silenced.  As long as what she wants coincides with what he wants, things may look fairly peaceful.  She may even find it her honor to “make him happy” and wrap her life around keeping his life running smoothly.

But, the second anything she says, does, or believes conflicts with what he had in mind, she is coerced into being who he defines to fit his own agenda, even under the guise of “Godliness” or “Christianity.”  It is still about HIS agenda.

Emotional abuse is an assault on her perception of reality.  She has been taught to question her own reality– constantly wondering if she’s seeing this right, or if she is crazy, or if she is the abuser. Even within the church environment, she is told that she cannot trust her intuition or her heart.   She questions her own needs, having been repeatedly told she is simply too sensitive and if she’d just stop being so picky or judgmental, all of this is fine.  She’s trained to believe that any neediness is wrong, and that she has no right to ask for anything, including asking for being treated with kindness and courtesy. Relationally, she is silenced. Made small, becomes an extension of him.  Her personhood is unnecessary… she fills a role, not a connection.

If she brings up concerns, she is dismissed, belittled, ignored, or raged at. Rather than listen, he takes offense to them, as if she is criticizing him rather than expressing a concern. He’ll argue about her approach, how she said it, what she should have said instead, what the words she used really meant, and why he can’t hear her…  anything but work to understand the point she is seeking to resolve. He is easily offended by anything.  He will use anger as a weapon to get what he wants, and she will be managed down to silence.

He misplaces his responsibility to show up differently.  I’ll never be good enough for you.  Your standards are impossible.  You have unrealistic expectations and I’m sorry you feel that way.  All these statements make HER the problem.  It’s her expectations, her feelings, her standards, her inability to come up with a better plan that are the issue, not him being a jerk.

She believes that if she could just figure it out and get it right, there wouldn’t be a problem.  SHE wouldn’t be a problem.

         Sexual coercion.  Emotional abuse is also an assault on identity, worth, and value. We see this in the bedroom, where value is relegated to how often he or she engages sexually.  A spouse is expected, coerced or demanded to participate sexually with little relationally connected context (and often with exactly the opposite with a very volatile, insecure, and threatening context!)     We see men in particular exhibiting a strong sense of entitlement to a woman’s body, regardless of the chaos she is emotionally feeling due to the context of the relationship. He uses physical force, scriptural manipulation, shame and blame to keep her sexually engaging with him, where it very often turns into abuse, rape, non-consensual sex.  Her reticence puts her in the crosshairs of blame for his porn addiction, or his wandering eyes, or his multiple affairs.  The sexual act is demanded of her, and if she is reluctant, she pays a steep price through silent treatment, anger, and some sort of retribution when she won’t or can’t respond.  The dissonance is compounded when physical touch is used violently – either altogether withheld or to cause pain and fear.  Instead of being a bonding experience, sex becomes a weapon.  She doesn’t feel loved or held, she feels used and rejected and diminished. Again, she is filling a role, not building a connection.  Abusers kill the sense of desire they are demanding their spouse give them.

Spiritual coercion.    Emotional abuse is an assault against her soul.  When God saw that it was not good for man to “be alone,” He created woman as an ezer kenegdo to be that companion.  But, this word translated into “helper” is way more powerful than simply an extension of him, a supporting role that keeps his home neat, his children obedient, his belly fed and his bed warm.  It is a word only otherwise used in Scripture to refer to the Holy Spirit who “helps” at a man’s greatest point of need in the heat of a battle when he is at a loss to save himself.

I see people who use the bible as a weapon to coerce their spouse to be who they decide she or he will be. The spouse is shamed into sitting down, shutting up and doing what they’re is told. He may use the Bible to get his wife to shape up and obey him under the guise of “respect” and “submission.”  It is her duty to God to “honor her husband” and what “honors” him is what he decides it to be.  She is used, not cherished.  Commanded, not invited.

Spiritual abuse also looks like claiming authority over an individual’s right to make decisions about life in general, including roles, friends, schedule, money etc.  They decide who her friends are, how much time she can spend with them, what her household duties are, and what she gets to wear, how she presents herself to the world. And when they are irritated or don’t like what they’re getting, they call her names, dismiss her attitude, her tone, or desires as disrespectful to him and constantly use that as an excuse to berate, ignore, and bully their wives.  And, she is taught that she is doing something sinful and evil if she brings the abuse and bullying to light or tries to confront it in some way. Again, the victim has no voice and no choice. Her contribution to the world has no substance worth considering, only using.

He uses her values to shame her into shutting up or doing what he wants.  He’ll tell her she’s “breaking her vows” or “breaking up the family” when she talks about how they’re headed for divorce, rather than acknowledge any of his behavior that has already broken those vows.  He’ll call her a gossip… accuse her of cheating or of turning the kids against him… he’ll call her foolish and disrespectful.  And so she’ll get in line and quit talking about a separation or divorce, excusing his bad behavior.

The world starts to feel really small.  She becomes isolated from her friendships and family members.  He finds ways to control those relationships so she is not free to get deeper than the façade he seeks to maintain.  She doesn’t stand up for herself; terrified of losing her kids because he smears her name, mocks her parenting, or threatens to alienate them when he doesn’t like her behavior. Her boundaries are called “disrespect” or “silent treatment” or “unsubmissive,” and she knows she has no room to say no or to hold her own space. And when he resorts to using scripture or theology to get what he wants, she feels powerless to argue.  How can she stand up to what “God” says?

She is commonly taught the message that being a Godly wife looks like forgiving more, enduring more, praying more, and letting God step in to convict him – meaning since she is not the Holy Spirit, that it is not her job to speak out against the sinful behavior. It is God’s job, and her ONLY recourse is to move out of His way by not speaking up and not insisting that he treat her differently.

And then marriage becomes a picture of oppression. It becomes a duty.  A checklist that must be followed to be accepted.  Or like an institution.  And then is treated like an institution.  All of this becomes trauma to the soul.

Counseling Coercion – where secondary abuse happens.

Her Experience of the Counseling Experience. Again, our definition of emotional abuse is an ongoing pattern of destructive behaviors used to gain and maintain control over their mate for their own benefit at the expense of their mate.  Secondary abuse happens when a person’s abuse is overlooked, minimized, or dismissed by a trusted advisor, and that advisor puts the weight of responsibility on the victim for fixing the issues.

The framework I’m giving you today is with the hope that you will gain the awareness and insight to better help your clients.

When couples come to you for help, most often you will get sucked into their presenting issues.  Something has rocked the boat – usually a wife finally resisting the status quo in some way – and the therapy almost always starts with whatever rocked the boat.  THAT becomes the focus of counseling…

SHE is the problem, now that she’s angry, spiteful, aggressive, withdrawn, manipulative, and coercive…  But, this is a natural consequence of desperately trying to survive in the context of this relationship. She’s learned to become like him in order to function. Nobody’s looking at the provocative bad behavior!

And then she is made to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she has been powered over and silenced.  She is made to make her case and back it up with profound evidence, while he gets to simply discount it with his dismissive words.

You will probably be diagnosing her as depressed, anxious, possibly borderline.  You may view her as paranoid, and not clearly seeing reality. You may think she is simply weary by chronic pain and insomnia, and certainly not making a lot of sense. The dynamics of emotional abuse may be all but perceptible.

We often see men be charming and likeable, amenable and humble in the counseling setting, but who are anything but as soon as they are back on their own turf.  They’ll say what you want to hear, even with real tears and apparent understanding and ownership.  And we’ll believe them!  And when we do, all the attention goes back to the wife, pressuring her into believing him as well.  We look to her to forgive him, to show grace, to trust him… even when he is still maintaining his bad behavior where you don’t see it.

I think maybe it’s hard for most of us to imagine anyone being as angry or cruel as the spouse you hear about in your clients’ experience. But, we also know it is not beyond the scope of reality for him to be very different behind closed doors than what you may think you know about him.  An important concept to keep in mind in most abusive marriages is that the spouse is the target of abuse, but the world at large is not.  It’s no wonder it is so hard to see!

The very nature of abuse is living a double life, and an abuser thrives on the capacity for deception.  They can seem to make so much sense, be so rational, amenable and believable. And yet, that is the narrative they control, when behind their own front door, they become monsters.

I can’t tell you how many women I’ve met who say counseling has never worked for them – and they’ve seen plenty!- because their spouse is so charming to the counselor that she looks like the crazy one.  He will make sense when she can’t seem to be able to explain herself.  He has perfectly good explanations for his behavior, when her defenses seem only to be confused apologies. Abuse THRIVES because of the abuser’s capacity to deceive.

For those of us coming alongside to help these couples, keep in mind that we have a great propensity to deny what we don’t want to see, and when we also rub shoulders with our clients within the church or community, we tend to listen to what we THINK we know of someone based upon our experience of them rather than truly listen to his or her spouse’s experience of them.  When we then give counsel based upon our own narrative, we tend to dismiss, minimize, and rationalize the harm in all the same ways the abusive partner does.  We become a compounding part of the problem!

This man is not offering his wife connection.  He is taking control, making the relationship be about status, power and control, not connection. And you may be feeding the bully if you rush into using Scripture to counsel them without properly diagnosing the need.   When you counsel out of your biases, you will more than likely give them Bible studies to do, or well-meaning marriage books, that completely cover up and dismiss the issues of power and control.

Unfortunately, Church counsel rarely allows a woman the freedom to challenge bad behavior.  In an abusive relationship, a “quiet and gentle spirit” is defined as “silent and obedient”.  None of her own personhood or perspective about what that personhood is.  We further silence her by putting the burden of responsibility on her to cater more to him, be more seductive, manage his emotions and his sexuality, excuse his bad behavior but keep offering herself to him… or tell her to wait for God to change him without confronting him (because she is taught it is disrespectful).  We compound the harm by perpetuating the idea that being a Godly, submissive woman means taking on whatever abuse our husbands (and churches) have yet to be convicted about.

She learns that she is alone, and she does not matter, and that her church does not care.

Her expectation is that the people around her who say they love God would reflect the character of God to her by protecting her, standing up for her, and rescuing her from harm. Secondary abuse teaches her that the people of God will not defend her. That the church is not a place of peace or safety or justice.  And the end result is a stronger negative impact than the original abuse.  Nobody hears her.  Nobody gets it.  Nobody can help.

She often ends up leaving the church and seriously questioning the character of God because of the trauma abuse does to her soul.

What does she gain by making this story up?  She actually stands to lose huge pieces of every aspect of her life: her community, reputation, financial means and support, family members, church, and a good bit of her faith.

The only thing she is seeking to gain?  A voice and a choice.

Not to power-over him in return.  Not to set him straight and make him pay.  Not to prove his is wrong or not man-enough for her!  But to stop the harm and start building a life together, connected the way God created them to be connected.

God cares more about the relationship and how it represents him than he does a piece of paper signed by a judge!  He cares more about the divorce of the relationship than he does the divorce of the institution.

And, For better or worse does not mean that she must stay when he turns into a monster.  She is pleading for you to help end the abuse and set them on a path of healthy connection.  If your focus is pressure to “stay married and get over it (whatever “it” is)” you will gloss over and minimize the destructive behavior that must change for that marriage to move from “institution” to “relationship.” The best possible chances of that marriage really having a heart change, is to eradicate the destructive behavior, not teach the spouse to endure more.