As women, we are warned throughout our entire lives about the dangers and signs of domestic violence. I remember this topic being brought up in health class in high school and again in several girls only seminars in college. We watch movies that portray abusive men. We think we learn to identify the red flags that someone might be abusing us, and we think we learn how to see the signs that another woman is being abused. If any of this is actually successful in teaching us to prevent getting stuck in an abusive relationship, it only ever teaches us about physical abuse. If we're lucky, we somehow learn about the emotional abuse that often coexists with physical abuse. But no one teaches us about emotional abuse by itself.
This is what I used to think emotional abuse looked like:
- A man criticizing your every thought and action.
- A man telling you that you are stupid so many times that you start to believe it.
- A man controlling you, telling you what you can and cannot do.
- A man screaming in your face.
- A man threatening you or punishing you when you do something he doesn't approve of but also rewarding you when you do something he prefers.
- A man telling you over an over again that you are worthless and that no one else would possibly want you, until you believe this of yourself.
- A man using your children or other loved ones against you, making you believe that he will take them away from you or make them hate you if you don't act as he wishes.
- A man showing you intense anger to make you afraid of him but also alternating those periods of anger with periods of love so that you remain loyal to him.
My marriage to Wusband was extremely emotionally abusive, but he didn't do these things. And because no one ever taught me what emotional abuse looks like, I didn't realize that his actions were abuse. It wasn't until he had left and I was no longer under his influence that I realized the truth about him and about my marriage.
This is what emotional abuse really looks like, at least in my experience:
- A man being extremely romantic at the beginning of the relationship and appearing to be the "perfect man" to win you over and make you fall deeply in love with him very quickly.
- A man alternating his emotions towards you between showers of affection and cold indifference. This is partially a system of rewards and punishments, but this also allows him to keep you hooked on him and to keep control of you.
- A man gaslighting you, or telling you that you are crazy or wrong over and over again, even when you believe you have undeniable proof of something. He does this so much, so emphatically, and so genuinely that you end up believing him. (I remember when I confronted Wusband with an affair once (#2), he told me I was "making up narratives" in my head, even though I had already talked to the affair partner.)
- A man making you feel like Cinderella one day and like the Evil Stepmother the next.
- A man consistently and repetitively engaging in actions or behaviors that bother you in any way but dismissing your attempts to explain it to him and get him to stop.
- A man dismissing any of your attempts to express your feelings or concerns about him or the relationship.
- A man acting charming and charasmatic in public and with your friends and family members so that everyone believes he is Mr. Wonderful, but the charm and charisma cease when the two of you are alone.
- A man discouraging you from seeing friends and family members, but doing this subtly, so that you believe his intentions are caused by concern for you or a desire to spend more time with you, when really he is trying to distance you from everyone around you.
- A man discouraging your from your hobbies or interests, but doing this subtly, too, so that you believe he is concerned about your well-being, when really he is trying to ensure that you have nothing in your life other than him.
- A man slowly and carefully ebbing away at your sense of self and independence until your entire identity is based around being his wife or girlfriend.
The problem with all of these emotionally abusive actions is that they are extremely subtle. A man who is good at this game won't scream in your face or show you immense anger; instead, he will carefully use a variety of emotions and tactics to slowly cut you off from everyone and everything else you ever loved until you are so dependent on him that you can't imagine being without him and will do anything to please him. And he does this so patiently and so craftily that you don't realize it's happening until it's too late.
I look back on my marriage now and reflect on what happened, on what I thought was normal and acceptable, and I see how manipulative and unhealthy it all was. Wusband was very successful at weaving his web around me, getting me to give up hobbies and interests, and distancing me from the other people I loved. He was skilled at manipulation and gaslighting and completely changed the way I thought and viewed the world. Here are some things I thought were okay when we were together, compared with the truth I realize now:
During marriage: Wusband would ask me not to spend time with my other family members or would refuse to go to get-togethers, claiming this was because no one treated him well and they all made him uncomfortable. This would usually be coupled with reminders about how wonderful our little family of five was or of past transgressions with my other family members. I thought he was self-conscious about my family and that he preferred it to just be the five of us so that he could be more comfortable and we would continue to grow stronger as a blended family with our children.
Reality: Wusband had no interest in getting to know my family members because they didn't serve any purpose for him. He wanted to cut me off from them as much as possible to keep me under his control and to ensure that no one else could influence me.
During marriage: Wusband would constantly tell me that I looked tired and that I worked too hard, both at my job and with taking care of the kids and the house. He would encourage me to not play with the kids and to take some time to rest. He would remind me that kids need to learn to be independent and don't need me to be in the same room with them all the time. I thought he was truly concerned about my well-being and wanted to make sure that I wasn't wearing myself out. I believed this was thoughtful of him.
Reality: Wusband was trying to break the connection between myself and my son. By trying to convince me that it was okay not to give my child so much attention, he was trying to loosen our bond so that he himself would be my number one priority.
During marriage: Wusband is very involved in his kids' lives. He coached their sports teams when they were younger, took them to Boy Scouts meetings, went to parent-teacher conferences, etc. I always thought he was an amazing father who did so much more for his kids than most fathers who live with their kids full-time, let alone dads who don't have full custody of their kids. He encouraged them to do well in school and sports and punished them when they didn't. Sometimes he became frustrated with them if they didn't appear to be giving their schoolwork or athletics 100%, and sometimes his temper got the better of him. Sometimes he yelled and cussed at his kids and even called them names. I thought he really wanted the best for them and just had a potty mouth.
Reality: I recently met a therapist who specializes in narcisstic personality disorder. She said that children are ornamnets to narcissists; they are never just children. Everyone in a narcissist's life is strategically chosen to fulfill a specific role or serve a specific purpose to boost the narcissist's ego, and this is true of their children, as well. Children who are star athletes or do well in school make the narcissist look good. He can say, "Look at how amazing my kids are. I must be a great dad!" But when those same children don't do well or do something to embarass or disappoint the narcissistic parent, he lashes out at them, feeling ashamed of them and worried that the children's negative behavior makes him look bad.
Wusband wasn't coaching the kids' sports to be more involved in their lives; he was doing it to look like a good dad. He didn't go to parent-teacher conferences out of a genuine interest in their performance or behavior at school; he did it to ensure they were making him look good to their teachers. All the times he really laid into his kids were caused by their poor performances in school or sports. He wasn't trying to make sure they would grow up to be successful adults for their benefit; he was ashamed that they made him look bad.
During marriage: Wusband was a serial cheater. He had four affairs that I know about; I assume there were more that he was able to keep hidden from me. There were countless women with whom he sexted and shared nude pictures. I always assumed he was cheating. I tolerated it because he woke up next to me every morning and came home to me every night. I thought that even if he was cheating, it was because there was something he needed that I couldn't give him, but it was okay because he was choosing to build his life with me. All the other women were temporary, but I was permanent.
Reality: Um, hello? Did you actually read what I just wrote? I actually believed that his cheating was okay because I thought he really loved me. Of course you know, as I do now, that cheating is never okay, and that if he really loved me, he would have never treated me that way! Wusband kept me in this abuse cycle of love-bombing, disinterest, and cheating so that I became addicted to him and would stay complacent in my role of wife no matter what he did. How much manipulation and abuse, we might even call it brainwashing, did it take to turn me from an independent woman into a woman who tolerated her husband cheating on her? It took years of carefully crafted, subtle, conniving manipulation. He turned me into a woman whom I don't even recognize. And I didn't even realize it was happening.
Emotional abuse is just as traumatic and awful as physical abuse. The big difference between the two is that you know when you are being physically abused and you are left with visible scars. With emotional abuse, though, you might not realize it's happening, and there's no way to prove that it is. You can't walk into a police station and show off mental bruises when there are no physical signs on your body. And when you finally do realize what is happening or has happened to you, and you try to share this experience with others, no one understands it because they can't imagine that you were naive enough to allow someone to treat you that way or to not even know you were being treated so poorly.
Here's an intersting thing about Wusband's abuse toward me: He was wrong. He thought he had manipulated and abused me enough that I really was at a point where I would tolerate anything and stay with him. But he messed up somewhere. He tried to get me to agree to let the affair with Other Woman #4 continue, but I refused. I gave him the final ultimatum, to choose between me and her, and he didn't choose me, so I told him to get out. Looking back, I think he really believed that he would get away with it, that I would be so broken at the thought of living without him that I would let him do whatever he wanted. But it turns out he didn't have that much control of me, after all.
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