My Verbally Abusive Marriage

Written November 2009 while still married to my husband:

Abuse is wildly twisted and warps the minds and hearts of everyone it touches. The ones who we call abusers are as tortured as the ones we call victims. There is no excuse for any abuse one person afflicts upon another. It is not noble or okay to hurt anyone, but to end abuse we must realize that demons have both the abuser and the victim tightly by the throat.

I, an abuse victim, am at a double-disadvantage because I am clear-minded enough to acknowledge that, by nature, I have my own set of problems and sins to conquer. Therefore, I acknowledge that at least in this one way, Will and I are the same. I am willing to forgive Will his sins committed against me because I want him to forgive my sins against him.

One difference between us is that I am willing to say “I fucked up,” and seek forgiveness. If he says, “I fucked up,” he seeks silence; he doesn’t want to think or talk about it ever again, and a true apology is the source of much pain. Apologizing admits fault; he cannot be at fault.

The demons in him demand perfection. He measures his self-worth by the imaginary yardsticks he’s placed in their hands. I look to him to tell me my value, but he looks at every other soul in the world to validate him. When he chokes me or demands my allegiance, it is because I am the one person he can control when he truly wants to choke the shit out of every other person looking at him, judging him.

And he is okay with this because he believes I let him down. In the beginning, he wanted what I had to offer, and set about taking it from me. Like the farmer who killed the goose laying golden eggs, his greed quickly smothered my fire. Probably as the farmer did after cutting open the goose, he desperately sought to find another source of fire. He didn’t check inside of himself because he never once thought there was a fire inside of himself; instead, he sought the fire in another woman or dug at my entrails, hoping for a spark.

In the story, the goose is undoubtedly dead. It is different when a person figuratively dies. The spark of life within us dies only when the body dies; Will has not physically murdered me, so my spark has never completely vanished. Over time, the tiny spark tries to become a fire again.

When Will sees this happening, he is at first overjoyed. He thinks there is hope for him; he feels in love and happy. Or maybe simply secure. But he has a bad habit in greed. It is never long before he wants my spark for his own. It is never long before he seeks to take it. It is not long before he abuses again.

On one level, my participation in the abusive cycle is one I do not wish to stop. I do not want my fire to go out; I do not want to die. Naturally, when I feel the spark roar into a flame, I do not wish to douse it, I want to let it burn. That desire is not a mistake, it is life itself.

The problem is that I want to make Will happy. I know I have something that he wants, and I want to share it with him. I gingerly expose my roaring flame to Will, thinking, “I want to share myself with him; I want to live with him.”

Intuitively, I hope that an ember from inside of me will jump inside of him, igniting his own spark so he will realize he doesn’t have to take mine. This is my mistake. I am trying to share my life with the wrong person. I will not accept the fact that Will must resurrect his fire on his own, just as I have done a thousand times for myself. I dare to think one thing easy in this life: I know how to resurrect the fire within myself. The hardest thing for me is to not share it with Will.

So where does this leave me and what will happen to my marriage? I want to share my life with him. I want to share everything I am with this man who cannot live on his own. His habitual taking of what is good is killing me and his habitual refusal to find the spark of life within himself is dooming him to a life of failure.

If I am able to learn to not give of myself to Will, if I am able to keep my fire from him, will he learn to look inside for his own fire? Or will he crack and finally kill me so he can once and for all take the spark of life from me to implant inside his own belly?

Can anyone say “Murder-Suicide”? Men kill their wives and then themselves because once she is finally dead and motionless on the floor, he realizes that the life spark was hers and hers alone. In killing her, he sought to absorb her; now that All is gone from her, he realizes he will never ever and had never ever been able to use her life spark for his own. Overwhelmed with true grief because he feels unable to live without leaching from her, he turns the weapon upon himself.

He truly loved her life force. His mistake was thinking he could ever take it from her and use it as fuel for himself.

I have a master’s in mechanical engineering and recently returned from Germany back to my home country in India. The reason being that I am preparing for my career in pure mathematics and had no other option than do my preparation at home (with my parents living in the same house obviously).

Basically my dad is physically and verbally abusive. He use to hit me and push me over stuff until two years ago when he went on a bipolar medication. Now he’s just nasty verbally to me, telling me I’m an idiot, a bitch, fat (when I’m 100 pounds and he’s big himself), and a piece of shit which is his most common one.

How Emma Found Out She Was Being Abused

Doing research online and from my own mind.

Words Emma Chose to Describe Her Abusive Experience

Sadness, Anger, Depression

Please add your encouragement and advice to Emma in the comments section below.

Break the Silence: Share Your Experience

Connie struggles to live with her husband who constantly confuses her with his words and actions. He has not physically abused her at this point, but many people do not know that blocking doors, grabbing arms, and pushing is physical violence. He verbally, mentally and emotionally abuses Connie almost daily.

She’s been with him a very long time and still cannot seem to “find her place” in the relationship. She describes her feelings about living this way as being fearful, belittled, depressed and confused.

Connie wrote much more, and you can read her story here: Connie’s Story of Abuse.

When you finish, please add your comments and encouragement to Connie in the comments below.

Share your story at Break the Silence.

Penny felt embarassed, stupid, and emotional pain during her abusive experience. She found out she was being abused when she “felt something was not right”, lost, and unloved (among other things).

Penny writes:

I went back to this relationship 3 times, I was 29 when I first met her and I was 52 when I left for good. I felt that I could change her - but that didn’t happen. She and her son would always put me down about what I felt and said, and do the same to my son as well.

I would always buy her gifts, as she would me, but she would say ”what is yours is mine and what is mine is mine”. Her gifts she gave me were always hers as well.

They were control freaks and would get in your face if you didn’t agree with them. They both have high IQs, so I put my trust in them. … That would hurt me seeing my child hurting and he later ran away. When he came back 2 weeks later she yelled at him and hit him.

I felt like there was nothing I could do to stop it. [continued]

Read the rest of Penny’s Story and then please share your comments below.

Break the silence of your abuse at Share Your Experience

Maribel described her abusive relationship with the words threatened, scared, hopeless and hurt. She found out she was being abused when her partner threatened to slap her.

She writes:

It all started when he said for me to bring him his phone from the room. He did not say it in a polite fashion, although I dismissed that and the following conversation proceeded:

Me: “Wasn’t it just here on the table?”
Him: “Why the hell would I be asking you to bring me the phone if it was on the table?”

I also dismissed this and brought him his phone. I tossed it so it would land right next to him.

Me: “You’re not welcome.”
Him: “I wasn’t going to say thank you.”
Me: “I know you weren’t. That’s why I said you’re not welcome.”

Read the rest of this story at “Maribel’s Story of Abuse” and then please add your comments for Maribel below.

Share your story of abuse at Stories of Abuse.

I guess people don’t often think of men as victims of abuse, but I’m one. I’ve been married 8 years and have one child. My wife and I met and got married pretty quickly – a few months. Everything was great until the wedding day when she had some sort of anxiety or panic attack, which I just chalked up to it being “the wedding day” – despite it seeming rather odd and extreme.

I soon learned that she had serious anxiety issues which cause her to always want to be in control of her surroundings. It made (and still does) meeting people difficult, because she usually avoided social situations – and still does.

I also learned that she had a really bad and unpredictable temper. What seems like little things to me would set her off into fits of rage and fury. She’d call me names, break things. The first really violent act I remember was about 6 months after we got married and she threw a full mug of coffee across the room. It hit the wall up near the ceiling and shattered – coffee everywhere.

My instinct was to see a person hurting and in need, and I just wanted to help her. I’m sure that’s one reason why I’m still with her. It’s interesting that she gets so furious so quickly, will yell at me, belittle me, pick everything I do apart, criticize me – and often a few hours later, apologize.

We both call it her “freaking out” and she does know it’s an issue. However, I don’t think she realizes how much of an issue it is. And I don’t think her therapist does either.

You haven’t read anything yet! Please read the rest of Mick’s story and then add your support and encouragement in the comments below.

Break the Silence: Share Your Experience

Read more abuse stories

I’m writing my blog on healthyplace.com about “trust” and found a picture page on this website that I’d forgotten existed.

[Did anyone else just hear the song "Picture pages, picture pages, time to get your picture pages, time to get your crayons and your pencils..." Bill Cosby, I think. Anyway...]

I drew some pictures in the beginning of my marriage that, in hindsight, are very revealing.

There are photos on this page too. Just scroll down a little to see the art: Less Than I Am Photo Gallery

My brain muddles when I wish it were clear. I want time, more time, more time…but for what?

This pessimistic vibe infiltrating my outlook feels controlling and mean. I see visions of failure where visions of success once played.

I feel forsaken when I’m cared for and lost although I’ve been found.

I think of my sister, the one who laughs and plays, always looking to today and beyond. Not worried. Encouraging.

I want to tell her, “It’s impossible; what you say is untrue.” I do not believe in joy these days.

Happiness is only a dangling carrot. The hologram of a dangling carrot. It’s not okay. I’m not all right. The “good” I’ve done or experienced feels like fraud.

You know, twice last week I allowed thoughts of death to plod along in my mind to the point of thinking that “not being here” would be the best thing for me.

But I see my children’s faces in my mind’s eye and I know it would never be the same for them. It wouldn’t be the best thing for them.

Would it?

I couldn’t leave them here to experience the pain of this world alone.

I feel like I’m a horribly nasty, mean, rude person who hides it well.

I’m hating myself. It’s been going on like this for a couple of weeks.

Please, God, angels, LIFE…please give me a sign that everything is, in fact, going to work out. Something. Anything. I’m begging you.

Please show me the way out of this lie.

My grandma is really sick. I’m worried about her. Please keep Granny in your prayers and ask that she be able to return home soon because she isn’t going to like the nursing home at all.

Also, I apologize to those who have emailed stories to me and have not seen them posted as of today. I appreciate the time you took to write them, and I will post them very soon.

Besides those things, all else is okay.

Tshirts to empower: