What is Verbal Abuse?

Most people don't know they are living in a relationship that is verbally abusive until that abuse changes or intensifies. 

So.. what is verbal abuse?

Like I have said, it wasn't until after leaving my partner that I could identify the abuse. Frankly, labeling a person and a relationship abusive sounds pretty extreme. I wasn't sure what to call what I was experiencing and I didn't want to be overdramatic or percieved as 'crying wolf'. I would try to explain a 'fight' to someone and try to gauge their reactions. Was that normal? How perturbed were they? 

When I think abuse I think black eyes, broken ribs, names like 'bitch' and 'cunt'. Occasionally he would call me those names. That's what I thought verbal abuse was. The truth is, it is far more complex than that. 

About five months after leaving Todd, my counsellor lent me The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans. When the truth lands on you, it lands hard. I was reading a book about me. I was witnessing this incredibly intimate, confusing, involved experience of my relationship being laid out into simple yet thorough lists and generalized patterns. This huge thing I had been living in was not unique to me or us. 

A verbal abuser is trying to stay in control of their environment and therefore tries to establish power over their partner. They generally experience most of their feelings as anger, especially if they are unsure or anxious. They are unwilling to accept their own feelings and unwilling to share their true feelings with their partner. Consciously or unconsciously the abuser sees the partner as an enemy or a threat and keeps them at an emotional distance. Words are the weapons and the following list shows 15 different forms this can take. Name calling is number 11 on this list. 
(paraphrased p.80 The Verbally Abusive Relationship) 

The Categories of Verbal Abuse

1. Withholding

2. Countering

3. Discounting

4. Verbal abuse disguised as a joke

5. Blocking and Diverting

6. Accusing and Blaming

7. Judging and Critisizing

8.Trivializing

9. Undermining

10. Threatening

11. Name Calling

12. Forgetting

13. Ordering

14. Denial

15. Abusive Anger

(Evans, p81)

If any of you are reading this and wondering about your own relationship, I'd like to share this list of obstacles to recognizing verbal abuse that Evans writes about. Although they did not all apply to me, many of them did. 

1. The partner has learned to overlook unkindness, disrespect, disregard and indifference as not important enough to stand up to.

2. Upsetting incidents are denied by the abuser, and the partner thinks she's wrong.

3. Verbal abuse, control, and manipulation have not been articulated or defined for the partner, so she remains confused.

4. The partner thinks her feelings are wrong.

5. The partner intermittently forgets her upset feelings when the abuser is intermittently friendly.

6. The abuse can be very subtle - the control increasing gradually over time so that the partner gradually adapts to it.

7. The abuser controls the interpersonal communication and, therefore, the interpersonal reality. 

8. The abuser blames the partner for upsetting interactions, and the partner believes him and therefore thinks that they are her fault. 

9. The partner has no basis of comparison - no experience of non-abusive relationships with men.       

10. The abuser and partner may function very well together in their respective roles, making a home, raising a family, and "getting ahead," so the abusive nature of the relationship is overlooked.

11. The partner may be so absorbed in raising a family or developing a career that she ignores problems in the relationship, thinking that nothing is perfect anyway.

12. The partner may never seen a model of a healthy relationship and good communication.

13. At times the abuser is not abusive. Consequently, the partner forgets the "bad times."

14. The partner is too stunned or thrown off balance to think clearly about what is happening to her.

15. The partner does not have the level of self-esteem which demands that she always be treated with courtesy and dignity.

16. The partner's reality has never been validated. Others don't see the abuse, so it doesn't seem real to her.

17. The partner believes her mate is rational in his behaviour toward her, so that he has "some reason" for what he says.

18. The abuser's behaviour is alternately abusive and non-abusive, so that the partner is never sure wether or not the relationship is working.

19. The partner may believe that the way her mate is, is the way men are, with possibly a few exceptions.

20. The partner may believe that if her mate provides for her, he really loves her.

21. The partner thinks there is something wrong with her.

22. The partner believes that when her mate is angry she has somehow hurt him.

23. The partner may have never considered the question, "Am I being verbally abused?"

(Evans, p.66-67)