Help For A Hurting MarriageSýnishorn

Devotion from Loving Your Spouse When You Feel Like Walking Away by Gary Chapman

Verbal Abuse in Marriage

“You’re an idiot. I don’t know how anyone with your education can be as stupid as you are. You must have cheated to get your degree. If I were as stupid as you, I don’t think I would get out of bed in the morning.”

The words seemed to beat on Laura relentlessly. This wasn’t the first time Laura had heard such insults from her husband, Ron. The tragedy was that she had come to believe them. She was suffering from severe depression that literally kept her in bed most days. She was the victim of verbal abuse.

We have long known the devastation of physical abuse in a marriage relationship. We are now coming to understand that verbal abuse can be fully as devastating. Verbal abuse destroys respect, trust, admiration and intimacy — all key ingredients of a healthy marriage. 

Most of us lose our temper and say harsh, cutting words that we later regret. But if we are spiritually and emotionally mature, we acknowledge that this is inappropriate behavior. We express sorrow and ask forgiveness of our spouse, and the relationship finds healing.

The verbal abuser, on the other hand, seldom asks for forgiveness or acknowledges that the verbal tirades are inappropriate. Typically, the abuser will blame the spouse for stimulating the abuse. Verbal abuse is warfare that employs the use of words as bombs and grenades designed to punish the other person, to place blame or to justify one’s own actions or decisions. Abusive language is filled with poisonous put-downs, which seek to make the other person feel bad, appear wrong or look inadequate. 

Is there hope for the thousands of spouses who suffer the barrage of verbal attacks as a way of life? I believe there is, but that hope will not come in the form of a magic wand. It will be more like an exercise machine, requiring hard work and consistency.

In order to be a positive change agent, the spouse who is verbally abused must first recover a sense of their own self-worth. A wife whose husband has ridiculed her, threatened her, told her she is stupid, worthless, incompetent and a failure may start to believe these messages, and they will become self-fulfilling. She first should share her husband’s abuse with a friend or a counselor and learn to reject these negative messages, and rediscover her own self-worth. If she does not deal with her own damaged self-esteem, she will not have the emotional energy to take constructive action with her husband. 

Most people who practice verbal abuse as a way of life are themselves suffering from low self-esteem. Emotionally, the verbal abuser is not the strong, confident, self-assured individual he may appear to be. Inside he actually feels like a child, trying desperately to become an adult, fighting desperately but inappropriately to prove his worth. 

On a quiet evening when Jeff had not yet unleashed a verbal attack, Marilyn said to him, “I’ve been thinking about us a lot the last few days. I’ve been remembering how kind you were to me when we dated. I’m remembering the tender touch, the kind words, the smiling face, the fun we had in those days. I guess that’s why I believe in you so strongly. I know the good qualities you have inside. Sometimes I lose that vision when I am hurt by your attacks, but I know the kind of man you are, and I believe in that man. And I believe in my heart that the man I married is the man you really want to be. And I know that with God’s help and your desire, you can reach that goal.”

With those words, Marilyn is expressing belief in Jeff. She is giving him what all of us desperately want — someone to believe in us, someone to believe that we have good characteristics and that those good characteristics can flourish in our lives. Since the abuser is already suffering from low self-esteem, such comments build a positive sense of self-worth. If Jeff can come to believe in himself and believe that God’s power is available to him, he may well return to being the man that Marilyn remembers.

REACT: What are steps to take if you are being verbally abused? What might be behind an abuser’s verbal attacks? To whom can you speak words of hope and healing today?