Emotional Abuse in a Marital Relationship

They are supposed to live under one roof, provide physical security to each other and pool their finances to buy family assets.

More importantly, the partners have a duty to provide emotional nurturing and intimacy to each other so that the relationship leads to the spiritual growth of both.

This is how an ideal marriage is supposed to function over the years. However, there are many marital relationships which go horribly wrong and hurtle toward destruction. This may occur due to many reasons such as infidelity, infertility, general boredom, physical abuse, lack of financial resources and so on. However, one of the worst things to ever happen to any married partner is emotional abuse and exploitation.

When people think of marital violence, they instantly visualise a beaten and battered spouse, mostly the wife. This is because physical abuse is easily visible to one’s eye and the scars on the victim’s body are very difficult to hide. Emotional abuse, on the other hand, is invisible. It affects the victim’s mind and in the long run is much more caustic and damaging to an individual’s personality. The scars and injuries of physical abuse gradually heal as time goes by, but the mental damage inflicted by emotional abuse takes decades to heal, if it ever does.

Emotional abuse twists and corrodes the victim’s psyche drastically. Over time, the latter loses his or her self-esteem and self-confidence. Abused people are not emotionally independent and have to always rely on others for guidance. In fact, they acquire a subtle wish to be dominated by others and are always looking forward to people who can take the reign of their own lives in their hands.

Why do some partners emotionally abuse their spouses? Basically, the abusers are bullies and cowards who themselves went through some traumatic experience in their own childhood such as acute poverty or abandonment, and thus developed a deep sense or inferiority and low self-esteem. They lack inner strength and confidence. To compensate for these negative feelings, they have a strong urge to take control of other people’s lives and rule over them like an absolute dictator.

The abusers often exert their control over the victims by stripping them of all dignity and constantly criticizing, cursing and intimidating them. Another very effective way by which the abusers learn to control their spouse is by monopolising all family income and forcing everybody to live in artificial poverty. They often also impose restrictions on the victim’s movements, such as venturing out of the house or taking up a job. They abuse, criticise, mock and ridicule the victims by calling them names, declaring them incompetent or dumb and passing off sarcastic remarks about their physical appearance.

What happens over the years is that the victim internalises these comments and develops a negative self-image. He or she would actually start believing in his or her own inferiority and worthlessness. Most victims of emotional abuse suffer from terrible stress and anxiety that makes doing any intellectual or creative work almost impossible. “Is this a life worth living?” many victims begin to ask. After a certain limit, they start contemplating suicide. In fact, many suicides of married people are actually the result of some kind of emotional abuse.

If you are stuck in a claustrophobic relationship with an emotional abuser, you have to carefully weigh your options. Clearly, things cannot continue as they have over the years. You should consider the possibility of reforming your partner. There are two ways of going about this. Either you can have a heart-to-heart but firm chat with him or her, or you can take the services of a professional counsellor or psychiatrist. The problem is that people who have been emotionally abused over years have lost their self-confidence and thus are in no position to take the initiative on their own. Reaching out to friends, professionals or some voluntary organisation is often the only way out for them.

If you have been suffering for a long period from emotional abuse inflicted by your partner and there is no hope in sight of the situation improving, the best option for you is to cut your losses and file for divorce. This will immediately remove the source of emotional abuse and you can live alone for some time and begin to recover from the ordeal.

Children are quite susceptible to emotional abuse from a parent, and you owe it to them as well as to yourself to separate yourself from your spouse and end the relationship. After divorce, you can make a new beginning with a new partner and hope that this time things will turn out to be OK.

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James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you would like more information on how to get a quickie Divorce see www.quickie-divorce.com