“We’ve been following along with your process about fixing what’s been broken. But what if it’s not an event, but ongoing emotional verbal abuse?”
I received this direct message, and as I always do … sent a response.
But something in me felt like I needed to be a bit more specific. So, I spent a little extra time with the response.
Our communication began with direct messaging, then continued with video messaging.
I’m sharing their story with you this week (with their permission), because I received many similar emails and messages.
That’s not too surprising. Research reveals that more than 50% of relationships experience ongoing emotional or verbal abuse.
However, most researchers and therapists believe that number to be significantly higher in reality.
Why?
Because emotional and verbal abuse have become so much the ‘norm’ that many couples don’t even realize that what they’re doing classifies as such.
So, what is it? 
Emotional/verbal abuse is a pattern of saying and/or doing things that belittle, disrespect, provoke, or hurt another.
Ongoing, but often subtle insinuations regarding one’s trustworthiness, value, and/or sanity … eroding the sense of self, physical health, mental health, and ability to thrive.
That’s my working definition of emotional and verbal abuse.
But any definition fails to simplify its essence without volume. To accurately represent all it entails requires a list of what qualifies as things that’re considered abusive.
If you follow what I publish, you’re aware that I love to provide lists.
Even an abridged list is quite long.
Much too long for me to provide here.
But if you’d like the list, it’s included in a free workbook that you’d be welcome to download by clicking here: https://bit.ly/HealingTraumaOfEmotionalAbuse
As far as how this fits into the ‘fixing what’s been broken’ process…it’s basically the same.
Instead of addressing an event or situation, you address a pattern.
It’s only considered abuse if it is a pattern.
When you read the list, you might think: “I’ve done all of those occasionally.”
Although occasionally is too often … that’s not a pattern. So, you’re addressing patterns by using, ‘Fixing What’s Been Broken’ process.
Patterns can include other things: addictions, lying, etc.
But in this week’s blog, I’m specifically addressing emotional / verbal abuse.
There’s nothing like living in peace.
The challenge is after knowing all your spouse’s idiosyncrasies you know how to head towards neutral ground before you respond.
It’s there and how we find emotional balance to peace.
Oh, so simple but so hard to practice.
(From my AA friend. “Unless a person is willing to address the predictability of their addictive lifestyle nothing happens. This is tough. Because our first layer of struggle is recognizing how predictable our behaviors are that we can’t see as predictable. We view our addiction as an occasional event. That’s the reality that plays out in our heads…yes that’s nuts…that’s addiction! Occasional becomes predictable to everyone but to us … that’s how convincing, deceiving, and abusive addictive thinking becomes.)
After addressing the “pattern” in the Fixing What’s Been Broken process, there are some additional things that I’d like to add.
- The emotional / verbal abuse cannot continue. It MUST stop!
Interestingly, separately both spouses asked me the same question for different reasons.
“Can our relationship make it?”
The husband asked because he wondered if she’d ever get over it or if she would make him pay the rest of their lives?
The wife asked because she wondered if he could or would change and stop the patterns that had left her deeply damaged.
Part of my answer was the same to both: “Any relationship can make it if both partners are devoted to doing what needs to be done!”
Then to the husband, I responded:
“You simply must become willing to acknowledge that you have deeply wounded her and walk through the “Fixing What’s Been Broken” process.”
“Then you must do your part … whatever it takes to recognize and discontinue the patterns of emotional and verbal abuse. Your concern is your pattern of choices, not how she responds.”
“What you are doing is what many do by asking ‘if she’ll get over it’.
You are projecting negativity into the future to avoid addressing issues that are difficult to tackle. But I know you can. And I hope you will…”
“I can assure you, doing so will make you a better man. My guess is that she will gladly let you off the hook when the mental and verbal abuse is absent from the relationship. But leave that up to her. And do not allow it to let yourself off the hook you from doing the work you need to do.”
Then to the wife, I added this:
“Of course, you need to walk through the “Fixing What’s Been Broken” process with him. But then it’s up to you to rebuild your self-confidence, your belief in yourself.”
“Then to set boundaries that will keep those beliefs … and you …intact.”
“If he chooses to learn and grow into better ways of being in partnership with you … then you must become his greatest cheerleader. Noticing his strides forward, appreciating them, and taking them in.”
“But you also must be willing and strong enough to set boundaries with real consequences that are appropriate for when he gets off track.”
I’m sharing my responses to them in order to say the same thing to you. For the relationship to continue, the verbal and or emotional abuse MUST end.
When each partner is willing to do their part, the results are nothing short of beautiful!
Love takes work until it becomes all that you desire and are and share.
Ultimately, what’s the goal? Making love your lifestyle.
- Honesty about the real prognosis.
I’m full of faith and belief that great things can and will happen when two partners work together to heal the relationship.
But I also want to be very forthright and honest about the prognosis with patterns of emotional / verbal abuse.
Because usually the one who’s been verbally and emotionally abused is so beaten down, they find it difficult to assess the situation.
Why?
Because sadly, the ongoing abuse has diminished their self-confidence and their self-esteem. And has magnified with a telescope, their self-doubt.
Here are a few scenarios that will let you know whether your partner is demonstrating a willingness to change … or a refusal to change (which looks like being in denial).
When you: Attempt to set boundaries.
Response of Someone Willing to Change:
Seek to understand the boundary and commit to honoring it.
Response of Someone in Denial:
Challenge the boundary or use weapons of mass confusion and chaos to say things like, “Well, I don’t like boundaries, I think they get misused …”
Or “I’m not a child who needs to be directed and punished …” Or “You’re just trying to control me.”
When you: Share how and why their patterns of verbal and/or emotional abuse have hurt you.
Response of Someone Willing to Change:
Express true remorse and offer comfort and support.
Response of Someone in Denial: Make statements about your ‘oversensitivity’. Challenge your feelings because they didn’t “intend to …” which should erase your feelings. Turn the conversation to how you have hurt them. Interrupt with their commentary.
When you: Ask for what you desire and need.
Response of Someone Willing to Change:
Seek to understand your needs and desires, and make consistent, dependable efforts to deliver what you have asked for.
Response of Someone in Denial:
Challenge your needs and wants as unreasonable. Make promises to meet them to get you to shut up, then make few if any efforts. Belittle you for your wants and needs.
These are just a few examples.
But you get the gist.
If you see patterns of someone in denial … tell yourself the truth.
-Their ongoing patterns of verbal or emotional abuse are likely to continue.
At that point … SET BOUNDARIES.
-With reasonable consequences.
Not threats.
-Boundaries.
And deliver consequences when broken. (I often help people set “progressive” consequences.)
If they continue to stomp on your boundaries.
-You have a big decision to make.
I’m not saying you MUST end the relationship.
But I AM saying you must assess:
- If I stay, can I find a way to feel safe?
- If I stay, can I find a way to protect myself from being diminished as a human?
- If I stay, can I find a way to thrive through outside interests (not affairs or things that burn the relationship to the ground … that’s passive aggressive).
If you can figure that out successfully (and some do) … then you have to decide if that’s what you want.
Abuse is abuse.
I want you to thrive! And I want the person (who may really not understand that what they’re doing is abuse) to become all they were created to be.
Healthy boundaries and good communication make that much more likely!
- Falling in love again.
The couple I worked with via messaging was able to accomplish all these things.
But I received a text from her that I think is quite common at this point in the journey:
“We’ve done the healing exercises, and a couple of times they spun out of control. But we were able to bring it back with your suggestions. I have set my boundaries, and he has committed to them. We have our word that signal each other that we’re falling into old patterns and that’s working OK. But now maybe I’m the problem. I’m just not feeling it! Is there something wrong with me?”
-I was so delighted to hear what sounded like good progress.
-And I validated both of them for their courage to do the work that they had done on their own.
But I’d like to share with you my response to her:
“I understand totally. You’ve been beaten down for years, and now you’re finding yourself again. I’m sure you’re torn between loving what you’re seeing in him, and the fear of trusting again.”
“As long as he’s following his commitments, I would encourage you to keep moving forward. Trust is built with consistent and reliable new behaviors. And I believe when trust is built, the love will feel safe enough to rise again.”
“In the meantime, treat him with as much love and kindness as you can show and still be congruent with your heart. My thoughts and prayers will be with both of you on this new journey.”
Then I sent him this message, validating all the hard work he’d begun to embrace.
“I’d love to encourage you to do the things you did to make her fall in love with you in the beginning. I know that was years ago, but think back, and go the extra mile. Begin doing those things again!”
When someone has been beaten down and begins to rise again. In their worth, in their confidence, in their sense of self … they often feel both foolish and embarrassed.
This can ‘freeze’ their love machine internally.
If you’re doing all the healing work, keeping your word consistently, and honoring boundaries set … there’s one thing you can do to accelerate the ‘melting of their heart’.
Remember what made them fall in love with you.
-Do those things again.
-Reach for their hand.
-Send sweet texts.
-Say sincere I love you’s.
-Plan dates.
It’s like putting a warm towel around someone stepping out of the shower on a chilly day.
The warmth soothes the chill. And melts the heart.
You can do this!
*****
It breaks my heart to see the emotional and verbal abuse that seems like normal communication in so many relationships.
It has become the norm on Netflix, social media, even on newscasts.
If we really took the old proverb seriously: “Greater love has no man than this than to lay down his life for his friends…”
All relationships would look different.
If we loved our partners so much that we’d lay down our lives for them …
- How much more carefully would we speak to them?
- How much more fervently would we treat them with love and kindness?
- How much more diligently would we show our love to them?
No matter who you are or where you came from, no matter where you learned emotional, and or verbal abuse from…who you really are is greater than that.
It’s a way we cope…at the expense of others.
And I know that’s not who you are.
For you who’ve been emotional or verbal abusers at some point in your life, I call forward the real you down inside.
The real you who has a heart of gold.
For you who have been emotionally and /or verbally abused, I call forth your value, your worth, your self-respect, your self-esteem, your self-confidence.
“Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more. Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life’s deepest joy: true fulfillment.”
Tony Robbins