“I didn’t intend to be emotionally abusive, and to be honest, I’m not sure that what I’ve done was actually emotional abuse. At least I hope it isn’t …”
He was only there because his wife was ready to file for divorce.
He only knew because he opened her credit card statement and saw the charge.
Out of curiosity, I asked: “Do you normally open her mail?”
His face reddened a bit as he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever done it before.”
“That makes me wonder if somehow you knew what you were looking for was there?” I asked gently.
“I knew things were different. Very different…I’m not sure I knew what I would find, but I had this feeling…”
I nodded. “Does she know you know?”
“Not yet…”
She had worked with me for about 18 months, but it had been about a year since I had heard from her.
He had come with her a few times but made sure that she knew he was much too busy to come regularly. Assuring her that if she worked some of ‘her stuff’ out with me, all would be well.
I smiled and assured him that I was glad he was there…
Then asked: “What are you hoping to get from our meeting today?”
He chuckled as he commented: “Have you been peeking in on my meetings? That’s my question…”
He shuffled awkwardly for a moment, then admitted: “I guess I was hoping you could tell me that it wasn’t emotional abuse…”
I waited while he organized his next thought.
“And if maybe it is, if you think we could work this out?” he asked timidly.
“I believe every marriage (where two people are willing to do the work) can be worked out,” I commented as I stepped over to my desk and picked up the list of emotional abuse.
As I sat down with it, I said to him, “Let me first give you the definition of emotional/verbal abuse:
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.”
“Most of us have done things on this list, but it’s an ongoing pattern of these things that make it emotionally or verbally abusive.”
“I prefer to have people assess themselves.” Then I handed him the list.
It contained things such as:
- Humiliation
- Yelling
- Surly tone
- Being embarrassed in front of others
- Controlling by using negative outbursts
- Trivializing their partners feelings
- Expecting partner to just ‘get over it’
- Having reality denied or challenged
- Constant and ongoing criticism
- Lack of affirmation
- Living with someone who has little to no compassion
- Gaslighting
- Being demeaned.
- Being told one shouldn’t feel a certain way
- Unpredictability
- Lying
(This is a very short list, but a more extensive list can be found within my workbook that you may download by clicking here):
https://bit.ly/FreeEmotionalAbuseWorkbook
He looked at the list, and turned each page… And then went through them again.
When he looked up, his face was white…
Without addressing the issue at hand, he asked with childlike innocence: “Can it be fixed?”
(Which informed me he saw himself in the list).
I nodded affirmatively, and then said to him what I would like to say to those of you reading this who’ve been guilty of some of these things…
“I want to assure you that I’m on your side.
Not the side that would excuse or defend emotional abuse.
But on the side of who you are.”
“I don’t need to label you or judge you.”
“But I do need to help you assess what led you to a place where you’d do anything that looked like emotional abuse, and help you remember WHO and WHAT you truly are.”
“If you’re willing to work with me and assess how these emotionally abusive tendencies got activated in you … And you’re willing to work on those roots, and then do some healing work with your wife…There is hope.”
“Let’s look at the 3 ways these tendencies normally develop in us. When we identify yours, we can remove it by the root. Then begin the healing process.”
If you have any of those tendencies yourself, I hope you will read along and see where yours could be rooted.
And even if you aren’t one who has been emotionally or verbally abusive in your marriage or relationship, I hope you will read along, in order to recognize and understand others who’ve struggled with this.
Don’t write them off.
Understand them.
And hopefully you will be able to speak some things to them that might inspire them to take a look inside and call forth the best version of themselves.
(From my AA friend: “People in AA recovery are all in throws of emotional instability. Alcohol (their solution) no longer works. They are now the alcoholic version of themselves … short, loud, caustic, reactionary. ONLY a surrender to admitting they have no power to change will change anything. To amend their world means facing the truth of who they’ve become…an emotionally abusive drunk. That’s sobering … pun intended.)”
- A history where emotional abuse occurred often.
“Normally we don’t think too much about this,” I explained to my client. “But most of us assume that what we grew up in was/is ‘normal’.”
“When we grow up in a family, or in a situation where patterns of emotional and verbal abuse are prevalent… We’re programmed to believe that’s the norm,” I commented.
He nodded, but his facial expression told me he was processing something deep within.
I waited.
“My mother was a mean woman. She wore the pants in the family. And you never knew what awful words and awful tones would come out of her mouth next,” he said with great disdain.
He continued with sarcasm, clearly laced with anger: “But then there was Sunday. She showed up at church as the sweetest human on the planet. Everyone adored her.”
“She beat my dad down till he was just a shell of a man. And then when he became immobile and very sick in his later years, she hit him. A lot!”
“Then when she died, the whole town showed up to pay their respects to a woman I never knew. At least not in my home.”
I nodded with compassion and said, “I am so sorry, and I can only imagine how her words hurt you as a young boy.”
He confessed, “I’m not sure that I thought it was normal… But I can see now that I repeated patterns to a lesser extent… And came to believe that I was OK because I wasn’t as bad as her…” His voice tapered as tears filled his eyes.
“And I guess my wife would say that at my office, they get the best of me, and I’m a different man at home…”
He was shaking his head in total disgust.
I reminded him that I didn’t believe that was who he truly was, but he did indeed bring some of those patterns into his marriage.
“When we know better, we do better. And I believe you’re ready to do better?”
I asked.
“If it’s not too late…” he muttered.
I so admire people who can begin to see themselves clearly, and who become willing to make changes that are aligned with who they truly are internally.
“Does your wife know you’re here?” I asked with curiosity.
“Not yet…”
“May I bring her next time?” he asked.
“You’re welcome to bring her, and I would be delighted to see her.”
I paused and continued, “But we will be looking at the other two things, that could have instigated the propensity toward emotional and verbal abuse in you.”
(From my AA friend. “Recovery is the term we use but in fact anyone who desires to change their future has to recover from their past. Science has proven that we medicate what we can’t see or know that’s our past that hums beneath our daily consciousness leading our emotions. The only remedy? Trusting what we can’t see to change what we long to know with the help of those who know how we feel. In short…surrendering it to the God of our understanding.)
What about you?
Did you witness patterns of emotional and or verbal abuse in your home situation early in your life?
If so, stay with me over the next few weeks as we look at how to address these things and call forth your best!
- Feeling less than or out of control.
There is this natural inclination in all of us to try to remedy the feeling of being ‘less than’ or feeling “out of control.”
Most of the time, we don’t realize that we’re struggling with those two things.
All we know is that internally, we need to ‘level the playing field’.
As a result…
-We begin defending ourselves…
-Explaining ourselves…
-And pointing out the faults of the other.
My client had the look of guilt all over his face, and I saw him glance at his wife…Who was nodding in agreement.
“I can see by that nod and grin that you believe I do that. Could you tell me what that looks like?” he asked.
She was eager to bring him up to date!
“Well, I didn’t know that it happened because you feel less than or out of control. But it’s like last week when I was trying to talk to you about the taxes…”
Before she even finished, I could tell he got it.
“I was just reminding you that if we got them in by the end of February, we would get a significant discount,” she said.
He chimed in: “And instead of thanking you, I told you that you’re controlling. And then I accused you of thinking I was stupid.”
She looked surprised that he owned that.
But even more surprised when he said, “Honest to goodness, honey, I didn’t realize that’s what that was.”
She reached out her hand to him and thanked him for acknowledging it.
It was clear it meant the world to her.
“I just never guessed that what was underneath all of that was you feeling less than or out of control,” she said with understanding.
“I’m just going to have to re-evaluate a lot of things,” he affirmed.
If you find yourself explaining, denying, or making accusations…
Perhaps it’s your way of leveling the playing field from feeling less than or out of control.
Just knowing that and acknowledging that will be the beginning of responding very differently…And removing a lot of what actually is emotional and verbal abuse.
(From my AA friend. “There’s no excuse for someone continuing in addiction that’s destroying your serenity. Unless the addict is willing to first acknowledge something is amiss in their emotions that’s keeping their using alive, it’s like fighting fire with gasoline. Surrender has one look; a deer in the headlights signaling I don’t know anymore. That’s the first sign for “I need help”.)
- Unresolved trauma.
When I named unresolved trauma, I could see that the wife was very grateful.
She herself had worked through her own unresolved trauma. And I remember her mentioning to me that she believed he would be different if he worked through his.
On the other hand, when I named unresolved trauma, he winced.
With compassion, I said to him, “It seems that those two words hit a deep nerve?”
“We really don’t have to go there, because it’s no excuse for how I’ve treated her,” he said, with a begging tone.
I nodded and softly remarked, “We aren’t looking at it as an excuse. We are looking at it because what we don’t heal, we repeat.”
I could see the terrified look in his eyes.
“Trauma marks us. It leaves deep brands of messages on our brains, and deep wounding on our hearts,” I explained tenderly.
I reminded him, “I remember several years ago when you came in with her, and you said that you had dealt with all of that and put it in its place.”
With eyes closed, I paused and then continued.
“But I believe buried beneath that trauma are the most wonderful parts of you… Longing to come out,” I said. “And I believe those parts of you would never even go near anything that felt like emotional or verbal abuse.”
After a long pause and tears that escaped despite the blinking, he said, “But what if that part of me is so broken that it cannot function?”
I knew immediately that the real part of him was not an emotional or verbal abuser. But it kept that broken part of him safely tucked away.
Over several sessions, with his devoted wife by his side, he shared his story.
At 7 or 8 years old, he had been shot in a ‘hunting accident’. He barely survived.
But through the years had wondered if it was an accident at all.
He believed that his dad had shot him.
Many more questionable events occurred.
He left home as a teenager, got a false ID and entered the military.
Before he was even of legal age, his fox hole buddy died in his arms.
No matter how strong we are, no matter how stoic we become, these underlying traumatic moments and events dictate our lives.
They dictate our moment to moment…
-Actions…
-Responses…
-Moods.
Identifying your unresolved trauma and doing work to heal it can make all the difference in the world in how you treat others, especially those you love.
I hope you’ll courageously look and embrace any unresolved trauma.
It takes courage, it takes healing, and surrender guarantees both.
But resurrecting that wonderful champion in you will make all the difference in the world.
You deserve that…
And so do those you love…
And those who love you.
*****
I hope this helps you understand why I do not just automatically write someone off because they do things that could be classified as emotional and or verbal abuse.
Deep within them/us/you is a champion…
Longing to be resurrected!
Perhaps there’s someone in your life who has a tendency toward emotional and or verbal abuse. I hope this gives you the courage to see them differently and perhaps guide them to identify what’s really going on within them.
“Your Champion is the one you were born to be: a priceless, precious, innocent dreamer … buried beneath the pain, the shame, trauma, and messaging and beliefs about you and your life … installed on the hard drive of your mind, heart, and spirit. Those things on your hard drive that appeared to have silenced the wonder of the Champion within.”
Dr. Neecie
There’s truly a Champion inside each of us and I’m here to help you RESURRECT that Champion in you…in its purest form.
THAT my friend, is WHO you were meant to be!
LET’S DO THIS!!