When we think of abuse, we tend to think of physical abuse. When we think of a battered woman, we think of a woman who has been beaten ruthlessly by her spouse or significant other until she has black eyes and is bleeding. It is rare that we ever stop to think about the time leading up to that point. We rarely think about what would make a woman or anyone, for that matter, willing to take that kind of abuse.
The answer is simple. Verbal abuse is what makes someone willing to take it. Verbal abuse starts subtly. Maybe your spouse tells a joke at your expense, then when you take offense, he tells you not to be so sensitive. That will progress to him telling you that you don’t look good in that new dress you just bought, so your dress sits in the closet unworn because you know he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like your hair the way you wear it, so you change styles.
Gradually, over time, the insults increase and the compliments decrease, eroding away at your self-esteem, until eventually it eats up every shred of self-esteem that you ever had. It happens so gradually that you don’t even realize what’s going on until one day when your self-esteem is gone and even things that you once felt competent about doing seem out of reach.
He will tell you that your own friends don’t like you, and talk about how they laugh at you behind your back, successfully alienating you from them. He will alienate you from your family by telling you about how they don’t care about you, and alienate them himself so that you have to believe him
It is at this time that your spouse has gained complete control over your life, because after all, abuse is about control. If he is in control of you, he is free to do anything he wants, but you are not. Verbal abuse gives him the control over your life that he feels he needs. When you think about it, every insult, every comment leading to this point was to make sure he was in control. When he didn’t like your dress, it was to keep you from wearing it and get you to wear the clothes he wanted you to wear. When he didn’t like your hair, it was to make you change it. When he told you that your friends didn’t like you, it was to make sure you had no one to confide in, and so on. Abuse is about control, and no matter how you slice it, that’s all it will ever be about. In fact, verbal abuse is actually a far more effective means of control than physical abuse, because it’s harder to recognize.
