Spousal Emotional Abuse

Spousal emotional abuse

The relationship of marriage can have as its basis many things, love, religious values, career and lifestyle compatibility, and emotional need. The first things mentioned are all good reasons, but it is the latter reason, emotional need that we will focus on here. While that may seem like a good foundation for marriage, it is actually a very bad one. We will talk about that, which is why it is not the partner’s responsibility to get their spouse’s emotional needs met, and more. Spousal emotional abuse is about understanding individual responsibilities and personal boundaries.

Hi! Welcome to our website. Thank you for visiting us. If you or a loved one is in a marriage where the partner is in spousal emotional abuse, we give you every respect and sympathy. We will talk about what the partner can do to remedy that situation. If you are an outsider, and your intent is to involve yourself, and save the victim, that will not work, and we will discuss why, here as well. In a case of spousal emotional abuse, it is the victim’s responsibility to save their self, for all you can do is help them see their plight, and let them make the life enhancing choice. On this subject, there are many points to cover to understand the situation in its entirety, so let us get to work!

Emotional abuse of one person usually begins in the parent-child relationship. In rare cases, there seems to be the phenomenon of what we call genetic evil, or genetic immorality. That is the rare case where someone who had an emotionally complete child hood, still chose to hurt others as an adult, by virtue of their non-intimate personality. In most cases, parental emotional abuse of the child results in a non-intimate hostile adult, who commits spousal emotional abuse on their mate. The reasons for the abuser’s choices do not matter, what really matters is the reason for the victim to have a relationship with the abuser. It is the bond of the abused to the abuser, which is the key to solving the whole imbalance of power.

Spousal emotional abuse can only end if the victim chooses to end it. The abuser rarely will decide that enough is enough, and seek to change their ways. If that were to happen, as in the case of someone with a newfound interest in self-help and emotional healing, the victim might well leave the abuser to find another spouse to abuse them. In the realm of psychology and emotional healing, the one cardinal law is ‘you cannot force a person to live at a level higher than they think they deserve.’

If you are involved in a marriage, where your partner is subjecting you to spousal emotional abuse, there are a few options you have from which to choose. The first approach, if your abuser is passive, meaning not necessarily intending to hurt you, but still is failing to get your emotional needs met, with casual criticism of you, is to talk to them. Before you do that, take some time to search out your feelings and your needs, and compare them to what corrections your spouse needs to make. Consider the four Soul Boundaries below and see how your thought life compares, before talking to your spouse. This will better help you see exactly what they are doing or not doing to hurt you.

All spousal emotional abuse is an act of violation of your dignity. The violation of your dignity happens with disrespect of four areas of your personhood. These areas are our Soul Boundaries. Just as your body has its physical boundaries, so too does your Soul have its spiritual boundaries. The first area is ‘seeing things through your own eyes.’ Abusers often argue that their abuse is not abuse because they love you, are only looking out for your own best interest or some other garbage excuse, and cover up. What they are really trying to do is take away your seeing things as you see them through your own eyes, and force you to see things as they see them. That would be very convenient for their purposes. In all things, we see through our own eyes, we need and deserve deep respect of our views. Abusers deny that respect, and even ridicule our very god-given viewpoint on everything.

The second violation of your dignity your abuser will take away from you is your right to ‘feel your own feelings.’ Abusers will often argue with their victims that they are too emotional, or that their feelings are out of context and out of proportion, or immature. If they can get you to see your feelings as a source of shame and guilt for having them, then that will suit their agenda perfectly. The last thing any abuser needs is their victim reinforced in feeling their own feelings without any guilt or shame when anyone violates their boundaries. In all of our emotional thought life, we need and deserve deep respect of our feelings. We need and deserve to feel comforted and well loved, and have a sense of wellbeing at all times. Abusers intentionally take that away first thing, to get us to need approval from, and psychologically become dependent upon them.

Once the offender has done that, they will proceed to the next level of soul violation. That level is ‘thinking your own thoughts.’ The abuser will argue their rationality in all things and try to get their victim, you to think like them, which of course means seeing yourself in the same helpless way as they see you, and convincing you that they are protecting you from the big bad world. The victim of spousal emotional abuse must also see outsiders and the world as ‘the evil’ and the abuser as the protector from that evil. They are the knight in shining armor, and the hero, and you the victim must think they are as well, for they are doing you the favor. In all of our mental life, we need and deserve to think our own thoughts, and receive full respect for those thoughts, simply because they are a part of us. God made us as us, not as someone else with his or her thought patterns. Abusers ridicule their victims thought patterns as being too emotional, hypersensitive, sentimental, immature, or irrational simply because it does not match their way of thinking. To ask them, they will tell us that their way of thinking is the only right way, and all other ways of thought are wrong.

The last area of soul violation is taking away your right to ‘make your own choices.’ Once the victim has given up the rights to the first three areas of soul activity, loss of the last one is soon to happen. The victim of spousal emotional abuse must at some point in time, give up making his or her own choices on everything. The abuser must do all the decision making for their victim, even in areas where the victim should normally have the final say. The assumption of incompetence and unworthiness goes beyond seeing, feeling, thinking, and extends to making your own choices as well. If you ask the abuser, nobody can do it better for you than them. One of the strongest signs of spousal emotional abuse is the role of making the victims choices for them, in the pretense of helping them, or protecting them from themselves. Inside our Soul’s boundaries is the responsibility for making our own choices. We need to take responsibility to act in our own behalf, and take the credit if we do well, and take the blame if we fail, for that is as it should be. We deserve respect for our choices from others, and not have others second-guess our wishes for our selves. Our will and our preferences are part of us, and we deserve deep respect for those aspects of us, for who and what we are.

Now let is talk about some remedies. If you are the abuser, and are no longer happy with the quality of your life, we are glad you are reaching out for some help. I was an abuser myself, and after getting sick of hurting others, and tired of my own empty life, I immersed myself in the world of the mind and emotions. I came to realize the pain in my heart was a storm that did not have to be there, and worked my way through it, after many years. Now the storm is gone and all is well.

Now I will tell you how to have a sense of real power. The lack of power you presently feel, is available another way. Right now, you try to force him or her to need you to get your sense of power, with abuse, to coerce submission. Instead of seeking to rob your loved one of his or her power to see, feel, think, and choose, as a way to get him or her to need you, do the opposite. Give them back their control of all four areas mentioned above. The greatest power you could ever feel is when your spouse chooses to be with you willingly because he or she loves you and chooses to make a life with you. By letting them go, they will stay. By trying to imprison them, they will leave.

If you are the victim of spousal emotional abuse, and the talking approach did not work, then the only option is the nuclear option. Since abusers are not keen on surrendering any of the rights of their victims back in any way, you will have to take them back by force. It is also an all or nothing proposition. You cannot take back some of your personhood rights, and let the abuser remain in your mind for the other rights, for it does not work. You must begin practicing all four of your soul’s functions at once. Memorize these four things and practice them every day, seeing things through my own eyes, feeling my own feelings, thinking my own thoughts, and making my own choices. When your abuser attempts to argue their viewpoint, disagree if it is not as you see it. You are half of the equation, and your view matters tremendously, and getting your selfish nurturement needs met matters equally to theirs. If your abuser seeks to humiliate you for your strong feelings about something that bothers you, remember, it is your feelings and you do not have to justify feelings or opinions to anyone, for they are part of you. If your abuser tries to get you to think like them, remind them and yourself that you do not think like them, nor should you have to. There as many right ways to see, feel and think in any given setting as there are persons in that setting! One of our cardinal rules in emotional recovery from spousal emotional abuse is; there is never any immorality in individuality. Being ‘different’ is not being ‘wrong.’

If your abuser refuses to cooperate in the relaxation of the binds upon you, and further attempts to abuse you, then the next step in the process is to break contact in all areas. In the liberation of the Self, it is either all or nothing. The only way that works in these types of spousal emotional abuse is to strike hard, strike fast, and strike deep. Once you have chosen to liberate yourself from the ties that bind you, then you must do it all the way. One word about faith and God’s help in this matter here; if you see fit to leave an abusive relationship, God will provide the necessary resources to aid you in going it alone. Any time you choose to act in your soul’s best interest, God will open a door for you to go through, for that is the way of God, Love, and The Loving Mother Universe. If you reach out to co-workers, friends, or family outside the home, and you look for it, there will be a place for you to go.

Spousal emotional abuse is a matter of convenience in most cases. There can be other victims of the spouse abuser, such as a coworker, or employee. To a dysfunctional predator, it does not matter what the relationship. Any target of opportunity is fine, student, elderly, needful child, or someone lonely with weak sense of boundaries will do nicely.

The journey into spousal emotional abuse is a long and complicated one. The journey out of bondage through recovery will require much effort, but can happen faster than you think; if you apply the lessons, life is trying to teach you. If you are the victim, the first steps must begin with you. You must initiate all the effort and make the first moves on your own. Others cannot do it for you, they can help, and provide resources as you go. However the bottom line is, this is about your life, and your show, and you will have to call all the shots. If your life is not worth your effort, then it is certainly not worth any one else’s effort either. You are the one with the most vested interest in your happiness and in getting your own needs met. If you do not see your life and emotional estate as worth your time, neither will anyone else, for that is as it should be. In addressing spousal emotional abuse, it is no longer about the abuser; it is about how you respond to the abuser. In addressing your own spousal emotional abuse situation, it is not about how you feel about your abuser, it is about how you feel about ‘you.’ And that in the end is the most important relationship of all, and that is you to yourself. Our book below will help you write a happy ending to your story.

Below please consider our first in series book Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind. In this book, we talk about our journey through our abuse setting of Egypt; also, we talk about the overview of our soul’s journey as we follow our heart’s dreams to our ultimate destiny. We answer many questions about our boundaries, selfishness, prosperity, psychotherapy, and finding our dreams and happiness. We also talk about the spiritual controls we have within to bring our good to us. Those controls are our Sincerity Switch, Spontaneity Switch, and lastly our Feelings and Dreams Switch.

Please keep in touch, sharing your trials and your victories with us. We promise to answer personally every Email that we receive. There is an answer for how to handle spousal emotional abuse. We are excited that you are reaching out and seeking new insight here for a broader and more empowered life.

Thank you for visiting us!

Shayne and Lori North

Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind The Book

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