Anyone have suggestions for loving someone who was emotionally abused?

My wife was called names like: stupid, ugly, skinny, lazy, liar. She was woken up in the middle of the night and forced to look for random objects for her mother. She was forced to clean in the wee hours of the morning. She wasn't allowed to go to camps or do many of the fun things normal children do.

She was frequently made to feel incompetent. For example, if she was cutting carrots, she was doing it wrong and her mother yanked the knife out of her hands. She was chased by her mother, she was essentially trapped in her house by her mother (although she would duck under her mom's arms and run out).

Her sister was shown favoritism...the list goes on.

In a way, I feel that my wife "held in" the patterns of abuse until we got married. She has a very loving spirit and soul, however, her past basically became my present...and she started yelling at me a lot, she started criticising, she wouldn't work, she would barely leave our apartment, she would sleep a lot.

All of these things have improved with a lot of prayer, counseling, books, etc., however, I'd like to ask for suggestions, feedback, book suggestions, etc. here.

In particular, suggestions for how I can "be" when my wife is yelling at me would be very helpful. How can I "be" when she is calling me names? How can I "be" when I feel abused by her?

Is there a way for me to help her decide to turn the situation around?

Things have been improving a lot, I just thought there may be some helpful suggestions out there for me/us.

Best,
D--

A very good book that addresses this is "Bad Childhood, Good Life," by Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Your wife can change if she wants to change and is given the proper motivation. In other words, she will only dish out what she knows you will tolerate.

That doesn't mean that you respond to her abuse with more abuse, but that you let her know that you are not available to be abused and that she needs to knock it off. If you sit there and allow it, you will only embolden her and it will get worse until she HATES you for allowing her to get away with it.

Have you introduced her to Marriage Builders principles? MB principles pretty much preclude abuse.

Hope that helps. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

D--

My husband and I went through this (I was the abused child). During one fight, he looked at me right in the eyes and quietly said, "Schoolbus, I am fighting about the laundry. I don't know what you are fighting about, but it isn't the laundry."

He encouraged me to get help that night - and I did. Our interactions from that moment on changed drastically.

He just drew my attention to the fact that my anger was coming from another place, another time. Try that approach, direct, calm, truth.

SB

Thanks for the pointers...I've said very similar things to my wife, and she is sometimes open to such commentary. Other times, she just shuts it out.

It's amazing how just talking to her mother on the phone turns my wife into an abuser. Her mother will call, my wife will be abusive or disrespectful to me, it's like opening a door.

Her mother is coming to visit. Frankly, I wish I could expect better things. I want to use "The Secret" in order to transform the whole situation...but my mother in law is really an incredibly angry and abusive person. One of my wife's siblings abuses her children and has been close to losing her children (beating her children in public, yelling at her children for no reason, etc.).

My mother in law has called me every single bad name in the book, and she's even made up a few. But now I think I know why. It's because she knows I see what she's done to her children. It's because she knows that I live with the damage she caused every day of my life, and she somehow feels like she needs to justify herself. At least...that's a guess I came up with recently.

Yes, I've had arguments that weren't even fights about really simple things like laundry, cleanliness, dishes, the bathroom, the living room, sleeping in on weekdays, etc. etc., but my wife seems to be battling something else. Good tip. She's not arguing about the laundry or the dishes, she's still trying to recover from her childhood. She'll turn simple household discussions into fights.

I'm tired of the pattern. I'm also close to being on "empty" with regard to my own personal desire to be understood, heard, loved, listened to, admired, desired, smiled at, laughed with, told how cool I am, etc. In a way, I don't know how to "get" acknowledgement or how to involve my wife in seeking to understand me...but I feel like I'm running out of gas. I work on me...I really do. I have a healthy lifestyle. It's just that I feel like I'd be abandoning my wife if I only concentrated on "me" at this time. In a way, I feel like she really needs to "wake up." I didn't realize that she's not very good at making or keeping friends...she's also not good at making or keeping agreements...and I'd like her to just wake up to that fact and focus on a life of improvement and joy.

I bring up topics related to me, my life, my needs, my desires...but generally, my wife gives a quick response, possibly an inadequate "solution" to what she thinks is my "problem," and then everything goes back to being about her.

It's amazing how quickly we go back to fixing her life, her issues, her situation...and how quickly I am forgotten.

It's not at that point yet, but I don't know what I would do if I met a woman that actually listened to me. One that cared enough to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling...giving me attention and love without making me beg for it.

I don't think it's right of me to seek the companionship I need elsewhere. Also, I don't like the sexual reversal in my situation...what I mean is that my wife tends to be so emotionally removed that I need to take over the the traditionally "feminine" role in the marriage. Then again, in a way, I've taken over most of the possible roles in our marriage, and my wife has taken the role of "unhappy, unmotivated, at times angry, unmovable, spoiled child." Or maybe she can be eqauted with a really fuzzy beautiful doggie...but when the guests leave...the she starts biting my hands, scratching the furniture and pooping all over the place and barking at me to clean it up. Then, after she's done barking, biting, and damaging our property, she'll be nice.

So, how do you show unconditional love to someone who, for example, mistreats your property to the point of damaging it?

Telling my wife that I won't "take" her abusive behavior does very little good. We both live in the same apartment, and if she wants to live in a pigsty, according to her, I'm not "loving her as she is," if I want to clean up.

She tells me I'm not loving her as she is, but she can't "BE" an abuser and be loved. She can't expect me to enjoy being yelled at, called names, ignored, discounted, etc.

She's called me overbearing before...but it will be after we've talked for an hour about her, I've summarized everything she says to her satisfaction, she feels happy and fulfilled, and I try to tell her about something that's going on in my life. She won't summarize. I'll ask her to. She'll try to summarize, and she'll be way off with regard to what I'm talking about. I'll try to boost her confidence and say, "hey this isn't very complicated," then she'll be insulted and think I'm calling her stupid (like her mother used to), she'll shut down...we try again later (minutes, hours, months), I say "I was not trying to make you feel stupid when I said that what I was thinking about wasn't complicated." She'll accept it. OK, we can move forward. I repeat some topic, she gives me a quick solution that can only come from a very cursory understanding of what I'm talking about...also, I never asked for a solution. I don't even see what we're talking about as a problem...she then says "well what are we talking about if it's not a problem?"

Goodness!

Is everything in the world a problem? Why would a person only speak about problems? Maybe I'm talking about a topic that I would like to discuss. Maybe the topic could significantly improve our marriage or our finances or our health or maybe it's not even about us...maybe it's a topic I'm just interested in. Maybe I have a product idea I'd like to run past her. Maybe I'd like to have dialog with someone that cares enough to understand before giving advice, feedback, solutions, opinions, etc.

It's all about her being raised in a way that robs power from others. I talk with her about something...she snaps out an inadequate solution without really even listening = she solved the problem, and I'm to stupid to do it. That's the pattern from her mother. Don't listen, command, get angry, blame, make negative comments about other people, be a racist, etc. etc. etc.

Denial leads one to state that my niece and nephew that have "problems," she has a learning disability...he has a speech impediment and was given medication...but in reality, those children (my wife's sibling's children) were abused and they are therefore less intelligent, less healthy, and more socially challenged than others.

My wife's sibling caused the damage to those children and I watched it happen. They were both really bright wonderful babies.

My wife was and is very upset with her sibling, which makes me think that my wife has her head screwed on straight...but I wish she wouldn't treat me the way her sibling treats her children, or the way her mother treated her, or the way her mother treats her husband.

So, I'll pick up that book, but maybe that would be "me" solving my wife's problems.

Is there anything available specifically for husbands of wives who've been abused? Ways to build love and not "avoid" conflict and thereby the resolutions to our conflicts.

Best,
D--

D--,

I was married to a woman very much like your wife. Probably she had even more issues because she was born in a war, orphaned, and adopted before all that abuse began. Your description of your wife's upbringing sounds almost exactly like that which my ex-wife experienced - and the behaviour you describe sounds eerily familiar.

I'm divorced - so it would be fair to say that I didn't figure out how to cope with it while preserving the marriage.

Do you have any children? I'm guessing not.

In my ex-wife's case, caring for her own child forced her to reevaluate her upbringing - and know - really understand that the way her mother treated her was wrong. It often, however, does not turn out like that. Often the abused turn out to be abusers themselves.

So, I certainly don't suggest having a child as a possible cure.

I learned some things - very very slowly.

I learned that when I really stood up to her, she respected that - and further, that she felt loved when I stood up to her. I can't analyse all the reasons why that might be true, although I've some ideas of the mechanisms of it.

I remember one day about 5 years ago....

This was during a time when we were semi-separated. To be more exact, she had insisted on getting an appartment and had moved out - but over time I had begun to be there with her at least half the time.

On this occasion, we started to go for a walk one night with our little daughter (probably age 1.5 years) in the stroller. She (wife) started shouting at me - on the street.

... I've got to go read a bedtime story. I'll post the rest of it later.

-AD

... continuing

On this occasion, we started to go for a walk one night with our little daughter (probably age 1.5 years) in the stroller. She (wife) started shouting at me - on the street. She came up with every insulting name to call me in two languages. I was surprised, because earlier in the evening everything seemed to be peaceful between us. I started to say "Well, if you want to walk by yourself, I'll just go", and without stopping the stream of insults, she started mixing in between them pleas for help. In one sentence she would unleash an insult, in the next, she would say "Please help me stop!".

That was a real eye-opener. We made it through that.

I learned a few lessons altogether along the way

1) If she attacked me physically, I left the house immediately. She always responded by calling me repeatedly on the phone to beg me to return. I usually gave it a couple of hours - usually didn't answer the phone for the first hour or so. Upon my return, she would be remorseful and calm - not always staying that way, but at least entering that condition for awhile.

2) I tried very hard not to be defensive. By "defensive", I mean that I did not attempt to refute her criticisms, insults etc., by logical responses. If, for example, she would critisize the way I did something and back that up with a stream of name-calling, I would not respond directly to that issue. That issue was rarely the real issue. ( If she had a real issue, she would have to address it respectfully.) Instead, I tried to remain calm, avoid becoming angry, listen to her for a bit. I think this is very important and quite helpful. (But often extremely difficult in the face of severe provocation).) Defensiveness always resulted in esculation. (sp?)

3) Stand up to outrageous demands and the like. Do not let her push me into something unreasonable. This is an issue related to respect. When she was allowed to push me around, she lost respect for me.

4) Occasionally, not often, it was possible to break through the entire thing by reacting not with anger but with compassion. She, in fact, told me later that if I had just reached out for her - and held her in the midst of her rage, it would have quickly brought the episode to an end. In practice, this is almost impossible - like trying to hug a leapard before it leaps upon your neck. But, once in a while, it worked.

Enough numbering...

She explained to me later what happened within her in some of these situations. In the midst of it, to me, it seemed that she was wired backwards - that whatever I did that I would have thought would be positive had negative effects and vise-versa.

She said that when she began an episode of verbal abuse, she saw herself and knew that what she was doing was terrible - then, she was embarrased - then, her mind persuaded her that I had made her treat me like that - and since she didn't enjoy treating me that way, she became angry with me for making her behave so shamefully - and thus the spiral wound.

So, if there is any way to allow her an out - a graceful exit without a full confrontation, it can avoid the embarassment - and the shame and all of that. If you can somehow meet hositilty with humor (but not as if you are making fun of her, to which my wife was oversensitive and often imagined when I was not), then you have a chance to defuse the eppisode before it fully explodes.

By the way, I had the same experience of feeling that every interaction between us was all about her - and that she did not listen to me nor care about me. Occasionally, she would attempt to pretend interest in some aspect of my life, but it was plainly unnatural for her and she usually would quickly drop it.

I do think it is not hopeless - and I see changes in my ex-wife - very much change from the first year of our marriage. But I do believe that this behaviour pattern makes a real marriage impossible.

Good luck to you, man.

-AD

Any news, D--?

I've read some of your earlier posts. It seems we were married to quite similar women. You have a lot of insight on the situation. I thought I did too. Ultimately, I divorced her due to her persistent relationship with another man - not because of all the abuse she heaped upon me.

I'm sorry I missed your threads before. I have been trying for some time to get clear of the MarriageBuilders forum. But, if I can help you, I'd be glad to discuss with you my experiences with a woman who is very much like your wife.

My wife also had an abusive upbringing - with the added twist of having been adopted after being orphaned in war.

She's a good mom, though.

For books - I've been through a lot of them.

Look at Ambiguous Loss, by Pauline Boss .

It may not seem like an obvious connection for your wife - since she did not have the war experience, but I think you might find some helpful things in it.

If your wife is like my ex-wife...

I think my ex-wife was afraid to be close to anybody - because the only close relationships she had known were abusive. She longed to have a close, safe relationship with her mother - and when I tried to become close to her, something within her was angry - and grieving that relationship that she had never been able to have with her mother.

Just like your wife, before we were married, she was always respectful to me and affectionate to me. After we married, it was as if she became a different person. Once I came inside her walls - she treated me as an enemy. Ah, I wish there was one simple explaination.

It's best, of course, to keep all of this on the forum, but I may miss your posts. You can email my anonymous yahoo address. The user name is mb11094.

-AD

Anything new from D--?

Things have been getting better and better. We might just pull through this.

Best,
D--