Welcome to AbuseCare! AbuseCare is designed to be a place of hope and healing for women of faith who have experienced domestic abuse in marriage or long-term relationship. Through weekly blog articles, resources, and coaching, we educate and equip women to recognize, safely remove themselves from, and recover from domestic abuse (the 3 R’s).
In the next several blog articles, we will be focusing on emotional abuse, the basis of all abuse.
Many people have watched the video of NFL player Ray Rice punching out his then-girlfriend and dragging her limp body out of the elevator, and have concluded that that is what domestic abuse is. Many women have naively told themselves, “At least he doesn’t’ hit me, so it’s not abuse,” or “He’s just high maintenance and has a big personality,” or “He can be difficult, but he still loves me. ” Christian women, even more so than other women, are in denial that they are actually in an abusive relationship. Therefore, women of faith stay in abusive relationships far longer than other women. However, physical abuse, like the kind on display in the Ray Rice video, is only a part of what is considered abuse.
What is Abuse? Who Are the Abusers?
Abuse is a comprehensive set of behaviors and attitudes designed to gain and maintain power and control over others. Abusers are characterized by a lack of conscience, lack of empathy, lack of remorse, lack of repentance, and using others for their own selfish needs. They have an insatiable need for power and control, especially over their wife or intimate partner. The overwhelming majority of abusers have Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Anti-Social Personality Disorder, from which we get sociopaths and psychopaths. These are permanent, untreatable, incurable personality disorders.
Emotional Abuse is Domestic Abuse
Emotional abuse is the starting point, the root, the gateway, of all other abuses. All abusers engage in emotional abuse. It is the most common type of abuse. Emotional abuse is present in all abusive situations. If a woman has experienced physical, sexual, financial, or spiritual abuse, you can be sure that she experienced emotional abuse first. The purpose of all abuse is to destroy another’s spirit – that inner soul which makes her a person. An abuser uses emotional and verbal abuse to emotionally destroy his spouse or intimate partner by humiliation, ostracism, cruelty, making her think she is crazy, and turning her family and friends against her. The scars from emotional and verbal abuse are internal. Although they cannot be seen, they are no less devastating than outward physical scars. Emotional and verbal abuse wounds the very spirit of a person. While physical and sexual wounds often heal, the wounds of the spirit take a very long time to heal, if they ever do.
The Relationship with a Narcissist/Sociopath/Psychopath or Other Domestic Abuser
Unlike healthy marriages, a marriage with a Narcissist/Sociopath/Psychopath or other domestic abuser is emotionally, spiritually and physically devastating for the partner and the children. The NSP attacks the very spirit and soul of his partner in his efforts for control and power, and views his children as trophies to be controlled and manipulated. In comparison to the various views of healthy relationships described by psychologists and theologians, in this series, we will look at the unhealthy relationship with an NSP through those same lenses.
