VerbalAbuseI

Verbal Abuse Part I: What Is It? This is the first article in a series on verbal abuse, adapted partly from a leader's guide on verbal abuse published by K-State University. This is a secular consideration limited to the topic of abusive verbal communication. Refer to A Commentary on Religious Issues in Family Violence for a brief treatment of the biblical concept of submission.

In the 1990s the Geftakys Assemblies promoted teaching about wife training. Husbands were taught to insist on instant obedience and submission from their wives, no matter how ridiculous the demand. There was to be no hesitation, no questioning, no complaining. Here are a few examples and comments about this gleaned from various sources.

This kind of atmosphere was a breeding ground for verbal abuse. The closed authoritarian Assembly system imposed an immature dependency on the members that prevented them from questioning this teaching. Normal listening and negotiating skills between spouses were extinguished. Husbands were being trained to imitate a narcissistic leader, with all that implies of self-importance, arrogance, lack of empathy, exploitation of others and feeling of entitlement.

The material in this series of articles provides a starting place for discussion between husbands and wives about the Assembly requirements. Some Assembly husbands may not have had a natural inclination toward control or narcissism, and for them, discussion might be all that is needed for change. Others, however, may have had a more controlling or narcissistic nature to begin with. In such cases, verbal abuse is only one component in a larger picture. This series begins with aspects of verbal abuse, but includes help to identify other aspects of control and abuse. See Part II and Part III.

The K-State leader's guide outlines some of the characteristics of verbal abuse from the book, The Verbally Abusive Relationship, by Patricia Evans. It also provides some clear distinctions between verbal abuse and common communication problems that are unintentionally hurtful.

Characteristics of Verbal Abuse

Withholding - Refusing to share ideas, feelings, intimacy, thoughts, dreams.
Countering - Disputing the partner's thoughts, feelings, perceptions, experiences; arguing any point or idea.
Discounting - Minimizing the partner's accomplishments or experiences.
Abusive jokes - Telling jokes about the partner that humiliate and embarrass.
Blocking and diverting - Creating verbal barriers to the partner's efforts to communicate; changing the conversation to gain control.
Accusing and blaming - Blaming the partner for the abuse, which excuses the abuser's actions.
Judging and criticizing - Putting down the partner's thoughts, actions or feelings.
Trivializing - Pretending that the partner's opinions, actions, thoughts or concerns don't count or are trivial.
Undermining - Eroding the partner's self-confidence and self-esteem.
Threatening - Implying harm to the partner's well-being or the well-being of the children.
Name calling - Stripping away the partner's identity and replacing it with a minimizing or degrading epithet - "the wife", "the hag."
Chronic forgetting - Forgets appointments, special days, agreements, incidents.
Ordering and commanding - obvious displays of power and control.
Denial of anger and abuse - Denying the partner's reality and the abuser's fault.
Abusive anger - Aggressive outbursts that are threatening, and may escalate to physical violence.

Any of these verbal weapons used regularly erode self-esteem and the capacity to act independently. They create shame and humiliation. They are methods to manipulate, weaken and control the victim. Assembly wife-training explicitly encouraged at least half a dozen of these verbal weapons.

When is verbal conflict not verbal abuse?

Presumably, couples have been moving away from their Assembly behavior in some ways in the last four years. But quite apart from Assembly training, men and women in general tend to have some communications problems in our culture that sometimes result in painful situations.

Research studies show that there are gender differences in the way people communicate. Conversation style differences between genders are neither good nor bad, but differences taken to extremes can be hurtful and lead to misunderstanding for both people.

Some of the key differences between typical male and female conversation styles include the following.

Women tend to focus on connections in and between relationships. Intimacy, sharing and teamwork are concepts that most women find comfortable. They may try to create a community of connections and bonding with others by talking about issues and problems. Men more often focus on independence and status. They tend to be more comfortable with competition and conflict, and may attempt to achieve bonding in an environment where status and competition thrive. Women who go to extremes to avoid competition and conflict can be easily exploited. Men who avoid the involvement of sharing and teamwork become isolated. "

Consequently, if a husband initiates an atmosphere of competition and conflict in a marriage, because that's how he is used to building intimacy with his guy friends, and his wife goes to extremes to avoid this kind of involvement, she is at risk for being exploited. For example, a wife suggests they eat at restaurant X. The husbands asserts his independence and superior gourmand prowess by telling her, "No, no, XXX is much better." Not that he strongly prefers that particular restaurant so much as he wants to establish status, and bond with his wife through low key give and take. She, however, wants to avoid conflict at any cost, so she defers to him. The wife's preferences are negated, and the husband gets his way simply because their typical conversational style tend to stifle negotiation and compromise.

Note that the above example doesn't take into consideration any outside influence on the couple. When Assembly teaching on the submission of women is factored in, the exploitation and stifling is exponentially increased.

Men talk more than women in public, while women talk more than men in private. In public, men tend use conversation to command attention, convey information and insist on agreement. They sometimes use talk as a weapon. When they retreat to the safety of home, they no longer feel compelled to talk to protect their status, so they retreat into a peaceful silence. But home is the arena where a woman is more comfortable talking. She talks to him, wanting to bond through sharing, and through discussing issues and problems, but he doesn't really want to talk much. One researcher notes that the man who dominates the home conversation with verbal abuse is taking his "public talk" to an inappropriate extreme.

Women tend to be more compliant than men, and use more "hedge" language such as, "It seems to me," "Don't you think..?," "I might be wrong, but..." In nonverbal interactions, women are more likely to lower their eyes or blink in response to a man's direct stare, move away if crowded by a man, or smile if a man frowns. A woman's nonverbal responses to male dominance tend to perpetuate female powerlessness. Men, on the other hand, use language with clear intentions, and interrupt women almost twice as much as women interrupt men. Interrupting gives men more control over conversation and its outcome.

A recognition of gender differences is necessary to identify whether or not words have become weapons intentionally. An awareness of the differences will help a woman determine whether an argument is about a real conflict or about conversational "fighting" styles. In the heat of verbal conflict, it is often difficult to determine if the argument is actually hostile. But if the conflict purposely humiliates, belittles, or degrades, there is no confusion whether or not the conflict stems from conversational style differences; it's obviously abuse.

Victims of verbal abuse will find it especially difficult to acknowledge that her spousal conflicts are not just due to conversational style differences, but are a way to degrade and control. A woman who has been verbally or emotionally abused might feel more submissive, confused, and self-blaming than a woman who has experienced physical abuse only. A woman with bruises or a swollen lip knows she has been abused. Emotional or verbal abuse is sometimes so complex and bewildering it is difficult to name and to take action against. If it can't be clearly identified, the victim may believe she is imagining it, or worse, that she is causing it.

 To learn what you can do about verbal abuse, see Verbal Abuse Part II: What Can You Do About It
 To learn about other unique aspects of verbal abuse in the Assembly and other 'upscale marriages', see Verbal Abuse Part III: Is There More To It?
 To assess whether you might be in an abusive relationship, ask yourself some questions.
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