Information on this page will educate you on how to recognize the situation.. Say this prayer, asking God to open your eyes to show you the truth, open ears to hear and and mind to receive:
           Father God,  I need your help to see and recognize what is in my situation. My heart is open to you and to your truth. Please guide me in the right direction as I am learning that you created me for love. In Jesus name, Amen.
    Sometimes it take several times to read the same pages to really admit what ir written is exactly your situation. I encourage you to read more then once.

 The following questions are designed to help you determine if you are experiencing verbal or emotional abuse in a relationship.


   1. He seems irritated or angry with you several times a week or more although you hadn't meant to upset him. You are surprised each time. (He says he's not mad when you ask him what he's mad about, or he tells you in some way that it's your fault.)

   2. I cannot express my anger or my opinion for fear of my spouse/partner's reaction.

   3. When you feel hurt and try to discuss your upset feelings with him, you don't feel as if the issue has been fully resolved, so you don't feel happy and relieved, nor do you have a feeling that you've "kissed and made up." (He says, "You're just trying to start an argument!" or in some other way expresses his refusal to discuss the situation.)

   4. You frequently feel perplexed and frustrated by his responses because you can not get him to understand your intentions.

   5. I sometimes feel numb inside.

   6. You are upset not so much about concrete issues-how much time you spend with each other, where to go on vacation, etc. - as about the communication in the relationship: what he thinks you said and what you heard him say.

   7. You sometimes wonder, "Whats wrong with me? I shouldn't feel so bad."

   8. I constantly manipulate myself, my children and my environment in order to make things just "so" for my spouse/partner.

   9. He rarely, if ever, seems to want to share his thoughts or plans with you.
 
  10. He seems to take opposite view from you on almost everything you mention, and his view is not qualified by "I think" or "I believe" or "I feel" - as if your view were wrong and his were right.

  11. You sometimes wonder if he perceives you as a separate person.

  12. I try and try to please my spouse/partner only to find that my efforts still do not please him.

  13. You can't recall saying to him, "Cut it out!" or "Stop it!"

  14.He is either angry or has "no idea of what you're talking about" when you try to discuss an issue with him.

  15. I am confused about the differences in the way my spouse/partner views our relationship and the way I see it.
 
  16. I often feel totally alone.

  17. I am beginning to believe all the terrible things my spouse/partner says about me and and accuses me of. Sometimes I am not sure what is real anymore. Maybe I am going crazy.

  Begin to trust your instincts about your situation. How do uou feel about what is happening to you?
   

  Verbal abuse may be overt, such as angry outburst directed at the partner or an attack along the lines of, "you're too sensitive." Or it may be covert, hidden, as in the case of "I don't know what you're talking about", when in fact the abuser does know.
  Covert verbal abuse is subversive because of its indirect quality. it is a covert attack or coercion. This kind of abuse has been described as "crazymaking." It is "a form of interpersonal interaction that results from repression of intense aggression and which seriously impairs its victim's capacity to recognize and deal with the interpersonal reality." (Bach and Goldberg, 1974, p.251)
  George R. Bach and Ronald M. Deutsch, in their book Stop! You're driving me Crazy (1980, pp 272-273), state:

   Of value in teaching recognition of the crazymaking experience is the following checklist:

  1. Feeling temporarily thrown off balance and momentarily unable to right oneself.
  2. Feeling lost, not knowing where to turn, searching aimlessly.
  3. Being caught off guard.
  4. Feeling disconnected, confused, disoriented.
  5. Feeling
  6. Receiving double messages but somehow unable or fearful to ask for clarification. (Author's note: Or asking for clarification, but not getting it.)
  7. Feeling generally "bugged" by the simple presence of a person.
  8. To discover that one was mistaken in one's evaluation or where one stood or what it was all about. 
  9. Feeling totally unprepared for a broken promise or unfulfilled expectation.
 10. Experiencing the shattering of an important "dream".
 11. Where one assumed goodwill, ill will seems to prevail.
 12. One feels pushed around, not in control of one's own direction.
 13. Unable to get off redundantly spinning circles of thoughts.
 14. What seemed clear becomes muddled.
 15. An uneasy, weird feeling of emptiness.
 16. A strong wish to get away, yet feeling unable to move, as if frozen.
 17. One is befuddled, not able to attack the problem.
 18. Feeling vaguely suspicious that something is wrong.
 19. Feeling that one's subjective world has become chaotic.

   Verbal abuse is hostile aggression. The abuser is not provoked bu his mate. The abuser may consciously or even unconsciously deny what he is doing. In any case, he is not likely to wake up one day and say, "Oh my! Look what I've been doing. I'm really sorry. I won't do it any more." No one but the partner experiences it. usually only the partner can recognize it. "The aggression can be recognized because the impact of the behavior on the victim is a hurtful one." (Bach and Goldberg, 1974, p. 119)
   Generally the responsibility for recognizing verbal abuse rests with the partner of the abuser, because the abuser is not motivated to change. However, the partner may have difficulty recognizing the abuse for what it is because she is to led to doubt her feelings. For example, is she feels hurt or upset by something her mate has said and she expresses her feeling, saying, "I felt bad when you said that," the verbal abuser, instead of recognizing her feeling and responding appropriately, will reject and invalidate her feeling by saying something like, "I don't know what you're talking about. You're too sensitive." The partner then doubts her own perception.
  When the partner can recognize and validate her feelings, she can begin to recognize verbal abuse. In other words, she might say:

 I feel hurt, I am feeling hurt.
 I feel diminished, I am being diminished.  
 I feel unrecognized, I am being unrecognized.
 I feel ignored, I am being ignored.
 I feel made fun of, I am being made fun of.
 I feel discounted, I am being discounted.
 I feel closed off, I am being closed off.
 I feel __________, I am being __________.

 If the partner shares her feelings with the perpetrator of the aggression, you can be absolutely certain, he will invalidate them. He may, for example, deride her with a sarcastic comment and then, when she protests, , tell her it was a joke. The partner may then doubt the truth of her own perceptions. 

    Consequences of verbal abuse. The partner of a verbal abuser may experience

 1. A distrust of her spontaneity.
 2. A loss of enthusiasm.
 3. A prepared, on-guard state.
 4. An uncertainty about how she is coming across.
 5. A concern that something is wrong with her.
 6. An inclination to soul-searching and reviewing incidents with the hope of determining what went wrong.
 7. A loss of self-confidence.
 8. A growing self-doubt.
 9. An internalized "critical voice".
10. A concern that she isn't happier and ought to be.
11. An anxiety or fear of being crazy.
12. A sense that time is passing and she's missing something.
13. A desire not to be the way she is - "too sensitive," etc.
14. A hesitancy to accept her perceptions.
15. A reluctance to come to conclusions.
16. A desire to escape or run away.
17. A belief that what she does best may be what she does worst.
18. A tendency to live in the future - "Everything will be great when/after...."
19. A distrust of future relationships.

  Verbal abuse is damaging to the spirit. It takes the joy and vitality out of life. It destroys reality because abuser's response does not correlate with the partner's communication.  The partner usually believes the abuser is being honest and straightforward with her and has some reason for what  he says - if only she could figure out what it is.
  Since the partner does not understand her mate's motives, she "lives on hope". She clings to those times when everything seems normal and believes that, in time, there won't be so many upsets. And she may become even more hopeful if her mate says he loves her or makes some similar gesture.
  Many partners said that their mates occasionally bought them gifts, shared some personal concern, or complimented them on something such as their appearance or well-prepared meal. On those occasions their expectations rose; they forgot the past and held more hope for the future. Their hope often kept them in the abusive relationship. And the abusive relationship increased their confusion.    

  Many factors contribute to the difficulty of recognizing verbal abuse and the abuser's reality. These obstacles, which stand in the path of recognition, appear in most abusive relationships. Once they themselves are recognized that lose their power to prevent awareness of abuse and become instead stepping-stones to that awareness - each one suggesting an action or necessary change in thinking. Here are some frequently encountered obstacles:

 1. The partner has learned to overlook unkindness, disrespect, disregard, and indifference as not important enough to stand up to.

 2. Upsetting incidents are denied by abuser, and the partner thinks she's wrong.

 3. Verbal abuse, control, and manipulation have not been articulated or denied for the partner, so she remains confused.

 4. The partner thinks her feelings are wrong.

 5. The partner intermittently forgets her upset feelings when the abuser is intermittently friendly.
 6. The abuse can be very subtle - the control increasing gradually over time so that the partner gradually adapts to it.
 7. The abuser controls the interpersonal communication and, therefore, the interpersonal reality by refusing to discuss upsetting interaction.
 8. The abuser blames the partner for upsetting interactions, and the partner believes him and therefore thinks that they are her fault.
 9. The partner has no basis of communication - no experience of non-abusive relationship with men.
10. The abuser and partner may function very well together on their respective roles, making home, raising a family, and "getting ahead", so the abusive nature of relationship is overlooked.
11. The partner may be so absorbed in raising a family or developing a career that she ignores problems in the relationship, thinking that nothing is perfect anyway.
12. The partner mat have never seen a model of a healthy relationship and good communication.
13. At times abuser is not abusive. Consequently, the partner forgets the "bad times".
14. The partner is too stunned or thrown off balance to think clearly about what is happening to her.
15. The partner does not have the level of self-esteem which demands that she always be treated with courtesy and dignity.
16. The partner's reality has never been validated. Others don't see the abuse, so it doesn't seem real to her.
17. The partner believes her mate is rational in his behavior toward her, so that he has "some reason" for what he says.
18. The abuser's behavior is alternately abusive and non-abusive, so that the partner is never sure whether or not the relationship is working.
19. The partner believes her perceptions are wrong.
20. The partner may have no knowledge of verbal abuse and no appropriate models of better relationships to which she can compare her own relationship.
21. The partner may believe that the way her mate is, is the way man are, with possibly a few exceptions.
22. The partner may believe that if her mate provides for her he really loves her.
23. The partner thinks there is something wrong with her.
24. The partner believes that when her mate is angry she has somehow hurt him.
25. The partner may never have considered the question, "Am I being verbally abused?"

   When the partner of the abuser clearly realizes that:
 
He DID say that.
She's made NOTHING up.
The DID have that conversation.
She's upset about SOMETHING.
Her experience IS real.
She's NOT crazy.

 Then, she has enough self-esteem and knowledge to recognize verbal abuse.

  The following questions serve as a means of evaluation as well. You must trust your own perceptions and feelings to answer these questions. If you come up with even one answer you don't like, there is a good chance you will not have a healthy relationship.

Does he have a sense of joy in life?
Do you enjoy his ideas, and do you feel a rapport with him?
Do you feel a real connection, laughing together and catching meanings on the same way?
Is there a best-friend quality to your relationship?
Do you feel relaxed with him?
Can you really be yourself without criticism?
Does he share his interests with you and express an interest in yours?
Does he speak openly and honestly about himself?
Do you feel warmth and understanding from him?
Is his humor often at the expense of others, or is it bitter or intimidating, or does it make you uncomfortable?
Does he seem distrustful of a number of other people?
Does he argue against your thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences?
Is time spent with him not as pleasant as you usually anticipate?
Is his world composed of "good guys" and "bad guys"?
Does he seem to understand or remember things differently from you?
Does he make assumptions about you based on anecdotal evidence?

  Your feelings are most important of all. If you experience the slightest feeling that something is wrong, IT IS.


 BASIC RIGHTS IN A RELATIONSHIP.

The right to goodwill from the other.
The right to emotional support.
The right to be heard by the other and to be responded to with courtesy.
The right to have your own view, even if your mate has a different view.
The right to have your feelings and experience acknowledged as real.
The right to receive a sincere apology for any jokes you find offensive.
The right to clear and informative answers to questions that concern what is legitimately your business.
The right to live free from accusation and blame.
The right to live free from criticism and judgment.
The right to have your work and your interests spoken of with respect.
The right to encouragement.
The right to live free from emotional and physical threat.
The right to live free from angry outbursts and rage.
The right to be called by no name that devalues you.
The right to be respectfully asked rather than ordered.

 
  When the partners of verbal abusers recognize the abuse and take the necessary steps to ensure that they are no longer subject to it, they are already in the process of recovery. Recovery is a process of healing and reorientation that does not follow a fixed schedule and takes different amounts of time for different people.
  The recognition of abuse, whether it be emotional, physical, or sexual, whether it occurred in childhood or in adulthood, brings both pain and shock. The spirit is wrenched from its foundations as mind and body confront the inconceivable, which must in the end be recognized as a reality, realized, and integrated. The longer the abuse has been perpetuated and the more intense it has been, the longer the process of recovery may take.
  Here is the list of affirmations which support women in thinking of themselves in a stronger and more positive way (From the book Stopping Wife Abuse by Jennifer Baker Fleming):

I can trust my own feelings and perceptions.
I am not to blame for being verbally abused.
I am not the cause of anothers irritation, anger, or rage.
I deserve freedom from mental anguish.
I can say no to what I do not like or want.
I do not have to take it.
I am an important human being.
I am a worthwhile person.
I deserve to be treated with respect.
I have power over my own life.
I can use my power to take good care of myself.
I can decide for myself what is best for me.
I can make changes in my life if I want to.
I am not alone; I can ask others to help me.
I am worth working for and changing for.
I deserve to have my own life safe and happy.
I can count on my creativity and resourcefulness.

Credits: "The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to recognize it and how to respond" by Patricia Evans