This article discusses the fact that “It is possible to break the cycle of abuse within your marriage and experience God’s restoration.”
You then will have the option on their web site to read other related articles such as: “Emotional Abuse in the Local Church” if you wish to read further on this topic.
To read, “Healing the Emotionally Abusive Marriage” we will take you to the ministry of Focus on the Family.
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(SOUTH AFRICA) I am in a verbal and emotionally abusive marriage. My life is a mess since I got married. I honestly don’t see any good that has happened to me in the past 2 years of marriage. My husband is the most adorable person you can imagine. He is saved, knows the Bible back and forth, but he says words that really crush your spirit and so does his mom. he doesn’t trust me, he is financially struggling, but denies it and he doesn’t want me to work. Should I leave the house and come 5 minutes late he asks me if I am having an affair, ALL the time. It hurts me and I often think maybe I should do what he thinks I am doing.
I am a victim in my own house. I am not free at all. I was such a bubbly, happy person, but since I got married it’s different. I have prayed, I have read books and yes I have spoken to him and of course I’m the one who is wrong. I never scream at him, I will do all the wife’s duties but still I am in a sad marriage. I also had a fall out with his mom. She said very hurtful things to me which never in my life have I heard being said to a human being, by a pastor’s wife, of all people. I’ve asked God to help me forgive her, but I’m struggling to forget, let alone move on. I don’t even want to hear her name nor voice. It triggers the hurt. Do you think I need help?
(TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO) Please pray for my marriage to be restored.
(USA) Hi ~ I am new to this site, stumbled across it while searching desperately for some advice. I have a serious problem with my marriage… My husband and I have been together for almost 6 years. When we met he had a serious addiction to a particular pain narcotic, methadone. As our relationship grew more serious I asked him to try to get clean, which he knew was best.
As he began weaning himself off of it, he became very ill, which resulted in a serious car accident that almost killed him. He was in a coma for three weeks & had months of physical therapy. Needless to say when he recovered from the wreck he was clean. I told him MANY times that if he picked the addiction back up I would leave so fast his head would spin. Since then we have had 2 children and built a home and very healthly relationship, or so I thought.
We married about 6 months ago. I just found out that he has been using the same drug for over 8 months now. Yes, he married me KNOWING that if I knew the truth I would not be standing there. My initial reaction was to kick him out of the house until he was clean and discuss our future at that point. He has now come to me and confessed that he thinks he needs professional help getting clean, and that he is willing to do ANYTHING to save our marriage, so I agreed to let him stay in the house and I will help him seek rehabilitation.
I am more than willing to help him, but the feeling of betrayal and 8 months of lies and secrets absolutely overwhelms me, not to mention all the money he has spent that could have been food in our childrens’ mouths. The only thing that comforts me is knowing that even through a secret addiction and substance abuse he has never been unfaithful to me, and he would never and could never put me or our boys in harms way. I know he loves me and I don’t think I can live a life without him. I truly feel like he is my soulmate, but I can’t control my emotions when I think of all the times he looked right into my eyes and lied to me.
What do you think is the best way to help him, but at the same time protect myself & be cautious of the chance that he could break my heart again? We have a consultation with a rehab tomorrow, but as far as my heart-broken emotions and hope that we may be able to heal our marriage, I just don’t know where to begin….
(USA) I am new to this site and I don’t know how to start. I have been married for almost 8 years. My husband is emotionally and verbally abusive. I love him so much but I don’t know what to do. It’s kind of a weird relationship. I thought we could make it work but now I don’t think he wants to anymore. I don’t know what to do. I’m tired of the I love you so much, then the I hate you and I don’t want you anymore. I’m an emotional wreck and that makes him worse. Can anyone please help?
(UNITED STATES) I am in a very bad situation. My husband physically hurt me. We have been married for 11 years. I have three children, the 2 youngest are 25 and 27. My husband and I always fought about my children. I spoiled them and allowed behaviors I should not have allowed. My son stole from us for drugs, keyed my new car. I took him to doctors for help and spent 2 New Years Eves in E.R. with him due to his drug abuse. Once he and his wife moved out I gave them money for rent and bought food. My son was still doing drugs.
My daughter left our home when she turned 18 with settlement money from a car accident she was involved in when 16, that I sued a young girl for for running a red light. Both my daughters were hurt. my youngest took the 80,000 dollars and went on a cross country trip with her boyfriend and didn’t speak to me for a year. I had already paid her meal ticket at college, and room and board, and the money from the settlement was going to help with college.
From the beginning of my marriage to my husband, I allowed my children to do things I should not have allowed (a lot more than mentioned here). I think from the beginning, a family base was not formed and when my husband tried to advise or step in, my children just got angry and I was always in the middle.
Well, down to the hitting part now. My daughter just recently broke up with her boyfriend and asked to come home. Of course i said yes, she’s my daughter and so did my husband. I became afraid I guess, and not wanting to lose my daughter, put up the wall and wouldn’t let him advise or do anything. Well, we had a terrible fight and he hit me. I have loved this man with all my heart and my kids also and have always been in the middle. My children with the expection of my oldest daughter say if I take him back they will never be in my life.
(UNITED STATES) What do you do when a husband was raped as a child, parents angerly divorced, blames and hates his mother secretly, has no relationship with his father and dislike his sister because she belittled him while growing up? This is the man I married and as a result, I will not lie, I became angry. We dated off and on for ten years before getting married. I should have known better because our relationship was very, very rocky.
I was raised with my parent three sisters and a brother. He did not like the closeness of my family and he tried to stop me from being so close with them. He would tell me that I was different than my sisters and that he was trying to make me more independent of them. When I met him he owned a house and a condo and he thought he was better then me. When he met my family he claimed he loved the “family thing” but it was not true. I had hope that once we got married it would change things. I was wrong, it became worse.
When we had our first child he dropped me off at my parents house and left us there. I became angry. Four year later we had our daughter; she was a premmie. He abandon us for five months while our daughter was on a heart monitor and I was mentally shot.
Now, five years later, I am angry. As a result I have become a “mean” woman and he now calls me a BULLY. My chest hurts, my body hurts even when I think of him. He does not talk to me, we do not have sex, at all; anything can set us off. He tells me that I am a bad mother, that’s how I went into pre-term labor.
I really want to end the marriage but I only stay because of the children and financial reasons.
I was an actress. I moved the California and I came back to marry him; he tells me flat out that I am the problem because I don’t know how to shut up. But if I don’t say anything he will not do anything, not even take out the garbage or put gas in the car. So I will do it and as a result, it is what it is. PLEASE HELP, I WOULD LIKE SOUND ADVICE?
(CANADA) Rena, I’m not telling you anything you do not already know yourself. You don’t need this man in your life. You can do anything you put your mind to and leaving him far behind is much better than staying with him and living that misery. Don’t allow him to be in charge of having a good life. I wrote something on this web site. My message is there for you to read. My name is Annie and I am from Canada. Please take care of you and your kids and dump him. You are who YOU decide you are.
(USA) I have been married to an emtionally abusive man for 25 years and 8 children with 6 still living at home. We homeschooled all of our children for all those years until this year. I put them in public school for the first time. The stress was killing me, because I had no help from him and going through affairs, forgiveness, 7 counselors (still in counseling), emtional abuse, neglecting the raising/training of the children, which he will deny.
I am finally getting my head straight and getting some strength back, and trying to decide whether to leave or not. We have no family around and our so called Christian friends don’t seem to want to have anything to do with us, because we never get asked to do anything with other families. I have my friends and some support there, but I am so lonely on the inside other than my relationship with God which is good, that I want to move back home which is 300 miles away.
I have never wanted divorce, but I’m wondering if I’m doing my children more harm than good staying in a unhealthy marriage. They do well on the outside, but I know they are lonely a lot because home is not a “happy” place. I really don’t know what God wants me to do. I have biblical reason to leave, but I do not like the thought of sharing my kids with anyone else, while they are growing up My youngest is 7, up to 17 yrs. old still at home. The 17 yr. old told me the other day that this was not healthy. I don’t know what to do. I feel tormented!
(AUSTRALIA) I have been married for 25 years now and the last 4 years have been so challenging. My spouse abuses me by demeaning me even in the presence of the children, calls me names, calls me useless, no brains, too fat (yet I am only 69 kg), and he tells me to go run up the hill whilst he goes to the gym and he is 84kg. He somes physically abuses me by pushing or pinching me on my thighs and tummy, he says he is showing me how fat I am and does not even appreciate my cooking, though I wake up every morning make up the bed, make breakfast for him, pack his lunch box, and drive him to the train station before I prepare myself to go to work.
I do all the washing and ironing and even the garden including lawn mowing. He just gives orders. Everything now is about him first. For 3 months he would not allow me to drive the car and he still expected me to do all the above before I leave home. Thank God the children are all teenagers. I have been hanging on because of the children so they can finish their high school. I have been strong all this time because he was not like that before. I do not know if the time he moved overseas for 3 years and I stayed with the children, and we later joined him has something to do with all this new abusive behaviour.
I have tried to talk to him about some of the issues in our relationships and he says there is no problem. He has mentioned several times that I should pack and go, that I am just like a plate, which he uses whenever he wants and puts it away (this refers to sex – the only thing we are still doing together because if I refuse most times he physically abuses me and takes all the bedding away from me and leaves me naked in the cold). We have not kissed in the last 4 years.
Sometimes I wonder why I am still in this marriage. I thank God that he is giving me strength everyday. He was a lay pastor before going overseas and now goes to church when he feels like it. He claims to be busy with work yet every weekend its gym 8 -11 am, comes home to eat and wash up, plays golf from 12 – 10pm and he works from 9 am – 12 midnight 5 days a week.
He is the man who does all the grocery shopping, because anything I buy is not acceptable to him. He will condemn it outright. So we have no family time and if we do it’s one of those days when he comes in at 10 pm. The children and I will be tired and ready to sleep but we struggle to keep awake. I have had enough of trying to explain to the children the dad’s behaviour. He has also introduced dancing and marathon run in his activities, but no time for family and church. I am only looking to God for peace and joy, and I now struggle to tell our children that marriage is good. Help is needed.
(CANADA) If you are living in an abusive marriage, I am asking you to stop and consider that living as a victim is not what God has planned for you and your life. God loves each one of us and He has given us the golden rule: You should love one another as you love yourself. Inherent in this directive is that we cannot love another person until we love our own self. If you permit your spouse to verbally, emotionally or physically abuse you and you make excuses for him or her, then you are complicit in their abuse.
Have integrity for your own spirit. God loves each one of us more than we could ever conceive of and He wants us to be happy. I tried to understand my husband’s abusiveness towards me and I struggled to live with him. I told myself that his history of abuse (physical, emotional and sexual) was to blame. I thought he had no control of this because of history and I prayed for him to heal and the personal strength to overcome. But I made a realization. My husband did not act abusively towards his colleagues, the neighbors or anyone else. He saved his horrible, degrading behavior for me and the kids. So he really could control himself. He chose to be abusive to us and he chose to NOT be abusive to other people.
Please, please people… do yourself a huge solid, as the kids say, and research abusive and controlling people on the web and reveal the truth to yourself. The truth shall set you free. Free to live a life God intended for you. God has also given us free will and free choice. God expects us to love ourselves and He has given us permission and a directive to do so.
I left my husband after 20 years. I truly believe that I turned over every rock to heal our relationship and when I realized that I had no control to change another person, I decided to change myself and stop taking his abuse. I also truly believe that my choice to walk away from abusiveness will be a positive model for my children to have, in case they find themselves living with abuse in their futures. I also truly believe that my leaving my husband will ultimately be the best opportunity for him to begin a personal, spiritual journey of his own for the first time in his life, about how his abuse history has impacted his life and behavior.
You are a treasured child of God. You have control only of yourself. Choose to be happy and whole, a person with integrity. If your spouse cannot share your vision for your life, then too bad for him. God will give you the strength to do the right thing.
(NAMIBIA) My husband only married me to stay in my country. Now that he has his domicile and papers, he treats me even worse than before. I want to ask, what can I do about this, marriage of convenience, that is becoming worse daily? My first marriage was also abusive.