I am a believer and cannot get him to attend church. He has a problem with everything I do and everyone I befriend he belittles and humiliates me in the presence of my boys and sometimes guests. I am too afraid to invite any of my friends home because he is always intoxicated and I am too embarrassed by his behaviour. He is a setback in my life and I cannot move forward spiritually. We have not lived as husband and wife for about 15 years now. I am lucky that I do have friends who care about me who constantly motivate me to carry on and not to give up. So Good Luck – sometimes we have to make decisions to let go.

I learned much later in researching verbal and emotional abuse that this is a common tactic of abusive wives–to claim that sex is hurting them. It’s just another tool they can use to exercise abusive control in the “marriage.” I too wonder how long I have to endure this torture. I’m staying in the marriage because of Christian convictions and primarily to defend my children as much as possible (though it’s not actually really possible to protect them from her ridiculous abusive behavior). When the children finally leave home, I will likely separate. Even when I separate, I’d like to have a real marriage, but I don’t believe that abuse is sufficient grounds for a divorce, only that adultery would be sufficient grounds. So I’ve resigned myself to years of loneliness, unless one of us passes away.

On any of these abuser stories, those being abused in the end become enablers. Many times you are NOT going to stop the abuse. Life may teach that other person a lesson, it may not. After 2 or more years of steady abuse, you may decide to not be an enabler anymore. You leave or put that person into jail.

While you are abused, you will understand the importance of taking care of yourself. This is mind, body and spirit. The abuser is not taking care of you. Their abuse takes from you, many times it takes so much until it can push you to death.

I personally am now under the belief that abusive and stressful environments which are against you can cause cancers, heart diseases, strokes, high blood pressure ( obviously ), and many other ailments. You are not doing yourself or the other person any good by staying.

All of you please take care of yourself. I am not as far into church as many of you, but I just wanted to say that getting your physical fitness into order, even if you have to go every single day for an hour is going to help a ton. It will help you to see clearly. The other thing is doing activities with other people, hopefully a mostly positive bunch.

Good luck to you and hopefully your spouse comes back around to love, but if they don’t you need to stop being their enabler.

The other thing you will need to do is do things for yourself that you like outside of your abusive environment. It’s going to help. Suicide is never an answer, neither is hurting yourself, and in the end is neither is staying in an abusive environment.

I have some hope for you. Perhaps you’re not bi-polar, crazy, suicidal or anything at all. You may be in an extremely toxic environment (think of “The toxic avenger” if you ever saw that movie). Imagine a thick green poisonous toxic sludge. That is the air you breathe and the substance that is poored into your soul, instead of love.

One thing that helped me, and helped me very quickly, was to get INTO the gym. Also I stopped drinking at the same time. What it did was it gave me an environment I’m pretty good in, and also the working out helps balance your brain chemistry, also it releases stress and any “bad” feelings can be worked out.

The other thing you are going to HAVE to do, is find some things that you LIKE to do. For you, selfish love of yourself.

I know in your situation where it appears you have no where to turn, that it feels like your life is messed up. Where you are at today may be messed up, but that is only your current environment. You do not need stay in that environment. You are also going to determine that your spouse perhaps either does not love you, or is lost themself.

On you “still being in love”, the strength of that will fade over time if your spouse continues on this abusive behavior, and in the end can be replaced by a deep resentment and even hatred. You’re going to need to get out.

Is the spouse a male or female? Sometimes when a spouse gets into an affair, they feel like they are in love with the other person, while the spouse is the enemy, so it will be nothing you can do right.

Just throwing some things out there.

My sister has never forgiven my mother for her weakness during this time, my other sister died of cancer at 28 and me, well I think Mum did the best she knew how! My children are grown now and I have great regrets for allowing the things they went through in our family life and how that affects them and their families now.

I can feel great guilt over this at times and other times I feel I was so down on myself I was not capable of making any great decisions. The abuser often gets you to believe things are all your fault and break your spirit till you are putty in their hands and unable to think for yourself!!! If this is you perhaps council will help you to find the courage; But after all I have been through I know this..It is not easy to make that break especially when you are blaming yourself and feel you need to be a better person And really want things to work.

Unfortunately you could be super woman and they still seem to expect more from you. It’s easier for them not to take responsibility if they can blame you! We find ourselves making excuses and saying to ourselves we just need to do better and we can save our relationship!! It never happens; they are never satisfied. Join spirits with your fellow sisters ( or brothers as the case may be) going through the same things..draw courage from each other and GOD! God bless you all……

I have been married for nearly 2 yrs and feel I cannot take it anymore. I also have bipolar disease and am suicidal and this by far does not help that. I feel so alone and so trapped inside me. The anger and the hostillity has devastated me to the point I don’t know who I am anymore. I feel like I have to walk on eggshells just to survive. The anger, as many have mentioned here, is triggered by nothing. The wrong tone, my saying something “wrong”, not allowing myself to be controlled, or maybe waking up wrong all comes out on me and I get blamed for it all.

I don’t know if I can continue in this relationship though I still am still in love (by the grace of God) somewhat and can’t see myself without this person. But at the same time I want to disappear- Please, please pray for me as I have no family or friends with whom I can confide in and I feel so alone. Please also pray for my spouse and that this anger will disappear quickly because I’m at the end of my ropes- Thank you.

I have read a couple of articles about “we need to talk” being a wrong approach. I have read the article on why men need sex. I don’t argue with them, but I don’t know what else to do when the responsibility of the marriage is dumped on me, I am expected to be Mrs. Wonderful but he basically very selfish, is never there for me, he doesn’t work toward any resolution of conflict he just gets angry and punishes. I find it very hard to give myself to him physically when he lives as if I have no needs except to meet his needs.

When I look to God and focus on doing my part, things do go much smoother but at least once a week he will have his outburst over something that should be easily resolved. He blocks communication so my perspective of a situation is not allowed, only his is valid. He is distant emotionally. I feel alone in this relationship. From what I read today, I can understand that he probably feels alone also, and probably needs things from me that I am not seeing. But I don’t like feeling that I have to work at this alone. Please pray that God will direct me.

Teri, it is really difficult for me to understand how you can “deeply love” a man who is absuing your children. Sure, the abuse may not be physical, but it IS abuse and you are the enabler. You can be sure that your sons will grow up to be like your husband (and subsequently impact – if not ruin, the future marriages of your sons, which will then be passed on to their children, etc).

That’s what happened to me. I actually thought that living in an environment filled with rage and anger was normal. In fact, as a young adult, I never felt “at peace” unless there was some extreme conflict in my marriage. That was my role model.

Long story short – it took many, many years of therapy to finally get to the place where I had to realize that the buck stops with me. I am SO grateful that my husband did not tolerate this behavior and DEMANDED that I get help (or end the marriage).

I am sorry that you feel that you are dying inside – but I have more compassion and concern for your dear sons who have a life ahead of them. Although you do not disclose the age of your children, I can bet that they “can’t wait” to finally leave home and go to college – thinking that they will be done with that chapter in their lives. Teri, your husband is their only role model that they have for how a husband and father should behave in a marriage. I can guarantee that this “pattern” will continue well into the lives of your children’s children.

For the sake of your children’s lives, please do something about this right now. I am amazed that as a parent, you’ve tolerated this behavior. Yes, your children are a blessing and therefore, as a mother, your number one priority should be to protect them.

I am sorry to be so hard on you but growing up in such an environment “almost” ruined my life and certainly ruined the life of my sister.

I feel like we all walk on eggshells when he is home and find myself looking forward to the hours he’s at work. It is only then that I can relax. He has become physical with the boys several times but it has only involved pushing so far. Sometimes he throws things. I am worried about the emotional damage occurring with my sons and am concerned that serious physical abuse is a very real possiblity. I feel like I am slowly dying inside. I pray and pray. I feel like God has greatly strengthened me and that he has blessed my children with resilience, but my husband only seems to be growing worse. I am not sure what to do next.

He loved me then, I loved him somewhat (ever hear of God arranging marriages? I wasn’t sure I loved him but married him because I thought it was God’s will). My husband fits the bill of what is described above of how he let his anger out toward me with no regard to my feelings or hurt. The incredible emotional pain he caused me finally made me separate myself emotionally from him in order to save my psyche.

The wall between us is very high and wide and I don’t know how I’ll ever bridge it or tunnel through. We’re in counselling, but I have no love for him and no desire to be with him. I am happiest when he’s gone, great fear of revealing anything about myself to him, and wonder how long I must put up with this.

I met a man this year who fell in love with me, and I feel very close to him also. There’s no sex, just talking, sharing, all the stuff that should be in my marriage. So should I leave my husband, at least for a separation to wake him up? I’m struggling with what to do. I don’t want to dishonor my Lord, but it’s so hard to give up earthly love when I’ve experienced it for the first time in decades.