The following paragraphs from Beyond the Tears pertain to verbal abuse. As you will read, I did not even recognize that verbal abuse was abuse. So, Dotsie, your friend may not recognize the enormous impact of verbal abuse, even though she tells you about it. She needs help for her own sake. What I mean is that she may not be able to change him unless she can get him to couples counseling. For those who have not read the book, Karen was my counselor, and Todd was the scum bag I was married. I was about 21 years old. ***I told Karen about one afternoon when I had been washing and ironing slacks to wear to an appointment at the university admissions office. I noticed then that none of my clothes fit, so I called a phone number posted in the [apartment complex] laundry room which advertised tailoring by “Sally the Seamstress.” When she came over to pin the alterations, we saw we were about the same age. She looked healthy, with rosy cheeks, glossy dark hair, and a plump figure. She had majored in home economics and loved to cook and sew.
“Would you like to come to my place and try my cinnamon snicker-doodle cookies?” she invited.
“Maybe later. I’ll have to tell my husband.”
When Todd walked in, I introduced them, Sally smiling “hello” through the straight pins in her mouth. As if I were not in the room, Todd stated, “She wouldn’t need her clothes mended if she wasn’t such a scrawny broad.”
Sally spit the pins. “How could you talk about your wife like that?”
Todd snuffled, “Ah, she’s a piece of work.”
“From what I can see, your wife is a wonderful woman and you’re a lucky man.”
Me, wonderful? Todd, lucky? She had to be kidding! Sally was so outspoken! Todd was as dumfounded as I.
“Worthless women,” he griped, slamming the door on his way out.
“Sally, it’s all right, he talks like that all the time.”
“It’s not all right. You deserve better.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Lynn, don’t put yourself down.”
Sally paused, and then asked, “Does Todd hurt you in other ways?”
“No, well, maybe.” Todd smacked me when we passed in the hall or as he walked by my chair. When I complained, he would say, “That was just a love tap.”
I was raised to think that affection hurt. In greeting, my uncles twisted my cheek or my nose. When I complained to my mother and asked her to make Uncle Sal, Uncle Tony, or Uncle Vic stop, she would say, “It’s a love pat. That’s how men show affection.” Apparently, women did not tell men when to stop because men were strong and women were weak.
Todd bullied me: “I ought-a wup you upside the head” or “I ought-a haul off and kick you in the ass,” and sometimes he did just that. He grabbed my arm, squeezed it hard, and twisted both his hands around it, until I bruised. “If you weren’t such a skinny runt, you wouldn’t bruise so easy,” he would justify.
Sally told me, “Todd’s abusing you.”
“No, he never beat me with a broom or broke a bone.”
“It’s abuse, plain and simple.”
As I was telling this to Karen, she confirmed the abuse: “Putdowns, name calling and threatening behavior, as well as hitting you, then denying that he hurt you, are all forms of abuse.”***