Yeah, me too!! Communication with like-minded people is a passion! Great comment, Eagle! Thanks! LLL

I lose track when I'm writing. Also on my site and this one as well. I have a lot of things that need to be taken care of so I have to stop this!!!!!

Lynn, can you please give some advice for the following situation? I know this happens to women and I thought it might be nice to include your advice in this forum.

What do you do if you have a friend who is being verbally abused by her spouse? You are friends with both. You forever lend an ear and show compassion towards her. You want to say something to the husband, but know it will incite more anger. You try to be supportive, but it's the same old thing all the time.

Any thoughts?

Hi Dotsie, what a tough situation to be in. Being supportive goes a long way...for a while. Then I think it is time to tell her that she is being verbally abused (if you have not told her already) or else you may be taking on the part of enabler to his abuse and her acceptance of it. If you think that the confrontation to the husband on your part will not resort to physical violence, then you can be honest with him. Example, "When you tell Anna she is stupid for leaving the car in the rain, then I feel you are undermining her." When you ________ I feel ______ is a standard tool counselors recommend for honest communication. In using this tool, you are not accusing him of being verbally abusive, which could indeed incite defensiveness on his part. My fears for verbal abuse is the escalation into other forms of abuse. Please recommend to your girlfriend the books by Patricia Evans, one of which is "The Verbally Abusive Relationship" and have her check out http://www.verbalabuse.com. Evans is an expert on the subject. I hope this helps. I am being general. Please feel free to continue asking so that your friend can feel more safe and respected in her marriage.

Eagle, I like the concept of Anam Cara. A Mormon friend told me something similiar regarding friendship. And to think we can develop this via cyber-space! Instead of feeling isolated by the technology of today, I feel more connected than ever in a community of like-minded sisters. If only...we could all meet one another! Oprah, are you listening? Oh, I have a question: we have one more week together on this forum. What would you like to discuss? I am open to anything!

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.”***

Lynn, I have been enjoying your posts all month long and appreciate your dedication to informing us on many tender and delicate issues.

You asked if anyone had any questions, so it's time for me to post.

If you had a daughter who was going through mental/verbal/financial abuse (not yet physical)and she was saying "I can handle it Mom, he's not hitting me...I've only been married a year, I'm too embarrased to leave." how would you handle it?

Here's more of the scenario, she is a Doctor who works ten to twelve hours a day, 5 days a week. He doesn't work period. Why? He is a professional cook, Ex Army, certainly qualified. She has a daughter almost teenager. He drinks and gets violent, breaking things, physically fights with his "friends" who don't hang around after. Usually on weekends(her days off and daughter visiting dad/dad's family)he wants to have a good time, and go drinking with or without her. He want's a divorce on the week-ends and Monday it's I'm sorry day and the cycle continues.
Back to her reason for not leaving...I've only been married a year, I'm too embarrased to leave.
If the Mother shows any disapproval, the daughter refrains from "telling" her what happens and keeps it to herself. If the Mother listens, the daughter confides in her and tells her how the week went with him.
As a Mother, how would you handle the situation with your daughter?

What's a Mother to do?

chick

Hi Chick, thanks for letting me know you have been reading all along. I appreciate the friendships I have with my readers more than I can say. I certainly hope I have offered a service to you with the information. Chick, your daughter is in a very serious situation. It will not take long before the situation excalates in its violence. I also fear for the daughter who is with this man after school and in the evenings, before Mom gets home. How would I handle the situation? I would encourage her to get out before she and/or her daughter are hurt further. I would also recommend the book I've mentioned here, "The Verbally Abusive Relationship" by Patricia Evans. I understand your daughter's embarrassment; women often take on the blame and the shame that rightfully belongs to the abuser. He will never stop unless he gets therapy, and usually men like this do not go unless they are involuntarily assigned by the courts. Chick, I don't know if you read my book, but my father was just like you describe your daughter's husband. He physically fought with his friends; they called it boxing. My father would take this excuse to fight to the limit, and his friends would back off. My father wasted no time in becoming violent with my mother, my step-father, and his own children. I cannot find any reason to minimize the situation you have described. I can't even say that you have to respect your daughter's position. Tell her you would support her decision to leave, and provide a safe haven for her and her daughter (your granddaughter) if possible. She will be more than embarrassed if/when something worse happens. She has to take him up on it when he wants a divorce on weekends. If he won't leave the home SHE is paying for, then she has to be the one to take her daughter and leave. Men like this do not know the real meaning of sorry. I appreciate that you love your daughter and have concern, and that you are seeking advice. I don't know if this helps, but she cannot continue to stay because he won't stop. LLL

Hi Chick, the following is a paragraph from my book. I am talking to my counseling. The she is my mother. ***“She must have known he was violent because she told me about his boxing buddies. She said that when we lived in Passaic Heights, before she left him when I was five years old, he’d go to the gym to box. One of my father’s friends told my mother that the guys refused to get in the ring with my father because his temper got out of hand. They wouldn’t spar with him anymore. A man must be very violent to scare his boxing opponents! She also told me that she had once asked him to go to therapy, but he had been an ass about it. So she left him and she went for therapy.”****