The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond

by Patricia Evans

This kind of accusing is destructive to the very core of the partner. If the partners of these toxic abusers try to explain their motives and define what actually was going on (“I asked you several times where you wanted it”), they are again attacked with accusations such as, “You always have to win” or “All you care about is winning!” Such assaults are shockingly evil — and can so deeply traumatize partners they may not recover a full sense of self for years to come.

Refusing to respond or to talk to the person with whom one is supposedly in a relationship, is seemingly the most extremely irrational behavior of all forms of verbal abuse. When there is no fight, no argument, and no anger — just a refusal to respond to any question, or to new information, or even some interesting or cheerful comment — and when this silent treatment persists over time, it demonstrates that the perpetrator has no relationship with the partner.

Withholding seems to be the most toxic form of verbal abuse. Confusing, too — often the withholding personality may say, “I love you” even as he fails to engage with his partner in any way. Such mixed messages only add to the confusion and loneliness of the partner.

the other hand, many withholding personalities cannot be persuaded to say, “I love you,” once they have secured the relationship in marriage. This, too, confuses the partner. “Why did you marry me?” they ask. Most of these abusers carry on open and meaningful conversations with friends. In fact, the partner may find out how her mate’s...

However, if the partner is a withholder and accuser, she has projected much of her “masculine side” and her “feminine side” into her mate. Her self is so projected into her mate that psychologists refer to it as 100 percent projection.

The toxicity of enduring a “relationship” with a person who withholds communication is so great that it leaves the partner depressed, unsure, and often ill. Withholders treat their partners as nonexistent, as if the partners were nothing but ghosts floating through life, meeting their needs.

Withholding is a form of shunning used by some religious groups to punish those who don’t conform. The impact on the partner cannot be overemphasized. The social-emotional deprivation itself can create depression, anxiety, and other mental and physical symptoms just as surel...

I experience inspiration from the steps that people take to dispossess perpetrators of their authority, the steps that people take in reclaiming the territories of their lives, in the refashioning of their lives, in having “the last say” about who they are. — Michael White

you are the expert on your own experience. I don’t believe in privileged knowledge — experts who can tell you how you should be or what is true for you.

The partner, of course, is only asking not to be abused, not to be ordered, and not to be criticized. The partner is seeking a better and closer relationship. Her mate, in this example, is seeking a “win.” He has given himself up to patriarchal ideas — in a sense becoming a friend to patriarchy rather than a friend to his partner.

“What’s wrong” is of course “what’s wrong,” that is: the abuse. Whether abuse is verbal or physical, it’s the problem.

changing the type of abuse, or

there are few interactions between couples that are not influenced by patriarchy.

What was his behavior in other contexts — for example, in the initial stages of courting his partner or at the office with his boss? In this way he may be able to “see” the difference between his behaviors. He may come to his own insight that his abusive behavior with his partner cannot be excused by a supposed relational deficit due to his family history.

Some abusive men, even as they court a new partner, continue to pursue the “one that got away.” They can be invited to see that these ongoing attempts to “get” her are not about relationship. They are about patriarchal ideas of possession and ownership.

John Stoltenberg says, “This search for an explanation of men’s abusiveness and violence sometimes borders on being a search for an apology: ‘How could he be any different, poor thing? — look how he grew up!’ Thus does men’s evasion of ethical accountability get therapeutic validity and academic respectability.”

believed that he was just ignorant, wounded from childhood abuses. I thought that if I was a “real” woman, I could get him to see the light — to want to stop being abusive. [Note: This is patriarchy influencing a woman’s thinking.]

“Cut it out, Jack. Leave me alone.”

You’re not me and don’t know what/who I am.

You don’t know what I think. You don’t know what my motives are.

“People don’t give orders in safe homes and schools. They say please and thank you!”

3. Is interrogation a category of verbal abuse? Interrogation is a form of diversion. If you are asked a question and then you are interrupted with another question, and then, just as you focus on that question, you are asked another question, and each question is expressed with urgency, you are being diverted from your train of thought over and over again. One woman who experienced interrogation said, “I felt like my brain was turned into a pretzel. I didn’t think of it as abuse. I thought I should try harder to answer the question, or to figure out what he was trying to ask. I wanted to answer his question, but it kept changing. I felt I’d failed. It could take a week to recover, to feel normal again.”

Love doesn’t create problems. Dominance does.