Invisible Violence
Domestic abuse isn't only about broken limbs and bruises. Many women suffer from daily belittling, verbal assault, and emotional battery that are every bit as damaging — and equally unacceptable.
Danielle Malmquist had just finished her master's degree in real estate development at a Los Angeles university when she met John* six years ago. John was a charming FedEx pilot who supported her career and made her romantic dinners. "He was fun, full of life, and interested in the same things I was," says Danielle, now 36. "I really fell hard for him."
But a few months into the relationship, Danielle saw a different side of John. One night, she'd planned to see a play with her friend Alan. When she told John, he asked Danielle to cancel her plans. She gently refused, and on the night of the play, John stopped by Danielle's house, "just so we can spend some time together before you leave," he said.
"Wow, he seems really possessive," Alan remarked as he and Danielle drove off. "He's just a little jealous," Danielle explained. "He'll get over it." That evening, John called Danielle repeatedly on her cell phone. Annoyed, Danielle didn't answer — and for the next few days, she ignored his calls. When she did agree to talk, Danielle was honest with John: "I don't think we're going to work out," she told him. Furious, John told Danielle that Alan "wanted more" from her. "Men aren't 'just friends' with women!" he raged.
We're through, Danielle said to herself as John berated her for hanging out with Alan. But a week later, John sent her roses and begged for her forgiveness. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I realize I was wrong. I didn't mean to be so extreme. I'm just going through so much stress at work; this isn't like me at all."
Well, nobody's perfect, Danielle thought. Besides, she wanted to believe John — she was in love with him and he said he'd realized his mistakes — so she took him back.
Five months later, Danielle found out she was pregnant, and John proposed. Certain she wanted to have the baby, Danielle married him. Shortly after their son, Avin, was born, John suggested that Danielle stay home with the baby. But once Danielle was home full-time, John started to find fault in everything about her: how she cared for the baby ("You're really not a good mother," he'd tell her), how she looked ("You've put on a lot of weight"), and her ability to take care of him ("You've been home all day! You could at least make me dinner!"). When they were out with friends, John rolled his eyes whenever Danielle offered an opinion about politics. "She doesn't know what she's talking about," he'd say. His rage-filled explosions began happening more frequently, taking on a pattern: John would criticize Danielle's housekeeping and accuse her of being a bad wife and mother; she'd start to cry; he'd say that her reaction meant she was suffering from postpartum depression — or that she was going crazy. Sometimes he would apologize, sort of: "I'm sorry," he'd say after an outburst. "It's just that you're pissing me off."
What am I doing to make him this angry? Danielle asked herself when John berated her. She always acquiesced to his demands — being vigilant about the housekeeping, trying to keep Avin from crying — but that didn't seem to calm him down. Is he right? Am I a bad mom? Am I going crazy? she wondered. Truthfully, Danielle didn't know anymore, and the more John questioned her sanity, the more she began to believe him. She wished she could get an outside perspective, but she'd stopped calling her sisters and her friends; they didn't like John, and Danielle didn't want to give them any more ammunition against him. "I wanted to make my marriage work," says Danielle. By then, protecting John and their marriage seemed more important to Danielle than her own peace of mind.
After I return to work, we'll go back to normal, Danielle repeatedly reassured herself. But soon she was pregnant with their second child, and the shift in their relationship that she'd hoped for never happened. Instead, she coped the only way she knew how: by walking on eggshells around him, hoping not to upset him, and constantly trying, in vain, to be a "better" wife and mother. Finally, after four years of marriage, Danielle caught John in an affair — and she seized the opportunity to leave him. When Danielle met with her legal advocate, Rosa, to discuss her separation agreement, she told Rosa about John's consistently controlling behavior.
"Okay, let's list all the abuse," Rosa said, pushing a sheet of paper toward Danielle.
"Oh, there was no abuse," Danielle said, pushing the paper back to Rosa.
"He never yelled and screamed at you? Called you names? Disrespected you? Trivialized you? Blamed you?" Rosa continued.
"Sure," Danielle said. "But he didn't abuse me."
"Danielle," Rosa said, leaning forward in her chair, "that is abuse."
What is emotional abuse?
"The design of emotional and verbal abuse is to break the soul," says Jill Murray, Psy.D., author of But He Never Hit Me: The Devastating Cost of Non-Physical Abuse to Girls and Women . "To squash the person into the ground, to make sure she's always going to stay with you because she has nothing else." And it can happen to anyone, whether she's a CEO making millions of dollars a year or a retail clerk making minimum wage. (Women engage in emotional abuse too, of course — more often than they commit physical abuse — but experts say men are more likely to use these tactics to instill fear and intimidation in their partner.)
Emotional abuse can take many forms: Name-calling. Telling someone she's worthless. Making "rules" she has to follow. Throwing rageful fits and tantrums. Degrading her. Dictating how she's going to dress, or what she's going to order in a restaurant. Calling her constantly while she's at work or out with friends to harass her about something at home. Experts use different labels to describe this behavior — psychological, emotional, or verbal abuse — but it all means the same thing: "It's any kind of nonphysical attack that's designed to put someone in their place, to control them, or to make them doubt themselves," says therapist Beverly Engel, author of The Emotionally Abusive Relationship .
"Psychological abuse is the most prevalent type of battering that goes on in this country," says Rita Smith, head of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. But it often goes unreported because many people believe domestic violence is physical or sexual abuse. Also, while physical and sexual abuse are crimes, most types of psychological abuse are not; name-calling and constant berating, for instance, can't be reported to the police (other behaviors, like stalking, can). "With physical abuse, there are medical reports and an assault report — in essence, there's proof," adds Sheryl Cates, head of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. "Emotional abuse is more subjective, but it underlies every single one of the calls our hotline receives." Cates says that 13 percent of callers report only emotional abuse; the remaining 87 percent report it together with physical or sexual battery.
Eyes rolled in annoyance when you're out with friends, as with John and Danielle, might seem easy to overlook. But if it happens every day, it eventually takes an emotional toll. "A constant diet of someone being condescending and giving you the message that what you're saying is not important wears away at your self-worth and your trust in your own perceptions," says Engel.
All couples argue and often say intentionally hurtful things when they're upset or angry. But there is a clear line between that kind of acting out and emotional abuse. "Everyone has moments they regret in relationships," says Smith. "But that's not abuse. For the National Coalition to label someone as emotionally battered, the behavior has to be consistent and repeated. And — although this is harder to determine — there has to be a purpose behind that behavior to control the other person."
More than "just words"
Emotional abuse can occur on its own, as in Danielle's case, or it can be a precursor to physical violence, as Jen Martin, 34, a nurse-midwife from Salt Lake City, found out. After graduating from college, Jen moved to a small town in Colorado and started dating Dan.* She loved that Dan introduced her around and guided her on nearby ski trails. Sure, it was awkward that he hung out all day at the places where she worked, but it was the off-season, she reasoned, so he had a wealth of free time. And although she'd heard rumors that he'd been controlling toward his last girlfriend, she figured he'd be different with her. "I thought, I can change him," says Jen. "He won't be that way with me."
Before she knew it, though, Dan was yelling at her on a regular basis, calling her "stupid," criticizing how she drove and parked, telling her what to eat for dinner. Rachael Smith, Jen's best friend from college, was shocked when she visited the couple in their new home. "I couldn't believe what was happening. Jen wasn't herself: She was very hesitant and guarded, really thinking about things before she'd say them," says Rachael. "She used to be independent and spontaneous, saying off-the-wall things. It was almost like she would look to him before she'd speak — she'd yield to him. He'd finish her sentences for her, correct her on minor things, and belittle her in front of me," she says.
Jen knew it was wrong for Dan to yell at her and call her stupid — "No one ever in my life, not even a stranger, had talked to me like that," she says — but she didn't consider his behavior abusive. "I kept thinking it would go away," she says now. "I thought it was an anger-management problem that would eventually dissipate. Now I see that I was in denial and making excuses for him."
Then, during one fight, Jen realized she couldn't make excuses any longer. "He was yelling at me — I usually checked out when he did — and then suddenly he hit me, open-handed, in the face." Frightened and furious, Jen left and drove to a friend's house. There, she called a local domestic violence organization. The advocate who answered explained to her the typical cycle of violence. "Tension will build between the couple and the abuser will explode, then apologize and promise it won't happen again," said the advocate. "The relationship will seem back to normal and the victim is reminded of how good it can be...until the next incident."
"When she said that, I couldn't believe it," says Jen. "It was exactly what I was going through. I asked her, 'How did you know?' She said, 'It's a pattern — abusive relationships fit this profile.'" Jen hadn't realized there was a label for the type of relationship she was in. "It was like I suddenly snapped out of it; I did a total 180," she says of that moment. "I realized that nothing I could do would change Dan. But I could change. I could leave him." Dan left the next morning for a kayaking trip; by the time he returned, two weeks later, Jen had moved out.
Recognizing the pattern
For emotional-abuse victims, recognizing a pattern of violence can be especially hard. First of all, it's tricky to identify when an emotional or verbal line has been crossed. Plus, the abuser has often successfully convinced his victim that his behavior is her fault — that if she could only change, he wouldn't need to yell at her or call her names. "I'd always thought that since I triggered it, since I got him so upset, I deserved to be talked to that way," Danielle says of her ex-husband, John. And as Rita Smith points out, "it's hard to believe that someone who says they love us is going to treat us this way and is actually a danger to us."
It took Deanne Schulz, a 38-year-old writer and publicist in Orlando, FL, years to accept that. She met Kyle* through work and was blown away by his romantic gestures. "Kyle sent me flowers and cards all the time, for no reason," says Deanne. "He even put up a billboard-size photo of himself across the front of my house, captioned, 'This man needs you forever.'" Extreme, sure, but Deanne reveled in the attention. She fell in love with Kyle and soon agreed to move in with him. But his over-the-top behavior had a darker side: Many nights after work, he'd come home visibly drunk. Deanne tiptoed around him during those nights, but he'd fly into rages, accusing her of not loving him enough, of not understanding how much he needed her. "You're disgusted with me!" he'd yell. "What, you're perfect? You think you can find someone better? If you really loved me, you'd love me unconditionally." Without fail, the next morning, Kyle would text Deanne: "I love you so much. I need you to help me battle my demons. I don't know why I drink so much. I promise I won't let it ever hurt our relationship again."
"I couldn't wrap my mind around it. Kyle was smart and funny, kind and doting," says Deanne. "He had a great job, loved kids, and he even donated his time to charitable causes." And when Kyle wasn't drunk or acting out, their relationship was full of fun, laughter, and long conversations. "That's what was so confusing about it," she says. How could someone who needed her so badly, as Kyle claimed to, treat her the way he did?
Then the relationship hit a tipping point. One afternoon, Kyle left a message on Deanne's cell phone: "I've hurt you one time too many, and I can't go on being such a huge disappointment to you. I'm in bed with a gun." Terrified, Deanne left work and raced to their home. Kyle was in bed, alive and sober, with a gun resting next to him. "I just need you to realize how serious I am," he sobbed. "My complete existence depends on your love and support."
Deanne calmed him down, but she was worried enough to seek out a therapist, hoping to get advice about how to save Kyle. If I can just fix him, she thought, we'd be left with all the great parts of our relationship. At first, her therapist's insistence that Kyle was abusing Deanne seemed like a joke; she left one session with pamphlets on abuse, given to her by the therapist, and immediately threw them in the trash. "To me, abuse was a black eye," she says. "I was a blonde, blue-eyed suburban woman with a master's degree! Me, a victim? No way."
But her therapist did say something that stuck with Deanne. She asked Deanne to think about Kyle's behavior coming from someone else: Would Deanne ever allow it? If a stranger yelled at her or pulled out a gun around her — would she ever want to see that person again? "That made me start to question the things I was allowing from someone who supposedly loved me," says Deanne. For the next year, Deanne continued therapy. "Just verbalizing what was happening made me realize how crazy everything was," says Deanne. "When everything stayed in my head — his actions and my feelings — I was able to rationalize it, put a spin on it. But once I described what was happening out loud, I had to be accountable for it."
Deanne eventually got up enough courage to confront Kyle about his behavior. The next time Kyle pulled out a gun, this time to threaten Deanne, she ordered him to leave and called the police. "It no longer mattered what Kyle said — that he worshipped the ground I walked on or that he wanted to make me the happiest woman in the world. This behavior, what he was showing me every day, was the real Kyle," says Deanne. "I still loved him, but I realized that my sanity and maybe even my life depended on leaving him."
Getting out
Because psychological abuse is a shades-of-gray umbrella term that includes a host of different behaviors — few of which are even considered crimes in the justice system — the majority of abuse victims can't enlist protection from the police. Kyle was unstable, threatening suicide, and holding a loaded gun, so Deanne was able to call for help. Jennifer could have reported Dan's physical attack (although she chose not to). But the abuse that Danielle suffered — John's incredibly controlling behavior and verbal battery — doesn't fit neatly into a complaint that she could have taken to authorities.
No matter what your situation is, calling a domestic violence hotline is a crucial step, says Rita Smith. "An advocate at a hotline will offer a wide range of options for each state. There are alternatives, such as safe houses, even if the abuse doesn't qualify as a criminal act," she says. Whether a victim can go to the police depends on what the psychological abuse consists of. "If it's stalking, you can report it," says Rita Smith, "although you have to have the necessary documentation," such as cell phone records that show a consistent barrage of texts or calls, or photos that prove you're being followed. Or you can take that evidence and request a restraining order. In that case, the abuser is not charged with a crime but is legally ordered to stay a certain distance away from the victim. As for leaving the relationship, most states allow no-fault divorce, so victims often won't have to rehash the abuse in court (unless a restraining order or child custody decisions are at stake).
Today, Danielle, Jen, and Deanne all help other women who are in similar situations: Deanne works with the National Hotline, Jen works with abused women in her nurse-midwifery practice, and Danielle cofounded an organization called In Defense of the Family, a nonprofit group that guides abused women and families through the family court system. Jen, who left Dan years ago, is now happily married; Deanne and Danielle are both dating again.
More than anything, Deanne has learned to trust her instincts. "I remember thinking with Kyle, This relationship doesn't feel right. I wish I knew whether to stay or go. I was looking for an answer, but it was always there; I was just ignoring it," she says. "Now I trust that I know what's best for me. I'm stronger and smarter, and more confident in my decisions — I can finally say no."
What emotional abuse sounds like
Besides name-calling and statements that are outright degrading, a psychological abuser might often say things like:
• "Can't you let anything go?"
• "You're hormonal — are you getting your period?"
• "You just can't wait to find something wrong with me."
• "If only you'd _________, then I wouldn't have to _________."
• "I really thought you understood me, but I guess you only care about yourself. You don't care what brought me to this."
What emotional abuse feels like
Victims often feel broken down by their abuser. You also might feel like:
• You're being treated like a child.
• You need to get permission before making even small decisions.
• You have to walk on eggshells around your partner.
• You need to hide your own feelings and opinions, knowing that your partner will attack you after you express them.
• It's easier to just give in to your partner's rules and demands than to fight about them.
What emotional abuse looks like
An abuser's goal is to have power and control over you, and that can take many forms. Some are:
• Stalking: following you to work or to the grocery store.
• Harassing you with constant phone calls, even while you're at work or with family.
• Controlling the finances completely and forcing you to ask for money.
• Punishing you by withholding affection.
• Creating rules that you have to follow but the abuser does not.
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