Dina Drouillard married a really nice guy—or so everyone thought.  Everyone with whom he worked thought he was great. His friends loved to make fun of his seemingly awkward demeanor.   He was the “geek” of the group—clumsy, not a good dresser and told corny jokes.  To the outside world he was “good ‘ol John.”  Dina remembers hearing his mother, in her broken English saying, “Johnny good boy!”  She absolutely adored him and treated him like a prince.  Johnny could do no wrong.  For Dina, however, things were not quite the same behind closed doors.

RED FLAGS

Before they were married Dina ignored the red flags that signaled emotional abuse and control.  “I was only 19 when we got married.  I grew up with a father who continually reminded us children what a burden we were to him.  When I was a senior in high school and approached my dad about college he told me,  ‘Just learn how to type so that you can keep a job long enough to catch a husband.’”

As any psychologist would readily predict, that is exactly what she did.  Convinced that she was a worthless burden, Dina settled for the first person who would have her.

WHAT IS IT?

“The Safe Space” (http://www.thesafespace.org ) describes emotional abuse as “…anything that the abuser says or does that causes you to be afraid, lowers your self-esteem, or manipulates or controls your feelings or behavior.”  According to the site, this includes:

• name-calling and put-downs
• yelling and screaming
• intentionally embarrassing you in front of other people
• keeping you from seeing or talking with friends and family
• telling you what to do
• using online communities or cell phones to control, intimidate or humiliate you
• making you feel responsible for the abuse
• stalking
• threatening to commit suicide in order to manipulate you
• threats of violence and harm to you or people you care about
• threats to expose your secrets (such as sexual orientation or immigration status), start rumors, or to take away your children

Dina remembers being married for about four years and bringing up the subject of having children.  He was very calm and reserved.  His response was, ”I don’t know if you are ready to have children yet. ‘ This cut me like a knife and the worse thing was, I fed into his abuse and blamed myself.’”

PSYCHOLOGY

What drives a man to thrive on demeaning a woman?  In 2004, Harriet Braiker addressed this in her book, Who’s Pulling Your Strings?  How to Break The Cycle of Manipulation.  Chronic manipulators, Braiker claims are driven by three basic impulses:

• the need to advance their own purposes and their own gain at virtually any cost to others
• a need to attain feelings of power and superiority in relationships with others
• a compulsive need to feel in control

RAMIFICATIONS

A November, 2000 article written by Toby D. Goldsmith, M.D. and Maria Vera, Ph.D. (http://psychcentral.com/library/domestic_injuries.htm ) addresses the silent damage inflicted upon emotionally abused women including:

• minimizing or denying the abuse
• blocking abusive events from her memory
• anxiety, fearfulness or panic because of constant stress
• self-protection by numbing herself from the situation
• recurrent flashbacks of battering episodes
• retaining specific fears for which she is constantly on guard
• may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder

Dina confided, ”There was a time when I was afraid to even go outside to my mailbox. Though I’ve pretty much conquered my dis-ease, I know that it will follow me for the rest of my life.”

TECHNIQUES

George Simon, in his book, In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People, mentions 19 techniques used by silent abusers, who often go undetected by those around them.  These include shaming or the use of sarcasm to perpetuate fear or self-doubt in victims.  According to Simon, this technique promotes a feeling of unworthiness by their prey, giving the abuser complete psychological and emotional control.

Deceit and subtlety are the abuser’s greatest weapons, for after inflicting the damage he will still come out looking like a “good boy” to those around him.  Simon cites some of the discreet ways in which the abuser sets off his scud missiles, including “…a fierce look or glance, an unpleasant tone of voice, rhetorical comments, subtle sarcasm.  Manipulators can make one feel ashamed for even daring to challenge them.  It is an effective way to foster a sense of inadequacy in the victim.”

ABANDONMENT

Emotional and physical abandonment are another form of emotional abuse.  “When I was six-months pregnant with our third child, John was traveling out of state from Monday through Friday.  As my pregnancy advanced, I was becoming exhausted and frail.”  Dina recounted the phone calls she received from John’s hotel room.  She listened as he described the delicious steak dinner he’d shared with colleagues and the comfortable bed in which he was lying, watching movies.  Meanwhile, their three- and six-year-olds were at her feet, screaming and fighting with each other. “I decided that when he came home for the weekend that I was going to tell him that I needed his help.  What if I went into labor and he was 900 miles away?”

That weekend, she put the two children to bed and sat down with her husband in the living room. “I need you home; I just can’t do it anymore.  Because he was my husband, I assumed that the kids and I would come first.  John became very quiet. He did not punch me in the face, or knock me to the floor.  Maintaining his typically reserved demeanor he replied, ‘I don’t mean to be sarcastic, but could it be there’s something wrong with you?  The other wives are doing it.’  That Sunday, he got back on the plane and left me.”’

VERBAL ABUSE

Dina’s face became very sober, her eyes reflecting memories that still remain fresh to this day.  “One time, I was upset with John because he was staying late at work so often.  He later admitted to me that every time I called to see when he was coming home, that he would stay even later.  That particular evening, I was so fed up that I packed up some clothes and our 18-month-old and went to my mother’s.”

Discovering what his wife had done, John called his mother-in-law’s immediately. “I thought that he would apologize; I was hurting terribly and needing him to tell me that he loved me.”  What she heard, instead, drove the knife even more deeply into her heart.  “Instead of trying to work things out, he was angry.   He told me, ‘Well, you never were very well suited to be a mother.’”

BATTLE

“Whenever we had a disagreement, there was no compromise or resolution.  It became an instant confrontation.  The scene was always the same.  If I became angry with him, he would start calling me names or belittling me. Cowering to his threats I retreated, curled up in the fetal position to lick my wounds.  After a period of time, things would go back to normal as if nothing ever happened.  Nothing was ever settled.  In the 20 years of our marriage, he never apologized; he was never wrong.  People thought we had a wonderful marriage because we never fought.  That was why.”

HEALING

Is it possible to recover from years of emotional abuse?  Healing will not begin until the victim acknowledges to herself that verbal abuse is not okay.  “I removed myself from the abuse. I allowed myself to understand that it is he who is ill; it is he who is broken.  Most of all, I allowed myself to accept that what he did was terribly wrong and that it caused a lot of damage.”

Dina and her husband were married for 20 years and have been divorced for 19.  After all that time and in spite of his remarriage, his innate compulsion to abuse has not diminished.  “Just this past Christmas, he reminded me that ‘I am a worthless mother who cannot take care of herself.’  Some things never change,”’ she said.