Watching the confused silence of Juliet, the wife accused of murdering her abusive barrister husband featured in ABC's Criminal Justice program last night, reminded me of some of my clients.
These clients come in emotionally bruised and battered by their partner's verbally abusive treatment of them, but find it hard to articulate exactly what is the problem. At one point Juliet said "he was trying to be kind to me", commenting on the way he talked to her about her depression. Whilst it was not crystal clear (that is the point of the unfolding plot), the signs of mental mind games that many abusers play with their victims were certainly apparent.
We can identify what verbal abuse is using Evans' list from her book "Verbally Abusive Relationships" (also listed in an article I wrote last year):
1. Withholding: a purposeful, silent treatment
2. Countering: a countering of ideas, feelings, and perceptions, even going so far as to refute what they have misconstrued someone to have said.
3. Discounting: a putdown of the person or what they hold dear.
4. Blocking and diverting.
5. Accusation and blame: a distortion of the truth about the partner’s intentions, attitudes, and motives.
6. Judging and criticising: bending the truth about the person's personal qualities and performance.
7. Trivialising and undermining: Making light of the victim's work, efforts, interests and concerns. Jokes made at the victim's expense. Undermining is occurring when the “so-called joke” feels mean rather than funny.
8. Name calling.
9. Ordering: Telling someone to do something, rather than asking, or making decisions for them or the couple without asking for input.
10. Forgetting and denial: Forgetting is a form of denial that shifts all responsibility from the abuser to some “weakness of mind” of the victim.
11. Abusive anger: this seems to be closely linked to the need to “blow up,” to dominate, to control, to go one up, and to put down the other. Evans states that any time someone is snapped at or yelled at, they are being abused.
12. Threatening: Verbal threats are an effort at manipulation. For example, a threat to leave, stay out all night, or take someone home immediately is a manipulation for power. The threat of “pending disaster” is designed to shatter the partner’s serenity as well as her boundaries.
Countering of any of these behaviours will often be met with some discounting response such as "you're much too sensitive" or "you're just trying to start a fight" or "you don't have a sense of humour".
Evans describes a way forward which involves recognising the verbal abuse and getting counselling both for the victim and the couple. Learning how to set limits with the abusive partner that is based on believing for oneself and making "non acceptance" statements is also essential. She says that any partner who is genuinely concerned for their partner and wants to change will begin to do so in about a month or two.
In my counselling room, I have seen scenes of humble acceptance by the abuser of their long history of verbal abuse of their partner and their determination to understand and change their behaviour. Sadly I have also seen those who continue in denial about their behaviour and its impact, placing all the blame for the couple's difficulties on their partner's sensitivity or not understanding their "care and concern" properly.
I also note that if I am honest with myself about the list above, I think I can do some of those things, sometimes.
So what separates me from those whom we might call an abuser? Hopefully they occur very occasionally, that I am prepared to recognise what I have done and apologise for it, making every effort not to repeat those behaviours. Also the fact that if my husband and I can challenge each other about something off this list, we listen and accept that we may have hurt/attempted to manipulate the other in this infrequent situation and deal with that.
"Criminal Justice" seems to be posing the question whether long term verbal (and also sexual) abuse justifies murder. Simplistically we must say "no", but can this behaviour in some way be said to have already destroyed the victim's life?
