When Abuse Doesn’t Look Like Abuse: Recognizing the Hidden Patterns that Keep Women Confused.
Some of you are dealing with abusive marriages but it’s really hard to point to where that abuse is. Your husband doesn’t hit you, and he rarely raises his voice, but you find yourself walking on eggshells around him or feel like you’re responsible for his emotions.
You leave conversations with him confused or feeling like maybe there’s something wrong with you. When you bring up an issue, you feel like the conversation goes every way but towards being resolved. You leave feeling even more confused, hurt or hopeless.
He often hurts your feelings but you feel like maybe you’re just reading too much into things because when you call him out on it, he always says that you misunderstood, he was just joking or you are too sensitive.
He will say things that imply that you’re a horrible person or that you are the one at fault…..but not really. You feel like you’re being attacked but often can’t call out what exactly made you feel this way.
You feel like it’s wrong to ask for your needs to be met. You feel like you have to handle everything that you possibly can to “keep the peace”.
He may often embarrass you in public by sharing embarrassing information about you with someone. When people come to visit, you feel like the biggest part of your job is managing his behavior and emotions to minimize the uncomfortableness that you or the guests feel. You often try to soften the rude things he says or claim that he’s just joking when he’s not. You may find yourself having to make it into a joke when he says something rude or mean to you in front of others.
Special days such as your birthday or Mother’s Day are often ruined by him. He seems to be in a really bad mood when these days come around. He may refuse to get you any gifts or plan anything nice- he may even insinuate that you should want something that he can also enjoy as a gift (wouldn’t it be better to ask your parents to get you a lawnmower for your birthday? You know how hard it is for me to try to cut grass with that old one). He treats your special days with contempt but expects a huge display of love on his days.
Anytime you try to talk about something that’s bothering you, he meets you with contempt and says things like “What now?”. During the talk, he blames you for his anger (If you approached me differently I would act different) or says things like “That’s it-let me have it-tell me how horrible I am”.
These tactics and many more are intentional. When there is a repeated pattern of these things, with no change or repentance, he is doing this on purpose. He wants to avoid taking accountability for his actions or words. He doesn’t want to have to change the way he behaves and he will use what amounts to psychological warfare on you to make you stop “bothering” him about it.
I’m going to list the common tactics that men like this will use so that you can recognize them for what they are- purposeful and willful psychological abuse performed to make you doubt yourself and stop trying to get him to change. I need to add a disclaimer of sorts here: Just because your husband does something listed below doesn’t mean that he’s purposely manipulating you or toxic. He may just need to learn how to communicate better, have self-esteem issues or be thin skinned when it comes to criticism. You can tell the manipulative from the emotionally immature by patterns and actions. If there is no repentance, no genuine work towards changing or willingness to address the problem (have empathy and see how it hurts you), then its probably manipulation designed to punish you for having emotional needs.
Gaslighting. Gaslighting is a common term today and it is defined as making someone doubt their memory, perception, or judgment. When your husband says things like “That never happened” or “You always twist things” when you KNOW that it did indeed happen, exactly like you said- this is gaslighting. An example of gaslighting would be if you were to hear your husband say something really mean or unkind to one of your kids. When you talk to him about it he says something along the lines of “it wasn’t all that bad” or “I didn’t say it like that”. Maybe he makes a comment about your daughters weight, you saw the look on her face- you know it hurt her. When you tell him that his comment was hurtful he responds with “I was just joking, she was laughing, you’re just being too sensitive”. He knows the comment was hurtful because if someone were to say the exact same thing to him, in the exact same way, he would get angry.
A more sinister form of gaslighting that isn’t really talked about is reality manipulation. The word gaslight comes from an old movie where the husband was manipulating his wife by altering things in their home (dimming the gas lights) and then denying what she was seeing, causing her to doubt herself. Men who gaslight in this way will move your things but deny they did it. You know that you put your keys on the table but when you go to get them they aren’t there. You find them somewhere else. You start making it a habit to make sure that you place your keys on the table but every so often they are moved to different areas in the house. This can cause you to doubt your own mind and he’s doing this on purpose.
Psychological manipulation can fall under the gaslighting umbrella. This is when someone will use tactics to influence your thoughts, emotions or confidence in judgment. He may say things that make you angry like “You know they talk about you when you’re not there” or even talk about made up scenarios that incite anger or sadness in you. This is a purposeful tactic done to incite feelings of anger, sadness or paranoia in the victim. He wants you to be bitter or angry, he wants you to not trust the person or people he’s talking about- this is designed to have control. To control your emotions and control who you have relationships with. Toxic men who use this tactic will even lie and tell you that someone you’re close to said something really mean when they never said it.
Covert manipulation is done subtly so that it’s hard to identify or prove. He may constantly question your ability to do certain things, even putting you down in a passive aggressive type of way. “You’re making meatloaf tonight?” (squints his nose so that you ask what’s wrong with meatloaf) “No, it’s ok- I just, last time it had a really weird taste but that was probably just me being weird”. You remember that the last time you made meatloaf he ate three pieces with no complaint at all, even getting upset when he saw there wasn’t going to be any leftover for him to take for his lunch. You tell him this and he denies it saying he was just being nice. This can cause you to start questioning your cooking skills all together. Another example would be you get ready to go out and he says “You’re wearing that?”. When you ask what’s wrong with the way you look, he responds with “Nothing, I was just asking”.
Blame Shifting is moving responsibility away from himself and onto you, the person who was hurt. He may justify this by saying “I lied because I knew you’d react this way”. Men who have been caught cheating may do this by telling their wife that if she had sex more often with him, he wouldn’t have been tempted to cheat in the first place. A less extreme example would be you reminding him the month before to get his mom a birthday present. You again remind him the week before and let him know that you saw something online that you think she would like. The day comes, and no present. It is a hundred percent his fault that the gift wasn’t purchased but he will blame you. You didn’t remind him, you should have reminded him again yesterday, why didn’t you just order the gift online? He thought you were going to (even though you never said that you were).
Deflection is a really hard thing to spot in the moment unless you’re looking for it. This is where someone will avoid the actual issue by changing the focus. You may ask your husband why he spent $250 on something unnecessary when you’re trying to save money and his response will be “What about all the stuff you just bought?” What you bought was groceries and household necessities. This derails the conversation to you defending why you spent x amount of dollars on household necessities instead of him wasting $250 on something that wasn’t a necessary expense.
DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) is a common defensive pattern with people who refuse accountability. They will deny the accusation- “I didn’t do that”; Attack you- “You’re always accusing me of stuff!”; Reverse the victim and offender- “I can’t believe you would think that about me- I am so hurt by this!”. An easy-to-understand example of this would be where the husband is angry because he was asked to wash the dishes so he’s slamming the pots around, splashing water everywhere and doesn’t clean any of the dishes well. When his wife tells him that the dishes aren’t clean and need rewashed an argument will ensue. He will deny being mad, even though his anger was evident and deny that they weren’t washed properly. He will attack you with something like “Nothing I do is ever good enough” or “You’re just impossible to make happy” then reverse reality to where he’s the victim (nothing he does is ever good enough for you) and you are the offender (you always complain about what he does no matter how well he does it).
Minimizing is reducing the seriousness of harm that was done to the victim. An example would be your husband telling a really embarrassing story about you to other people. You know that he knows you’re embarrassed by this because you’ve previously told him. He was there when it happened, he saw your embarrassment, saw your face turn red or tears swell up-he heard you say how embarrassed you were. He tells the story anyway and when you confront him about sharing something so embarrassing to you, his response is “You’re making a big deal out of nothing”. This stretches to all areas of life. He may spend the rent money on gambling and then act like it’s no big deal when the rent comes due- it will work itself out.
Rationalizing/Justifying is creating reasons why wrong behavior is acceptable. This is when your husband says something like “I shouldn’t have done that, but…..”. He may admit that he shouldn’t have done something but it’s immediately followed with an excuse for why he did it. I don’t want you to confuse this with a healthier approach which would be to apologize, give the reason why, and show repentence that leads to change. It’s not “I’m sorry I yelled at you, I’ve been really stressed at work”- this is something where he wants you to excuse the bad behavior and feel bad for him. He screams at you, insulting you and not caring at all that you’re crying from the abuse. When he tries to act like nothing happens and you bring it up, his response is “You know how stressed I am and when you nag me I can’t help but to get mad.”
False repentance seems to be a very common problem with men today. I’ve talked to many women who say their husband’s words don’t align with their actions at all. He apologizes for poor behavior, promises to change (and may for a brief time) but goes right back to the behavior again. He doesn’t realize he’s doing it again, correct it and have sorrow for it- he acts like it didn’t happen and you’re back to square one trying to get him to see how wrong it is and the cycle repeats. This constant going around and around with nothing ever being resolved is very abusive. It can leave the woman feeling like she just needs to tolerate the behavior because it’s not worth the problems it brings to try to change it. This is often paired with future faking where the man may say that things will be different THIS time or he’s going to get help. He may even say that he’s going to seek God, but no lasting change occurs.
Entitlement is very serious and will destroy a marriage. Men who are entitled believe they deserve privileges without equal responsibility. They expect forgiveness without changing, demand respect without showing respect or expect service without any sacrifice on their end. These men believe that their needs matter more, or are the only needs that matter at all. This type of man will verbally abuse his wife, load all responsibility onto her, mentally check out the entire time he’s home but then get irate when she denies him sex. He will get angry when she doesn’t want to do something for him, yet he never goes out of his way to do anything for her. The women who are married to these men are the ones who are punished for getting sick knowing that a house that looks like a tornado went through it will be waiting for her when she gets better. He won’t inconvenience himself at all for her benefit but will aggressively demand that all of his needs are met at all times. Entitled men will throw absolute fits over the smallest things and anytime he doesn’t get what he wants-rage is what you’ll see.
Weaponized incompetence and learned helplessness often go hand in hand. These men will pretend that they don’t know how to do basic tasks or do things so poorly that the wife will quit asking. This is a purposeful manipulation tactic. If she calls him out on this behavior, the learned helplessness comes into play with “I guess I just can’t do anything right” or “I don’t know what you want from me”. These men will punish their wives for asking them to help with something and then play the victim when she expects him to do the job at an adult level. An example of this would be to ask your husband to do the laundry. He interrupts you to ask where the laundry detergent is or what the washer needs to be set on or if he can wash his filthy jeans with your church dress. It’s not that he genuinely doesn’t know, wants to complete the task right, and asks you to give him a crash course so he can learn- he is purposely doing this to try to get you to just do it yourself because it’s easier. He will fold clothes that are still wet or fold clothes like a toddler so that everything is wrinkled. He may throw a load in the wash and then “forget” about it. If you feel like you are trying to get a toddler to do a simple task, your husband is probably using weaponized incompetence. Men don’t behave like this at work. If his job at work was to wash clothes, he would ask someone to show him how to operate the machines if he didn’t know. He wouldn’t hang up clothes that were still wet, he wouldn’t tell his boss that those clothes can just stay unfolded in the hamper and coworkers can get them out of there.
Stonewalling/Silent Treatment is withdrawing communication to avoid accountability or punish the other person. This is also done on purpose and it’s to manipulate you into never bringing the issue up again. Your husband will refuse to discuss it, ignore you and refuse to speak to you for hours, days or longer. This will go on to the point where you apologize just to stop the uncomfortableness in the home. This is a very toxic trait and is bullying with silence.
Moving the goalpost is when someone changes what is required so that resolution to the problem is never reached. If you ask for honesty, he will turn the conversation to how you need to trust him more. If you ask for a behavior to change, he will attack you for your expectations being “unrealistic”. An example of this would be you finding out that your husband cheated. You have the messages between him and another woman. You confront him. He denies anything happened, it was just the messages. The messages talk about them having sex together but he says that was just talk. The conversation quickly moves to him making you feel bad for having no trust for him. How could you think that he would actually cheat on you? He would never do that to you! He’s just been feeling depressed lately and unattractive because you never want to have sex with him anymore and he feels really bad but nothing actually happened. He feels even worse now because it’s obvious that you don’t trust him at all. He has sucessfully derailed the conversation from what he did and how it hurt you to. You’re now in a position of feeling bad for him or trying to defend yourself.
I need to be careful with Projection because I don’t want to make any of you think that your husband is cheating just because he accuses you of cheating with no cause. Sometimes people will project because they are paranoid or have deep insecurity issues. Projection in itself doesn’t mean that he’s doing what he’s accusing you of. With that being said, if your husband displays a pattern of lying all the time and accusing you and others of lying when there’s really no proof- this is projection. If he’s consistently lazy at work or incompetent in his job but is always accusing coworkers of being incompetent or lazy this is projection. He’s always dishonest in his dealings with people, lying or cheating to get what he wants but accuses someone of cheating him out of something when you can’t see how that person acted dishonestly at all. An example of this would Him purchasing a lawnmower from a neighbor and the neighbor tells him that it needs a new part. When your husband goes to replace the part, he notices something else that needs to be replaced- this wouldn’t have been known to the neighbor because he didn’t take the mower apart to see it- your husband accuses him of lying to him and knowing that more work needed done. The neighbor can later give him back some of the money paid and seem genuinely sorry about it because he didn’t know that something else needed replaced but your husband will still call him a cheat. You may have watched your husband go out of his way to hide things that would decrease the value of something he’s selling but he is irate at the neighbor who should get the benefit of the doubt.
There’s no way for me to put a complete list of manipulative tactics into one blog post. I wanted to cover some of the most common ones in the hopes that you are able to recognize when it’s happening.
My prayer is that you will grow in wisdom and discernment, seeing the lies and manipulation that may be happening to you. God sees you. He sees the truth of your situation and He will work it out for your good and His glory.
