The Emotionally Destructive Marriage. Chapter 1

Emotional abuse systematically degrades, diminishes, and can eventually destroy the personhood of the abused......
This behavior is usually accompanied by a lack of awareness, a lack of responsibility, and a lack of change.

Examples that resonate with me:

I can't be his wife and me at the same time. It's either one or the other. In order to stay married to him, I have to stop being me.

Every ounce of mental and emotional energy I have is needed to survive living in this marriage. He's so harsh and negative everyone and everything I fee like I can't breathe.

I don't feel safe.

It's always about him, how he feels, what he needs, how he's hurt. There is never any consideration for my feelings, my needs, or my hurts. I exist solely to please him, serve him, and make him happy.

I'm tired of being his mother. He takes no responsibility for anything but constantly blames and criticizes me for everything that goes wrong. Nothing is ever his fault.

I feel like i'm treading water, barely keeping afloat, and he keeps knocking me under. Someday I won't be able to come back up.

I don't know how to live anymore. It's either divorce or suicide.

Other times you can't put what's happening into words, but you know something's not right  because when you're around your husband, your body feels it. Your stomach hurts, your teeth grind, your hands clench, your jaw tightens, your head pounds, your legs shake, and your blood pressure rises. You cry, you can't catch your breath, and you throw up.
You're body is telling you something's wrong. Pay attention.

The Emotionally Destructive Marriage-Introduction

We've misdiagnosed a marriage that has terminal cancer and treated as if it were only suffering from a common cold. We've also misplaced the responsibility for keeping the marriage alive by putting an extraordinarily heavy burden on a wife's shoulders to somehow maintain a loving and warm relationship with a husband who treats her with cruelty, disrespect, deceit, and gross indifference. it's not feasible, nor is it biblical.

Marriage and family are important to God,but just as important to him are the individuals within those marriages and families. God does not value men more than women, or the institution of marriage more than the people who are in it.