Overcoming Emotional Abuse

Surviving emotional abuse, abuse in marriage

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How to Respond to a Screaming Man

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You never married an screaming man, did you?

Oh, no, your boyfriend was a normal, caring person talking to you with respect...that is why you married him! So now, why is he transformed into this raging man? What happened to him that now you are shocked by his anger explosions?

To begin, we can say that part of the abuser’s mind frame is that he is always right (and if he has a suspicion that he’s not, it’s your “fault” and you’re “just out to get him”). If he perceives you as confronting or criticizing him, (or worst, putting him down!) his insecurity will demand a show of anger to put the sacred order of marriage in place again. He is always right, remember?

If confronted, he will transform a conversation in an offense, and will resort to yell and fight in messy anger explosions in order to get what he wants, especially when it seems like he is losing the battle to get it.

It is important to keep in mind that you may encounter this type of loud and angry attack, when trying to confront your abuser for the first time, setting some limits to his behaviors in order to preserve your integrity, or when trying to take a break from the relationship.

[ Want to learn more? "Overcoming Emotional Abuse Course"]

Many women are shocked the first time their husband screams, name calls or insults them. He is angry, shouting and facing her down with his entire wrath. Let’s remember this shock; it is the first indication that the promise of marriage (“to be together to love and respect each other”) was not taken seriously, but was only words.

As a spouse, you have to feel shocked, hurt and totally blindsided by his attack. There is no way we can cover up and deny the total effect of this aggression on us. It is sudden, unexpected, and leaves us with a sour taste afterwards. But how do we make sense of this aggression in the midst of a marriage we deem happy? How do we recover the lost sense of security being with him, when you don’t know if this terrible anger episode will repeat itself? Unfortunately, almost by mandate, we immediately run to forget the incident or make excuses for his behavior. We do this either because we fear the unknown aspects of his anger, or are unable to address them, and so we choose denial by saying: “he was stressed out; too tired; under a lot of pressure, etc.”

This is the first mistake: not taking this violation of interpersonal limits seriously, and so, absorbing rather than deflecting the abuse. Remember that you must respond to his anger, and never ignore it as if it is “ok.” If you ignore it and make excuses for your abuser, he will succeed in controlling you. An anger attack on an unsuspecting partner is abuse, and qualifies in the same line as either emotional or physical abuse. It is experienced as a violation of boundaries: as an abusive interaction. When crossing this boundary, your automatic trust in your partner is gone. It’s true that you get deeply emotional hurt with verbal violence, but there is not outside bodily mark of his anger on your body… “only” on your soul, which is a lot to suffer!


There are many ways that you can respond to an abusive and screaming man. Of course you can scream back, but this does not help you communicate past his defense of “make noise and hope it scares my enemy off.”Responding in a healthy way means being able to recognize his “anger cues”:

Physical: tensing muscles, clenching fists, jaw tightens, agitation;
Behavioral: raise voice, stand up tight, fix his eyes on you, breathe short and shallow, leave the room, yell, pound the walls, slam doors.
Emotional: feelings of being abandoned, discounted, disrespected, guilty, humiliated, impatient, insecure, jealous, afraid, or rejected.
Verbal: “righteous anger thinking,” repetitive claims about injustice, constant self-talk about victimization, "all the world" attacking him.

How do you react after seeing an anger attack coming (watching two or more of the above cues)?

1.- Leave the situation and/or house

Yes! Leaving sends the message that you’re not going to sit there and be a willing audience. The truth is that he needs you in a vital role: to be the intimidated spectator of his rage attack. If you leave, probably having this attack is not so much fun because the purpose, (to intimidate you into submission) will not be achieved. So, he needs you there, even if he needs to feign that he is ever-so-sorry about shouting and yelling at you.

Remember that if he has your undivided, scared attention, then he can go full blown into the attack: nostrils flaring, screaming and cursing you for all his problems, fixing his eyes on you so as to see how scared you are (meaning that he is successful, and you will not leave), and if you seem not scared enough, then escalating into slamming doors and pouncing against walls. He can make also a show of breaking things, probably the most cherished household things as to teach you a lesson and avoid having you “enraging him” in the future.

2.-Leave emotionally (detach)

You need to have a special mantra to protect you along this trial by fire. You need to repeat to yourself:

“He is choosing to have now an anger attack. It’s his decision and nothing of what I have done to him warrants this attack, directed to me but triggered by who knows what from his past. I can stand here, and wait until he is finished, because this is the safer spot in the house now. Once he is finished, I will make better plans to protect myself and the children.”

Meanwhile, if you have to hear his ranting along… try to detach yourself of his words and the content of the words he is saying. Keep repeating:

“Nothing of what I have done to him warrants this attack, directed to me but triggered by who knows what from his past,” several times.

Breath deeply and detach, trying to look at this unleashed fury as it you were in a theater watching a powerful, but alien performance. It’s not with you, has nothing to do with you and you’re better off watching without engagement. Watch out to any guilty feelings you can have, and decide to ignore them...you are not guilty of enraging him; he is doing it by himself.

3.- Stand up to him (if it’s safe)

There are varying opinions on whether to fight back (meaning confront/take a stand, not shouting back). Some people feel that it is important to stand up for yourself and show that you won’t be pushed around. Others claim that this may subject you to greater violence. You can say, in a normal voice:

"Please, lower your voice, I need to hear what is bothering you; if you shout, I can't hear you."

Knowing your own strength and your husband’s personality will tell you whether fighting back will benefit or harm you. Avoid screaming back or shouting back, because that will endanger you, and can prompt more violence.

There is no big win here, so select the behavior that will you help you be safer, not the most heroic. Remember, your aim is to survive this outburst with minimum damage, so let it go!

4.- Take care of the children

If you have kids pay attention to their behavior. Every child reacts differently to anger explosions. You could have even one imitating such behavior. It’s highly recommended to seek for professional help for them immediately. It’s not just your personal security and health which is at risk, but theirs as well. The impact on their emotional well being of being scared by anger attacks will not be activated perhaps until adulthood, but it will be there. And the consequences for them will be a general fear of life, and/or a permanent sense of insecurity in the world.

What is that you want for yourself:

  • A place of honor and respect?
  • A way to be appreciated and understood?

Only you can use the energy of that repressed wish to crawl from under abuse and recover your life! Do you want help with this life-saving project? Here is my book: Healing Emotional Abuse

And remember that you can get connected here, tell your story and get responses also, because we care about you! Wishing you the best in life!

 

Get a Peek At Our Course!

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Here you can find what each of the lessons in this course are about. Keep in mind that each of these lessons has extra tools to use, too, as well as a way of sharing your comments with others!

 

Lesson #1: Basic Ideas About Abuse

What if there was a new way of thinking about abuse that gave you power instead of taking it away? Of seeing yourself as a champion instead of a victim? Once you start talking about all that your abuser has taken away from you, you lose the critical skills you need to stop emotional abuse. What you instead need are the tools to see your life as yours, not your abuser’s, and that what he has taken from you is your confidence, not your power.


Lesson #2: Framing Abuse as Control

Why do people abuse others? Why does your abuser abuse you? These are questions you’ll need to answer as you begin thinking about how you’re going to put a stop to the emotional abuse in your relationship. There are some very simple concepts about an abuser’s mindset that will help you understand how little about you abuse is, and how insecure your abuser really is.

 

Lesson #3: The Price You Pay for Emotional Abuse

It’s also critical that you learn what can happen if you decide to “ride it out.” The time for passiveness has passed; now is your time to see your situation for what it is. You will understand what your abuser has tried to take from you, how he has tried to crush you, by taking a realistic look at what awaits anyone who stays under the toxic influence of emotional abuse.

 

Lesson #4: Do You Fight or Leave?

Many will tell you to just give up on your abuser. We don’t. We accept that many women will want to do all they can to stay with their abuser, whether out of love, loyalty, financial difficulty, or mutual children. What we give you here is a breakdown of how you can stop emotional abuse both in and out of a relationship (that is, whether you fight abuse in the home, or fight it by leaving). Each of these options is harder than it seems, and that’s why you need a checklist of the preparations and precautions you need to keep in mind.

 

Lesson #5: Recovering Your Best Self

Only you know how deeply hurtful emotional abuse has been for you. Your personality will determine how long it will take to recover from the shock of being abused by a loved one. Although each person’s recovery time is different, there is a process that each person must take in order to recover critical aspects like self-esteem, self-love, confidence, strength, and the ability to stop abuse when or if it occurs again.


Lesson #6: Fulfilling Your Life Mission

Your last task in overcoming emotional abuse is to halt the worst effect of abuse: the idea that you need your abuser to make you a real person. With a strong sense of what you want from life, and how you’re going to get it, you can become a person who is strong and tall as a castle wall – abuse can’t break through your protective barriers! You will no longer give any thought to those people who try to tell you that you’re nothing without them.

 

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How to Respond to an Abusive, Screaming Man

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You never married an screaming man, did you?

Oh, no, your boyfriend was a normal, caring person talking to you with respect…that is why you married him! So now, why is he transformed into this raging man? What happened to him that now you are shocked by his anger explosions?

To begin, we can say that part of the abuser’s mind frame is that he is always right (and if he has a suspicion that he’s not, it’s your “fault” and you’re “just out to get him”). If he perceives you as confronting or criticizing him, (or worst, putting him down!) his insecurity will demand a show of anger to put the sacred order of marriage in place again. He is always right, remember?

If confronted, he will transform a conversation in an offense, and will resort to yell and fight in messy anger explosions in order to get what he wants, especially when it seems like he is losing the battle to get it.

It is important to keep in mind that you may encounter this type of loud and angry attack, when trying to confront your abuser for the first time, setting some limits to his behaviors in order to preserve your integrity, or when trying to take a break from the relationship.

[ Want to learn more? “Overcoming Emotional Abuse Course“]

Many women are shocked the first time their husband screams, name calls or insults them. He is angry, shouting and facing her down with his entire wrath. Let’s remember this shock; it is the first indication that the promise of marriage (“to be together to love and respect each other”) was not taken seriously, but was only words.

As a spouse, you have to feel shocked, hurt and totally blindsided by his attack. There is no way we can cover up and deny the total effect of this aggression on us. It is sudden, unexpected, and leaves us with a sour taste afterwards. But how do we make sense of this aggression in the midst of a marriage we deem happy? How do we recover the lost sense of security being with him, when you don’t know if this terrible anger episode will repeat itself? Unfortunately, almost by mandate, we immediately run to forget the incident or make excuses for his behavior. We do this either because we fear the unknown aspects of his anger, or are unable to address them, and so we choose denial by saying: “he was stressed out; too tired; under a lot of pressure, etc.”

This is the first mistake: not taking this violation of interpersonal limits seriously, and so, absorbing rather than deflecting the abuse. Remember that you must respond to his anger, and never ignore it as if it is “ok.” If you ignore it and make excuses for your abuser, he will succeed in controlling you. An anger attack on an unsuspecting partner is abuse, and qualifies in the same line as either emotional or physical abuse. It is experienced as a violation of boundaries: as an abusive interaction. When crossing this boundary, your automatic trust in your partner is gone. It’s true that you get deeply emotional hurt with verbal violence, but there is not outside bodily mark of his anger on your body… “only” on your soul, which is a lot to suffer!


There are many ways that you can respond to an abusive and screaming man. Of course you can scream back, but this does not help you communicate past his defense of “make noise and hope it scares my enemy off.”Responding in a healthy way means being able to recognize his “anger cues”:

Physical: tensing muscles, clenching fists, jaw tightens, agitation;
Behavioral: raise voice, stand up tight, fix his eyes on you, breathe short and shallow, leave the room, yell, pound the walls, slam doors.
Emotional: feelings of being abandoned, discounted, disrespected, guilty, humiliated, impatient, insecure, jealous, afraid, or rejected.
Verbal: “righteous anger thinking,” repetitive claims about injustice, constant self-talk about victimization, “all the world” attacking him.

How do you react after seeing an anger attack coming (watching two or more of the above cues)?

1.- Leave the situation and/or house

Yes! Leaving sends the message that you’re not going to sit there and be a willing audience. The truth is that he needs you in a vital role: to be the intimidated spectator of his rage attack. If you leave, probably having this attack is not so much fun because the purpose, (to intimidate you into submission) will not be achieved. So, he needs you there, even if he needs to feign that he is ever-so-sorry about shouting and yelling at you.

Remember that if he has your undivided, scared attention, then he can go full blown into the attack: nostrils flaring, screaming and cursing you for all his problems, fixing his eyes on you so as to see how scared you are (meaning that he is successful, and you will not leave), and if you seem not scared enough, then escalating into slamming doors and pouncing against walls. He can make also a show of breaking things, probably the most cherished household things as to teach you a lesson and avoid having you “enraging him” in the future.

2.-Leave emotionally (detach)

You need to have a special mantra to protect you along this trial by fire. You need to repeat to yourself:

“He is choosing to have now an anger attack. It’s his decision and nothing of what I have done to him warrants this attack, directed to me but triggered by who knows what from his past. I can stand here, and wait until he is finished, because this is the safer spot in the house now. Once he is finished, I will make better plans to protect myself and the children.”

Meanwhile, if you have to hear his ranting along… try to detach yourself of his words and the content of the words he is saying. Keep repeating:

“Nothing of what I have done to him warrants this attack, directed to me but triggered by who knows what from his past,” several times.

Breath deeply and detach, trying to look at this unleashed fury as it you were in a theater watching a powerful, but alien performance. It’s not with you, has nothing to do with you and you’re better off watching without engagement. Watch out to any guilty feelings you can have, and decide to ignore them…you are not guilty of enraging him; he is doing it by himself.

3.- Stand up to him (if it’s safe)

There are varying opinions on whether to fight back (meaning confront/take a stand, not shouting back). Some people feel that it is important to stand up for yourself and show that you won’t be pushed around. Others claim that this may subject you to greater violence. You can say, in a normal voice:

“Please, lower your voice, I need to hear what is bothering you; if you shout, I can’t hear you.”

Knowing your own strength and your husband’s personality will tell you whether fighting back will benefit or harm you. Avoid screaming back or shouting back, because that will endanger you, and can prompt more violence.

There is no big win here, so select the behavior that will you help you be safer, not the most heroic. Remember, your aim is to survive this outburst with minimum damage, so let it go!

4.- Take care of the children

If you have kids pay attention to their behavior. Every child reacts differently to anger explosions. You could have even one imitating such behavior. It’s highly recommended to seek for professional help for them immediately. It’s not just your personal security and health which is at risk, but theirs as well. The impact on their emotional well being of being scared by anger attacks will not be activated perhaps until adulthood, but it will be there. And the consequences for them will be a general fear of life, and/or a permanent sense of insecurity in the world.

What is that you want for yourself:

  • A place of honor and respect?
  • A way to be appreciated and understood?

Only you can use the energy of that repressed wish to crawl from under abuse and recover your life! Do you want help with this life-saving project?

Here is my book: Healing Emotional Abuse

And remember that you can get connected here, tell your story and get responses also, because we care about you! Wishing you the best in life!