Sadly, there are many kinds of abuse perpetrated in our society. Although there are men who suffer abuse--and frail elders or the disabled who are mistreated, along with the less dominant person in other relationships--by far those most often hurt are women and children. Since my interest has for a long time been specific to the well-being of women, I want to address that issue here with a true story.
Genny is a "well-rounded," smiling, single-again woman of fifty-something. Her story is real, not something I read or made up, and she is willing to have it told. I have, of course, changed the names and identifying details to protect the privacy of those involved. To give some structure to a great deal of information, I've organized it into a guided conversation.
Here is Genny's story:
Marjorie: Tell my readers a little bit about yourself and your marriage to Jim.
Genny: Well, we married late. I was forty-seven; he was a little older. I was well-established and happy in my career as a legal assistant. He was in sales. We met at church, and hit it off because we had many similar interests: our Christian faith, classical music, literature, museums, old movies, the out-of-doors. For a long time, we didn't actually date. We were just good friends and enjoyed being together as friends. We both had been married before and had families, and weren't looking to make any new mistakes!
M: So your relationship started off just as friends. What made you decide finally to get married?
G: After awhile, I grew to really care about Jim, but he wasn't investing very much in the relationship. Although we stayed friends, I wrote him off as a potential partner. Then later he found himself in a really sad and lonely situation and realized he needed me in his life, and he told me we ought to consider marrying. Honestly, I did not jump at that suggestion. I talked to a mutual friend who knew him well, I thought, longer than I had anyway. He was very supportive of the idea—had been for years. I really prayed about it too, and thought God assured me this was for my joy and blessing.
M: You thought the friend knew him, and you thought this was for your blessing. But it didn't turn out that way.
G: Oh my, no! There was a whole other Jim that I did not know, nobody knew. There was the public person that many people knew and loved. That person was charming and funny. Intelligent. Well-mannered. And he was almost ferocious in proclaiming his love for God. That was the public Jim . . .
M: And the other Jim?
G: I didn't know the other Jim until after we were married. He kept a part of himself hidden from everyone, and then it seems like as soon as he "owned" me, he let the private person come forward. He was so full of anger and contempt. He began the verbal abuse on Day One—except I didn't call it abuse then—and it continued from then on. Financial abuse, verbal and emotional abuse, every kind of abuse except physical. But actually he was moving toward that too. He started mistreating the cat, and my counselor warned me, "First it will be the cat, and then you . . ."
M: Yes, continued abuse almost always escalates.
G: Jim criticized my looks and my speaking and my clothes and my housekeeping. He would talk down to me, scolding me as though I were a child and he needed to correct how I ate and how I walked and sat, even though these were areas that he didn't pay attention to in himself. I've had professional positions my entire working life, and have always been respected and appreciated. I finally told him that not one person, ever in my whole life, had spoken to me as he was speaking. And all he said was, "Well, I'll have to think about that."
He would get mad if I told him what my plans were instead of getting his approval first. Yet sometimes he would suggest something for us to do together, and then change his mind without notice. That was confusing to me; I never knew what I could plan. Sometimes he would blame me for uncomfortable situations he got himself into, and then say something sarcastic about how helpful I was. And he compared me to other women.
M: Ouch!
G: He issued commands to me like I was a dog he was training to heel. Then justified his demands by saying, "That is what a wife would do."
M: Were there a lot of arguments?
G: No, not unless you can call one person's rant an argument. I tried reasonable discussion but couldn't make that work because he could out-talk me any day. And I consider myself pretty verbal! He would go on and on and on, until I was buried in words. But he got really mad if I tried to get a word in. I don't mind someone having strong opinions, but it's something else if they are contemptuous of everyone else's ideas. He would often just dismiss what I thought, so I felt stupid a lot of the time.
If he didn't like something, he simply forbade it. "Throw that old rag away. I don't ever want to see you wearing it again." (This was a blouse on which I had been complimented twice that very day!) "I don't like these forks. [smaller salad forks] Get rid of them." "I won't eat this slop." But on the other hand, if he really liked someone or something he could get embarrassingly gushy. I never knew what his response would be, and I actually think that's the way he wanted it. He told me once, "You will never know what I am thinking, only what I once thought." That was such a strange idea to me that I didn't even take it seriously. My mistake. That was the reality.
He would insist on my giving him the reasons for doing something I had done, and then the next time accuse me of explaining everything in order to satisfy myself that I was right. I couldn't win. I wanted to please him, but it was just impossible, even though he considered himself easy to please—told me that, in fact. "All you have to do is—" whatever.
M: And why were you trying so hard to please him?
G: Well, not always, but most of the time, if I am nice, the people around me are nice too. When Jim wasn't nice, I naturally thought I needed to do something to be nicer because the "nice rule" wasn't working. And besides, I didn't know anything else to do. I really did love him, you know. And I guess I still do love the Jim that I first knew, that I had been friends with for so long
To be continued.
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