Recognising the abusive woman

Josh Ndavi’s life with the woman he promised to love and cherish in front of his family and friends six years ago has been riddled with constant chaos.

She is loud and obnoxious, and she prefers to work out their issues in front of an audience. She expresses her anger through verbal abuse, criticism and sarcasm, and when she really needs to hurt him, she taunts his manhood.

This 31-year-old displays the classic signs of an abused person, walking on eggshells around her so as not to provoke her sudden outbursts and mood swings and being fast at apologising even when she is at fault.

The images of female abuse that we have been fed are those of a woman shoving and pushing, waving a panga or swinging a bucket full of hot water at a man. This may explain why even when it is obvious, men have a hard time recognising emotional abuse.

Josh for instance, even when prodded, refuses to label his wife’s behaviour as abusive, instead referring to her as strong-willed, difficult and sometimes unreasonable. He even tries to rationalise her behaviour saying that it is due to her pretty rough upbringing.

Josh seems terrified of giving up the delicate image he once had of his wife and like him, society seems hesitant to change its view of the woman as the all-weather weaker sex.

As a result, tangible statistics of battered men would be hard to determine. Research however indicates that the numbers are rising.  Findings of a recent study from the UK titled The Rise of the Female Relationship Terrorist show that when it comes to psychological and emotional abuse, women could easily earn the title of intimate terrorists.

MEAN GIRLS

The big screens are constantly feeding women with the notion that hitting your man is cute and empowering, and men seem to think that it is normal if a woman is moody, demanding and unreasonable.

The experts however think not. Over at batteredmen.com, a website for abused men, psychologists say that this behaviour is intentional. An abusive woman may be suffering from mental illness or a personality disorder but most of them are just plain mean.

Like other forms of abuse, the aim of emotional and psychological abuse is to accomplish control.

An abusive woman attacks a man’s authority and his manhood, which usually leaves him second guessing himself. A man who has been through it will tell you that being made to feel weak is more devastating than most forms of physical abuse.

The loud, obnoxious woman may be easy to spot but not the woman who fits into the conventional picture of soft and gentle. When she abuses, this woman’s weapon of choice is her emotions. “She had mastered the art of fragmentation, keeping the abusive behaviour only in the home,” a man willing to be identified only as Wilson speaks about his ex-wife.

Their relationship veered from hot to cold and she used her emotions to get him to do things he didn’t want. She would either break down or threaten to take the children and all their assets with her, a threat that she finally saw through.

STRESSED MEN

On several occasions, she threatened to ruin his job and his reputation by spreading malicious rumours. To an onlooker, these threats may seem better than a woman who is always shouting but to this 33-year-old who values family and appearances, these were very real losses to him – and his abuser was well aware of it.

Those who knew the couple knew her as quiet, likeable even, and each time he tried to defend himself, he was seen as the bad guy.

Like most men in his situation, he made the mistake of trying to fix her. He imagined that things would get better if he was more patient so he bent over backwards to keep her content. In return, he lost his self esteem.

Other men have kept quiet about such abuse because they don’t want to be seen as failures or because they know they are expected to take this kind of abuse without complaining. Others fear  that separation would be costly.

To untangle himself from the web and start rebuilding his esteem, Wilson has had to give up seeing his children as much as would have liked to, but he no longer feels weak or helpless.

According to batterredmen.com, the average man’s coping mechanism towards this kind of abuse is trying to get everything right to keep her happy which is unachievable and only leaves him stressed. Alternatively, he may take to retreating from the abuser using tactics such as staying longer at work or in the bar. God forbid, there is also the risk of a man in this situation blowing up and turning physically abusive himself.

An abused man can only shake himself free by learning not to depend on his woman physically, emotionally and sexually. Sadly, sometimes as in Wilson’s case, establishing emotional independence will cost him things he values.

Characteristics to look out for

• She constantly talks negatively about men in general.

• Despite what her reality may be, this woman thinks of herself as superior and self-sufficient.
• Extreme jealousy even when there is no cause for it is a red flag.
• She may express an interest in getting serious too soon which is a want to control masked as romance.
• Disrespect and dismissal isn’t always spoken. Sometimes she will show it by eye rolls or looks of disgust at your opinions, which are intended only for you to see if there are other people present.
• It is also a bad sign if a woman who is qualified and able to refuses to work or works but refuses to share her money, even when the family needs it.
• An abusive woman may get in the habit of making painful comparisons in regard to a man’s manhood. or effort.