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... e. On the other extreme, many batterers personalities contain elements of helplessness and dependency. The violent husband has been characterized as a little boy wanting to be grown up and superior, as hed been taught he should be. Kathleen H. Hofeller But there is more to battering than just the physical abuse.
The womans physical or emotional heath should be discussed as well. Psychological abuse has been defined in its broadest sense as mistreatment in the form of threats, intimidation, isolation, degradation, mind games; and direction violence toward ones spouse or other family members or household objects (e. g. ; slamming doors). Patricia Hoffman defines this type of abuse as behavior sufficiently threatening to a woman that she believes her capacity to work, to interact in the family or society, or to enjoy good physical or mental health, has been or might be endangered. Hoffman wrote the first research paper on psychological abuse in marriage in the United States. She is now a psychologist at the St.
Cloud State University Counseling Center in Minnesota. Because of the many woman that remain silent and those who dont even understand that they are being abused, there is no real way we can measure the amount of psychological abuse of women. It became obvious that large numbers of women were seeking safety from psychological abuse. Notes Walter as early as 1970 when more and more refugees were coming into England. Women come in for counseling feeling unhappy. But when they examine that unhappiness, it usually turns out that their husbands are practicing some form of psychological abuse.
Says marriage counselor Jeanne Weight. No woman knowingly falls in love with a man who will abuse her. She only realizes later that his adoration comes wrapped in jealousy and controlling behavior. He was jealous of anybody I spent time with or knew.
I couldnt say hello to anyone- male or female with out him jumping all over my case. - Patricia Howard. An abuser will always say that jealousy is a sign of love. Signs to Look for in a Battering Personality. from the San Diego Police Departments domestic violence unit. The longer a woman knows a man before she moves in with him the better she will be able to increase her chances in recognizing the potential for violence before it occurs. A good marriage is a refuge, its privacy a buffer against the world.
For the abused woman, the marital bond becomes an isolating nightmare. Abusers exploit this, actively tearing apart the womans support network, pushing friends and family away. If she has male friends, he may harass them or punish her for being a flirtatious bitch. If she has women friends, he may treat them so rudely they become reluctant to visit. And the abused women frequently feel embarrassed and ashamed, they are apt to let friendships go rather that share their dark secret. I cant sleep.
I might fall asleep, but in five minutes Ill awaken from a dream of running from this man or this man coming in on me. Cassandra Finley, in hiding from the ex-boyfriend she says stalked and shot her. Lucy, another abused wife talks about her ex-husband who she shot in his sleep to protect her children and herself. I was afraid, Lucy acknowledged. If he had told me to jump off a bridge I would have done it.
One of his sayings was, Its not yours to question why. Its yours to do or die. I was always taught that divorce was wrong once married, always married. Lucy is one of many women in Christian homes where the husband uses scripture to justify the abuse he gives his wife. In fact, some teachings provide a good covering for abuse under the guise of bringing ones wife into subjection. Thus the batterer does not consider his actions abusive; he is simply fulfilling his God given responsibilities.
After my marriage my husband treated me like a non person. With no value other than through him. He cited scripture passages in support of his treatment of me. Anytime I objected to his behavior or to his decisions, he told me that I was to submit to him just as totally as if he was Jesus Christ. Lucy Our own theological church, as we know it, has scorned and vilified the body till it had seemed almost a reproach to have one, yet at the same time had created it with the power to drag the soul to perdition Eliza Farnham What Eliza is talking about here is the Middle Age church where spiritually was good and materialism was bad. Women were looked at as scapegoats as the church fathers attempt to resolve a theological problem.
The thought then was that the souls flight from the body was a precondition for salvation. So the body then must be the source of human sin. Now it was women who presented them, as men, with their body problem. They concluded that specifically female sexuality was responsible for the fall of creation and the decent of mans soul into perdition.
The result of this theological dilemma was degrading the body, sexuality, and especially women. Here it was permitted to beat your wife. In the Creation story, male and female are made equally in the image of God, as woman is drawn from the very substance of man, to share in his dreams, his intellect, his emotions, his spirituality. Greek tradition held that woman was made of an inferior substance, a cruel trick of the gods to despoil the potential of man. Hebrew tradition tells of a helper who is of a shared essence, a blessed gift from the true and living God. Woman was bestowed to save man from loneliness.
Christianity teaches not that men are to beat their wives into submission, or that they are allowed in anyway to harm them. Actually it teaches quite the opposite. As Kroeger and Clark have said, God created woman from man. He took a rib from Adams side indicating that woman is to be his partner, not from his feet to say that woman is under him, nor from his head to say that women are above men. In taking the rib from the side, it shows that women are here to help men, to share in whatever they are feeling and the same goes for men, they are to help women and share in what they are going through.
The verse that is so often used by abusive husbands is: Ephesians 5: 22 - 24 Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church-he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. But read on. Ephesians 5: 25 Husbands, love you wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Verse 28 in the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Spouse Abuse is a large problem in todays society. But Christianity has provided answers to hard questions concerning this topic, as well as a way out. God never planed for abuse in the bond of marriage, in Gods plan men and women support and respect one another, loving the other more than their own body.
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Research essay sample on Psychological Abuse Ephesians 5
