The Power of Words
Marsha’s stomach tightened. Still shaken from the anger her husband displayed the previous day, she braced for another explosive outburst. Her “offense”? She had gone shopping without telling him. When she casually mentioned it at dinner, he first glared, then made a sarcastic dig—“Look at you—the social butterfuly!”.
A barrage of questions quickly followed—“Who did you go with?” “How long were you there?” “What clothes did you wear?” “What did you talk about?” “Did you talk about me?” “How much money did you spend?”—none of which Marsha could come close to answering to his satisfaction.
During a lull in the interrogation, Marsha cautiously asked him about his plans for the day. She was hoping to change the subject and wanted to make sure he wasn’t depending on her to be at home.
As usual, Dan misread her motives: “Why do I always have to tell you what I’m going to do?” he snapped. Marsha could feel her body tense reflexively.
“You don’t,” she said guardedly. “I was just wondering if you might like to do something.”
“Well, I just don’t know why you expect me to tell you everything I’m doing,” said Dan, his anger ramping up.
“Why are you getting so upset? I never said you had to tell me everything,” Marsha replied.
“I’m not upset! You always make such a big deal out of nothing!” Dan snarled.
“I wasn’t trying to make a big deal out of anything,” Marsha reasoned. “All I did was simply ask—”
Dan cut her off and shouted, “Don’t try to deny it. You always do that! Why don’t you just shut your big mouth and drop it! Are you stupid?!”
Marsha exited that conversation, as she had many others, feeling belittled, confused, and guilty. No punches. No slapping or shoving. Instead, words were the weapon of choice.
The purpose of this booklet is to call our attention to the misuse words. We’ll deal primarily with the abuse of words in the context of marriage, but the ideas apply to other relationships as well. Our chief concern is for the countless husbands and wives who need help understanding and responding wisely to attempts at verbal control and harm. Together we need to think carefully about words that violate the spirit and promise of the marriage covenant.
Remember the schoolyard comeback, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me”? It’s a lie! Unkind words do injure—sometimes deeply. An inconsiderate word can kill the spirit of a spouse or a friend. Proverbs 12:18 states that “the words of the reckless pierce like swords.” James describes the tongue as being “full of deadly poison” (3:8). Psalm 52:2 speaks of the tongue as a “sharpened razor” that “plots destruction.”
Does this mean that our words should never cause pain? No. The language we use is like a sharp knife. In the hands of a skilled, benevolent surgeon, it can do good. There is a time for “verbal surgery.” Some situations require the compassionate and skillful use of incisive words that may cause pain (proverbs 27:5–6). But this is not the kind of pain that harms (see 2 corinthians 7:8-10). It is pain intended to heal—“the tongue of the wise brings healing” (proverbs 12:18).
Far too often, however, loving motives are absent in the pain we cause with our words, even in the best of marriages. Almost all marriages experience unhealthy conflict and discord when both partners use their words to control and hurt each other.
Normal Marital Conflict
Conflict in marriage is normal. Because each partner brings his or her own perspective into the relationship, most marriages encounter frequent disagreements and profound differences of opinion. In healthy relationships, most of these are resolved in nondestructive ways. Although couples may strongly disagree, they learn to work through conflict in a way that allows them to disagree with each other in a respectful manner.
Controlling Tactics. But most couples also experience moments or seasons when they misuse their words. Communication can temporarily turn ugly and manipulative even in the best of relationships. The following is a brief description of the most common tactics couples use to control each other with their words.
Guilt trips are a common means of manipulating or punishing others. When spouses are able to make their partners feel guilty for disagreeing with them or doing something they didn’t like, they gain the power to influence actions and behaviors. The guilt-trip vocabulary can be straightforward: “I hope you’re happy now!” In many cases it is subtle: “Just forget it! I’ll take care of it myself” or “You’re always too busy for me.”
Faultfinding buries spouses under a barrage of criticism. From how they take care of things, to how they manage money, to how they look, or how they drive, spouses can pick apart their mates over the simplest of things. Faultfinding allows a spouse to feel superior and make their partner feel inferior.
Name-calling applies a negative word or phrase to a spouse’s perceived deficiencies. Spouses may also resort to character assassinations like “You’ve never been much of a wife” or “You’ll never amount to anything.”
Yelling occurs in many marriages. Shouting or screaming intimidates a partner. It allows the one who is yelling to feel strong and makes the other feel weak, powerless, and terrified of saying or doing anything that might provoke another angry outburst.
Sarcasm is another method of control and is often a thinly veiled attack. Sarcastic responses such as “whatever” or “sure” (accompanied by rolled eyes) discounts and condemns a partner’s point of view. Sarcasm obviously doesn’t invite honest discussion. Instead, it frustrates partners and sabotages the conversation, keeping it from going forward in a healthier direction.
Blaming exonerates the accusing spouse while piling guilt on the other. When something goes wrong, it’s the other partner’s fault. For example, one wife asked her husband to respond to an awkward phone message from a family member and then later scolded him for doing it when the family became upset.
Putdowns, whether subtle or overt, are used to gain power over a mate by making them small and foolish. In a calm yet condescending tone, a husband may talk down to his wife by telling her not to worry about the finances because they are “over her head.” Or a spouse may mock her husband publicly for an innocent mistake.
Controlling Motives. In one way or another, most husbands and wives have resorted to at least some minor version of most or all of these tactics. And the problem is not just about words. We are motivated to use controlling words for any of the following reasons:
To Get Our Own Way. There’s a selfish streak in all of us. One of the things that made Jesus’s life here on earth so remarkable is that He wasn’t selfish. He was self-giving. He always put the best interests of others and the purposes of God the Father before His own, even though it caused Him to suffer more than anyone else in history. We are called to follow His example of unselfishness wherever that may lead. But all of us fall short. At a point of marital disagreement, even mature spouses can act childish and demand to have their own way. Controlling our mates through intimidation or guilt is an attempt to get what we selfishly want.
To Get Even. Right or wrong, some spouses feel personally attacked or let down, so they seek to punish their mates. Retaliation is a major reason many spouses turn to controlling tactics such as name-calling or sarcasm. They react out of anger with the intention of getting even. Others vent their personal frustrations on their partners. They’re angry about circumstances or at other people, and they want someone—anyone—to pay.
To Hide Our Shame. Openness and personal responsibility are fundamental to a growing marriage. Without them there can be no real connection or capacity to repair a rupture in the relationship. Yet we sometimes use words to hide and push our spouses away. Like the first married couple, Adam and Eve, we get scared and try to conceal our failures from our mate and from God (genesis 3:7–13). We feel ashamed and afraid that our spouses might turn around and walk away if we let them see our real or perceived flaws.
When confronted with the truth of our harmful behavior toward others, we don’t want to admit it. We’re often too angry over being hurt ourselves. Mostly, we’re afraid that if we do own up, we’ll be attacked or abandoned. Following in the steps of Adam, we become defensive and blame our spouses, and even God, for our self-centered behavior (genesis 3:12).
To some degree, all of us have spoken manipulative and intimidating words to get our own way. We’ve used unkind words to punish. We’ve blamed others to protect ourselves from being seen. When we recognize this, we need to take responsibility for the harm we’ve caused others. Words of honest confession that acknowledge how deeply we’ve hurt our spouses can begin to rebuild trust and help to repair relational ruptures, even in those difficult times when repair seems unlikely.
Verbal Abuse in Marriage
Verbal battles happen in every marriage. Reasonable people, however, recognize the line between normal marital conflict and abuse. When that line is increasingly crossed, the relationship becomes oppressive. Partners stand on unequal footing. One spouse has most, if not all, of the power in the relationship. The other no longer feels the freedom to say no or to express his or her views, feelings or needs. Oppressive spouses are not interested in being mutually considerate partners. Whatever is important to them—their wants, their needs, their pain, their opinion, their schedules, ect.,—that is the only thing that matters.
While husbands commit most of the physical abuse that occurs in marriage, both husbands and wives are equally capable of dominating their spouses with their words. But oppression has no place in the kingdom of God. Oppression is a terrible experience in any context, but especially in marriage. It’s a far cry from the mutual love and respect that God intended between a husband and a wife (ephesians 5:21–28). Instead, it’s more like a dictatorship, with one spouse lording power over the other.
Spouses who regularly oppress and control their partners employ the same verbal tactics used by all spouses—they just use them more frequently and with greater intensity and malice. The names they use are more demeaning. Guilt trips are the norm, not the exception. The sarcasm is biting, the blaming and intimidation more frequent and intense.
To reinforce control, the spouse with the most power may also try to possess their partner and isolate them from family and friends. Behind closed doors they may also resort to patterns of sulking, smothering, withholding affection and making all sorts of unfair threats. They may threaten to divorce, quit a job, take away the children, or even commit murder or suicide if they don’t get what they want.
Nearly all abusive spouses play the victim. In fact, most are brilliant at attacking and acting like the persecuted one at the same time. Whether they are aware of it or not, they are masters at “flipping the script,” making their spouse look like the bad person for the very problems their own selfish words created. Nothing is ever their fault. Someone else, namely their spouse, is always in the wrong.
Most verbally abused spouses scramble to comply with their spouse’s demands. Throughout decades of verbal abuse one wife often thought to herself, “If only I could figure out what would make my husband happy, everything would fine.” Others apologize for upsetting them. One abused wife would typically withdraw in fear when her husband blew up. Eventually, she would say sorry for asking him a question that upset him or making a statement that differed with his views. He would then play the victim, telling her that she should be grateful to have a husband like him who would forgive her for putting him through so much.
Out of frustration, many try to reason or debate with their abusive spouses. They attempt to explain what their abusive mates have misunderstood. But attempts to clarify are mostly pointless. Abusive spouses don’t want to be reasonable. They don’t want honest dialogue. They are not interested in taking a hard look at themselves and how their selfishness is tearing the family apart. They generally don’t care what they put their spouses and kids through. They are mostly interested in making it all about them. Period!
In most cases, verbally abused spouses don’t fully realize the level of oppression and control they are up against or the devastating toll it is taking on them. They have a sense that something isn’t right, but they can’t put their finger on it. All they know is that no matter how accommodating they try to be, it’s never enough.
The Toll of Verbal Abuse
The Scriptures teach that while words may seem insignificant, they can do great damage. Words can degrade. Words are like fire (james 3:5–6). Words can be hellish in their destructive effect (v. 6). Words can cripple. Words can kill. Sadly, the truthfulness of these Scriptures is borne out in the lives of many who have found that the pain of demeaning words can cut more deeply than physical assault. You can’t see the bruises, but the toll is just as devastating. In fact, most abused spouses say they would prefer physical abuse to another torrent of guilt-trips, putdowns, and angry words.
The long-term effect of living with an irrational, manipulative spouse is that those who are being abused feel as if they’re going crazy. Conversations with their partners often go nowhere but in circles. One abused wife said that she would get so frustrated and confused trying to talk with her husband that she felt like pulling her hair out. She never knew what was acceptable or what might set him off. What wasn’t a big deal one day to her husband would upset him the next. And no matter how much she tried to explain herself, her husband often had a comeback that would insult her intelligence and shut her down.
Spouses married to mates who verbally abuse them also struggle with extreme self-doubt. They doubt their own feelings, judgments, abilities, and perceptions. They constantly second-guess themselves. After being so controlled and maligned, they lack confidence in themselves and in their ability to stand up for what they believe. They slowly tend to withdraw from family and friends and become more isolated and controlled by their abuser.
When a spouse begins to believe that he or she has no value or voice, a loss of selfhood often occurs. No one can ever truly take away an individual’s sense of unique value, but a verbally oppressive spouse can come close. To have one’s opinions, feelings, needs, accomplishments, and dreams regularly dismissed and mocked can lead a person into thinking that he or she is nothing as an individual. The shame they feel smothers the glory and honor God has given each of us as creatures made in His image (psalm 8:4–5).
There is often a noticeable shift in the countenance of a spouse who is experiencing patterns of verbal abuse. The person who used to be happy, outgoing and bubbling with energy and hope now appears unhappy, withdrawn, lethargic and depressed. After living in a marriage where nothing changes no matter what they do, they slowly give up, thus giving their mate further unspoken permission to run their life.
Responding to Verbal Abuse
Some think that verbal abuse in marriage isn’t all that serious. But those who have been on the receiving end of it know what a cold, dark and miserable place it is. The first step in forming a careful, wise response is to recognize that you are in a verbally abusive relationship.
Recognize The Problem. Verbally assaulted spouses begin to help themselves and potentially their mates by learning to recognize how and when their partners are using words to control and demean them. One way to better recognize the problem is to listen to their own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. They need to begin allowing their own perspective to count as much as their spouse’s point of view.
If you are in a verbally abusive relationship, you aren’t as helpless or over-sensitive or at fault as your spouse has led you to believe. Your opinions and perceptions are valid. So turn up the volume on your own thoughts and feelings. Learn to think for yourself again. Awaken your deadened emotions and feel the anger over the injustice of abuse you’ve been suppressing. Feelings aren’t reliable alone as a guide to our thinking, but like a gauge on an automobile’s dashboard, feelings can indicate that something is seriously wrong and needs attention if people and relationships that are not well are going to have a chance to get better.
Keeping a journal of how and when your spouse verbally dominates or assaults you can also help you identify the patterns of control and manipulation you are up against. Please understand, however, that the purpose of such a journal is for your understanding, not revenge. Record-keeping should never become a list of wrongs that you later throw back in your spouse’s face (1 corinthians 13:5). As you keep this account, you will notice patterns. These will allow you to better understand and predict how and when your spouse tries to verbally control and punish you. Once you realize this, you are less likely to be caught off guard when it occurs. And you will be better prepared to wisely confront the problem as it happens.
Another aspect of recognizing the problem is realizing when you need help. Addressing serious cases of verbal abuse often requires strong corrective measures. It’s understandable if you don’t feel confident enough to do what needs to be done by yourself. Most don’t. Seek support from those who believe you and have the experience and the resources to help. Talk with a trustworthy friend or enlist the help of a pastor or Christian counselor who understands the dynamics of serious verbal abuse.
Conduct a Careful Self-examination. Without minimizing the pain you are experiencing as a result of your spouse’s unjustified behavior, you need to take time to look within yourself.
An important part of self-examination is recognizing your typical response to the abuse. You are, of course, in no way responsible for your spouse’s verbal mistreatment. You haven’t in any way caused your spouse to be disrespectful, manipulative, or oppressive toward you. You may, however, need to accept responsibility for permitting and enabling your spouse to demean you and boss you around. Owning your response helps to keep powerlessness and bitterness from taking root in your heart.
Another crucial aspect of examining yourself is taking a thoughtful look at why you have allowed your marriage partner to verbally mistreat and control you. A compliant, permissive response is often partly due to a deep fear of abandonment, either emotional or physical. This fearful pattern is often rooted in an unaddressed history of anxious, unsettled and even abusive relationships where compliance appeared to be the only way to survive and keep others from leaving you. But regular compliance has a high cost. It requires you to sacrifice more and more of your thoughts, feelings, and needs at the altar of temporary peace. In the end this contributes to a cycle of reenacting the same fearful response that led to the same painful outcome.
When you continue to react in fear out of what our spouse might do, you remain trapped in a cycle of response that only adds to your troubles. But as you become more mindful of the history behind the way you typically respond to verbal abuse, you can better see that this pattern has never worked.
The benefit of such a realization is twofold: First, it invites you to begin the process of grieving the pain of your story. It is difficult in itself to honestly face a history of painful abandonment and the ongoing fear of being left. It shouldn’t be done quickly or by yourself. Sharing your greatest fears is what gives those who care for you the opportunity to engage your most scared and hurting places with much needed kindness and compassion. Second, it invites you to consider how you could engage the abuse in your marriage differently—less out of fear and more out of love.
Seek To Love. It’s important to consider what it means to show genuine love as we respond to a spouse who wounds us with words. To be sure, love is not simply making our spouses feel better. It is not a passive pleasantness or avoiding conflict just to maintain the peace. Put simply, to love is to seek the best interests of our spouse. This means at least two things: First, we care for our spouse even though they have lost our trust. Second, love directly addresses sinful patterns in the life of our partner, even if that upsets them or makes them uncomfortable.
Jesus, who loved perfectly, was at times confrontational. He would get into people’s faces and make sharp remarks (matthew 23:13–36; luke 11:39–54). Yet Jesus confronted not to get even, but to wake up those who didn’t realize the damage they were doing. He confronted to give offenders the opportunity to acknowledge their sin, repent, and find forgiveness. In the same way, husbands and wives can lovingly confront patterns of verbal abuse out of a desire to give their spouse who is not well an opportunity to come to their senses so they can get well.
Confront the Verbal Offenses. The Scriptures teach us to try to live at peace with everyone “if it is possible, as far as it depends on you” (romans 12:18). You may, however, be in a marriage where your spouse has made it impossible to live in peace and harmony. Your mate is either blind to his or her offensive ways, or doesn’t care.
In such a case, confronting the pattern of verbal offense is necessary. There are two options for you to consider: You can confront at the moment your spouse verbally abuses you, or you can choose a time to discuss your concern at a less emotionally charged moment.
In severe cases, it often is unsafe to confront an abusive spouse alone. If so, confront your spouse in the presence of a trusted pastor, friend or counselor. Regardless of when you decide to confront, the confrontation involves naming the abuse, setting limits, and following through with consequences.
First, name the verbal offense. This involves putting words to how you see your spouse trying to control, punish, or invalidate you. One wife said to her husband, “You may not be aware of it, but you have a tendency to raise your voice and intimidate me when things don’t go your way. ” Another husband said to his wife, “Honey, we really need to have a conversation, but we can’t talk through this issue with you when you immediately try to put me on a guilt trip for disagreeing with you.”
Be prepared. In most cases, abusive spouses will deny how they talk to you and will often attempt to back their partners down with more verbal intimidation. It’s important to learn to anticipate such efforts to regain control over you and not to get sidetracked. Don’t get drawn into a debate. Your goal isn’t to persuade or convince your spouse of the abuse you are putting words to. It’s simply to inform. Stick to describing how he or she talks to you, and avoid getting drawn into a argument over the abuse you are naming. Don’t try to reason or explain yourself at this point—because your mate really does not want to be reasonable. Mostly, they just want their own way. As kindly and firmly as possible, point out that even in denial your mate is still trying to control you with their words and make it all about them.
Second, set limits. Naming the abuse must immediately be accompanied by setting limits. While love covers a multitude of sins, it also knows when to say those patterns that make mutual love impossible are unacceptable.
Approach your spouse with calm but firm words that communicate manipulative statements, intimidation, derogatory names and angry outbursts are no longer okay. It might involve saying, “I can see that something troubles you, but yelling at me is unacceptable. I want to hear what you have to say, and I will when you can settle down and calmly tell me what’s going on.”
Third, follow through with consequences. Setting limits means little without consequences. A consequence is something that you (not your spouse) will do if your limits are not recognized and honored.
Giving consequences is not about trying to force your spouse to stop abusing you with words. It is saying that if he/she doesn’t, this is what you are going to do. For example, one wife said to her husband, “Right now you’re being sarcastic and talking down to me. I’ve clearly let you know that is no longer acceptable. We need to resolve this issue, but if you will not give me the same respect you want me to give you, I’m ending this conversation. Let me know when you’re ready to treat me with respect, and then we can talk again.” Another husband whose wife regularly yelled at him over the phone began telling her, “You are screaming at me, and I’ve asked you to stop. If you continue, I’m going to hang up the phone. When you can find a kinder way to talk to me, I’ll be glad to talk with you again.”
The consequences should fit the situation and keep you safe on all levels. The more serious the offense, the more serious the consequences. Options can range from leaving the room and ending a conversation to a temporary legal separation. In extreme cases, victims should extricate themselves from the situation for their personal safety. Certainly if a verbally abusive situation reaches such an impasse, the offended party must obtain wise spiritual and personal guidance from a loving and understanding pastor or Christian counselor.
Allow Time for Awareness. Those who’ve been hurt by a pattern of verbal offense need to give their mates ample time to recognize their behavior and the harm it has caused. Just as it may have taken a long time to recognize the seriousness of the abuse, abusive spouses usually need time to understand how and to what extent they demean and control their mates.
In many cases, offenders are so self-centered that they have no clue about the destruction they cause with their words. Many feel that as long as they haven’t laid a hand on their mates, they haven’t crossed the line into serious abuse. Often, they must be compelled to listen as their partners describe the pain they’ve suffered. Only then can they start to understand and express genuine words of sorrow and repentance.
Verbally abusive mates need time to bear the weight of the harm they have caused before their hearts will begin to truly soften and change. Apologies may indicate remorse, but they do not demonstrate changed behavior. Don’t put too much stock in quick apologies, and don’t rescue your spouse from feeling the pain of his or her sin against you. Give them time to contemplate the harm caused, because that’s an important part of what it takes for your spouse to begin to see and feel the need for genuine change (psalm 51:17).
Look for a Real Change of Heart. It’s important that those who have been severely hurt by verbal abuse know what kind of repentance to look for. Tough love won’t give in to a mate who makes a quick apology and then follows it with a demand for forgiveness. A person who has had an honest change of heart does not say, “I said I was sorry, and now you need to forgive and forget.” Truly repentant people don’t focus on their desire for forgiveness. That’s a continuation of self-centeredness. Instead, they express a genuine willingness to bear the pain they’ve caused for as long as it takes. They seek help in their effort to understand how they try to control and punish. They invite honest feedback on how they are coming across. They show a willingness to hear what their words have done to their mates. They don’t try to blame their partner. They don’t try to make an excuse like, “I’m sorry I hurt you so badly, but . . .” Genuine repentance contains no “buts”! Truly repentant people recognize and take responsibility for their unacceptable behavior. They don’t expect their spouse to act as if nothing ever happened. They give their husband or wife time to work through the issues of forgiveness and mistrust they created.
Even if a wounded person is able to extend forgiveness quickly, it is important to understand that such forgiveness may not mean a quick restoration of the relationship. Restoration is a process, not an event.
Forgiving as God Forgives. Few subjects are more misunderstood than forgiveness. Yet few actions are more needed than that of an offended person saying, “You deeply hurt me, but I still forgive you.” The necessary things are so often the hardest to do. Jesus said, “If your brother sins against you, rebuke them, and if they repent, forgive them” (luke 17:3). Implied in this simple statement is the need for words of rebuke, words of repentance, and words of forgiveness that truly express the love of God. God forgives those who honestly confess their sin and entrust themselves to His mercy. He does not promise, however, to remove all natural consequences of the wrong. Instead, He releases the offender from the guilt and the offended from the anger that would otherwise make mutual love impossible.
Jesus teaches us to love our enemies (luke 6:27–36), but He doesn’t demand that we forget or ignore the consequences of oppressive wrongs. He teaches us to love others even though they may have harmed us, and to be willing to forgive those who have sincerely repented.
Loving those who hurt us doesn’t come easy. But to continue to withhold love is to become vengeful; it is becoming like the one who has harmed us. God alone has the right of vengeance (romans 12:19–21). Releasing that right to God is what rids our hearts of bitterness. Letting go of the debt that a repentant offender could never repay is showing a supernatural love and grace we ourselves have experienced. Canceling the unpayable debt of a repentant mate is what distinguishes us as a people who have been forgiven by God (matthew 6:14–15).
If we do not have any desire to forgive our repentant husband or wife, we need to do some prayerful soul-searching. Vindictiveness indicates we are not experiencing the mercy and forgiveness of God for our own sins. Our hearts need to be broken by the countless wrongs that we too have committed against God and others. Certainly, such an awareness of our own wrongs doesn’t excuse the evil others have done against us. But it does remind us that we are all on common ground at the foot of the cross of Christ.
