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Many marriages end up in divorce because a spouse is abusive to his/her spouse. It's very easy to say that when you're being abused by your spouse or partner, all you have to do is walk out the door. However, things aren't always as clear cut as you'd want them to be. You don't always immediately learn how to draw the line between being abused and just having a really bad fight. This is why a lot of people stay in bad marriages longer than they should; it takes time to reconcile the fact that the person you married is hurting you in ways that you never imagined he/she would.
Spousal abuse has a very deep psychological effect on individuals. In fact, the effects can run so deep that one cannot easily distinguish anymore if one is being abused or not. Because many people tend to want to make the marriage work so badly, they do everything they can to rationalize their spouse's actuations. Many people also have a hard time accepting the fact that their spouse is abusive maybe because there's no physical abuse involved. However, being abusive doesn't just translate to bruises and scars; it also translates to emotional wounds that often take a lot longer to heal.
Taking a step back to honestly examine your marriage takes a lot of courage, but it is through this self-examination that you can determine if your marriage is in serious need of help or not. Here are a few diagnostic questions that you can ask yourself if you come to a point in your life when you realize your marriage needs some closer scrutiny.
1. Do you feel scared around your spouse? - One of the first signs of abuse is that you feel scared of your spouse. If you ask yourself the question "is my spouse abusive?" but you can't come up with a clear and honest answer, observe yourself when you are around your spouse. If you are scared, jumpy, and nervous, that's hardly a normal feeling to have when near somebody who is supposed to make you feel safe and secure.
2. Have you ever been physically hurt by your spouse? - Being pushed, shoved to the wall, forced to engage in sexual relations when you already said "no", slapped, or threatened with physical harm are signs of being abused. You may brush this off because you rationalize that he/she only did it because he/she was mad, but this is hardly an excuse to hurt or threaten to hurt anybody, let alone somebody you're married to.
3. Does your spouse isolate you from your family and friends? - One of the classic signs of an emotionally and even physically abusive spouse is when he/she manipulates you into not spending time with family and friends. Isolating you from the people you love using emotional blackmail, threats, and physical violence is a sign of an abusive partner.
4. Do your family and friends express concern about you and changes in your personality since you got married? - At first you'll probably feel very defensive about this, but it's not something you should ignore. At times you're the last one to realize the little changes in you that's brought about by abuse.
5. Do you find yourself always making excuses for your spouse's abusive behavior? - Constantly rationalizing that your spouse's abuse is justified because it's your fault is not a good sign of a healthy and thriving relationship.
Realizing that your spouse has a problem is the first step to finding help. Many marriages end in divorce because of spousal abuse, but the more important issue here is what this kind of abuse does to you and how it affects you in the long run. If you have children and they see you being abused by your spouse, that's going to have a lasting effect on them as well.
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