{"id":6994,"date":"2015-07-30T07:45:30","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T14:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lauradoyle1.wpengine.com\/?p=6994"},"modified":"2025-05-13T13:59:37","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T20:59:37","slug":"verbally-abusive-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lauradoyle.org\/blog\/verbally-abusive-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Verbally Abusive Husband and How to Make Them Stop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is your husband or boyfriend incredibly cruel at times? Does he swear, yell and call you names? Does it undermine your self-esteem?<\/p>\n

If so, then you may be verbally abused.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve made an interesting discovery about verbal abuse. Only women suffer from it\u2014not men. Wrapped inside that mystery is a profound key to making your house safer and more peaceful, which I\u2019ll explain step-by-step in this blog. <\/p>\n

\"Verbal<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying that women are never verbally abusive. I\u2019m not proud to admit that I\u2019ve said horrible things to my husband<\/a> with the intent to lay him low. Maybe don\u2019t tell anyone, okay? What I\u2019m saying is that women tend to identify as suffering verbal abuse while men rarely use that term.<\/p>\n

For example, even though I raged at my husband for years, he would have said I was in a bad mood or that we had a fight, but never that I was verbally abusive. I was surprised to learn that this is true pretty much across the board with men. I\u2019ve asked hundreds of men and none of them cop to being verbally abused. They scrunch up their faces and say, \u201cNaww, she\u2019s just being mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interesting, right? Either verbal abuse is mostly perpetrated by men, or else men just don\u2019t see themselves as being abused.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the explanation? Do our harsh words land less painfully on their thick skins? Or could it be that what we experience as \u201cverbal abuse\u201d could also be described as hurtful things said during garden-variety fights?<\/p>\n

Either way, verbal abuse feels unsafe and scary.<\/p>\n

\"what<\/p>\n

Of course in the middle of a fight, mud is flying every direction. Both of you end up bruised. Often, women come to me with a list of cruel things he said during a fight as evidence that her husband is verbally abusive. She forgets to mention that she was saying equally punishing things to him during that fight. She\u2019s more aware of her own deep pain than of any she inflicted.<\/p>\n

But what if there\u2019s no fight, no warning and your husband\u2019s harsh, hurtful words appear to be coming out of nowhere?<\/p>\n

In my experience with both my own relationship and many thousands of women who have practiced the Six Intimacy Skills, the underlying reason for the verbal abuse was always because she contributed to a culture of verbal abuse by being disrespectful. The astonishingly speedy remedy was to restore the respect with an apology when appropriate.<\/p>\n

To be very clear, I am not suggesting that you apologize to make-nice, but rather only if you review your own comments and actions and find you’ve said or done something that was disrespectful or critical. If you have absolutely nothing to clean up, then there’s nothing to apologize for.<\/p>\n

But if there is something–even something that seems very minor, or justified or it was a response to his bad behavior, there’s magic in accountability.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

My experience with thousands of clients who have endured devastating verbal abuse is that they were able to create a new culture\u2014a safe, calm, peaceful culture without verbal abuse. They spoke to each other with more kindness and playfulness.<\/p>\n

Here are the steps they used:<\/p>\n

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Contents<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n