Question — Do Wives Know Their Own Strength?
92016-09-20 by Object of Contempt
Instead of the ordinary post, today I would like to ask a sincere question. Women are especially encouraged to answer, but men are welcome too, naturally.
The question is this: How aware are women of their ability to hurt a man, particularly their husband?
My opinion, and I think the vast majority of men would agree, is that a husband is particularly vulnerable to some things a woman can do. I suspect women are aware of it, although I wonder how much they understand how deep those wounds can go. In a relationship with an emotionally abusive woman, the husband will likely not crumble right away and so it may appear that he wasn’t hurt. His responses may be borne out of good will at first and desire to forgive an intractable woman. Depression at some point will come into the equation, and he may appear to have simply become lazy. The injury to his confidence and his spirit in general will eventually get worse to the point where he will give up, even if he isn’t able to to leave. Throw in a false accusation, even just a “he never hits me but he scares me” accusation, and that can devastate a man.
Interestingly enough, I ran numerous searches and came up basically empty. A wife has the power to destroy her husband. She can crush his will and his spirit. Straightforward statements like that are very rare. It may be that no one believes it, or more likely that no one thinks it’s important because it is “so rare.”
It would seem that all the many wives in good marriages must be aware of their destructive ability to some degree. The careful avoidance of injurious acts implies that they know <em>something</em> about it.
So… what do you think? Am I on the right track? How aware are women of their ability to hurt their husbands, especially by way of withholding love, general passive-aggression, and contempt?
Roll Away My Shame 
i don’t think women, in general, have a clue how much power they have and how deeply they wound men. i think women, in general, think men are like steel armor, and things bounce off of them. i think women, in general, are so absorbed in their own feelings that how their man is feeling or what he’s thinking is not much more than a dot on the radar.
unless … she’s taught differently. i teach my daughters that they have a powerful influence over boys/men, and that with great power comes great responsibility.
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Hmmm… That remark about a man’s thoughts or feelings being no more than a ‘dot on the radar’ goes deep. That is what I refer to as contempt. “You are worth less, and you get the minimal allotment of my concern.”
It’s the opposite of love, really. It hurts a lot, but is so hard to recognize when you’re receiving it… and assuming the best because that’s what a good husband does. And that makes him all the more vulnerable.
When it gets to the point of false accusations, gaslighting, and direct manipulation, don’t they know at *that* point? Any abuser would have to at least now they were doing wrong, or else they wouldn’t lie and cover it up.
I have several sons. It seems so many women have been actively taught to control their men and look down on them. For my sons’ sake, I am *very* glad to hear that there are moms like you who teach their daughters to be good to their men.
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ahhh, thanks!
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no, abusers do not think about such things, at all, ever. b/c if they did, they’d have to take responsibility, and they extremely rarely ever do that (like, less than 1% imo). both my parents and my first husband were abusive, and not once did they ever take responsibility. it’s amazing how many people and things are responsible for their bad choices.
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if you read much in the manosphere, you’ll learn that women are very self-centered, in general. we circle the same things around and around in our own head and just give them different flavors – same song, different verse, but we give it a whole different title. unless someone we trust stops us and tells us we’re wrong, we usually don’t listen – unless we have some kind of foundation somewhere that causes us to, and very few women do anymore.
this is why it is crucial to know those who a woman values before a man makes a commitment to her. know her friends, her mom and dad and siblings – whoever’s opinion she values highly. then know how those people think. if they speak ill of people often, you don’t want her … b/c they’ll speak ill of you, too. are they compassionate? thoughtful? do they stand up to her and call her out on her bs? does she listen when they do?
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I think there is a lot of man bashing that can go on and a lot of control and looking down or disparaging of men and their way of being. Often women don’t have the capacity to enter the world of the opposite sex and see what lies beneath men’s apparent defences or different way of being and expressing. Men become the ‘bad guy’ when really they are not.
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What you describe is more along the lines of gender wars. I’m positive that is a significant aspect in emotional abuse against husbands. I have heard sermons that bash husbands and dads, so I know it is deeply engrained in our culture as a whole… not just a women’s thing.
The gender war doesn’t seem to really be the motivator for my wife’s actions, though. There are male female differences that come into play, still. She seems to be very aware. I no longer believe that all of the things she has done are simply knee-jerk reactions to my bumbling, insensitivity, or flaws.
I have flaws I am very aware of. I also think she must inherently know that she is very capable of hurting me. Otherwise, what would be the point of her passive and covert aggression?i
The fact is that I have told her numerous times how she has hurt me by her owithholding love in various ways,i and it doesn’t even register in her facial expressions. She definitely knows now. This is why it is abuse, and not just a misunderstanding. I say it hurts and is cruel, and she continues on self-righteously. She may have started out thinking that controlling and depriving me was something that I should be willing to live with (as stupid as it sounds). But her responses to my pain have been too consistent for her not to have known her ability to inflict it on me.
As Ame pointed out, she will *never* admit it. I don’t think she doesn’t *know* it, though. I think she justifies it to herself. If she decides I deserve to be deprived, controlled, punished by flying monkeys, then she still feels innocent. Emotional reasoning stinks.
That reply was longer than intended, and rather wandered away from your actual comment. I hope I didn’t overwhelm you with my “processing” my situation. 🙂
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i think that, more important than trying to come to a logical reason of, “This perpetrator/abuser *knows* what he/she is doing,” … is that you’ve got to decide how to deal with how that person is behaving right now, which i imagine you are doing.
because whether or not the perpetrator knows what they’re doing … or cares … or anything even remotely compassionate, matters not. if they’ve gone this far, they have totally deluded themselves into believing whatever it is they are choosing to believe in order to continue on this path and in this behavior pattern.
also, if you are not a perpetrator or abuser, you cannot understand the mind of the person who is … and that is a GOOD thing. you do not want to be able to understand how they can do that and not *know* what they’re doing.
before i found out all the things my first husband was doing, i went to a female counselor and said to her, “I don’t want to figure out how to get a divorce; I want to figure out how to live with my husband the way he is now.” he was very abusive and violent and angry and mean and evil. his behavior had changed for the worse, i had two babies in diapers, and i needed to figure out how to live in *this*.
she taught me to change the dance steps. she said that when we’re married, we get into this rhythm, this dance … he does this, she responds this way … she does this, he responds this way … etc, etc. she told me that i needed to change a dance step, and that would force him to change his next step.
turned out to be very wise advice.
for the abusive side of a spouse … i spent 2.5 years in intense therapy dealing with that.
however … learning to change the dance step is a priceless piece of wisdom.
i am not a therapist, and i’m not a man … simply a woman who’s been abused most of my life. but i would guess that you’re going to have to create this mental sort of protective barrier around yourself. you can even diagram it if you’d like. but you need to protect you from her. somehow you’re going to have to create a shield that her stuff bounces off of and back to her. just some thoughts off the top of my head … such as … totally unemotional responses to her – no reaction, blank eyes, blank face, walk away as though she does not exist in that space. do your own thing regardless of what she says or does or how she reacts – she can join you or not, but she cannot decide for you. be willing to call the cops on her if she becomes violent – decide ahead of time what that might look like … how you can record it, etc, if this is something you choose to do. you will need to make sure you do not respond to her if she does get this way. you need to treat that kind of behavior as the debase behavior that it is. ignoring it usually goes a long way b/c women, in general, hate to be ignored. you can even kick her out of the bedroom and put a lock on your bedroom door from the INside with a key that she does not have access too, and a dead bolt if you’d like. you can move money into an account that she does not have access to – and other ways to financially protect yourself from her and limit her access to funds. also … document document document. date, time, day, event, people involved, photo/video, etc. you may never need it, but if you do, you’ve got it. if you set up any kind of discreet video, you will want to ck with your state laws first – some of it may not be admissible in court if that is ever needed.
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There is a lot of deep pain there for you in the way you are being treated. Recognising what we can and cannot change is the only way out of this situation. Hard as it is you are not getting what you need and that hurts. The hurt is then your responsibility. I know this doesn’t seem fair. I have been there.
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Good question, I don’t know the answer, I can only go to myself and I have never intentionally hurt any man that I have been with, in fact I have worked really hard to avoid hurting people, since I know how bad it feels to be on the receiving end of it. People are different, some people have less empathy or no empathy, and others are caring and loving, I do not think that is in the gender, generally, it feels more like it has to do with the individual. It is sad that there are people with so little empathy that they hurt people over and over again. Take care, friend.
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Do wives know their own strength? Hmm… good question.
I have felt very powerless much of my life. Discovering that I have the power to hurt my best friend husband was a shock, when I realized it early in our marriage. A sad, scary shock. I never want to hurt him!
Reading your recent posts, I am reminded of how my malignant sociopathic narcissist momster treated my dad, and later treated my stepfather. She was very controlling and manipulative. She drove my dad to a mental breakdown with her non-stop nagging, complaining, and browbeating. My stepfather she drove to drink, then later he turned to the Lord.
Did she know she was hurting them? Of course. She looked most satisfied when their pain was showing. Hurting them was her intent, a means to an end of whatever she wanted at the time. In my mother’s world, the only feelings that ever seem to matter to her, are her own.
By the way, several months ago I unfollowed every blog I was following, so I could focus on writing my memoir. I am currently stuck with writer’s block, so I am re-following a very few select blogs. If I disappear again, it isn’t you, it’s me. Grrr I am frustrated by my writer’s block!!
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