HOW TO OVERCOME VIOLENCE IN MARRIAGE

HOW TO OVERCOME VIOLENCE IN MARRIAGE

-Bisi Adewale

HOW TO OVERCOME VIOLENCE IN MARRIAGE

 HOW TO OVERCOME VIOLENCE IN MARRIAGE-Domestic violence is any kind of behaviour or act that a person engages to threaten, hurt or control an intimate partner. This may involve extreme force or angry words. It is also spousal abuse.

Victims of abuse

• Most of the times females are the victims of abuse. Although men can also experience domestic violence.
• Many times, the abused is weaker than the abuser.
• It happens among those that are courting, cohabitating or even married. Though statistics show that cohabitating ladies are likely going to be a victim of abuse than married women.

TYPES OF ABUSE

Abuse can come in the following ways:

• Physical Abuse. It involves violent actions such as beating, pushing, hitting, shoving and kicking. Throwing of plates, using of guns or other weapons are also physical abuse and they increase with time, in frequency and severity.
• Verbal Abuse. This involves using abusive words, condemnation, criticism, lying, reporting, intimidation, threats, shouting and so on.
• Financial (economic) Abuse. Destroying the victim’s economic power, limiting him to family income, preventing or forcing him to work or surrender all his income is financial abuse. Forcing a partner to steal or commit financial crimes or destroying his property and making all financial decisions for him is also a financial abuse.
• Social Abuse. This involves forcing the victim to disconnect from friends and family members, locking him up in the house or forcing him to relate with those he does not want to relate with. Monitoring phones, hacking e-mails, controlling the victim’s movement are all social abuse.
• Psychological Abuse. This involves instilling fear in the victim, making him feel guilty, depressed, unwanted, unloved, envious, suspicious, sad and crazy. This can come in form of verbal and physical abuse. It can also involve avoidance of one’s spouse or stopping normal activities and duties.
• Emotional Abuse. Undermining an individual self-esteem, sense of self-worth, name calling, put down, malice, withdrawal, constant insults, negative comparison are emotional abuse.
• Sexual Abuse. The list is long: forced sex, sex without romance, beating before sex, marital rape, forced sexual styles, sexual addiction that leads to a compulsory daily sex with several round of sex per night without the permission of the victim. Besides, sleeping with someone other than your spouse and flaunting it, pornography, masturbation and long-term sexual denial without any justification for it are sexual abuse.

CAUSES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

1. Lack of mutual respect for each other.
2. Pride and ego and the thought that you are better and stronger than your mate.
3. Lack of effective communication.
4. Low capacity for relationship management.
5. Hereditary. Most abusers saw their parents doing it. One report states that boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults (Strauss, Gelles and Smith, “Physical violence in American families. Risk factors and adaptation to violence in 8,145 families’’ transaction publishers, 1990).
6. Uncontrolled anger.
7. Lack of conflict management skills.
8. Spirit of vengeance
9. Absence of the spirit of self-control.
10. Alcohol and drug.
11. Wrong cultural beliefs that wives can be beaten by their husbands.

EFFECTS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

• Bitterness and unforgiving tendencies
• Constant fear and nightmare
• Depression/low self-esteem
• Murderous thoughts can lead to suicide or murder
• Long-term/ life-time injury

SOLUTION

There are two ways to it.

The abused

• Don’t die in silence, speak out, and look for help where available.
• Call on God.
• Talk to your spouse when he is not angry.
• See a counselor together.
• Do not retaliate; it will only lead to more abuse.
• Check what you say or do that makes your spouse to abuse you, and then change.
• Learn better ways to handle relationship conflict without beating each other.
• Attend marriage seminars, couples programmes and marriage school.
• Go ahead, build a better marriage.

 Pastor Bisi Adewale is a family and relationship expert; author of Secret of Irresistible Wife and more than 70 other books on marriage and family life. You can reach him on familybooster@gmail.com, 08068312004, 08051512823, BB: 2AF5C883, Blog:  www.bisiadewale.com, Website:www.familybooster.com facebook.com/PastorBisiAdewale.Twitter@bisiadewale
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