PROTECTING YOUR LOVED ONES FROM EMOTIONAL ABUSE (PART 1)

This morning, I've charged you the message protecting your loved ones from emotional abuse. Protecting your loved ones from emotional abuse. And we're taking our tests this morning from Genesis chapter 16. Genesis chapter 16, verse 1 to 9.

So today, we just look at it from evidently, with the, with the volume of insights and information we need to, we must throw light on on this topic. The message has to come in a minimum of two parts. So in this first part, we look at, first of all, just two points: What is emotional abuse? And then, what are the types? What are the types of emotional abuse? What attributes, what amounts to emotional abuse? So when we, we see them happening, we know that this is emotional abuse. And that will be the foundation for conviction for everyone of us.

So in any way that we are guilty, personally guilty of emotionally abusing anyone, it can be husband to wife, it can be wife to husband, it can be father to child, it can be mother to child, it can be child towards father, and child towards mother. And then sometimes towards grandparents, towards grandparents. And sometimes, you know, from in-laws towards a daughter-in-law or towards a son-in-law. You know, and of course, it happens also a lot in the workplace.

But one of the most very delicate and critical circumstances under which emotional abuse can happen is in the area of marriage. Is it, especially Christian marriage? Because, you know, we are meant to do all we can to stay in in our marriage. So it can be emotionally traumatizing for for any man or woman that is consistently being subjected to emotional abuse in a Christian marriage.

So, what is emotional abuse? Abuse is any behavior that is designed to control and subjugate another human being through the use of fear, humiliation, and verbal or physical assault. It can include anything from verbal abuse and constant criticism to more subtle tactics such as intimidation, manipulation, a refusal to ever be pleased. Most specifically, emotional abuse is any kind of abuse that is emotionally, as emotional, rather than physical in nature. The abuse occurs when someone says, where, or does certain actions to try and control the other person, intimidate the other person, instill fear, or keep such a person apart from other people, or try to break the person's self-esteem and self-worth. So emotional abuse involves attempts to frighten another person, control another person, or isolate that person. Emotional abuse is a way to control, not by using emotions, to criticize, embarrass, to embarrass, to shame, to blame, or otherwise manipulate another person. So in general, a relationship is emotionally abusive when there is a consistent pattern of abusive words and bullying behaviors that wear down a person's self-esteem and undermine their mental health. This type of abuse doesn't involve physical violence, though it might involve threats of violence directed towards you or your loved one.

Then the question arises: Is emotional abuse the same as psychological abuse? There is no clear argument among agreement, sorry, among experts in the field whether there is a meaningful difference between emotional and psychological abuse.

Emotional abuse is believed to be broader, covers a lot more things than psychological abuse. Because psychological abuse is often considered to be one form of emotional abuse. It's a part of it. So the broader one is emotional abuse. Psychological abuse, for instance, involves the use of verbal and social tactics to control someone's way of thinking, such as gaslighting, which is not essential, it is not necessarily the same as other forms of emotional abuse. Psychological abuse may include bullying, bullying the, the person or partner or a colleague, or as the case may be, gaslighting and abuse in the workplace. It can, it also may be perpetrated by false accusations, false accusations.

So I want us to take note of this. We can understand the magnitude of what some of the things that we overlook. Emotional abuse is even more damaging than physical abuse. Because emotional abuse, up to most of the time, as you are going to see from, you know, a lot of the examples that we share now, as bad as it is, as damaging as it is, there is no physical sign. But in the case of physical abuse, even without you talking, it may be observed that your face is swollen, the left eye is swollen, the right eye is swollen, the face is swollen. What happened? There is a scar in your hand. So it becomes obvious. And then if there is someone in the house, when there is physical abuse, someone in the house will know that something is going on.

But in the case of emotional abuse, like you just saw from the story of Sarah and Hagar, even the mother of the house was being emotionally abused, was being emotionally abused by a mistress in the house, a young girl in the house, they made in the house, and nobody knew what was going on. That was a house with more than 300 people. When Abraham was going to deliver Lot when he was captured, Abraham mobilized about 316 fighters from his own, from his own compound. That's to show you the number of people that Abraham was taking care of. Fighters alone were over 300, minus the women in the house, minus the wives of the fighters, minus the children of the, of the people that were with him. So we should be looking at something close to 500 plus minimum. And who was being emotionally abused? Abraham's wife, Sarah. And from the moment it started, nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew what was going on. Or only Sarah, who was the victim, who was the abused person, knew what was going on. And until she cried out, until she spoke out and exposed what she was being subjected to, nobody knew, including those who could have helped her, which of course was number one, her husband, Abraham. And you could see that the moment she exposed it to Abraham, Abraham said, "What? Under my roof? Under my roof?" He said, "Please, go ahead and and put her in a proper place." And then, you know, you see Sarah now, you know, clamping down on Hagar. And by the time she clamped down on her, clamped down on her, she ran.

Now, take note of this. Thank God for the way it ended. You could see it's quite, it's quite instructive that as Hagar was running away from what now looked like another form of abuse. Because if she was to talk with her friends and relatives, she could have also told them that Abraham's wife, her master's, her madam, or Hagar's wife was mistreating her, was abusing her. This is what you would normally hear. This is what you normally hear. Most of the time, the reaction to the unacceptable emotional abuse that is actions that are coming from a particular person. So what we hear about most of the time are reactions to emotional abuse. Reactions to emotional abuse when somebody can no longer take it anymore. And the person now begins to react to whoever is the channel of that emotional abuse. That is what people easily recognize. And sometimes we make the mistake of sympathizing and taking sides and supporting the person who is now the victim of the reaction to emotional abuse. Whereas the truth is, if you look at it from God's perspective, which you will see from the reaction of the angel. Did you notice the angel did not go back to say a single thing to him, to Hagar? The angel did not even say anything negative about Sarah to the mistress. He said, "Go back, obey and submit to your mother." Because the angel knew that she was the cause of the problem. Most of the time, we get sentimental, we get emotional, and we sympathize and team up and support people who are actually the, the root cause of the problem. So we need to please follow carefully as we'll continue in this, in this, uh, in this study on emotional abuse.

So it could be cause, it could be perpetrated by false accusations. And, you know, there are some popular perceptions on this issue of abuse. Several studies found double standards in how people tend to view emotional abuse by men versus emotional abuse by women. For instance, Sorensen and Taylor randomly surveyed a group of Los Angeles, California residents for their opinion on abuse in relationships. Their study found that abuse committed by women, including emotional and psychological abuse, such as controlling or humiliating behavior, was typically viewed as less serious or detrimental than identical abuse committed by men. Duty on his own research found and survey found that men who are emotionally or physically abused often encounter victim blaming that erroneously presumes the man either provoked or deserved the mistreatment by their female partners. So when a woman is involved, people sympathize and agree that what was done was wrong. But when a man is a victim of that same kind of treatment, rather than take the same stand, a lot of people would not begin to postulate that possibly the, the man may have done something that provoked the woman to do what she did. So by so doing, you are just exonerating the female culprit and then and justifying her actions. The same thing you would do otherwise if it happened from the man towards her. And this is where we all have to be very careful. Because there is what is called karma. Be very careful because you will also have a son who is going to marry. You have a son who is going to marry. And if you see a very, very wicked treatment coming from a wife towards a husband, and for some reasons best known to you, you blindly continue to justify it, sometimes, sometimes God will allow that thing play out. And when karma begins to play out, unfortunately, sometimes it affects the offspring of the culprit. So you would later see the same woman who always said, "I know the wife is never wrong. The wife cannot be wrong." You see the same woman now saying, "Because it's her son now at the receiving end, she's saying a complete opposite of everything she said 20 years ago, 10 years ago, when someone else was going through the same thing in his own marriage from his wife."

Emotional abuse can may be accomplished by other kinds of abuse. It could be sexual, could be financial, could be physical. However, it doesn't need to include other kinds of abuse to count or as abuse. It is serious enough on its own to be a concern.

What constitutes emotional abuse? There are a variety of types of behavior that could be classified as emotional abuse.

Number one: Intimidation, threats, and verbal abuse. Intimidation, threats, and verbal abuse. This could be things like shouting. Let me talk to your neighbor. Say, neighbor, do you shout? Do you shout at home? Let's, let's, let's, let's answer something. Let's see whether this Sunday morning now, you will lie inside sanctuary, inside church. Do you shout on people at home? Acting aggressively, acting aggressively, or just generally making you feel scared. You know, sometimes you, you may not slap the person, but you can do something that will really scare the person. You can break bottles. So you can do certain things that you know begins to, you know, bring fear, instant fear in the, in the heart of the person, in the mind. Or it could be the man, the man could be the, the person betraying, not just the woman, or just generally making you feel scared. And intimidations and threats can be done sometimes to make the person feel small. There are people that just like to make you feel small. And and that is why we parents, we need to be careful. We need to be very, very careful. Because, you know, the law of familiarity, it plays out, of course, between parents and children. You won't even recognize that your, your son is no longer a baby. Your daughter is no longer a baby. You know, so when you begin to treat them in a way that, you know, you are trying to make them look like they're still one young, a small girl or a young small boy of many, of, uh, of their teens years, you know, when you know, of course, they feel sad and it affects them in many ways. And some do these, these threats and intimidation to stop you from standing up for yourself. So any environment where you just discover that, you know, there is no value, consistently, they seem to, they seem to show no value, you have to be very careful because it may just be that you are that place, that circumstance, is an environment of emotional abuse. It is an, is an environment of emotional abuse.

And then number two: Criticism. Always criticizing everything about that person. And this is one of the reasons why, why that person would then conclude that you hit him, you hit her. Always making sarcastic comments against that person. And these are things that will ultimately lower the person's self-esteem and lower the person's confidence, self-confidence. It's not everything you observe that you should make comments about. Because sometimes you may be wrong. You may not even know what is going on. Not every protruding belly is a pot belly coming from food. Especially when the person doesn't even drink. Sometimes people have an issue with something that is called bloating, bloating of the stomach. And it could be due to an infection. It could be due to an infection. So we need to be very, very careful the way we just make remarks based on what we, on what we see. And be careful about things that your partner cannot change. Things that your partner cannot change. If your partner has a particular complexion, why, why are you black like this? Why are you black? So you want him to start bleaching? Do you want your wife now to start bleaching? Then you should start providing money for the bleaching cream. And if everybody is laughing at a woman outside, but every time she comes in the presence of a husband, the husband is complimenting her. What they are saying outside no longer affects her. But even when everybody outside is complimenting her, and the husband is the one that is always seeing her from a different perspective, there could be some problem there. And please, as believers and mature men and women, in our pursuit of a Christ-like attitude, let's learn to be careful in our, their choice of words. Instead of saying, "That man is that short man," and you are describing him so that one was in church. Into this, which one said, "No, that short man." No, he's a married man with children. You are discrediting. The only way you can describe him is that, "That short man." For church? No, it's wrong. And instead of saying, "The short man," you can say, "That man." By the time you've used one or two other descriptions, they persist. You can say, you can now say, "That man that is not so tall." Is not so tall. I have actually found out that, you know, as much as possible, we should not say someone is foolish. Instead, even when that is the obvious and, you know, it is, we can rather say that person is unwise. It is better to say someone is unwise than to say the person is foolish. They mean the same thing, you know, but the, you know, saying the person is unwise is a more acceptable and, you know, less abusive kind of word.

Criticism also will manifest in the realm of running down the person's achievements. Even when the person did few things that the person, God has helped the person to achieve, you will never recognize those things. And instead, you will even give the credit to someone else instead of giving that person at least the credit for that particular one.

Number three: Undermining. This involves, you know, dismissing the opinion of the person. You have not even heard what he has to say. You have not even heard what she has to say. You just dismissed the opinion of the person. And eventually, that person is going to observe it. And the person is going to feel hurt. And may actually begin to react. Work out. Emotional abuse involves working out on someone. Walking out on someone because it's an act of humiliation. It's not just an act of disrespect. It's an act of humiliation. It's a slap on the face of that person for you to just walk out. And it can be worse when it's supposed to be an official setting. And then everybody watches why you just walk out on whoever it is that is presiding on that, in that, in that particular meeting. Undermining someone can also manifest in the realm of your choice of jokes. So you, you would have observed that there are some people that they make jest of you. That's exactly what we are talking about. When you make consistently make jest of a particular person, you make jest of the person, it's emotional abuse. And then when the person will now object, "Why are you angry now? You don't even have a sense of humor?" No, if it happened once, we can tolerate it. But if it happens consistently, something is wrong.

Number four: Being made to feel guilty. Yes, they operate in a way that they would always want to make you feel guilty. And this can range from this can come from the dimension of outright emotional blackmail. By the time people begin to hear that your son says he wants to kill himself, your daughter says she wants to kill herself, or the wife says she wants to kill herself, you know, people are more likely to begin to just sympathize with that person and feel that something is wrong, something is wrong from the way you are relating with that person. But how many people will have the privilege of sitting down to hear about what is really going on? Because by the time you hear what is really going on, you will discover that that is just a spoiled boy. That is just a spoiled son. His spoiled daughter that urgently needs discipline and correction. Some people can give you what they call the silent treatment. Silent treatment. Make you feel like you don't exist. Make you feel like you don't exist. You are in the same house, but the person makes you feel like you don't exist. Silent treatment. You ask questions. Sometimes the person may not even answer. You greet. That is even worse. You greet and the person will not even answer. It's not right. Church is not right.

And the next one is financial abuse. Financial abuse. Yes, very wrong. Very wrong. Joint account is another in marriage, but you cannot have exclusively just a joint account. It is wrong. And I've said it that I, I am yet to meet a generous man that we agree to a joint account. A husband that insists that everything himself and the wife has must be a joint account, and they must give account to each other before they spend. That man is not generous. Something you have been used to God knows, maybe 30 years or half from secondary school days, you know, you became a young adult, you started earning money for yourself, you are not supporting people, you are empowering people. And then you will now marry. And then when you not get married, before you can help someone, even a relative, you have to take permission from your wife. You have to take permission from your husband. It's unacceptable. It's unacceptable. That's slavery. That's slavery. Any husband insisting on that is a stingy man. He's not generous. So have a joint account. Have a joint. You must have married. Does not mean you have lost your freedom. You have lost your identity. What are we talking about? So financial abuse is another form of domestic violence where you will insist that, you know, you and your spouse must have a joint account, and your spouse cannot spend a dime of his own money, of our own money, without your, without your knowledge, without your approval. Wake up, wake up quickly. This can be withholding money. You know, even when the quarrels are going on, there are some things that you don't use to fight. So if there's some amount of money to be paid, if there's some amount of money to be sent as feeding allowance to the child in school or whatever, there are some, you know, there are some things you don't withhold. You are some things you don't withhold. Withholding money, not involving you in finances, you know, every time everything is concealed, or preventing you from getting a job, preventing. If that is, is another form of domestic violence. Not that you are providing some hefty amount of money to empower your wife, and then yet you are saying she should not get a job. And every time you release money to her, it is like, you know, she must never talk again for the next one or two months. Controlling the assets, the person's access to finances, and then you begin to demand for receipts. You know, even from your own spouse for certain things that are done. How many cheapers of yam did you buy? You bought 10. Where's the receipt? Where's the receipt?

So number six: Control. Number six is control. Controlling behavior is a red flag in any relationship. In the control, in this realm, the abuser will want to tell you every what you can do and what you cannot do. Even God does not relate with us that way. God allows us to do many things that we wish for ourselves. God allows us to make many decisions for ourselves. God never places anybody under this kind of absolute control. You can't make all the decisions. And especially without even listening to the opinion of the other person. And then control still manifest in the area of monitoring the person. You want to monitor the persons. We are about. Where are you? Where are you right now? Are you, are you sure you are there? Okay, give the phone to somebody near you. Let me confirm. Monitoring the whereabouts of such person. Insisting on regular calls. Where you have to call me every, every two hours for me to be sure that you are still there. And then sometimes you show up at the place to be sure that your husband is there. You show up at the place just to be sure that your wife is actually at that place. These are all subtle forms of control. And they amount to emotional abuse. Or you begin to demand immediate response for every call you put across. There are times the person may be away from his or her phone. The person may be in a discussion. The person may be sleeping. Or maybe just, you know, far away or involved, engrossed in something. And you take offense that you called at such a time and the person did not respond. So when you begin to observe somebody, "I called you and you didn't remember," you know, "you didn't answer immediately. I sent you a text, you didn't answer immediately." We need to watch it. We need to watch it. Spying. Spying on the person. Spying on the person's phone. Checking their internet history. I think in the past, we, we have these things have come up in the past. But I think, you know, it's very clear. Marriage counselors should be clear on these. It's, it's wrong to check out the phone of your spouse. It's wrong. It's wrong. Because there are some things that can also be in the phone of your spouse that does not amount to flirting or infidelity. But they are absolutely confidential. They are absolutely, there can be a family secret. A family secret that is being carefully managed by a few members of the family. And it just happens that your wife is among those that have been trusted enough with that family secret. It will be wrong for you to now check the phone and read about that family secret that has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with you. It's very, very wrong. There must be a minimum level of trust in certain relationships. And that includes marriage. The moment you feel you cannot fully trust your spouse except you do routine check of the phone on a regular basis, something is wrong. Something is wrong. But that approach is not the solution. And rather than investing on gadgets that will help you spy on your spouse, invest on prayer points to prevent your spouse from sexual temptations. Pray for your husband not to fall. Pray for your wife not to fall. That is a better thing to do than to continue to acquire gadgets that will enable you spy on their movements and anything coming on on their lives. And you are not doing anything to, to also protect them from temptations. Some will demand that there must be no passwords. Or the password must be shared. You must know your husband's password. You must know your wife's password for their social media accounts, email, and the rest of them. These are not right. These things are not right.

And then number seven: Social abuse. Seeking to harm your other relationships or reputation. Social abuse. You deliberately do things to harm the person's relationship with other people. You share, you expose the person's private photographs. So refusing to listen to. We talked about silent treatment. You know, some people can be there and you are, they are still in the same house, they are not separated, but they refuse to communicate. They refuse to listen. And even when you are talking, they are looking at the sky or looking at the roof or looking at something else, doing something that's as if they are not hearing any voice talking. So that silent treatment is also very, very, very wrong.

Number eight: Isolation. Isolation. Limiting the freedom of movement of that person. Stopping that person from contacting people such as friends, such as family. Stopping that person from doing certain things like social activities. There are some of these things that are bad. But there's many of them are in place. Many of them are in place. Praise hear the Lord. You know, this isolation from even some social activities that are permissible. We need. These are some of these things amount to emotional abuse. They amount to emotional abuse. Locking the person up at home. Locking the person up in the compound.

Number nine: Withholding affection. In this instance, abusers may punish a person for what they perceive as bad behavior by withholding affection. Or you make them feel they are undeserving of love. You withhold affection. So you see a man, you will not have sex with your wife. And this will go on for a prolonged period of time. And most men that do this, they do it with women they are convinced are godly or are faithful sexually. Because if you, if the movement of your wife is already like this, you, you cannot now use your own hands to stop her. Because you are not giving her justification to go and express that potential. Returning affection. So stonewalling the person during a disagreement or conflict. They may shut down, refusing to respond to. And we've seen this happen even before marriage counselors. That is why we advise you take your issues in marriage to marriage counselors. You take them to the pastor. The pastor will call a team of marriage counselors to handle them. There are rules of engagement. Because you will discover, because if you know wherever the problem is, the marriage counselors will see it for themselves. We have seen situations where you are talking to a couple, and the wife who just refused, said, "No, I'm not answering any question anymore. Anything we want to say, say." So that shows you he's already assigned to you of someone that is very unruly at home. Same thing for the husband. So there are people that people can, can abuse you emotionally by this, in this dimension.

And number 10: Lies. Number 10: Lies. Abusive people, abusive people, sorry, may bluntly lie. Telling the person false opinions from their friends about their bad behavior. And that happens a lot. Even those of us in leadership, you know, we, you will see that happening a lot. When you know people, people will just lie and say, "People are saying that. People are complaining about." In some instances, nobody anywhere is complaining. Instead of saying what they feel, they will make it look like a general thing. It says, "People are saying. People are complaining about this thing." In most instances, it could be that would be true. But in some instances, nothing like that is going on. It's just a lie. And then we see cases of blunt lies. Blunt and lies. And that is why I want to warn all the singles. If you are still single, you don't also know what you are enjoying. You know, don't be, don't rush into marriage. The more patient you are, the easier it is for God to expose something that is hidden that you still don't know about the person you are considering. As time is going on, more people will be knocked out of the list of those you thought you could marry. Anything your husband says about you will be believed outside. Anything your husband says. Anything your husband says. And what do we see from it? It is bad and wicked for a husband to lie against his wife. Because everybody will believe whatever you say about your wife. Everybody will believe. In the same vein, anything a wife says about a husband, most people believe. Lies are powerful arrows. But please, married men, it's wicked to lie against your wife. It's wicked to lie against your wife. Complain about the things that are real. It's wicked to lie against your spouse.

Number 11: Is playing the victim. The abusive person may try to turn the tables on the other person by blaming them for the issues that the abusive person has not even dealt with. They may accuse the other person of being the abusive one in the relationship. They may accuse. Yes, playing the victim. You are the one that is actually abusing your spouse, but you are intentionally giving the public the impression that you are suffering from, you know, the, the abuses and essences of your, of your spouse. We've seen this happen. You've seen this happen. Play the victim.

And then number 12: Egging the person on. What we mean by this is when you already know the weak point. This applies to family, like you and your siblings, husband and wife, close friends, roommates for a long time. You will discover what provokes that close person to you. Then you will now intentionally, intentionally use that same thing to provoke the person. And then whatever comes out as a reaction, you begin to, you take advantage of it and begin to make and use it against the person. And use it against a person. You know how to get the person angry. Then you deliberately irritate the person to become upset. And when they become upset and maybe react, you begin to use that as a tool to bring them down. The number 13: Is cheating. Cheating. Please, don't ever do this. We have seen situations where, in an attempt to emotionally afflict the spouse, the husband would would cheat on her. And sometimes deliberately sleep with a woman that is close to her. It could be her friend. Or you see the other way around where it could be the wife now doing it to a husband where she would deliberately, intentionally begin to, uh, cheat on her husband just to, just to get at him. Praise the Lord. Praise you the Lord.