Does the Church have any formal teachings about dealing with emotional abusers?

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DAML72

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Hello all,

I am new to the Catholic church - a convert, in part, because of the Church’s teaching on marriage. As a divorcee - my husband left a week before my youngest daughter’s first birthday- I have never been able to reconcile my faith with the end of my marriage.

Anyway, my ex husband has always been emotionally abusive, but in a very subtle but pervasive form. For the most part, we get along OK and I have stayed in the area so that we can raise the children with two parents, even though my only family is 5 hours away. But after 7 years apart and trying to co-parent with this man, I am so exhausted and discouraged. In a perfect world, I would be able to just cut him completely out of my life. But, because of the children, I still find myself subject to his manipulations. He is very passive aggressive at times and I can’t express to him what I want or feel the children need because that almost inevitably leads to him denying me of exactly what we need. I forgive and forgive over and over again, but just when I feel like I’ve gotten to a good place, he does something else. (He deliberately tries to anger me at times so that I will blow up and he can paint me as the angry one.)

I pray to St. Rita and she is very helpful, but sometimes I feel like I need more. How does the Church suggest we treat these people who are actively antagonistic to us, but who we just can’t escape? The Church’s teachings on suffering is so helpful, but this just feels masochistic sometimes.
 
Even though the spouse may not have ever physically hit you, he is a batterer.
Yes, he sounds passive aggressive. Thank God you are not living with him.

They have undeveloped personalities, latch on to a woman they perceive they can boss around and frighten, always have the full barrel loaded, emotionally, pointed at the woman to keep her in bondage.

A Catholic marriage is centered on Christ. The concept is for the married couple to grow in recognizing Christ in each other, Who is the center of their marriage.

I personally see the batterer as someone who is under the bondage of Original Sin. Yes, pray to St. Rita, develop more friends, and the best thing to do is to detach yourself from ever expecting anything normal from this battering spouse.

If the spouse had no intention of being faithful to you, had no intention of raising your children Catholic, and is psychological incapable of being in a marriage…you have grounds for annulment.

Finally, what they are waiting for you to do is get unglued, then they have won. One of the key helps in spiritual growth is detachment.

Pray for more faith, give everything to Christ, Who will make all end up for the good. Pray for his conversion, but literally cut him off psychologically, emotionally, and anything else you can think when you are not obliged to deal with him.

Receive the Eucharist frequently. And again, build a good Catholic community of friends that focus on real spiritual growth in the Lord that has a joyous, wholesome, and healthy fellowship where you all pray for one another…and get on with your lives.

A friend shared with me she prays this prayer upon waking, ‘Today is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice!’ That is one act of faith…a small seed can move mountains, and my prayer for you is that you will have Christ fill all the needs of your heart and soul in the Church, and that you and your children have a happy life irregardless. Cultivate a sense of humor. A batterer is trying to make you carry their misery. Pray for him with St. Rita’s help.
 
KathleenGee said:
I personally see the batterer as someone who is under the bondage of Original Sin.
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That’s a very interesting choice of words. What would you say if the batterer turned out to be someone who was already a validly baptized Christian? How could such a person still be said to be in any sort of bondage to original sin? I’m really not trying to nitpick, just curious exactly what you meant by this. Also the topic is one that hits very close to home for me in general.
 
Married love exluludes abuse of any kind

Encyclical of Pope Paul VI, “Humanae Vitae”

"This love is above all fully human, a compound of sense and spirit. It is not, then, merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It is also, and above all, an act of the free will, whose trust is such that it is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment.

It is a love which is total—that very special form of personal friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything, allowing no unreasonable exceptions and not thinking solely of their own convenience. Whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner’s own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself."

vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html
Code: 
"The Christian ideal of marriage and family, manhood and womanhood, is incomparably more exalted, balanced and fulfilling than those broken, one-sided or totally erroneous ideologies of today’s world which reduce the meaning of human life to the satisfaction of sexual appetites, material security, or to other such limited functions and desires. In Christ man is revealed as son and friend of God. He is able to become a member of Christ in soul and body. In the Christian marriage, he is able to achieve an eternal, unique and total union in love.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ: be true men and women. Be faithful to the Christian ideal of marriage and family. Let our Christian families be united in mutual love and concern. Husbands and wives: love each other; love your children. Children: respect your parents. "Submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God" (Ephesians 5:21)."

  Encyclical Letter of the Holy Synod of Bishops On Marriage 
[holy-trinity.org/morality/synod-marriage.html](http://www.holy-trinity.org/morality/synod-marriage.html)
1659 St. Paul said: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church. . . . This is a great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church” (Eph 5:25, 32).

1660 The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. By its very nature it is ordered to the good of the couple, as well as to the generation and education of children. Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament (cf. CIC, can. 1055 § 1; cf. GS 48 § 1).

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c3a7.htm
 
I sympathize with you, since I raised my two oldest as a single parent with an emotionally abusive ex-husband in the picture.
Are you sure that what your children receive from their father is worth what you have to go through? Seeing their mother abused by their father can be damaging to children, whether it’s emotional or physical abuse.
I stayed in the same town as my husband after our separation, but when he told my 2 year old that he wished he’d never been born, I went to my church the next day and got help moving several hundred miles away. I found an attorney in my church and filed for divorce.
It was still harmful for my children, one of whom doesn’t believe in marriage, but it was the best I could do. If I had had male relatives to help out, it would have been much better for them.
Having a stressed-out mother can’t be good for your children. You might consider whether cutting ties with their father, and possibly moving closer to your family, might be better for them.
The church teaches that we should stay with an unbelieving spouse when we can, but if the situation is harming us or our children, we can separate ourselves from them. That doesn’t mean hanging around and letting ourselves be abused. (I categorize your husband as unbelieving since he is acting like an unbeliever, whether due to mental health issues or selfishness)
 
Psychopathy of an individual makes me think of John Paul II’s words how it is a mystery…looking at one family…let’s say all are baptized…where one has good soil and another has evil soil…consider the crimes of the clergy we see today or those in the past.

A batterer is indeed a psychopath and the courts have not understood it yet. Look at Drew Peterson who was further sheltered by the police. They stick up for each other because they could lose their life the next day on the job.

You have to disconnect. Stay away…Provide your children with loving extended family and keep them busy and involved.

The best answer to dealing with a psychopathic husband, whether he is with you or out of the house is to be a great mother. Really…this is what a counseller who is best in field and can define the batterer says. Put a big circle of protection around your kids and keep focused. Don’t let your guard down and get plenty of rest and plenty of sacraments and love. And when he is in contact spread joy. It is very hard and requires discipline.

But the Lord will provide you great consolation as well along wtih MOther Mary and the Holy Angels and your favorite saints. Embrace the Cross, cover yourself with the Precious Blood for you and kids for protection when he is around and don’t say cursing words about him to the kids. Be respectful in regards to him in front of them.
 
KathleenGee said:
Psychopathy of an individual makes me think of John Paul II’s words how it is a mystery…looking at one family…let’s say all are baptized…where one has good soil and another has evil soil…consider the crimes of the clergy we see today or those in the past.

A batterer is indeed a psychopath and the courts have not understood it yet. Look at Drew Peterson who was further sheltered by the police. They stick up for each other because they could lose their life the next day on the job.

You have to disconnect. Stay away…Provide your children with loving extended family and keep them busy and involved.

The best answer to dealing with a psychopathic husband, whether he is with you or out of the house is to be a great mother. Really…this is what a counseller who is best in field and can define the batterer says. Put a big circle of protection around your kids and keep focused. Don’t let your guard down and get plenty of rest and plenty of sacraments and love. And when he is in contact spread joy. It is very hard and requires discipline.

But the Lord will provide you great consolation as well along wtih MOther Mary and the Holy Angels and your favorite saints. Embrace the Cross, cover yourself with the Precious Blood for you and kids for protection when he is around and don’t say cursing words about him to the kids. Be respectful in regards to him in front of them.
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Based on one post, you have remotely diagnosed the OP’s husband as passive-aggressive (she offered no examples of any specific behavior, but you said ‘he sounds like a batterer’) and have likened him to Drew Peterson, a convicted murderer. While I have little patience for a man who would leave his family as described herein, perhaps you could be a little circumspect in the advice you offer?

How do we know the OP did not move him to anger, as she accuses him of doing?
 
hurting said:
Based on one post, you have remotely diagnosed the OP’s husband as passive-aggressive (she offered no examples of any specific behavior, but you said ‘he sounds like a batterer’) and have likened him to Drew Peterson, a convicted murderer. While I have little patience for a man who would leave his family as described herein, perhaps you could be a little circumspect in the advice you offer?

How do we know the OP did not move him to anger, as she accuses him of doing?
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@Hurting - while I appreciate your sentiments, the concern isn’t necessary. Kathleen and I speak the same language - we know the type of person that I am speaking of. I didn’t have to give examples for her to understand. No, I don’t think my ex-husband is a sociopath in the likes of Drew Peterson. I do believe that he thinks, to some degree, that he is trying not to raise the children the way he was raised, but I think that what is going on, on a basic level (I have known him 20 years), is that he has very deep wounds from his childhood that he does not want to re-open in order to heal, so he limps along trying to create a life where he can escape from pain. As a result he has had to harden his heart. I believe that he is jealous of the children and my love for them.

If you want examples - I was an excellent student, very active in church and community, I have a law degree, and I think I’m a pretty good mom. By the time he left, I thought I was the worst mother in the world, I was afraid he would take my children away from me, and I had no idea how I was going to support myself. He had suggested I get screened for ADHD. I did, was diagnosed (that’s not in question, I do have it), then when he left, instead of admitting that he was sleeping with another woman (a married one at that), basically he was leaving because I was a terrible wife and mother. (Not terrible enough, however, that he felt he needed to take custody of the children). He also then decided that I was making up my ADHD diagnosis and has refused to even consider the fact that one or both of our children may struggle with the same issue.

I’m sure I have done things to anger him. In fact, any time I do not give him his way, or I stand up to him and/or question him, he gets angry. But instead of expressing that anger, he attempts to get me to express it because he doesn’t want to ruin his image. So he seeks ways to get me to behave in a manner that he thinks justifies his reasons for leaving the marriage. He is very close with, and involved my children in, his relationship with his married mistress and her husband and child. For 7 years he paraded her in front of me while I didn’t know for sure whether or not they were in a romantic relationship. I now have proof. After confronting him with that, and asking him to convey to her that I was not interested in her attempts to befriend me, he stepped up the passive aggressive tendencies. He deliberately delayed a trip to visit my family and almost ruined my childrens’ opportunity to ride in their Great-Grandpa’s old car in a parade in my hometown. He has purchased and iphone for my 11 year old son (without consulting me at all) and communicates with me through my son and barely communicates with me directly. I don’t think he has answered one of my emails in over 4 months. This causes stress for my son, as he is put in the middle of our disagreements that arise out of miscommunication. I have pointed this out to him and asked him to consider how this is affecting his son, to no avail. He deliberately interferes with my family’s plans with the children - just recently created chaos surrounding tickets to my daughter’s upcoming dance performance.

I could go on and on. We had a period of about a year and 1/2 when things were sailing along pretty smoothly. During that time, I guess I let my defenses down too much, and now I have to work on building up the protective walls again - email communication, set schedules, etc.
 
I very much appreciate all the support and advice in the responses above. Thank you all! It is a big help to know that others understand and have managed to get through (not that I would wish this on anyone, but it is certainly compelling growth in my soul). Unfortunately, as I am still in RCIA, I am not yet able to take the Eucharist. Four more months! In the meantime, I just try to pray and spend time in front of the Blessed Sacrament when I am able.

The latest struggle is that my ex is undermining my conversion in my children’s eyes and undercutting my attempts to get them to church with me. He recently told him he doesn’t understand why I am ‘dragging them along on my experiment.’ (Yes, he stood and affirmed at each of their baptisms that he would at least support bringing them up to know Christ.) This is why I feel St. Rita is such a compelling saint for me right now. The strength she has obtained for me at times has been incredible. I will definitely look into Maximilian Kolbe - I have heard his amazing story.

Again, thank you so much for all the wonderful suggestions and support! Yesterday was a tough day - today is a new one.
 
I get where you are coming from too. My situation has improved since I made him leave the house, but a lot of the similar things happened while living in the same house. Now he is all nice…tells people who will listen that he did so much for us, and the more he did the angrier I got.

His family still thinks I did something wrong. They never really explained it, but I had to get his mom out of my house first, she lived across the street and was badmouthing me and getting abusive toward the kids, and blamed me for her son not doing anything with them. When I set boundaries with her, she moved. She told her family and they tried to communicate through my daughter and we told them to go through me, and they cut us off.

He only cared about how his mom felt and not how anyone else felt. My counselor says it is just pathological, and narcissistic. I don’t know about your husband but mine was pathological, he would lie, or do something then lie about it. If it wasn’t rosie, he would lie, then talk about me and the faith of our children and try to get my dd to not choose Catholicism. Undermining…then he would tell my friends…I am doing all this stuff and it just isn’t enough.

Then would tell my friends, that we kicked him out of his home by using lies.

It sounds like your situation is continuing to be bad. I am so sorry as before all of this, I had undiagnosed ADD and between that and depression, I could not function. My kids too, saved me.

So I understand your examples, eventhough my situation was bad more while we were under the same roof. Your’s still continues. Get some ideas on boundaries with him, so you can be more empowered to stand up and just “be”
 
DAML72 said:
@Hurting - while I appreciate your sentiments, the concern isn’t necessary. Kathleen and I speak the same language - we know the type of person that I am speaking of. I didn’t have to give examples for her to understand. No, I don’t think my ex-husband is a sociopath in the likes of Drew Peterson. I do believe that he thinks, to some degree, that he is trying not to raise the children the way he was raised, but I think that what is going on, on a basic level (I have known him 20 years), is that he has very deep wounds from his childhood that he does not want to re-open in order to heal, so he limps along trying to create a life where he can escape from pain. As a result he has had to harden his heart. I believe that he is jealous of the children and my love for them.

If you want examples - I was an excellent student, very active in church and community, I have a law degree, and I think I’m a pretty good mom. By the time he left, I thought I was the worst mother in the world, I was afraid he would take my children away from me, and I had no idea how I was going to support myself. He had suggested I get screened for ADHD. I did, was diagnosed (that’s not in question, I do have it), then when he left, instead of admitting that he was sleeping with another woman (a married one at that), basically he was leaving because I was a terrible wife and mother. (Not terrible enough, however, that he felt he needed to take custody of the children). He also then decided that I was making up my ADHD diagnosis and has refused to even consider the fact that one or both of our children may struggle with the same issue.

I’m sure I have done things to anger him. In fact, any time I do not give him his way, or I stand up to him and/or question him, he gets angry. But instead of expressing that anger, he attempts to get me to express it because he doesn’t want to ruin his image. So he seeks ways to get me to behave in a manner that he thinks justifies his reasons for leaving the marriage. He is very close with, and involved my children in, his relationship with his married mistress and her husband and child. For 7 years he paraded her in front of me while I didn’t know for sure whether or not they were in a romantic relationship. I now have proof. After confronting him with that, and asking him to convey to her that I was not interested in her attempts to befriend me, he stepped up the passive aggressive tendencies. He deliberately delayed a trip to visit my family and almost ruined my childrens’ opportunity to ride in their Great-Grandpa’s old car in a parade in my hometown. He has purchased and iphone for my 11 year old son (without consulting me at all) and communicates with me through my son and barely communicates with me directly. I don’t think he has answered one of my emails in over 4 months. This causes stress for my son, as he is put in the middle of our disagreements that arise out of miscommunication. I have pointed this out to him and asked him to consider how this is affecting his son, to no avail. He deliberately interferes with my family’s plans with the children - just recently created chaos surrounding tickets to my daughter’s upcoming dance performance.

I could go on and on. We had a period of about a year and 1/2 when things were sailing along pretty smoothly. During that time, I guess I let my defenses down too much, and now I have to work on building up the protective walls again - email communication, set schedules, etc.
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I’m terribly sorry to hear of your situation. I am a bit sensitive to the ease with which accusations of abuse and amateur diagnoses of pathology are tossed about by some. I would strongly encourage everyone here not to impute motives to others’ behavior.
 
Of course I am not implying her husband was like Drew Peterson.

What I was using him for was that the courts are very slow to recognize the pathology of abuse a batterer does to his wife…It is OK as long as she fits his ideal of a woman, but it quickly degenerates once he finds out she has a mind of her own and has her own way of doing things.

There are degrees of pathology.

The other night on the Catholic radio, two Catholic laymen were talking about how to treat their wives and children. At some session with teens, there was one boy who did not like going to Mass with his father. He as a sad boy. The other boy in the group was happy and free, and said his dad told him he loved him every day, and took time to listen to him. It was so sad to hear the boy who did not like going to Mass with his father, because his father was mistreating the teen’s mother when not at church, at home. So he saw the hypocricy in it. Men think they can treat women, especially their wives, any way they want, and they were talking about Catholic men as well.
 
KathleenGee said:
Men think they can treat women, especially their wives, any way they want, and they were talking about Catholic men as well.
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Men who think they can treat their wives any way they want to, often point to the portion of the Bible telling wives to submit to their husbands, often ignoring the next verse telling husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church.
 
hurting said:
I’m terribly sorry to hear of your situation. I am a bit sensitive to the ease with which accusations of abuse and amateur diagnoses of pathology are tossed about by some. I would strongly encourage everyone here not to impute motives to others’ behavior.
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Some of us have, unfortunately, had a lot of on-the-job training in pathological psychology.

😦

It does give one a rather jaded or at least prejudiced viewpoint at times. I think it is a valid statement to remind those of us who have seen it all and done it all, that our advice may not reach its intended target.
 
I have to find the book, but there is a man…not a woman…who has himself been accused of being a woman, for finally explaining what abused women go through, the mind sabotage and playing games, the lying. He even says it, that the best response is to be the best mother you can be.

And those who have concerns, who have read other pathology books or studies should read his. “Why Did He Do That?” I believe is the title. His first name, spelling not certain, is Laurie. He lays out some of the mind games in a scenario at home. It can show you how a woman’s head can spin when the man uses control and invalidates the woman to a piece of nothing, makes the kids ambivalent and absorb his own pathological sense of lack of empathy.

This is a very serious problem.

He describes the various types of batterers. There is the player who latches on, comes on as being so much in love, makes his conquest, and then wants out, in spite of now being a father. But he is not finished. He will do something to hurt the wife before he is out of her life. Usually financially…so the wife and children live in poverty.

There are others who are so so empty or are messed up in the head with drugs and alcohol and have that anger. Woman wants to get out, he is so jealous of her and her ability to live life, he wants to take her out. Sometimes takes himself out. And the kids.
You read about it all the time in the papers.

You have to have your family and friends support you with your children, as children of divorced parents are very very vulnerable.

They are very reasonable and kind about the wife to other people, and can fool any body, and then the blame goes to the woman for the break up of the family. They use the kids against the mother.

It is hideous. Some stay in to protect the children because the man’s family is off base as well.

There are hundreds of thousands of women enduring the same behavior, whether the man is baptized or not. The light of baptism at work in these men must be the size of a tiny speck of sand.

Praying the rosary is of great help. Asking St. Rita is of great help. And the other to ask for great help is St. Joseph. Ask him to be the guardian of your family. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And cover yourself with the Blood of Christ to protect you against invalidating comments that immediately take the life out of your soul and leave you standing but reeling inside. Or to protect you against his projecting onto you his invalidation of you. His attitude towards you can suck the life out of you when you are in the same room together.

Return kindness and Christ’s love. When you get to this level, you are really on the high road to heaven.

I most certainly will keep all of you women in my prayers. I have never said this before on CAF, but I love all of you in Christ.

There needs to be more information out there to truly help people understand, especially those who are in position to do something about it, – what these women go through living in such day to day hell…where there can be often times no physical blows, but the worst blows to the worth of themselves as human beings.

God Bless You!!!
 
I found the book, and the correct name of the author:

Lundy Bancroft, 'Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men".

This book gives the most realistic and accurate description of batterers.

For a marriage to be Catholic, the marriage is based on Christ, and the couple grow to recognize and receive from Christ in their beloved. If there was any coercion or manipulation where both did not freely marry each other, one partner has psychological impediments, does not want to raise the children in the Catholic faith, or reveals one’s self as changing after marriage to not want a Catholic marriage and pray together, you have the scenario for an anullment.
 
He has his blog, people come in with their stories and how they are coping.


He is the best out there. It is amazing to see the comments to his book I recommend, as well as the denial by both men and women of what he reveals.
 
hurting said:
I’m terribly sorry to hear of your situation. I am a bit sensitive to the ease with which accusations of abuse and amateur diagnoses of pathology are tossed about by some. I would strongly encourage everyone here not to impute motives to others’ behavior.
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That’s understandable. I won’t say how I know this, but I’m pretty sure my ex’s mistress has given him a book on overcoming verbal abuse. That is a difficult pill to swallow, as it has taken me 7 years to fully understand and come to terms with the extent of the abuse and it is still a daily struggle to change my mindset. I admit I sometimes have a short fuse, but it is usually related to either hormones or his provocation. (Well, and frustration with my kids not hearing/listening to me the first 20 times). Clearly he has made a case to others that I was the abusive one in the relationship. So, yes, people can be easily deceived. 😦
 
KathleenGee said:
I found the book, and the correct name of the author:

Lundy Bancroft, 'Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men".

This book gives the most realistic and accurate description of batterers. .
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I have read that book and passed it around to many women. It is a lifesaver! He also has written an excellent book entitled, “When Dad Hurts Mom.” I wish it were titled a bit differently because it implies that it is about physical abuse, but it applies also to verbal and emotional abuse and how to try to immunize your children from their father’s pathology. I highly recommend it to anyone who finds him or herself co-parenting with an abuser (of any type).

What is not supplied in the book, however, is the strength, perseverance and support needed in order to be up to such a monumental task as a single mother. I agree with you that the Church could do more in this regard to educate people and lend support to the women who are suffering this way, because it is self-perpetuating. Abusive men raise abusive sons, and daughters who only know the love of a man expressed as abuse. I couldn’t help thinking of the story of Saint Katherine Drexel in reading what you said about the Church, though. Made me chuckle - maybe we have found our true calling! 😉
 
DAML72 said:
That’s understandable. I won’t say how I know this, but I’m pretty sure my ex’s mistress has given him a book on overcoming verbal abuse. That is a difficult pill to swallow, as it has taken me 7 years to fully understand and come to terms with the extent of the abuse and it is still a daily struggle to change my mindset. I admit I sometimes have a short fuse, but it is usually related to either hormones or his provocation. (Well, and frustration with my kids not hearing/listening to me the first 20 times). Clearly he has made a case to others that I was the abusive one in the relationship. So, yes, people can be easily deceived. 😦
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Are you saying that you acknowldedge some culpability of your own? I find the bolded quote particularly troublesome - would you accept your husband claiming that his behavior was ‘provoked’ by you? Are you saying that hormones are an acceptable reason to lash out at others?

When you say he’s made a case that you were the abuser, are you saying that he’s been successful in doing so? If he has, does this give you pause for reflection? Who is being deceived?

Please understand that I’m commenting as much about the general topic of emotional abuse as I am your situation.
 
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