Below are questions to help identify whether various forms of abuse might be present:
1. Intimidation: Are you afraid of your partner? Have you been frightened by certain looks, gestures, or actions? Has your partner ever broken things, destroyed your property or harmed the pets? Has he displayed weapons or used them to scare you? Has he blocked you from leaving a room? Cornered you? Refused medical care for you? Punched walls? Thrown objects? Overturned furniture? Driven fast or recklessly with you or your children in the car? Locked you in or out of the house? Deprived you of food or sleep? Forced your car off the road? Refused you help when you were sick, injured, or pregnant? Does he have cameras set up in the home to monitor you?
2. Verbal: Does your partner do any of the following: put you down by calling you names, attempt to humiliate you, try to make you feel guilty, ridicule you, say inappropriate and hurtful jokes or sarcastic statements, use a condescending conversational tone, criticize, make threats and accusations, yell/scream, give the silent treatment, discount your emotions and opinions, trivialize matters, undermine, interrogate, lie, berate, taunt, harass, manipulate, have repetitive arguments, emphasize your weaknesses and flaws, or withhold information or thoughts and feelings?
3. Isolation: Has your partner ever attempted to keep you from going places you choose? Does he listen to your phone conversations, open your email, or check social media? Does he follow you around, or question your whereabouts? Is he jealous, or does he use jealousy to justify actions? Does he limit/restrict phone calls, mail, car, or visits to or from friends or family? Forbid you from leaving the house unless given permission or accompanied by him? Pick a fight when you are leaving for work or a leisure activity? Accuse you of being unloving, selfish, or unfaithful when you see friends or family? Claim outside interests are evidence of disloyalty and lack of caring? Interrogate you after you engage in activities about who you saw and what you did? Fight with you over social conversations because they say you’re flirting? Spread lies that cause others to reject or shun you? Tell you to stay away from people because they are not trustworthy? Lie about what others say about you? Monitor your social media for posts they don’t like? Delete friend contacts from your phone?
4. Psychological: Does he: minimize, deny, or blame his behavior on you, stress, a substance, or something else, make light of abuse or say it didn’t happen, twist your words, distort reality, play the victim, guilt-trip, give subtle putdowns/shame, use circular conversation, divert, evade, rationalize, feign ignorance, sabotage situations, rewrite history, lie by omission, have false remorse, punish, give the silent treatment, fake empathy, use intimidation, use coercion, use threats, or use isolation?
Psychological abuse is also known as covert abuse. Helena Knowlton from Confusion to Clarity Now says this about covert abuse, “The tactics are under the radar and hidden so that you, the target, can’t easily identify what’s going on. These tactics frame the ongoing, secret mind games that are meant to systematically manipulate your psychology and emotions. They are designed to get you to doubt yourself and your perceptions, and to get you to take on your abuser’s narrative, thoughts and perspective about the relationship, about him and about you."
5. Children: Does your partner insinuate that you’re a poor parent or make you feel guilty about the children? Has he used or manipulated the kids to harm you in any way? Put you down in front of the children? Withdraw their love and approval from your child when they show any attachment to you? Tell your children lies about you? Say you don’t love your child or you are dangerous? Confide inappropriate information to the child? Demand your child keep secrets from you? Encourage the child to use your first name? Force your child to reject you or choose between you? Question your child about your activities or conspiring with them to spy on you? Expect your child to refer to a new stepparent or significant other as “mom” or “dad”? Withhold medical, academic, and other important information from you? Undermine your parenting authority? Limit contact with your children? Interfere with your communication with the children? Prevent you from accessing your children’s devices for safety monitoring? Refuse to follow family court agreements?
6. Male Privilege: Would you describe your partner as entitled or self-centered? Has he ever treated you as “less than?” Does he make important decisions without you, or ever treated you as a servant? Does he expect you to serve him dinner prompt at the time he determines? Must you get his permission to eat without him if he’s running late? Does he determine all the household chores you must do? Is he "king of the castle" and expect to be waited on? Does he expect the house and/or yourself to be looking perfect when he gets home from work? Does he use scripture to tell you that you must submit to him?
7. Finances: Does he prevent you from working outside the home? Restrict your knowledge of the family income? Control how all of the money is spent? Make you live on an impossibly tight budget but then splurge on expensive things for himself? Monitor every bit of spending and want to check all your receipts? Sabotage work or employment opportunities or cause you to lose your job? Forbid you from attending job training or advancement opportunities? Prohibit you from being involved in banking or investment decisions? Not allow access to bank accounts? Withhold money to obtain basic needs such as food, diapers, or medicine? Refuse to work or contribute to the family income?
8. Threats: Has your partner threatened you in any of the following ways: to harm you or your family and friends, destroy property, commit suicide or self-harm, use martial arts or military experience, legally or illegally take custody of the children, report you to the authorities, financially abandon you or the children, divorce you, or betray you?
9. Physical: Has your partner physically harmed or attempted to harm you by hitting, punching, slapping, pulling hair, pushing, restraining, beating, shaking, kicking, spitting on, burning, restraining strangling, or any other means?
10. Sexual: Has your partner relentlessly pleaded for or demanded more sex? Pressured you through lectures or degrading? Required affection to always result in sex? Made you feel responsible for his use of pornography? Have Sex-on-demand be his "right” within the marriage? Disregard you in situations where sex is neither desired nor conceivable? Performed unwanted sexual acts that are uncomfortable or undesired? Used physical, financial, spiritual, or emotional threats in order to get what he wanted? Has he ever raped you? Performed sexual acts while you were sleeping or intoxicated? Forced you to engage in an unwanted sexual act to avoid abuse? Has he ignored your tears or other expressions of discomfort? Put down your sexual performance? Pressured you to watch pornography? Used sexually degrading language? Threatened physical harm to obtain sex?
In faith-based marriages, a primary passage that is taken out of context, and used by an abuser in a distorted manner for selfish gain is 1 Corinthians 7:3-5:
"Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control."
Historical Context: There were those in the church in Corinth who believed sexual abstinence, even within marriage, was necessary for true devotion to Christ. This belief of course was causing issues in marriages. So, Paul wrote these words to reference the importance of a mutual giving, rather than withholding, of sexual intimacy in marriage. These words never were intended to imply that a man can do whatever he wants with his wife's body without her consent. In fact, the wife also has authority over her husbands body, which means if he is seeking to do something with his body that is causing harm to her, she has the authority to tell him no!
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