Product Description
When most people think of abuse, images of domestic violence come to mind. However, there is a much more subtle form of abuse that takes place in many marriages and intimate relationships today that also deserve recognition. Emotional abuse is difficult to overcome because it is often impossible to identify. While domestic abuse is tragic, there is no denying the bruises and broken bones that occur as a result. Emotional abuse, on the other hand, is often referred to as invisible abuse because there are no physical scars. This leaves the victim in a perpetual state of confusion and self-blame.In this book, author Lisa Kroulik identifies eight common tactics that emotionally abusive people use to control their partners, such as giving the silent treatment or playing the victim. Ms. Kroulik uses examples from her relationship with her former husband to help readers name abusive tactics in their own relationships. As she states in the introduction to this book, knowledge is power. After identifying a trait of emotionally abusive partners, Ms. Kroulik goes on to offer suggestions on how to confront it. She makes it clear that confronting the behavior may not make it stop and that each woman needs to decide for herself if her relationship is worth saving.
The second section of Emotional Assault helps the reader assess her current relationship and provides resources should she decide to end it. It is a hopeful, engaging book that empowers emotionally abused women to change their lives. The author is living proof that it is possible to learn from the abusive relationship and make better choices the next time around. She has been happily remarried for three years to a man she refers to as the anti-narcissist.
MY REVIEW:
First off I want to let you know why I chose this book to review. Just reading the description made me interested to read what was in the pages. I had lived it, for seven years of my life, I was never married to the man, but like the author we have two children together and every day I was made to feel like garbage. There was something terribly wrong with me that he had to leave me and our child (children later on) alone all day and night while he went to work an hour early at 6am, to a job we lived five minutes from, and then he'd come home eat shower and leave to be out with his friends until 11-11:30 pm. He did come home to eat the lunch I had prepared for him, which was usually a dinner type food, one day I remember making pork chops, mashed potatoes and veggies because if we were short on food he would leave me home with my child and go to McDonald's for himself then go out with his friends until whatever hour of the night. I always felt it was my fault. I also felt I was the only one, no one ever saw my side of the story and he was always the good family man, the provider of everything for our daughter and me. No one knew that my daughter and I were surviving off of borrowed money, bouncing back and forth from credit card to credit card. I didn't have any income, I was a stay at home mom and he was a cheap jerk. I was only entitled to his bank card once every two weeks, on payday, for groceries and that was it. If we ran out we starved and he had the local fast food joint. He smoked his cigarette's and drank his coffee all night and we went without. No one knows how my daughter and I were surviving, no one knows I declared bankruptcy at 22, no one knows the troubles I lived. I had no friends, I lost them all when I was pregnant with my daughter and I could never leave the house for fear someone who knew his parents would find out I was with child. Yep, they thought he was a perfect man, sadly they all likely still do. I was seen as the bad one who left, twice. But after my second daughter was born, five years later and he found a new "friend" I had enough. I packed up my house, my girls and I left. She moved in the next day. But hey, they're perfect for each other.
This book made me remember all the pain and heartache I felt in those years. My late teens to mid twenties were the hardest years of my life, I was miserable, so unhappy. I knew it wasn't me, but I couldn't be the one to break up my family, not again. The one time I left he begged and pleaded, asked if it was because he didn't want another baby, we could have another baby if that was it, right then and there even.... really? Oh my!! I wish I had have had this book back then, I wish I had have had someone to talk to who would understand, someone who would help me realize the damage that it was doing to my daughter. My life was for her, I would bare everything I needed to in order to give her the life she should have.
I have never felt so alone. And all the while feeling like it was my fault, he slept in the living room on the sofa for 6 years, first because I breastfed in the night and he didn't want to disturb us and then because when he got home really late he didn't want to disturb us by coming upstairs and he wanted to watch tv.... the author of this book will likely understand what mine was doing watching tv late at night. *SIGH* How could I be so stupid?
This book was like reading my life on the computer screen, sadly knowing someone else has dealt with what I had makes my heart break a little. Tiny slivers break away and I feel sadness for all the people she talks about reading her online articles. We need to stand up and help stop spousal abuse. Emotional abuse is no less damaging than physical abuse, and some times you get many different abuses in one relationship. It needs to stop. If you think a friend, a neighbor anyone you know is in this type of situation try to help them. If they aren't your friend become their friend, trust me. They need one. We all need more friends, more people to care about us and help us, help pick us up when life pushes us down. It takes a lot of courage to leave a relationship that deep down you know is not good for you, especially if you are being told that you're not good enough, that you can't do any better.
At one point I had a binder that I wrote EVERY painful, hurtful, manipulative, demeaning thing he ever said to me down, and when he wouldn't show up at 11pm I would read it back to myself, most nights falling asleep with the last words on my mind about what a terrible person I was. My eyes are swelling with tears right now as I write this because it's hard to relive all that pain, and as I've said, I wish I had this book back then. If for nothing else but to show me that I wasn't alone, that I could break free and that I would survive the breakdown of our relationship.
Fortunately, I did leave, I found my strength at 5:30 one morning when he didn't come home, I went to the "party house" where I knew "they" would be. Sure enough, that was all it took. I broke free and I haven't looked back since. I am now married to a fantastic man we have four beautiful children that we are raising together and everything is just fine. He may not have been "the sperm donor"(this is what my ex called himself one day) of our oldest two but he is definitely their daddy! There is no doubt about that. I love my life now, I even burned that binder of how terrible I am, it did take me a few years to let go of that pain though, but I did. It's gone and in the end I truly believe everything happened the way it was supposed to. We all got what we deserved. Not everyone is meant to be together, but there is someone out there for everyone and I believe from the bottom of my heart that God gives us who we deserve when we're ready to appreciate them. Like they say, you don't know happiness without misery, okay, maybe I'm the only one who says that, but it's true.
I really like this book, I would suggest that anyone who knows someone who may need it, guide them towards it, don't be too pushy, some people, most people have to get over that first hurdle on their own and realize there is a problem. When you're in an abusive relationship sometimes it's hard to see what's right in front of you, especially if you are told you're wrong.
Good luck to everyone out there, please be strong. Read this book, you may even learn something about yourself.
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
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