Verbal Self Defense

An example

What's going on here
This is combat, plain and simple. Jack and Ellen are an ordinary couple with ordinary problems, but a lot of what passes for communications at their house is the linguistic equivalent of machine gun fire and hand grenades. And it just keeps getting worse.

Ellen's Points of View
The way Ellen sees it. Jack takes pleasure in causing her pain. Nothing she does is ever good enough to deserve his praise; no mistake is ever minor enough for him to let it pass. She is convinced that he gets up in the morning and plans his day around his chances to chew her out and make her miserable. It baffles her. He claims that he's telling the truth; in other ways, he's a good and obviously caring husband. Why, then does he get so much joy out of attacking her? It hurts her so much when he starts his verbal abuse that she can't even think straight!

Jacks Point of View
The way Jack see it, Ellen is just like the people he works with. Like them, she gives him no respect, and when he tries to help, she acts as if he were stupid. What he really wants is a loving and peaceful home where he and Ellen can find companionshipand have a good life together. Be she won't help, and she acts as if he has no right even to make suggestions--she gets her feelings hurt over every little thing he says, and when she gets mad she goes out of her way to attack him where she knows he is most vulnerable. It baffles him; why can't she cooperate once in a while? Why can't they sit down together and discuss their problems--for example, how to divide up the housework--like two rational adults? It's bad enough always being low man in the pecking order at work, without coming home and getting the cold shoulder there too! Ellen claims to love him, and in lots of ways she's a wonderful wife, bit that onlyy makes it harder to understand. It's like getting cut with a knife, listening to the things she says and seeing the way she looks at him--it hurts him so much that he can't even think straight!

See Verbal Abuse
 * Her Homepage
 * Also a summary at howstuffworks.com and another Summary at freeinfosociety.com
 * An interesting but unexplored page
 * An Example
 * Three most important words