Toxic: A JourneyThrough Emotional Abuse (Part 2)

Last month in part 1, we heard from brothers and sisters who had suffered emotional abuse at the hands of their spouse. This type of abuse is a troubling but all-too-common phenomenon - both amongst Muslims and in the world at large. As Muslims, however, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard of what we consider acceptable behaviour - a standard determined not by culture or arbitrary opinions, but by the Qur’an and Sunnah.

In order to better fight off this poisonous cancer in our Ummah, we must educate ourselves about both its signs and the effects it has on those it afflicts.

Are Abusers Evil?

One of the most difficult concepts to grasp is that abusers are not necessarily evil people. Often, they are completely unaware that their behaviour is manipulative, abusive and harmful, and are shocked to know that their victims feel abused - if they are ever able to acknowledge it at all. Their behaviour stems from their own issues: insecurities, troubled childhoods, mental illness or having witnessed abuse in their own families while growing up. Worse still is when they use the deen as a way to justify their attitude and their behaviour, even when provided with clear evidence that their ‘religious’ excuses are baseless.

The term ‘emotional abuse’ carries with it vivid connotations of screaming, name calling and intimidation. It can be hard to reconcile this image with someone whose actions are not loud and angry, but cold and even calm. It is even more difficult to recognise or acknowledge an emotional abuser when that person displays good characteristics or actions that appear to conflict with the stereotypical profile of an ‘abuser.’
We are often taught, if not explicitly, then implicitly, that abusers are evil people, but we sometimes lose sight of an abuser’s humanity - because they are human, just like us.

At the same time, however, recognising that they are flawed individuals who have allowed themselves to hurt others does not mean giving them a get-out-of-jail-free card. It does not mean making excuses for their behaviour, or allowing them to escape the consequences of their actions.

There are also different levels and types of emotional abuse, from the subtle (which is most difficult to detect and recognise as being emotional abuse in the first place) to the obvious extreme (where the behaviour is blatant and no attempt is made to deny or hide it). Some individuals, whether unconsciously or deliberately, are masters at emotional manipulation and emotional blackmail; they have the ability to appeal to their victims’ affection for them as a means of controlling them. Many victims of emotional abuse don’t hate their abusers, but love them or at least care for them deeply. It is precisely this love, and their desire to save their relationship, that keeps many men and women trapped in abusive marriages despite the fact that they know deep down that it is an unhealthy situation that is affecting them (and their children) negatively.

Leaving Abusive Marriages - The Challenges

Many people question why those in emotionally abusive relationships don’t leave sooner. The truth is that it is often very difficult for them to leave, for a variety of reasons.
For women, the obstacles are overwhelming: cultural stigma, misconceptions about whether Islam allows men to wield such ‘authority’ over their wives, family pressure, financial constraints, fear regarding their children, access to resources and an Islamic leader who will support them - these are just some factors that play into how difficult it is for many Muslim women to leave an abusive relationship.

However, men too face extremely difficult challenges of their own. Contrary to what many believe, male victims of abuse experience many of the same issues that female victims do - a destroyed sense of self-esteem, a sense of self-loathing or even blaming themselves for whatever issues their abusers may have. For some, it is that they don’t even know that a man can be abused by a woman. For others, a deep sense of shame about being perceived as weak or unmanly prevents them from confiding in others. It is difficult to find someone to turn to for support as there is a real problem of being mocked and humiliated rather than being provided with assistance.

Sadly, there are also cases where it is fear that keeps them in the marriage - there are women who threaten to take their children away, or even to report their husbands to the legal authorities for being ‘terrorists’ or ‘extremists.’

One particular point to be cautious of as well is that when discussing emotional abuse, it is all too common for people to start arguing about ‘who gets abused more.’ It should go without saying - yet, alas, must be said - that in the Sight of Allah, injustice and oppression have no gender. The harsh reality is that abuse does take place at the hands of men and women, towards other men and women. Our role as an Ummah is not to play the blame game, but to be aware of the facts and to act in accordance with Islamic principles of upholding justice and supporting the oppressed.

Taking Action

Anas reported: “The Messenger of Allah said: 'Help your brother, whether he is an oppressor or is oppressed.' A man asked: 'O Messenger of Allah! I (know how to) help him when he is oppressed, but how can I help him when he is an oppressor?' He said: 'You can restrain him from committing oppression. That will be your help to him.'” “(Al-Bukhari & Muslim)

Many Muslims are hesitant to discuss or take action against issues such as emotional abuse because they don’t want to ‘cause problems’ or get involved in things that ‘aren’t my business.’ There is the idea that stepping forward to help a Muslim sister who is being abused (in any way) by her husband is a betrayal to the Muslim man, or that his honour will be tarnished, or that it is better for a Muslimah to suffer in silence than to ‘expose’ a Muslim man.

What we forget is that preventing a fellow Muslim from causing harm - any type of harm at all - to others is, in and of itself, a praiseworthy deed. Rather than allowing injustice and oppression to flourish within our Ummah, it is the duty of every Muslim to stand up for what is right, even if what is right contradicts deep-rooted cultural ideas and beliefs.

One way that Muslim communities can work to take action against emotional abuse (and other types of domestic violence) is to actively provide support for victims and to stigmatise the abuse itself.

Community leaders, imams, speakers and indeed the average person can all cooperate in fostering an environment where support for abuse is called out. Those of knowledge and in a position of authority can and should use the minbar to emphasise the Islamic impermissibility of such abuse. Leaders should make it clear that anyone who comes to them with stories of abuse will not be turned away, rejected or made to feel unsafe (or forced to go back to their abusers). Community members can start within their own homes by educating themselves, children and other family members about what abuse entails and how it is Islamically unacceptable. Should someone share a story of abuse, they should be directed to the appropriate resources and supported in their search for a solution.

In essence, the masjid and the Muslim community should be a place where abuse of all types is stigmatised and a safe space for those who are going through it.

We cannot allow our misguided cultural mentalities to influence us into keeping silent about the emotional abuse, or physical abuse, or sexual abuse - or any other injustice - that takes place within our families, our communities, our Ummah. Taking a stand against these issues does not mean turning against your brothers or sisters in Islam, but in fact is a means of assisting them in leaving behind behaviour that is displeasing to Allah.

{You are the best of peoples ever raised for mankind; you enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, and you believe in Allah.} (Al-A'raf:157)

Toxic: A Journey Through Emotional Abuse

“Emotional abuse” is a term that evokes looks of discomfort and feelings of panic amongst Muslims; kneejerk reactions and defensive declarations of “that stuff doesn’t happen to Muslims!” or even “there’s no such thing!”

Before we discuss the issue further, however, we must first know: what is emotional abuse?

Emotional Abuse: A form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another to behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder.^[1][2][3] Such abuse is often associated with situations of power imbalance, such as abusive relationships, bullying, and abuse in the workplace.[1]

Signs of Emotional Abuse[2]:

·        Humiliation, degradation, discounting, negating, judging, criticizing.

·        Domination, control, and shame

·        Accusing and blaming, trivial and unreasonable demands or expectations, denies own shortcomings

·        Emotional distancing and the “silent treatment,” isolation, emotional abandonment or neglect

·        Codependence and enmeshment

Emotional abuse is, arguably, even more widespread in Muslim communities than physical or sexual abuse is. In fact, many emotionally abusive behaviors have long been considered culturally ‘normal’ in both the East and the West, and continue to be implicitly accepted in many so-called Muslim societies. As a result, many Muslim marriages have and continue to suffer in a deeply unhealthy manner that runs in opposition to the Islamic injunction to live together in love and mercy.

It is important to note that all abusive behaviors, whether physical or emotional, are in direct contradiction to the adab and akhlaaq of true Muslims. The Qur’an and the Sunnah of RasulAllah (sallAllahu ‘alayhi wa sallam), who was the best of creation and was sent to perfect excellence of character, directly prohibit the appalling behavior displayed by emotional abusers.

The signs and symptoms of emotional abuse are easily written off as someone simply being “oversensitive” or unable to handle the “normal challenges” in marriage.  However, there is a huge difference between the natural friction and misunderstandings that occur in a marriage, and consistent long-term behaviors that strip away someone’s identity and self-worth, leaving them internally broken and battered.

Unfortunately, cultural norms and allegedly “Islamic” double-standards have ensured that emotional abuse is rarely, if ever, discussed or even taken seriously by members of the Muslim community. Men and women alike are both perpetrators and victims of emotional abuse, although amongst Muslims, men have the distinct advantage of being able to pronounce talaaq if they wish, without the legal difficulties that women face in requesting a khul’ divorce.  The role of emotional abuse as a legitimate reason for divorce is an even more sensitive subject, with few imams amongst the vast majority of them accepting it as a reason to grant women khul’.

A Journey Through Emotional Abuse

Due to my own experience in a toxic marriage, and to work towards eradicating the stigma and many misconceptions surrounding emotional abuse, I have chosen to share the stories of others who have experienced emotionally abusive relationships.

Isolation & Abuse

It took me a few years to realise [the emotional abuse], as it started very gradually, and built up, and got worse as the years went on. I think it must have taken around 4 to 5 years for it to finally hit home, after the birth of my second child.

By the time I fully realized how he had taken the emotional abuse to such a level, my second child had just been born. I was suffering from post-natal depression. My (now ex-) husband had had an argument with my parents, over something really trivial, and took it out on me. I ended up more or less locked in the house, nowhere to go and nobody to speak to, except his family. Looking back, at the time, I realised that he had already cut me off from so many people. I had lost all my friends as I wasn't allowed to keep in contact with them, and he wouldn't let me make new ones. Visits and phone calls to my family were limited and monitored, so I could never talk to anybody about how I felt or just generally talk about things that mattered to me. If I tried talking to him, he would interrupt and change the subject, so my voice was never heard, my opinions never mattered. I was only 'trusted' with his family. – R.S.

I can’t say when exactly I realized he was emotionally abusive. I was in denial and blamed myself for the problems for a while. I knew something was weird when he would go for days without speaking with me.

My ex had severe mood swings and a horrible temper. He could go for weeks without speaking with me, looking at me and definitely not touching me and nothing I did would soften his heart toward me until ‘he came back.’ That’s how I described it, it’s like he would leave and then come back. He once smashed his fist through a glass door because he was upset with me and when I was away at school, I’d go for up to 5 months without him visiting or picking my calls. He eroded my self-confidence and would scold me, call me names, threaten me and say all sorts of negative stuff to me. Then he would wake up the next morning and hug me, almost in tears, saying how much he loved me and pleading with me to stop doing things to hurt him. – H.M.

I actually didn't realize my ex-wife was emotionally abusive until after our divorce. The entire time I was married to her she had me convinced that I deserved her abuse because I made her do it by not being good enough to her.

I tried many times during our marriage to reason with her, acknowledge her feelings and even begging her to stop. We went to a marriage counselor but she quit when the counselor tried explaining to her that she had to change behaviours. She would change behaviour for a day or two at most then revert to screaming, yelling, controlling my movements, communications, etc.

My ex accused me at various times of molesting both my children(one daughter, one son) She informed me a few times that she was certain I was homosexual (alhamdulillah I am not) but it was all done to break me down. Every wrong number phone was a woman I was sleeping with, every woman in the street was someone who I lusted after and would leave her for. – C.R.

‘Religious’ Justification

Everything he did, he'd tried to justify by finding a hadith or some kind of quote from somewhere that somehow supported him. So, because he was too lazy to find a job he managed to find a hadith that said something along the lines of, if your salaah suffers because you're working, then you should reconsider your job. So he'd use that an an excuse not to work, saying that by being in an office, he wouldn't be able to pray at the masjid.

I once asked him to ask the local mufti, is it halal to [remain] unemployed, not helping in the house or with the children, whilst your wife earns the money, looks after the kids, [and] runs the house? Is it halal to live off your wife's earnings? We all know the answer to this. He spoke to the mufti and came back home and said "Muftisaab said, as long as you're happy to spend your money on the family, then that is fine. And you're happy to do so, aren't you?" And out of fear, I couldn't argue the point. – R.S.

Disagreements were not tolerated. I would often find that a single innocent word would result in him turning his back on me for days on end, and if I did not scramble to figure out what I had said or done wrong and subsequently beg for forgiveness, I was reminded that ungrateful, disobedient wives made up the majority of the inhabitants of Jahannam.

I would break down and wonder why I was such a terrible wife, why it was so impossible for him to be pleased with me. My eman dipped so low that I wondered if I would truly burn in Hell for being unable to ensure my husband’s emotional satisfaction with me. 

I seriously considered counseling and brought it up several times to my husband – only to be denounced as letting Shaytan whisper to me, that counseling is ‘ayb and haraam, and that I was allowing my corrupt Western upbringing to influence me even more. – Z.K.

He said that I was the devil and he used to call me names in Arabic, like 'hypocrite'. He said if I tried to be a Muslim, I would bring bad luck to the religion and he told me not to dare to wear hijab or to ever teach or tell him anything about his religion; that he was born into it and knew more than me about how it should be practised. SubhanAllah. – D.S.

My ex-wife used Islam as an excuse for her abuse constantly. Her favorite was the topic of lowering the gaze. If she had even a twinge of jealousy, I was subjected to a barrage of questioning. When we went out she would only be satisfied if my eyes were on the floor constantly and if she thought there was even a remote possibility of me having noticed a woman, she would berate me in public and force me to take her home immediately so she could scream at without anyone seeing. There were also many examples of physical abuse that went along with this.

If I had turned my head and a woman happened to be there, she would either scream at me or tell me in hushed whispers that "you're a pervert", "you're sick", "you disgust me" and so on. One of her biggest things was using ahadith about kind treatment of wives. If I tried to make her stop, I was being oppressive and so on. I was forbidden from watching TV and was constantly suspected of hiding pornography around the house(I never did). While I was being accused of lusting after women and so on, my ex-wife was herself indulging in pornography on a near daily basis which I didn't find out until much later. – C.R.

Impact on Children

I see that the children have very low self-esteem and confidence and my eldest daughter seems to want to be with boys who show worryingly similar characteristics to her father.

My eldest daughter, who was 7 years old when we left, suffered guilt, because she often used to ask, 'why don't we just leave'? So when I finally managed to start to escape, she tried to stop me, because she thought it was because of her suggestion. He used to get her up in the middle of the night to ask her who was better - him or me? she used to apologise to me in the morning when he was not around, for saying 'him.'

We had to keep the curtains closed during the day and be sure not to make any sound so as not to disturb him. He would get very angry if we disturbed him. Sometimes he refused to let the children go to school in the morning, so we would sneak around and try to get out the front door without waking him. – D.S.

We have a daughter and his two sons from his previous marriage lived with us. My daughter was still little when I left but I felt his first son was affected. He would always cry when one of us was going somewhere, he always asked if the person was coming back. Leaving those two boys behind was very hard for me. – H.M.

I have two children, mashallah. [My daughter] was only 6 when we left him, [and my son] was 3. But they still remember incidents. Emotionally, he abused [my daughter] a lot - he was fixated on making her a hafidha, to the extent that he would threaten her (for example, "I'll light a match in your mouth if you don't pray"). He also caused conflict between them - so for example, he once told her, "You don't like [your brother], do you? Let's put him in a bag, tie him up and throw him in the river." She went through counselling as she was really badly affected by him. She hated seeing him after the separation and would get nightmares and would get really upset or angry. It's taken a long time, and a lot of professional help, to get her back to normal. – R.S.

I have two children with my ex, they were definitely affected by the emotional abuse, especially my five year old son. He watched his mother tear my shirt off me when I was trying to leave our apartment when she was screaming at me. My ex-wife has turned a lot of her abuse on my son especially, allowing her boyfriend to beat him.

I really scared myself as to how much abuse I put up with. My children meant more to me than anything and when I was by myself I would cry for them and myself. – C.R.

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[1] Wikipedia; the British Journal of Psychiatry and the book ‘Psychological Abuse in Domestic Relations’ (by Daniel K. O’Leary and Roland D. Maiuro).

[2] PsychCentral.com; Maria Bogdanos.