Bismillahir Rahmaanir Raheem
Quick test - Are you being abused?
If more than one of these is true (and there are many other symptoms) you need to consider if it's time to move on.
Does your spouse:
- Belittle you, verbally shout/scream/sneer/abuse you and/or huiliate you in front of people you know (e.g. friends, colleagues, family, or even online).
-Behave posessively to an extreme, and harass you with accusations about being unfaithful, interrogating you about where you were, who was there, when you arrived, when you left, etc..
-Refuse you your keys or your personal belongings or space, toss away your personal items, remove your things so that you feel you are "taking up space" that could be, in their opinion, better used (without considering how you feel),
- Try to control how you spend money or deliberately default on joint
financial obligations, or force you to make purchases you feel you cannot afford, pressuring you to keep up with the Jones' or be considered worthless. *often when you do spend it still leads to harassment,
- Make false allegations about you to your friends, employer, or the police,
or find other ways to manipulate and isolate you from people except those approved by him/her.
-Threaten to leave you and or prevent you from seeing your kids if you report
the abuse.
-Threaten to hurt the ones you love or threaten to refuse you access to the kids in one way or another when you leave.
If you answered yes to one or two of these, then you are probably living in a disrespectful home; if you answered yes to more than that, then you are living with abuse..
Abuse is not just against women; it is against men as well..
Some short excerpts from the stories of abused men:
"... she used to regularly scream at me and hit me, but when I needed
stitches in my head after she had attacked me with a knife while drunk, I had to
leave."
"I told my colleagues that I had scratched myself during the night due to
a change in washing powder - actually it was my wife who did it, but I couldn't
tell them that."
"After Betty had threatened me with a knife on more than one occasion, and I'd
successfully ducked missiles, she finally got her aim right one morning and hit
me with a bowl about one centimetre from my eye. I turned up to work that
morning with blood-stained clothing and had to explain my fragile situation."
