Abuse and Cruelty

If you ignored the previous warning signs, then eventually abuse and cruelty occur and inevitably become the norm. Your put off visit to a Divorce Attorney is long overdue: you really need to make an appointment and keep it.

Once again there are a variety of different indicators but at this stage of the proceedings you have to be brain dead not to notice.

• Your Spouse belittles you in public until the denigration has become regular behaviour; so, you try to avoid being in public with your partner. You are afraid to confront them about it.
• Your Spouse hits you so that you have physical evidence of this – bruises, cuts, burns, fractures, broken bones, sprains, etc. – which cause you physical pain and emotional embarrassment. You’ve become really good at lying about these injuries, but you realise that everyone probably knows the truth. You are afraid to lay charges against your abuser.
• Your Spouse conceals their real financial situation and also controls your finances so that you are limited and have to almost beg for what you need. You are afraid to approach them and call them out on this.Your Spouse checks your cell phone, emails and mail, and also goes through your handbag, or briefcase and other personal places. They are constantly checking on you and asking suspicious questions as though they don’t trust you to do anything that they don’t know about first. You are being controlled and too afraid to tell them to stop.
• Your Spouse neglects you and spends as little time as possible with you at home. They are always either out with their friends or at home doing their own thing. You never know where they are, when they are returning home, or what they are doing. You feel rejected but are afraid to ask how they feel about you and why you are being ignored.
• Your Spouse finds you undesirable and your love life is nonexistent. When you suggest intimacy, they insult you to the point where you feel ridiculed. You think they might be having an affair. You are afraid to ask or even discuss your feelings of being discarded.
• Your Spouse demands that you convert to their religion and ignores or punishes you when you protest. You are afraid to discuss the matter and you reasons for not converting.
• Your Spouse treats you like a sex object and forces you to do things of a sexual nature which disgust you. This might even involve you having sex with other people. You have lost all feeling of self-worth and dignity but are too scared to refuse or complain.

• You avoid being with other people because you have no self-esteem or confidence left. You are constantly depressed. When you are near happy people it makes you more miserable.

At this stage you know with absolute certainty that your Spouse is controlling and abusing you. You should also wake up to the fact that your marriage is over – you should have been divorced already.

Accept that it’s not going to get better by itself – in fact it will probably deteriorate.

Read More:

Other Terms of Abuse

How to obtain a Protection Order (Explained)

Application for Protection Orders under the Domestic Violence Act (SCA Decision)

Enhancing Effectiveness: Strengthening Protection for Domestic Violence Victims Through the Amendment Act

Domestic Violence Act 1998