R ecently, two people wrote me. How do I ever move on? In this piece, I share not what I wrote to them privately in response to their emails, but rather, my thoughts on emotional damage, relationships, and our American culture.
Emotional destruction by a spouse: there are few things more difficult to heal from. In the case of divorce or the severing of a long-term, intimate partnership, it can feel this way for a few years afterward โ especially in the case of physical or emotional abuse.
Husbands and wives are extensions of cultural value systems; we are all products of one culture or another. Husbands in patriarchal systems often have more leverage for exerting a destructive force in the lives of a wife they want to control. Aside from their physical strength and the aggressive influence of testosterone, they also often are the ones in a marriage with more financial clout, status, and authority.
If a husband from such a culture wants to wreak destruction, havoc and abuse, they are more in a position to do so than wives who may still be limited to hearth, home, and child-rearing rather than out in the world earning money.
Damage and destruction take many forms within a marriage. There is yelling and verbal abuse, physical abuse, or threatening the family pet. Gaslighting , or a constant need to be right, addiction, financial recklessness, lying, manipulation, and chronic anger are also destructive.
