Is abuse an acceptable reason for divorce? Maybe some of you are asking yourselves that, we should just see if an answer can be found.
Most of the time divorce and abuse go hand in hand. And the abuse can be of different types: physical aggression, threats, emotional abuse, with controlling and domineering, intimidating, stalking, neglecting, economic deprivation and, not in the least, sexual abuse. Yes, there can be a sexual abuse in a marriage as well, if the act is not agreed by both partners. A very common element to all cases of abuse is alcohol consumption and mental illness. Unfortunately, these are very common seen in so many marriages around the world, especially in the USA.
Mental abuse, psychological abuse or psychological warfare, it all means the same; they are an intentional act of attempting to hurt another person’s mental state. This is when a spurned partner becomes very manipulative and wants full control and will stop at nothing to get control. The weapons become much more intense and sadly, often involve the children.
If we take, for example, the case of physical abuse, one might say a woman should definitely get a divorce and stay away from the one that has been harming her. And I couldn’t agree more. But we should also think about the other types of abuse: if a woman lives her life in fear that the husband will leave her, or will harm her or she is all the time being manipulated and controlled, then something has to be done as well, I might say. Everyone has the right to decide for himself and have power and control over his own thoughts and actions. If this is being imposed through different means by someone else, it is not longer free will.
When a divorce involves the ending of a marriage in which abuse is a facet of the family dynamics, divorce lawyers and judges have difficulty in knowing just how to deal with it, unless it is physical abuse or the threat of physical abuse that puts a spouse or child in immediate danger or fear of harm. There is legal authority for how they must deal with domestic violence, physical abuse, harassment or stalking that puts a person in fear of his or her safety.
At one point in time, women were expected to stay in their marriages, despite infidelity, despite abuse, despite being treated like a slave in many cases.
Now, we don’t look down at women for leaving bad marriages, so women don’t feel the same threat to stay in the marriage. At one point in time, if a woman divorced her husband, she usually lost everything. Even the kids, they usually stayed with the Dad. Of course, this was due mainly because he was the only one with a job.
But nowadays, every woman should be able to decide for herself and say no to an abuse and have the power to end up an unhappy marriage.