Verbal Abuse: The Invisible Wounds Experienced by Military Wives

Purpose:

The specific objectives of this study were to describe the experience of verbal abuse by military spouses, determine if the experiences of verbal abuse were antecedents to other types of abuse, and construct a model to explain the experience of verbal abuse for military spouses. 

Methods:

A phenomenological research design was used to address verbal abuse as it was experienced by female military spouses.  The population was adult women married to spouses presently serving in the United States Armed Forces. These women were currently participating in either individual counseling or a women’s support group at a community mental health counseling center located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. A convenience sample of 21 military spouses over the age of 21was recruited from the center. After obtaining Institutional Review Board approval and each individual participant’s consent, the interviews and the collection of the demographic data were held at the counseling center. Each interview was audio-recorded in a private office. The transcripts were analyzed using Colaizzi’s phenomenological methodology.

Results:

A description of the participants’ background, health status, and abuse history was obtained from the demographic data collection. The findings from the interviews included a description of the verbal abuse experience. None of the participants reported being in any type of abusive relationship prior to their marriage, nor were they abused during the beginning years of their marriage. Six themes, disagreements and arguments, outbursts of anger, intolerance for concerns of others, emotionally disconnected, feeling alone and isolated, and spouse unwillingness to participate in counseling, were identified. The women openly shared their experiences of verbal abuse, and individually met with the researcher to validate the proposed model portraying the experience of verbal abuse for military wives.

Conclusion:

For the women in this study, verbal abuse was present in the marital interactions and was identified as a precursor to physical violence. The experience of verbal abuse for these military couples often involves isolation, subordination, economics, secrecy, or humiliation. The wives believed it was their responsibility to mollify their spouses and attempt to minimize the verbal abuse.  Additional research is needed to support or modify the model and to determine its psycho-educational use. After further validation, the proposed model may be used to educate health care providers, military spouses and their partners about verbal abuse and how it is a precursor to intimate partner violence and an associated symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder.