Are you now, or have you ever been, in relationships with family, friends, or mates who have been verbally abusive? Is your happiness with someone you love continually threatened by interactions that continually undermine your self-esteem? Do you feel trapped in a relationship that keeps decaying in a downward spiral of overt or passive-aggressive abuse?
If so, this book could be your life raft, either carrying you toward repair of the existing relationship or the effects of past relationships or offering liberation from your current confusion. Its practical approach can help clear your head and possibly change your life. The only criticism that I and other readers have is that the author assumes verbal abuse is almost always directed by males toward females, which, in my experience and that of others I know, is not necessarily the case. Highly Recommended.
Book Description
Bestselling author Joyce Meyer explores the true path to emotional healing through God's love. Many people seem to have it all together outwardly, but inside they are falling apart,crushed and wounded by their past. But God has a plan to heal the broken-hearted and the victims of abuse. For over 30 years, Joyce Meyersuffered the devastating effects of verbal, sexual, and physical abuse. Today, she has a worldwide ministry of emotional healing for others like herself. In BEAUTY FOR ASHES, she outlines the major truths that brought healing to her life and describes how other victims of abuse can also experience this healing, including how to deal with the emotional pain of abuse, how to understand your responsibility to God for overcoming abuse, why victims of abuse often suffer from other addictive behaviors, how to grab hold of God's unconditional love, and the importance of God's timing in working through painful memories. By sharing her personal story, Joyce Meyer wants to help others find inner peace through their belief in God.
Book Description
Like a trusted friend, TIME TO FLY FREE is a companion that readers will be able to count on in confusing and distressing times. Written for spouses, lovers, parents, siblings, roommates, or anyone who has left an abusive relationship,TIME TO FLY FREE offers wisdom, encouragement, and suggestions for staying free from harmful relationships and mistreatment. Judith R. Smith created TIME TO FLY FREE as a follow up mediation book to her well received TIME TO BREAK FREE, which addressed the critical first 100 days after leaving an abusive relationship.
Thoughtful meditations offer a daily dose of inspiration and geantle guidance. Meditations and reflections also deal with learning to recognize and avoid abusive relationships in the future.
About the Author
From the age of sixteen, Judith Smith experienced one abusive relationship after another and, at the age of thirty-nine, found herself in the most violent and terrifying relationship of her life. She endured the abuse and emotional turmoil for three years before deciding to break free.Once Smith emerged from the insanity of that relationship, she realized that she wanted to change her life. She wanted to understand why she had felt so emotionally chained to her abuser, and why she had never been able to enjoy a loving and fulfilling relationship. She joined a support group that offered education for battered women and attended every week, oftentimes more, for over nine months. She went to counseling and obtained counseling for her children with an agency specializing in domestic violence and abuse. She then attended a training program to become a domestic violence counselor.It is from her personal experience as a battered woman that Smith understands how emotionally overwhelmed and vulnerable people feel in the beginning stages of leaving an abusive relationship.
Amazon.com
Although Getting Free was written in 1982, it is still called the bible of all domestic violence texts. It's not just the content of the book--twenty-four chapters covering a gamut of issues--but the tone. The problems of and solutions to domestic violence are clearly defined through the voices of women as they share their experiences and carve out their steps toward freedom.
Each chapter discusses a different phase in the experience of "getting free" and the problems surrounding each phase. Readers can reach for this book to look up specific domestic abuse issues or they can read it straight through. There is much to learn here--the history of battering as a phenomenon; the political and social aspects of abuse; the historical changes to the institutions of marriage and family, and more.
Chapter 4, "What Do You Owe Yourself?," helps women work toward a healthy autonomy and defines what each partner in a relationship deserves. Discussion on the unconscious expectations of marriage and romance segues into practical advice on the economics of single life. When reaching for Getting Free in crisis, readers might begin with Chapter 6, "Making the Decision," or Chapter 14, which argues for and against moving to a shelter. There is wise and compassionate counsel for the loneliness that can ensue from fleeing an abusive relationship.
At the time that Getting Free was first published, the more common feeling about domestic abuse was that women brought it on themselves. This landmark book changed that perception, not only bringing a pandemic social problem to light, but also offering a lifeline to thousands of women. It continues to do so. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reviewer:
It's been going on 12 years since I escaped my abuser. I'm back to school now, working on a social work degree. I want to help others in ways I wanted to be helped back then. While researching material for a research paper on domestic violence I happened across this book. It came to me, along with several others, from the library, borrowed for research.
From the moment I picked it up and sat down with the purpose to skim it for relevant data on a Friday night, until late Sunday night, when I finished it, I was riveted with the stories of the women who were told within the pages. I couldn't just skim with this book. I had to read every page of it, allowing it to dig up memories within myself that had been forcefully buried years ago.
Dr. Weiss does an extraordinary job in telling the stories of these women without any "props" to make their reality any better or worse than what it was. I like the way she begins with her own story in the beginning and then, when telling the others', she uses examples from her relationship with her ex husband to emphasize just how much she identifies with the brave and courageous women who found often ingenious ways to escape from the oppression of their batterers.
Dr. Weiss has the sensitivity and the writing skills to be able to articulate the often subtle aspects of domestic violence. She helps those readers who may not have been victims but who want to learn more about domestic violence to see that it is much more than about blatant physical battering.
I want to thank Dr. Weiss for writing the book and honoring the lives of the women who are in it. I want to thank the women whose stories are told for being shining beacons to those who might read them and gather hope and strength from them.
Perhaps the most powerful messages from Dr. Weiss' book are that women CAN escape from horrific battering circumstances; and that if you see a batterer victimizing their significant other in a public place, acknowledge it! Your acknowledgement could very well become the victim's beacon of light they focus on to find their way out of the darkness.
Book Description
A first-ever how-to book to help abusive men change their behavior by changing their thinking. Domestic abuse is the leading cause of injury to American women between the ages of 15 and 44. Women's shelters, advocacy programs, and counseling centers have been created to respond to victims needs, but what can be done to prevent domestic violence in the first place? At last, here is a powerful, positive tool to help abusive men break the cycle of abuse.
Stop Hurting the Woman You Love shows men how to identify their distorted thinkingoften rooted in feelings of entitlement and male privilegein order to change the beliefs that fuel their need to control and lead to abusive behavior. Real-life case histories, thought-provoking questionnaires, and a conversational tone engage readers, helping them raise self-awareness and to change beliefs.
The book's step-by-step cognitive behavioral approach gives men a proven action plan for putting their new, healthy approach into practice.
Reviewer:
This is a great book!! After you're done reading this, please read "Verbally Abusive Relationships - How to recognize them and how to respond" by Patricia Evans. This is a secular book but it is great!!! I see myself and my husband throughout these books and these books give you courage to make changes - but you need a good therapist that is well versed in this area to help you. If after your therapy and reading you are seriously considering divorce, you will need to feel a lot of God's Grace and to help you realize that He has plenty for you, read: "Breaking and Mending - Divorce and God's Grace" by Mary Lou Redding. To the Pastors, Elders, Home Group Leaders and especially the regular parishoners - don't judge us lest you be judged. Read these books before you shake your fingers at us, whisper behind our backs, ask us to leave your church, tell us we're not being spiritual enough, and we aren't spending time in the Word. Instead offer us your support, love, and compassion. Believe us that we have considered all our options, that we have given it a "fair chance" and we are taking our children into consideration. While some of us may not be able to break the generations of divorce, we can break the generations of abuse. We have spent many nights crying and praying over our decision but only after spending YEARS on our knees praying for a miracle in our marriage,going to counselor after counselor. Meanwhile, our husbands take no responsibility, refuse to do any work or do minimal counseling. I am starting to believe that what God wants for me and my children is a life of peace and joy and we can't do that when we're living a life of hell. Abuse is abuse whether it's physical or verbal.
