Broad emotional abuse leaves no bruised flesh or broken bones, but it can be personally devastating, albeit in a different sort of way than physical or strictly sexual abuse. What might surprise many people is that it is an allowed basis for divorce in the Bible as early as Exodus 21:9-11. When a personal mistake has been made or a marriage partner turns out to be a nightmare they hid from you at first, divorcing a deceptive, unloving, uncommitted, or controlling person before children become involved and before emotional complications only deepen is of course for the best.
Exodus 21:9-11, long before Jesus made his very widely misunderstood comments about divorce, says that a servant woman who becomes the wife to someone's son is to not be deprived or food, clothing, and marital rights if he gains an additional wife, and that if this occurs, she is to go free. In this case, going free would be a divorce since a marriage is in view. Moral obligations and rights are not gender-specific (what is good or evil is about the thing itself and not who does them), and since all people bear God's image (Genesis 1:26-27), it is not just women or men or servants or non-servants who have this right to ending their marriage. Every person has the right to avoid or part from an abusive spouse of the legal or non-legal kind.
Marital rights in Exodus 21:11 is plural, and thus would entail more than one right, while the previous two examples of food and clothing already touch upon neglect. If depriving someone of food as their spouse entitles the victim to divorce, depriving them of love, the debt we owe to those who are not even our spouses (Leviticus 19:18, Romans 13:8-10), over a long period is far worse. A spouse who is legalistic (Deuteronomy 4:2), controlling, volatile over nothing, or verbally or psychologically abusive in other ways has not treated their partner as they deserve. They have betrayed reason most importantly, that which is what makes anything true at all, and they have also betrayed Yahweh and the morality tied to his nature.
This could manifest in ferocious, unprompted mood swings that involve anger towards one's innocent partner, controlling demands that stem from personal anxieties, and disproportionate reactions to trivial or amoral things. Out of desperation or unjust aggression, they might seek to become the exclusive emotional source of comfort for their significant other. It is not just things like seeing their partner flirted with by someone else that stirs up gratuitous dread or mishandled jealousy, but perhaps them simply having friends. Platonic opposite gender friendships, attraction to celebrities, or meeting with same-gender friends could irritate them or ignite outbursts. If they do not resolve this or put great effort into rationally managing it, a significant other is indeed emotionally abusive.
Without any logical or moral basis, they might oppose spending time with practically anyone else because they want to be the only person one looks to for social support and fulfillment, when to actually want this as anything more than a happenstance, involuntary desire that is never acted upon is indeed deeply selfish. No one should date or marry unless they are ready to purge or control this. This ideological or personal selfishness is of course highly irrational. At the first sign of this, an unmarried person needs to address it directly and thoroughly or break up with their partner. If married, a pattern of this is emotional abuse that ultimately would justify divorce like all other routine abuse or neglect.
Investment in dating or marriage never legitimizes irrationality of any kind. Someone who will not regulate themselves as needed is absolutely unprepared for a romantic relationship of any kind and does not deserve to have one. It is always ideal that they have none of the emotional problems that feed into possessiveness, jealousy, clinginess, slander, or unjust outbursts. Because rationality and righteousness depend on belief, motivation, and action, not on what one happens to feel, a natural gravitation to the contrary is not itself what makes them abusive. It is how they handle it.
Unfortunately, the world is full of people who fail to grasp reason and engage in rationalistic introspection, and thus they will ignore or mishandle their own personalities until they have given their partner a valid excuse to leave them, which is what they are (allegedly) frenetically trying to avoid. They might even present themselves as doing the opposite for a time. Under the right circumstances, though, they will most inevitably being to reveal their true selves. It takes an enormous amount of luck or effort, after all, to effectively pretend to be purely rationalistic over long periods of time.
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