I would be interested in your definition of "provoke." I really hope that any readers are aware of the abusive language that is being used. I have provided a definition of abuse below.
What is Abuse?
Very few people know what abuse really is, though everyone seems quite ready to give advice to its victims. If you believe that abuse is physical battering, you have some learning to do.
Abuse is fundamentally a mentality. It is a mindset of entitlement. The abuser sees himself* as
entitled. He is the center of the world, and he
demands that his victim make him the center of her world. His goal is
power and
control over others. For him, power and control are
his natural right, and he feels quite justified in
using whatever means are necessary to obtain that power and control. The abuser is not hampered in these efforts by the pangs of a healthy conscience and indeed often lacks a conscience.
While this mentality of power and control often expresses itself in various forms of physical abuse, it just as frequently employs tactics of
verbal,
emotional,
financial,
social,
sexual and
spiritual abuse. Thus, an abuser may never actually lay a hand on his wife and yet be very actively terrorizing her in incredibly
damaging ways.
Abuse in any of its forms
destroys the victim's person. Abuse, in the end, is murder.
* Sometimes the genders are reversed.