Does looking at it this way help you?
Yes and no. The language isn't meant to be, nor would I truly qualify it as verbal abuse. She has a tone and an approach that just doesn't yell with my own hangups and approach.
Here's an example:
My family is coming to our town and there's been an open question about when people are coming and who's staying with us. The family has known about it for months, but with just a few weeks out, still no resolution on time/location. Since we are hosting and therefore needing to make plans and whatnot, this is absolutely annoying. Especially to my wife, who is typically running the show for things like this.
So I get off the phone a few days ago with my mom and my wife's immediate snips "what was THAT all about?" I can already tell she's irritated. Logically, I believe it's not truly about me, per se. But after having been blamed for things direct ("You did this!" and indirect ("because of your actions three years ago, things have cascaded to this problem today!" for years, it's hard to truly accept that that's true... . but you never know.
I try put that all aside and just try to listen to her point and remind myself she's venting. But there's a tone to her language that feels very, very directed towards me, not just simple venting. Tone gets harsh, venting about someone else turns to anger towards me (hey, it's my family, after all). It's not full out yelling, and maybe someone else in my position would simply see it for the venting she actually means it to be. But for me, given who I am, our history, and who she is, it feels painful.
If I say anything about tone or boundaries, and certainly if I tried to back away/out of the conversation, it would trigger the ongoing "you are listening!" or "you aren't trying to understand what I'm going through!" that we go through regularly.
And when in moments outside of these sort of scenarios, when I say anything about her tone, she justifies it or redirects it at the real issue being that we can't ever focus on her issues.
That's why, in theory, I like the idea of drawing the boundaries, but doing so just triggers the bigger issues that will cause spiraling.
So setting boundaries doesn't seem to do much in this scenario, like it does in others. Enforcing a boundary is just a means to turn something small into something massive and completely spiraled. (I know that when people say that, it typically means that it's EXACTLY the time for such things, but hopefully I'm being clear about the differences)
