Both are abuse and both do horrific damage to the abused. Physical abuse can be seen, mental/verbal abuse cannot be seen. But if you could see it it would look as bad as any physical beating.
If you had to choose between enduring one and the other, which would you choose? My guess is a physically abusive person might have a greater chance of being verbally abusive than the average person on the street.
I think you, and others know me well enough I avoid being vulgar. Since we are both married let's turn these around. What about a wife criticizing her husband as a horrible lover? What if she says "Dear I'm not being satisfied and I need you to read this book ". Is that abuse? Or "Dear you're such a horrible lover, I need some tools to help me be sexually satisfied" When she says it in front of the pastor she says "Well, that's just how I feel". Is it abuse? I think we know what verbal/ mental abuse is. Anyone that has experienced it, or is close to someone has, knows what it is.
I wonder why you threw sex into the mix because wives can complain about their husbands being overweight, too, and the example works when reversed. Your example here omitted expressing disgust with the other partner, here. I wouldn't say those words, in themselves are 'abusive', but in both cases, the one I gave, and the one you gave, if I were asked, I would advise using kinder words. Criticism on these topics can wear someone down, but aren't inherently abusive.
I watched a bit of Reality TV where they married two strangers. One man told his wife when he kissed her, he felt dead inside. A pastor on the show said that was 'abuse' Maybe the man did feel the those things. He did not have to say it. It may have been unkind, but was it 'abusive'? I would not use that word to describe it, and I do not see that as grounds for divorce.
My sister had her clothes thrown out on the front lawn and told by her husband to get the fu%k out of the house. He's told his sons that woman are crazy and that she is crazy. He's beaten holes in the walls, smashed the kids toys, broken phones and computers. Smashed the windshield out of his truck. He has surrounded her, cursing her, telling her she is spoiled and that no one wants her. My sister is scared to open her mouth. His whole family treat her the same way. Her FIL came onto her property and told his son he needed to "handle" his woman. My sister is skin over bones and pretty much starves herself. He's said terrible things to her when they have been intimate. I don't know frankly why she hasn't committed suicide at this point. If you don't consider this abuse, you don't understand what abuse is and need to be silent on the subject.
If he is smashing things and throwing her out of the house, there is more than verbal abuse going on. I did not say your in-law, who I have never met or heard, was not abusive. That was not the point of my post. But we can both pray for your sister and her husband. There have been men like this who have repented. I may not 'pray nice' for him. I do not like to hear about a man treating his wife that way.
No the definition is not fuzzy.
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You did not answer my questions above about someone saying their spouse is overweight, but said the definition was not fuzzy, then you give a specific example of something most of us would agree is abusive. I do not think you have proven your point about 'abuse' not being fuzzy. Some people are free with the word, and others are saying if you are abused, get a divorce.