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whatevergirl
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*One time is too many. There are many men who would never hit a woman, and haven’t. Men slapping women or women slapping men in the fit of an outrage, is not ‘the norm.’ *
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Cracker_Mom
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“Outrage response?” Is this something new like pyscho-speak for physically abusing others?
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Becks
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Second!
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whatevergirl
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third
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Liberanosamalo
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Sweetie, that’s how we all ended up black and blue with broken or cracked bones. We kept looking for that kind thoughtful gentle guy we dated. As soon as we were married, he changed into something else. We stayed with him because we WANTED him to be the guy we THOUGHT he was. You can’t marry a guy’s potential, or your fantasy of what you want him to be. You marry the guy who is right in front of you.
Consider that this may be the first violent episode his sisters have heard of. Maybe before then no one knew about his “outrage responses.” Great word there.
I love it.My ex would outrage response me and then claim I “drove him to it.” And he told me he had to leave me before I made him beat me to a pulp. He told everyone he had to flee for HIS life.
Don’t listen to his mother. My exh’s mother didn’t believe anything bad about her son. Till 15 years later and he was threatening her. NOW she believes me. Before that she admits she “didn’t want to believe he could do that.” Ignore his mother. She also wants to believe the fantasy. No mother wants to admit she raised a wife beater.
You are wise to take a month off. Yes, he’ll cry and look responsible. And he’ll lament the crashing and burning of his image. (Is his grief over the loss of his self respect? Kind of selfish there. He should be sad that he hit his children’s mother.) As others have reminded you, he’s already justified he has “reasons he’d hit a woman.” Whether she is objectively mistreating them, or whether he just THINKS she’s mistreating them, he acted on it.
Just one episode?
Yeah. I played that game with myself. There is always a first time. Do you want to cast your lot with him forever and find out it’s not the last time? And yes, in the beginning mine would feel horrible and buy me flowers. It will never happen again, said he. Eventually the flowers stopped. But the abusiveness continues to this day in a thousand ways.
And I’ll echo what NoxSineStella said. These guys misrepresent what’s going on. It’s never their fault.
You have a right to know if he has any restrictions put on remarrying in his annulment decree. While spousal abuse is not grounds for an annulment, it’s an indication of underlying psychological incapacities or other issues that could impact his ability to really be a good husband.
Do you want to be tearfully sitting over a stack of papers 8 years from now sobbing as you fill out the petition for nullity from your marriage to him and come across the question: “Describe any instances during your dating/engagement period that would reflect on the outcome of the marriage.”
Do you want to be reading that and thinking about this and writing “I was warned, but I wanted to believe he was a kind, gentle loving man.”
Work as hard on wanting to believe there are other kind, gentle, loving men out there. And one of them can love you and give you the life you deserve.
And this one will date again. But he won’t be so stupid and warn the new girlfriend that he believes in hitting women. She’ll have to find that out the hard way.
It was a one-time thing? He snapped? Well, you’ve seen a good indication of how he behaves when he snaps. There will be many opportunities for him to snap in the future. When he is angry at you spending money, or his job isn’t doing so well, or he is stressed by finances, or the kids are being loud and demanding stuff.
If he hauls off and slaps you, at least you won’t be completely surprised.
You aren’t being told what really happened in his marriage. No, don’t settle for “she was nuts and I got out of it. She was the problem.” That’s what they all say.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Solzhenitsyn.
“Let us not forget that violence does not and cannot flourish by itself. It is inevitably intertwined with lying. Between them there is the closest, the most profound and natural bond. Nothing screens violence except lies. And the only ways lies can hold out is by violence.”
Some of those lies are the ones we tell ourselves; like “He’s really kind and gentle. She just made him do it. He would never do that to me.” The lies we tell ourselves are the most dangerous ones.
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NoxSineStellae
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I’m a terrible terrible person because this made me laugh until I started crying. And then I kept crying, thinking about all the times my father would pin us down and punch me or my sister with a closed fist, and of the first day of 9th grade when I went to school with a bright red handprint on my face for disrespect aka, beginning to see him for what he really was…he would abuse us, and if our mother tapped us with the back of a hair brush - so light we’d laugh at her and mouth off again - he’d be on the phone to his mother moaning about his kids being abused by his wife, and that he needed to watch his back.
I never mouthed off to my father, BTW. Ever. I was able to mouth off to my mother because I know she loves me, and that she’s not going to outrage response me if I do. And it’s not respect that kept my mouth shut around my dad, it was terror and eventually hatred.
I was 14 when my youngest brother was born. At home, and my mother almost died. My father wouldn’t provide medical insurance, and wouldn’t allow children to be born in the hospital. Too expensive. I remember him telling me that if I didn’t “shape up” and do more around the house, my mother and infant brother would die and it would be my fault. I was going to school, cooking all the meals, doing all the laundry and other household chores - he has never been able to even put his dish in the sink - but I had left the vaccuum out and he tripped over it and hurt his foot. Who tells a 14 year old child something like that, puts that kind of pressure on them? A child who he also liked to show off in public, and tell people how horrible my mother treated me? By the way, he stopped liking us when we weren’t cute, vulnerable and precious any more. He stopped caring about our mother’s “neglect”.
WannaBeAnon, your boyfriend may not be anything like our fathers and husbands, but you need to consider the possibility that he is, and look at him. ALL of what he does and what he says. Him. Not his mom or your friends. Him.
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NoxSineStellae
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I liked this so much I went and looked up Solzhenitsyn. Here is another quote that I think is pertinent, given that WannaBeAnon’s boyfriend made a conscious, vocalized, premeditated plan to choose violence against those weaker than him if he feels they deserve it.
Anyone who has proclaimed violence his method inexorably must choose lying as his principle.
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Liberanosamalo
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Nox, I have no idea how old you are, because your posts reflect a maturity that comes only with time or experience.
I pray for you that someday your night will have stars in it. Beautiful twinkly stars. And moonlight. And love.
You are not a terrible person for laughing. I find a lot of people laugh at what I say. If you can’t laugh, that’s the first step toward crazytown.
And tears can be healing. Your dad was a narcissist. There are threads out there by children of narcissists. All the issues you deal with as your dad accepted you and encouraged you when it made him look good but rejected you in private have to be dealt with. It has nothing to do with your worth as a person.
Think of yourself as a coin. An ignorant man can kick it into the gutter and say it didn’t have value. But if you are a steel penny from WWII era, or a double-sided Wheat Penny, you are worth a fortune. (I’m not a coin collector. So experts, don’t pick that apart please. Just go with the metaphor.) Just because an ignorant man didn’t recognize that doesn’t mean you don’t have inherent value. He’s the fool and has impoverished his own life by not recognizing your true value.
I hope the OP listens to your experience as a child who endured a father like that and she will do anything to keep from inadvertently choosing a man like that to be the father of her own children. In that respect, your suffering can greatly benefit others. It doesn’t pass for nothing if you can keep someone else from the same fate.
I pray for you that someday your night will have stars in it. Beautiful twinkly stars. And moonlight. And love.
You are not a terrible person for laughing. I find a lot of people laugh at what I say. If you can’t laugh, that’s the first step toward crazytown.
And tears can be healing. Your dad was a narcissist. There are threads out there by children of narcissists. All the issues you deal with as your dad accepted you and encouraged you when it made him look good but rejected you in private have to be dealt with. It has nothing to do with your worth as a person.
Think of yourself as a coin. An ignorant man can kick it into the gutter and say it didn’t have value. But if you are a steel penny from WWII era, or a double-sided Wheat Penny, you are worth a fortune. (I’m not a coin collector. So experts, don’t pick that apart please. Just go with the metaphor.) Just because an ignorant man didn’t recognize that doesn’t mean you don’t have inherent value. He’s the fool and has impoverished his own life by not recognizing your true value.
I hope the OP listens to your experience as a child who endured a father like that and she will do anything to keep from inadvertently choosing a man like that to be the father of her own children. In that respect, your suffering can greatly benefit others. It doesn’t pass for nothing if you can keep someone else from the same fate.
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EvelynEVF
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I think the OP will learn a great deal from that month apart. Please stick to your guns and absolutely insist on it. And go out and enjoy the company of other people and even other men, rather than staying at home pining. At this point you really need to know that there are other fish in the sea and that there could well be a future for you without this guy.
Only when you are that detached will you be truly free to make the choice.
My sweet, geeky fiance did drop a few hits about violence in his past, and almost hit me once but missed. I decided that those things were out of character. Well, they were. He was much more an emotional abuser since he was too impotent to strike out physically.
It took me so long to leave because I couldn’t see a future without him. Too bad it took me over a decade of marital misery to figure out that God wants the very best for me!
I think the separation will teach you much, and so would breaking up. My guess is that if you do break up with him, he will confirm your decision very quickly. Good luck. It’s tough to be in that spot, and all the advice in the world can’t make a decision for you.
Only when you are that detached will you be truly free to make the choice.
My sweet, geeky fiance did drop a few hits about violence in his past, and almost hit me once but missed. I decided that those things were out of character. Well, they were. He was much more an emotional abuser since he was too impotent to strike out physically.
It took me so long to leave because I couldn’t see a future without him. Too bad it took me over a decade of marital misery to figure out that God wants the very best for me!
I think the separation will teach you much, and so would breaking up. My guess is that if you do break up with him, he will confirm your decision very quickly. Good luck. It’s tough to be in that spot, and all the advice in the world can’t make a decision for you.
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apromisemade
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I think you’re doing the right thing it taking time apart. It will give you time to digest all this and hopefully realize that you’d be taking a HUGE risk if you continue to date or consider marrying this man.
I also feel the need to point something else out. I cannot stress enough how important it is that the children be believed when they say their mother hurt them and the bruises taken seriously. People just shrugging it off and saying “Kids are just accident prone” and “…say the darndest things” is how abuse gets prolonged when it is staring people right in the face. I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book “A Boy Called It,” but it is a biography of a child who suffered one of the worst documented cases of child abuse in his states history. He went to school every day half starved with burns and bruises and whenever his abusive mother was called in she said exactly what you and some other posters are saying, “He must’ve just bumped his head on the table,” or “You know kids, they make stuff up all the time.” People believed her.
Okay, didn’t mean to go off or anything, maybe it’s just a touchy subject for me
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Granted, you weren’t there when it happened and this man has already labeled himself as untrustworthy.
Though you are really doing all you can at this point by stepping back a bit and letting the family try to resolve it. I can understand your feelings about being shocked and dissapointed, and I can’t say I wouldn’t feel the same way if I were in your shoes, but as an outsider looking in, my best suggestion would be to take anything this man tells you with a very big grain of salt.
Also, I can’t help but wonder if maybe there’s a reason he, a person who would hit a woman but only for a “good reason,” married a woman who would hit her children for whatever the reason. To use a more worn out and far less elegant quote, “Birds of a feather flock together.”
I also feel the need to point something else out. I cannot stress enough how important it is that the children be believed when they say their mother hurt them and the bruises taken seriously. People just shrugging it off and saying “Kids are just accident prone” and “…say the darndest things” is how abuse gets prolonged when it is staring people right in the face. I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book “A Boy Called It,” but it is a biography of a child who suffered one of the worst documented cases of child abuse in his states history. He went to school every day half starved with burns and bruises and whenever his abusive mother was called in she said exactly what you and some other posters are saying, “He must’ve just bumped his head on the table,” or “You know kids, they make stuff up all the time.” People believed her.
Okay, didn’t mean to go off or anything, maybe it’s just a touchy subject for me
.Granted, you weren’t there when it happened and this man has already labeled himself as untrustworthy.
Though you are really doing all you can at this point by stepping back a bit and letting the family try to resolve it. I can understand your feelings about being shocked and dissapointed, and I can’t say I wouldn’t feel the same way if I were in your shoes, but as an outsider looking in, my best suggestion would be to take anything this man tells you with a very big grain of salt.
Also, I can’t help but wonder if maybe there’s a reason he, a person who would hit a woman but only for a “good reason,” married a woman who would hit her children for whatever the reason. To use a more worn out and far less elegant quote, “Birds of a feather flock together.”
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