Just Married...afraid he may be abusive!

[Guest]

My husband and I were recently married, actually a month ago. We dated for over 3 years. Had a almost perfect and wonderful relationship. We had a few bumpy times but we worked it out. We go to church regularly. We even had intense premarital counseling. The problem is he we are having a few financial problems. He is in sales and is completely commission based since the economy has dropped he isn't making any money. Since DECEMBER!!!!

Anyway, I think he is on the borderline of being abusive. He has no addictions like drinking, smoking, drugs. We actually do not drink. So that is rulled out. He doesn't come from a abusive family. And was not abused as a child.

The main problem is that we will be playing around "cutting up" and he all of a sudden become PISSED and becomes raged. He actually pushed me off the bed the other night and I went flying against the wall and ended up slamming my ankle against the window and now I have this Huge bruise. I did not even know that he was mad, I thought he was playing and it was completely an accident. But later on he told me that he did not want to play. I'm very confused. He actually left the room and told me that he needed to cool down.

I gave him about 30 minutes and then went into the room and asked him to please come back to bed. Everything was fine and we talked about it. He tells me that he wants to get away for a few days and just think about things. I think he feels really bad.

He told me that he is really afraid he is going to loose his cool and end up hurting me.

I am not sure if it is stress about money or what. I have seen his very mad before and he always goes for a walk or likes to be by himself. I can completely understand that. Usually if he is upset with me about something he is really good about he will actually sit down with me and be like "baby i love you but i would really prefer if you would not peel potatoes in the sink I would prefer if you would peel them in the trash can".

I'm not sure how to approach this. Or whether to even consider him abusive. Can you PLEASE help! What is my next step?

[Tony T]

First, he has given you a solid warning and you need to take it very seriously. He has told you he is really afraid that he is going to hurt you. CAN YOU READ LIPS??? Either leave today for a while or schedule counselling IMMEDIATELY!!! Seldom does a battered woman get prewarned of hostility.

 

Ordinarilly I would say that your husband is reacting to stress. However, in this case it seems he has a tremendous amount of repressed anger about something and his stress is just bringing it to the surface. This is something he did not allow you to see during courting for fear you would leave.

 

Love doesn't have anything to do with it, not at this point. It could be your life...talk to Nicole Brown Simpson (got sliced up by OJ).

 

You MUST proceed with great caution at this point because this man could blow up at anytime. He feels it coming inside. HE HAS WARNED YOU! You might see a counsellor on your own for advice on how to approach him. Otherwise, let him know you are now very concerned about his behavior. His outbursts of anger and assault have been totally and completely without warning and unprovoked. That's something to be extremely concerned about.

 

Ask him, in an extremely kind and caring way, if he will go to counselling with you. If he says yes, schedule a session ASAP with a very excellent therapist who comes highly recommended...make sure you don't go to a quack and there are a LOT of bad ones out there. If he says no, pack and leave while he is away and be sure to have someone there with you in case he comes home.

 

This all may not register with you right now. You may think I'm way off and crazy...but your husband is a time bomb and you don't want to be around with the clock gets to ZERO!

 

He is NOT the man you thought you married. If he can't be cured of his anger problem, and good therapists can do that, you must divorce him. There are strategies for getting rid of repressed anger but it takes a very good therapist to know to prescribe them.

 

Please understand, you are in a very dangerous situation as you described and you must take action today!

[SoleMate]

I agree totally with Tony. Definitely, consider him abusive. This is not the same as "demonizing" him. I have great sympathy for someone like your husband, who probably does have genuine difficulty controlling his aggression and in fact makes an effort to control it for your sake. HOWEVER...your safety is the most important thing here. Your husband's control efforts are NOT enough. His statement about being afraid to lose his cool and hurt you should be take as a cry for help.

 

Please be aware that this behavior is NOT normal. Most men do get angry at their wives from time to time, AND they deal with it without hurting and without being afraid that they're going to "lose it". Your H has something in his history and/or biochemistry and/or thought patterns that could cause him to one day take your life. I understand that his history as you've described it doesn't give many clues as to the source of this problem. That's overshadowed by the reality that he has already deliberately caused you a serious bruise. So despite not knowing where this problem came from, we know it's there.

 

I do hope that he can be helped. Mostly for your sake, and also for his. If he can't, then I advise you to not be married to him anymore.

 

Domestic violence toward women: Recognize the patterns and seek help

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/domestic-violence/WO00044

[blind_otter]

Personally, I respectfully disagree with the above posters. I have a bit of experience dealing with abusive men. I have a history of dating them. IME men who are authentically abusive, who lack the coping skills to deal with the normal stressors of everyday life, come from abuse, and have a lifelong history of dealing inappropriately with anger. I don't think these things can appear out of nowhere.

 

To me, not earning an income for the past 7 months is a hugely stressful thing. Granted, I would not just stay in the same job not earning money. I would find alternative work. That seems odd to me, that he hasn't been earning money yet hasn't tried to find a solution to his predicament. According to research I've read, men tend to base their self esteem very much on their earning potential and work.

 

Also, I believe abusive people in general tend to exhibit signs of being abusive VERY early in the relationship, and once you've been exposed you can spot it. They also tend to have certain personality traits. IME every abusive man I've been with has had "Jekyll/Hyde" syndrome. They can be charming, but they can also be monstrous. They very often do things out of remorse after an incident of abuse, like buy you jewelry, and convince you that "this is a one time thing".

 

I personally think it displays a certain degree of self awareness for your H to say, I need to take some time to sort things out in my head....and I haven't ever experienced that with any of the abusive men in my past. All of them denied that anything was wrong with them and never recognized that their physically violent actions were wrong.

[quankanne]

this will sound off the wall, but have him go in for a medical physical. While I'm not downplaying his anger or the situations you've experienced, it sounds rather odd that his behavior suddenly includes physical anger when it hadn't before. Especially when you say that this kind of thing doesn't run in the family or that he doesn't have any chemical additions. Checking his medical condition may rule out a change in blood chemistry brought on by stress or illness, or it may reveal some kind of alcohol or drug abuse.

 

in the meantime, try to find someplace to receive counselling for both of you to learn tools on how to effectively communicate. You may want to raise your concerns about abuse when you're alone with the counsellor, too.

[Craig]

My experience as a survivor/victim, talking to other survivor/victims, DV counsellors and research leads me to agree 100% with Blind Otter and Quankanne. I couldn't have said it better.

[Becoming]

I think he's probably extremely stressed by the financial situation and needs help dealing with that. Men have this need to provide and protect that women don't quite get. I'm not sure many men can even articulate it because no one ever taught them how to deal with emotions. Instead, society teaches boys that to be men, they have to be good providers and be strong, which = no emotion.

 

He's just gotten married and can't even provide for his new bride like a "real man." You and I might know this is a crock, just like we know a clean house doesn't identify us as women. But that doesn't mean we don't clean like crazy when our mother-in-law is coming.

 

If the $$ is bad, suggesting counseling, unless covered by insurance, will just put more pressure on him and make him feel like more of a failure if it's not covered by insurance. Check into your policy's coverage before you suggest that. If you have none (or even if you do), you may ask him to go with you to see the pastor/rabbi/etc. who married you. Talk to the pastor first to give her/him a heads-up on the situation so he/she can best help you.

 

NOW, PLEASE HEAR THIS: YOU NEED TO TAKE WHAT HAPPENED SERIOUSLY and make it clear to him that if he ever hurts you again you'll leave immediately. Things may have just gotten out of hand this time, he didn't know his own strength, etc. This is not to excuse him but to look at the possibilities.

 

IMHO he's stressed to the maxi pad and doesn't know how to deal with it. Get him to talk as his friend, not his accuser. (Trust me--that doesn't work!) Still, after trying to understand what's really going on, you need to let him know you refuse to live in an abusive situation.

[Lollie72]

OMG! Aside from the obvious MAJOR issue here that everyone above has discussed, the above statement really hit a nerve with me. If he's so controlling that he'd rather see you bending over a trash can trying to peel potatoes rather than doing it in the sink where it would be easier and you could surely clean up the mess, he's gonna take issue with something so stupid like that while you are kindly cooking his dinner for him!!!!????!!!!! That, in and of itself, would be a HUGE red flag for what life is gonna be like for me with a guy like that.

 

I do have a flying red flag that says, "control freak" when this is reiterated by this person regarding the guy in question. I also have dated abusive men, the kind that self-loath, and hold it all in, and try to fix(codependent) but absolutely cannot handle financial hardship. Mine was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and when things got bad financially, he either acted like we needed to panic and hide because we were going to go to debtors prison, or he'd find ways to blame me. But underneith, that self loathing was very apparent, he was a very clear internal self abuser, who said bad things about himself routinely to me. And the one time I clearly laughed when I was trying to leave him because he was trying to repeate 10 different ways in which I was at fault for his irresponsible financial messes and anger, he became very devious and then threw my suitcase at me down a flight of cement stairs. The physical abuse was all ways bubbling under the surface and about to burst forth with my husband. He was a very good verbal abuser but he'd do things that meant he had the power like block my exits and try to force me to stay and talk to him when he was raging, and yell at me while driving down the freeway so I was a captive audience. I'm now still nervous that he will show up where I'm staying during our divorce. Abusive people go from being bubbling, to physical very easily. Especially if you seem to be acting like you may be trying to take something from them or use them openly. Mine didn't want to be clearly shown he was any one's fool. And he had convinced himself that at some point I'd screw him over and started to tell me from the day we married.