| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 12:25:33 AM | Omfg.........You're a few pounds overweight,6'3, and,you hit a woman.......?
Sorry,but i cant justify what you did,even given your cicumstances.
If you really are a "man" as you claim,you would've sought a divorce waaaaay before hitting your wife.
I wouldnt want to be involved with you. | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 12:29:10 AM |
I was raised to never consider divorce as you'd go straight to . My wife was very emotionally and verbally abusive.
No need to put yourself through hell, in order to avoid it. Divorce can be a good thing. | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 12:41:16 AM |
I was so angry I puncher really hard and told her two could play the abuse game and it would stop. Period. .....I don't sympathise with people who hit people. It's obvious you have an anger issues and use physical violence to get your point across. You could have walked away and calmed down, but you chose to stay and punch her HARD. That's gutless.
It's honest of you to mention what you have done, but personally I wouldn't come near you with a ten inch pole.
You were a volcano ready to erupt.....It should never have gotten to point of eruption.
Terribly enough I never even considered divorce as an option. .....So punching was a better option I gather? | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 12:51:23 AM | Me abusive
Yeah OK, like I'm going to come out of my computer screen and hit you.
you better watch out know here i come 
I just didn't like you referring to the problem of his wife being abusive to the fact that she might have had postpartum depression .
You have a good night know.
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 1:02:40 AM | Ontario Female;
Please read carefully ... I used the words "Possibly" and "In Part" ... It is not a statement of fact, but rather a suggestion.
I never said "ALL" either ... you did.
One of these days Alice .... "POW" ... right in the kisser!
Now go to bed.
=========================
Juliet Juliet;
Hows that ten inch pole working out?
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 4:06:22 AM | All you are saying here is that you hit your wife and you're ashamed and no longer married to her. This wouldn't be enough for me to believe you don't have that impulse in you anymore.
It's understandable that many women would stay far away from you. I really don't see you taking much responsibility for what you did. You want to present the picture as something you had no choice in.
My abuse stopped but she would not quit playing the "innocent victim"
Well, you seem to be playing the "victim" too. Did you seek help in dealing with your anger impulse issues? That would go a long way in helping another woman trust you.
I was married to a man who hit me in the first year we were married. I moved home to my parents and was looking into divorce when he started getting help through counseling. It took him 3 years to get to the core of his issues. We remained married during this and I saw him come to many many painful conclusions about himself. Are you willing to do this? | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 8:22:44 AM | I can't offer much cause I'm pretty conflicted, but I would like to point out that I think it'd be wise to first sort out our own stuff before we indulge someone else in it. The OP's words speak pretty clearly that he's struggling with this and until he comes to terms with it, how anyone else views it is pretty insignificant. He has to live with himself. (Dang, words are failing me today, I'm sorry!) What I'm trying to say is that if he truly faults his own behavior, how someone else judges it won't make any difference. I do think it's nice to have someone else offer another way of seeing things or to offer some sort of insight, but you still have to make your peace all by yourself.
And, that said, I'm conflicted about what the OP did because I've been the woman that was told this same exact type info, and I still haven't fully decided if my own actions were a mistake or not. I decided to cut him a great deal of slack, because on all counts from him and everyone that knew her, she was indeed a monster. But though I didn't care for what he did to her, (or shall I say, what he made the mattress do to her) I did appreciate that he owned it. And I can appreciate that he paid for his mistake when she had him arrested so he'd be out of the house long enough for her to completely wipe it out, as she had set up the whole thing to work that way....counting on being able to effectively push his buttons and cause him to lose it. It worked.
However, much later down the road, (after we'd been living together 2 years) upon learning of his lady on the side and my saying something very cutting to him in response to this discovery--about how I hoped his dik would shrivel up, rendering him unable to rise to her occasion--he didn't strike me with his hands (much like how he used the mattress to hurt her, vs. his hands) he charged at me with his chest pushed outward and shot me across the landing and into the wall. The next day, he told me I absolutely had to go, or one of us would die. It took me a week because I was 900 miles from home with 2 kids in tow, but I left.
So...sometimes we ought to heed these lil oopsies. Then again, this one incident wasn't indicative of the whole 2 years. He'd never struck me before, but he was abusive in other ways. Just goes to show that we're capable of escalation, we're capable of violence and otherwise losing control. But lots of us are able to control ourselves and handle our emotions in a way that doesn't hurt others, too.
Then again, we're usually called psychos, so, whatever. :) | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 9:29:35 AM |
That means give up kids, property, and future. I would have died before giving her the kids. But the women usually get young children.
You have some baggage to deal with and I suggest you go to a professional rather than seeking help here.
"I would have died before giving her the kids."
Kids are NOT, I repeat, NOT, property to be treated as leverage in a divorce. Did you stop even once to think about what is better for THE KIDS and put your male ego aside?
When you walked in on her and her boyfriend, the correct move was to note the time and date, contact your lawyer, and sue for divorce with the grounds of infidelity and domestic battery. The instant you struck her, you lost. No judge on earth is going to give custody to a man who has anger and temper issues. Calm and cool would have done you much more good.
I am 100% sure you are not a bad person. You have some issues and they can be dealt with. Take the steps, but step 1 is putting the macho manly man ego aside and confronting your demons.
As far as telling someone about your past, honesty is the best policy ALWAYS. Also make it clear that you are getting therapy for your anger issues. (And you DO have anger issues.)
"Caveman" doesn't work any more. | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 9:35:27 AM | Wait a minute...you were married to an abusive woman, and now you're talking to someone who putting you down as not a real man?
First time you make a mistake, its a learning experience. The second time you do it, it truly is a mistake--you didn't learn what got you to this place in time. the third time, its not a mistake--its a pattern.
but, back to the question. when to tell about a checkered past? when it becomes obvious you are hiding it, and it keeps you from moving on to where you want to be. either you will be accepted for it, or you will find out the person you confided in isn't worth your time.
you don't ever need to bang people over the head with it in order to test them, or to push them away--some people do both of these.
As for the posters lighting up on the part where you hit your wife...people in tramatic situations do things they wouldn't normally do. That's not to excuse what was done, but as veterans come home from Iraq, American society is going to find uncomfortable things happening. Its the part of war that people don't talk about b/c it happens AFTER the war. But, back to the point--learn the lesson of not staying in a tramatic situation. | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 9:46:20 AM | I think you should still be in counseling. You did hit a woman, BAD sign and for some reason you put property and money in front of the happiness and well being of your children and yourself. You need to figure out what made you stay so long and put up with that level of abuse before you finally decided to act. Being a doormat is not an admiral trait when you enter the dating world.
Get your act together before you involve another person in your life. No new girl needs the level of anger and drama your Ex can dish out. | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 9:46:44 AM |
Possibly due in part, to postpartum depression and the additional demands of motherhood. What a politically correct crock of sh!t comment.
Abuse is abuse. PERIOD. Everyone is abusive until the cops show up, then everyone behaves. | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 9:49:26 AM |
OP: "I would have died before giving her the kids."
EastSideEddie
Kids are NOT, I repeat, NOT, property to be treated as leverage in a divorce. Did you stop even once to think about what is better for THE KIDS and put your male ego aside? We don't know the full story but the OP stated that he was being emotionally abused by his wife.
I know that it is hard for some to believe, but men do get abused too.
And emotional abuse can be even more painful and damaging than physical abuse.
On this thread the OP has not shown any of the control-freak behaviour that abusive people often exhibit when they don't like what they are hearing. He talks of self-contempt and explains why he stayed in such an appalling marriage: religious belief.
I suggest that the OP believed that he was doing the best he could for his kids by not leaving them alone with this emotionally abusive woman. Social Services aren't too good at picking up emotional abuse, they tend to look for more obvious damage. As a friend of a man with an emotionally abusive step-mother I can only say that the damage inflicted can be quite severe and I do not find it hard to believe that the OP had the best interests of his children at heart when he made that decision.
You might doubt his story, but I think that is another issue. The OP has expressed deep shame and regret at his action which was to strike the woman who had been abusing him once. He did not abuse her, unless I have missed something, he has spoken only of enduring long-term abuse, trapped by his religious beliefs, until something in him snapped as she taunted him with her infidelity. How can anyone blame him? I think people seriously under-rate the effect that emotional abuse and manipulation can have on a person. If you put a person under enough pressure they will snap. The idea is surely to take better care of each other not to berate people for their suffering. | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 10:02:40 AM | You hit her. So she's right. You're not a real man. A real man would have walked, ran, clawed, or (unfortunately...) crawled away. Live with it and accept it. I don't care how much she pissed you off. Same thing goes for the chicks here too.
Like I told my kids, read this over 500 times until you get it:
"HITTING IS A NO-NO"
I noticed a few people ask about anger management classes or issues. Anger Management is only good for people who are habitually violent. If people need anger management classes for losing their temper, even once, EVERYONE would be in it. I lost my temper once back in 1982, never had anger management classes, and turned out just fine. | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 11:22:02 AM | As far as the "emotionally abused" thing, we don't know his sensitivity level. He may feel he was abused and it was no more than the usual wifely nagging to take out the garbage.
And to the comment that anger management is only good for certain people, I disagree. The triggers that set off a violent reaction are present in every creature in the universe. No animal, including humans, is totally pacifistic. Learning to control our reaction to those triggers is an acquired skill. Some people learn it themselves from life experiences. Some need help to recognize the danger zones.
The general tone of the man's profile is that he is some kind of self proclaimed "man's man". I get the sense that he has used his size to bully his way through life until now. Of course I may be 100% wrong as I don't know him, but when the first reaction is violence, that speaks loudly. Walking away and following up with legal action was the way to handle that, but I stand firm on my position that from what I read and how I interpreted his comments, he saw the kids as some kind of rope in a game of tug of war. That is just what I took away from reading the post.
As soon as I start seeing "for the kids", I know that it is not even close to being about the kids. It is a power struggle to see who "wins", thus feeling some kind of victory by hurting the other one last time.
And one last that beofre I never visit this thread again, domestic battery is not to be softened by calling it a "checked past". It is a criminal offense and he is lucky he didn't do jail time. | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 12:02:12 PM | Oh poor OP, you're such a victim.....*/rolls eyes......
You were a victim when the abuse STARTED, but you gave up that position once you stayed around for more. That's when you became a willing participant. PARTICIPANT.
You used religion as a reason to stay in a bad marriage, so where was that religion when you were losing control? Did you seek counseling for YOURSELF? No.... instead you blamed her for everything.... Where were you? Were you working on yourself? No..... you were too busy, still are, blaming her for your actions or lack there of.
From what you're saying, your wife was verbally and mentally abusive towards you. Yet you stayed.... *ALL HAIL THE MARTYR....... and then you "punched her, really hard".....*ALL HAIL THE VICTIM.......
Wait, who's the victim and who's the martyr??
Keep your past in the can until you've worked out your own issues. Time to stop blaming the ex-wife for your past and time to own the role you played in it. | |
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| When to tell about a checkered past?
Posted: 3/9/2008 6:41:47 PM | Wow some emails have been rough. But thanks for the input. I actually did seek counseling but I could not "get my mind around" gettin divorced. I know that sounds like ducking my share of the blame but it is the honest truth. I actually got custody of my boys because of her behavior in the hearing. They have grown up strong and kind. I have taught them both to never abuse or allow an abusive relationship to continue. And most of all I taught them to just walk away.
Many ppl say once a lowlife always a lowlife. I tend to disagree. I've been there and am NEVER going back. I like who and what I am now. I'm not sorry I got caught; I'm truyly sorry I ever did it. People say just leave, but when my whole lifetime of thinking had to be changed I was too slow and I broke. Lessons drilled into you from your earliest memory or very hard to "just stop or change".
Several emails said the one who said i was not a "real" man. (her phrase) thought I was making the mistake of letting myself in for more abuse. She she was not abusive. I believe she feels I am "damaged goods" and was not taking the risk. An abuser would try to continue the conversation for more attacks.
I did go to the sherrif and turn myself in. Went to anger management. Learned a lot. Most of it was BS to justify $100 an hour shrinks preaching but I did absorb some good from it. Honestly I less needed anger management than I did recovery time from the abuse I had suffered. | |
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