Does domestic violence always have to be a deal breaker?

[brightlightsandpromise]

Of course my gut reaction is absolutely yes it does. But life is never black and white is it. I am genuinely not in a DV situation, but i have had some arguments with DP where i have pushed and pushed and pushed, and how he hasn't lamped me one i don't know. We have been extremely stressed and sort of pushed and shoved but nothing else - in my mind that is not DV. My DP and i have a good relationship (when we are not up to our eyeballs in business related stres). Why start the thread then - well i was just wondering, because sometimes when we row i think, dont fucking push him over the edge because knowing my DP if he ever hit me he would feel he had to leave. So it got me to wondering, obviously there is abusive domestiv violence which of course is an absolute deal breaker, but are there times when people can move on from it?

Why would you be sure he's bigger and stronger than her?

I understand your agenda, and I share some of it. But I find it insulting when women are only ever seen as victims and men as agressors. When women are small and frightened and men are big and scary.
Perhaps its true for the OP, but then again, maybe not. Don't assume anything.

Something you might want to think about, OP, is past relationships. Have you had an abusive partner in the past, or was there abuse in the home when you were growing up? Has your partner been involved in an abusive relationship in the past or was there violence in his family? One or both of you seems to have trouble managing conflict without aggression by the sound of it.
It is possible for a couple to squabble to the point of pushing and shoving each other and the relationship to surive and the physical attacks to stop for good and all. BUT this is only likely when both partners see themselves as on the same team, when the man doesn;t actually see himself as superior to the woman, and when both partners are prepared to work together and rule out physical violence.

I'll make whatever interjections I like thanks very much, and you didn't answer my question.

I know the stats on DV, very well. But that doesn't mean that you can make unfounded assumptions.

I have known big powerful strong men who have been beaten by much smaller "weaker" women. I have known skinny runts of a bloke who have knocked ten bells out of a woman twice their size.

Mental abuse is also an ability that anyone of any size can have to inflict on anyone of any size too.

People who dont understand will say "he is twice her size, why didnt he just stop her" when a woman is violent to a man, but for the majority of men, hitting a woman is just taboo, and they will not do it, even in self defence.

It is rarely a black and white situation with one victim and one villain.

Many women who are victims, will be complicit in the violence because they know the triggers, yet still antagonise and create a violent situation.

And of course there are many women who simply do nothing to warrant the abuse they get too, and have no way to escape from it.

This thread is about an Op who is scared that her own behaviour MAY lead to violence because there is already pushing involved ON BOTH SIDES, but the Op is admitting that she is goading her partner and doesnt want it to escalate. That is a commendable trait in either partner.

She doesnt want to be told to kick him out, or that he is abusing her, because he isnt.

Victims are not complicit in the violence by pushing triggers. They are not responsible for the triggers of the aggresor. Thats what they like to tell you though, that its your fault, if only you hadn't done this or that it never would have happened.....

ha? Are we in a playground?

Oh he is much bigger and much stronger than i am. That doesn't make me a meek and mild poor little submissive woman. That is actually quite amusing a concept.

I dont believe i am subdued at all dittany, but this is a serious subject, im not about to be cracking jokes.

You know, i used to think along the lines of, well im a strong woman so you aint putting one over on me, i will vociferously defend my corner even if i know im wrong. Its no good - its about knowing when is the time to do that and when to back down. When someone has been working 12 hours and a 4 hour commute on top of that is not the time, but sometimes i don't always recognise that in my need to have things sorted and have them sorted NOW. Anyway, silly to start the thread as i knew how it would go really.

I absolutely do think there can be fault on both sides, in all sorts of situations. I do however recognise that there are abusive partners of both sexes and that is never to be tolerated.

My DP is often at the end of his tether - that does not make him a bad man. I am often at the end of mine - we just have to find ways to deal with it.

ittany,can i ask,where you ever the victim of DV?

i'll tell you something else too, i have actually felt some sort of victory when my DP has shoved me, its like yep, see - told you you are a cunt. Ive even stood in his face and screamed at him to hit me - he hasn't. He has more restraint than me. That is not nice to have to admit to that sort of behaviour because actually, that is fairly abusive isn't it, getting right in someones face. Doesn't make me feel proud, my DP never NEVER instigates an argument ever.

I would say to a certain extent some are Buzz.

As an example. You get a couple. The man is only agressive when he is pissed. So wife comes home from shopping, gives him a pack of beers, then she starts giving him earache over something. She knows that when he is pissed he is likely to turn nasty.. but she still winds him up.

Another example. One partner is jealous, and doesnt trust the other partner. The other partner is fully aware of this, but proceeds to go into detail about how they got chatted up, how someone else finds them attractive, and provokes an argument.

I have witnessed both the above happen and both situations could easily have been avoided but the victim chose to antagonise knowing full well what the outcome was likely to be.

I am not for a second saying a victim "asks for it". They dont. But, provocation can be a factor that has to be taken into account in some instances.

I agree, an agressor will almost always try to blame the victim by saying they triggered it, and in the vast majority of the cases that is total bollocks. All I am saying is that isnt 100% the case though.

it makes me angry dittany so i lamp him one! ok

No I don't agree. It still doesn't maker it the victims responsibility. Your first example is classically misogynistic, he's aggressive when drunk so its her fault he drank the beer, its her fault if she complains about anything. Really she should never complain, because he'll get violent......
How is that not blaming the victim? His drinking problem is his fault, his violence is his fault.

Dittany not ittany!!

I sort of agree with buzz on this one, i have seen it in families (NOT MINE before anyone goes down that road) where members of the family have serious drink problems, fatal drink problems, and what do the parents/partners/kids buy each other for presents - bottles of whiskey

I do think that is a very very different thing to what we are talking about here though.

I will often say to my DP "im not treading on egg shells just because your tired/stressed/overworked" but really, would a bit of respect for the fact that someone is stressed tired and overworked go amiss and lets not have a discussion at 1am over him not doing x y or z in the way i wanted it done or saying, you will do Z wont you, you will do it, are you sure you'll do it ad infinitum when the poor bastard just wants to sleep.

no that was bubbles that said that they push the triggers, I disagreed, vehemently.

and do you know why a woman whose husband hits her when drunk would buy him whiskey? How hard do you think she'd get hit if she didn't buy the whiskey?

We will have to agree to differ Buzz. I wholly understand what you are saying and partly do agree with you. But I do think that provocation plays a part in a minority of bad relationships.

I know I have been guilty myself of winding up my husband, but I know he wouldnt hit me. I have pushed it to the limit though on rare occasions.

No partner ever deserves to be hit by the other. EVER. I am sure all agree on that though.

well, it didn't turn out to be the deal breaker in my marriage.
H and I always had a 'firey' relationship, we met when we were both v. young. Then we split up, I had some therapy and I managed to let go of my anger, or rather deal with it differently. H and I got back together after a long time apart and had children/got married etc. I had PND and we ended up rowing again. I now see that I was very vunerable and when backed into a corner by H (aggressive rows etc), I found that I too would end up shouting. H pushed me around/left a few bruises/broke stuff etc.
Because I was feeling so low, I accepted his argument that we were both as bad as each other. I spent far too much time working our how I could change so as not to 'cause' H to get so angry.
Actually we were not as bad as each other. I had depression and he was totally unsupportive and spent all the time feeling hard done by. Because I wasn't having sex with him as much as he liked, he felt unloved etc. - these were all his excuses for acting like a ***. He was unhelpful with dc, unhelpful at home and everything he had to do was just proof of how useless I was. He was drinking heavily and shouting/breaking things all the time. If I cooked the wrong type of pasta, I would get it, if I loaded the dishwasher wrong it was because I had no respect for him (I kid you not).
Now I know that I do not deserve ever to be treated like that. Luckily H also understands this now.

But deep down, I wish I had left at the first signs, I just didn't recognise them at the time. Interestingly enough, as teens H and I often had discussions about violence in a relationship - all of it concentrated on very obvious physical violence and stereotypical domestic violence. I simply did not appreciate at the time what domestic abuse actually was (the controlling element).

Okay, remove the whisky example.. I agree that wasnt the perfect scenario.

I am trying not to be stereotypical or gender specific but also trying to type quickly between farmville houswork...

But I have witnessed plenty of examples where one partner has deliberately goaded their other half, knowing full well that it will set them off.

All those things you describe bout your DH newname is exactly how my DP is not. He is the opposite to that even. It just shows how every relationship is different.

Bubble, i wholeheartedly hold my hand up to being the goader and i am ashamed of that. I will fight my corner over everything, but there are ways to do it that don't have to involve screaming at someone or making them feel like shit.