Fantasies of turning the tables on abusive DH

[Revengefantasiesrus]

My DH is sometimes physically abusive.

About twice a year or so (almost invariably alcohol related) he will lose his temper push me, pull my hair, scream in my face, pin me down, intimidate me an in the most extreme scenario has choked me (momentarily) ad held a knife at my eye level.

The rest of the time he is extremely affectionate, loving and kind. As they are.

This weekend he went out with the lads and got utterly wasted and rolled in at 5am. I don't mind this and occasionally do the same myself on a night out with the girls. What I did mind is I asked him to do 2 simple things - not to lose the bank card because it is the only way we had of paying for anything and to make sure he kept enough cash for the taxi because we didn't have any in the house.

Needless to say he came back without cash or card. Plus his shirt was ripped as he ha been fighting. I was not best pleased.

So the next morning at about lunchtime I woke him and gave him a bitchy and sarcastic piece of my mind. Whereat he shouted at me, grabbed me, pinned me on the bed and choked me. Then said it was my fault for pushing his buttons (hollow laugh).

Yes I know I should leave him but I won't be for a huge number of reasons I won't go into.

The point of this post is, has anyone else, having been in this position, had subsequent fantasies where they drug and tie up their partner and then when they wake up do exactly to them what they did to you?

He has apologized, begged forgiveness, says he will never touch me again blah blah blah. But lying in bed last night all I could think of was how much I wanted to see HIM lying there helpless while I scream in his face with a knife in my hand and choke him until he can't breathe and show him just how it feels to be helpless and afraid and completely powerless to make it stop. I want him to see hate and viciousness in my face and to feel visceral fear.

And I want to do it so much I almost feel like I could.

I have forgiven, made allowances, tried to love him and understand how his abusive childhood has damaged him, I have paid for his therapy and medication, I have moved on and put these things behind me so many times. Now, all of a sudden, I don't want to do that any more. I don't want to leave him, for me the good currently does actually outweigh the bad. But I do want to punish him and show him how it feels.

Is it just me?

Can you TeddyCam him in the act and play the results to him in front of a counsellor/police officer?

I would love to do that but it would be very hard as it doesn't happen often enough. I'm sure if he could see himself he would be shocked. Or have I been watching too much super nanny?

I don't feel like I want to hurt / scare him anymore this morning. I just feel numb. I want to feel something for him but I don't.

Possibly making sweeping generalisations here, but in many ME countries the evidence of women is given very little legal consideration. If you attacked him, even in self-defence, there is every chance that you will be punished / jailed and he will get the children. Think about who he'll be choking and threatening to glass then for speaking in the wrong tone.

Attempting to frighten him won't work. The evidence is there already - he was abused as a child and now he gets revenge by abusing you. If you attempt to exact physical revenge on him, he'll get you back harder next time - or perhaps even start abusing the children to punish you ( and you are misguided if you think he won't - he chooses this, no matter what his history).

You say that he cannot stay if the marriage officially breaks down ( because, let's be honest, this is not a marriage, it's a death sentence). Be clever. Use the fact that you are the earner - you are in a very unusual position in holding the financial power here. You have something that many women in similar situations don't have - control over how you can protect yourself and your children. For once the visa position can protect the woman -uyou can use it to your advantage.

Yes of course I can. I deliberately structured my career, living situation and the set up of our residence to ensure I was never trapped - especially given the country in which we live. I saw far too many women literally with no rights whatsoever lose their children and even get imprisioned on spurious adultery charges concocted by their spouses to ever risk that for myself. I am completely in a position of strength here - out of deliberate arrangement. The law here does not protect the rights of wives and mothers (especially if you are a non-Muslim expat funnily enough) so I had to protect myself. And I have a legal background so I was able to do so. I am a thousand times luckier than many other women whose husbands are violent because the only thing which prevents me from leaving is me.

But magic house hit the nail on the head. I want my kids to grow up with two parents as I did. I want us to be a family. 95% of the time thins are good. Can I bring myself to end my marriage when my kids are so happy, my parents so relieved and content that I appear settled and loved, when we have such a warm and close circle of friends and family, when I have a husband who, when he isn't abusive and threatening, is lovely? I have read Too Bad to Stay, Too Good to Leave. It didn't help me decide.

I am not trapped in any practical sense. I am trapping myself with my sense of duty, responsibility and the promises I made when I got married which I do not walk away from lightly - for moral and religious reasons as well as deeply held personal convictions. The only thing which to me trumps my commitment to my husband an marriage is my responsibilities as a mother and at this point in time I 100% believe it is more advantageous for my children for us to be together than not. And I'm sorry if anyone in here thinks otherwise but that is MY judgement as their mother to make being aware of every aspect of our situation not one which a poster on an Internet forum is able to accurately judge.

As soon as that situation changed my decision would be made. At present I am willing to put my own interests and even phyisical safety behind the interests of my children and the commitment I have made to my husband and marriage. Not that I am presently "staying for the children" - is it ever that simple? But that I beleive my children are deriving huge benefit from their close relationship and constant contact with their father and are not in any way being adversely affected by his occasional absuive behavior towards me.

Are you including the risk of him killing you when he does his biannual choking in your calculation of what is best for your children?

It's seems an odd kind of responsibility to your children to choose a course if action that involves a realistic chance of leaving them motherless.

Just in the interests of truth he has choked me twice in 4 years. So it's not "habitual" to answer a previous poster nor biannual. He does shove, hair pull, grab arms and poke finger in face while throwing things screaming abuse and / or banging furniture around 2 or 3 times a year on average. So only 2 potentially fatal actions. He hasn't done it again since the first time over 3 years ago (pre therapy and medication). Hence my surprise, rage and intense disappointment. I was really really shocked. I suppose if you want to look at it from a purely statistical basis I would e more likely to be injured driving to work than living with my husband. But that is really beside the point. No one should ever ever have to be subjected to the emotional trauma of violence from someone who is supposed to love you.

I am not really concerned about him killing or even seriously injuring me. As I've said before he hasn't even bruised me enough to leave a mark even in his worst episodes. It's the psychological impact on me and the horrible horrible damage to our marriage that these incidents cause which I struggle to deal with the most. And living with the uncertainty of when he may lose it again.

If he stopped drinking altogether it would 90% stop happening but he has been known to lose his temper when sober - only shouting though not physical violence (except once when he ran out of his antidepressants and went cold turkey for 3 days while he waited for his doctor to see him - not pleasant).

I wonder I'd he would give up alcohol altogether if I asked him to. Should I give it up too?

What do you think he would say if you asked him to give up drinking?

I agree a Athinginyourlife. And once left motherless, who is to stop them being next in line? Seriously, you are in huge denial about the dangerousness of your situation, and the damage that will be caused to your children (physical or mental) by you choosing to stay. And I say that as the child of an abusive father who never witnessed any abuse. My parents thought I was unaware. I wasn't. You have a choice to stay or go (and risk serious injury or death). Your poor kids have no such choice.

Oh dear, Revenge..... Choking could kill you in seconds........ Please save yourself....

He has choked you twice, so now it is habitual.

He knows he can do it and you won't leave, so you need to count it a a risk factor here.

You are gambling two living parents to provide two parents living together. And odd choice.

I'm not sure your risk of dying in a car accident is smaller than your risk of being choked to death when you live with a violent man who chokes you.

Also, if he screams at you and throw things, do they live in the west wing of a palace, or is this stuff they will definitely hear?

Well , we all look at it differently. Personally I would prefer my children to grow up with two parents, albeit divorced, than a dead mother and a jailed father - but as you say, it's your decision.

Sorry we are not saying what you want to hear. It's easier to blame internet strangers for the wrong answer and carry on pretending that this is your choice than it is to take control. I'm sorry you're in this position, it's horrific. But you have options that millions of abused women don't have.

They sleep 2 floors away with their doors closed and are 2 and 1. We have a large five bedroom house. They sleep 12 - 13 hours a night without fail and fortunately take after me and wouldn't be woken up by a bomb going off (i slept through the 1986 hurricane when our chimney fell in, a drunk driver ploughing through our gate and my mother used to have to wake me for school with a cold flannel). As I mentioned this happens several times a year not a week. So no they haven't been disturbed by it.

I am not under the slightest misapprehension as to the enormity of this impact on ME. I'm the one who goes through it for fucks sake. It does not impact my kids in any way though. In fact my parents are staying with us at present for a holiday and they haven't the foggiest that we are anything other than very happy together. I'm extremely good at getting on with things cheerfully, effectively and positively no matter the circumstances. It's the same as being professional in the work place, being responsible and courteous to friends and family ad ensuring their enjoyment is not impaired by me or my problems.

The fact that I am so good at the whole brave face / happy outside / placid and gentle persona / laughing joking mummy, daughter and friend deal is I am sure one of the reasons I indulged the past few days in vicious, rageful fantasies. Smile on the outside and secretly want to bang someone's head off a wall. Isn't that how we maintain the smooth running of civilized society.

It's ME who I worry about if I stay. Everyone else if I go. If I stay everyone is fine and happy except me who is terrified, angry, victimized, ground down, resentful, full of bitterness and intimately psychologically damaged. Everyone else gets the calm, bright, smiley, jokey, charming, measured, affectionate exterior. THEY are fine.

But if I leave everyone suffers, not just me. I get to not be scared of being abused but in return I cause hurt to all the people I love, and also myself because instead of being afraid and angry but well supported and with someone who 90% of the time i want to be with I get to be lonely, with 50 times more stress and work on my plate because I have no husband to share the daily load of work with.

Reading your posts is just horrible OP. I'm sitting here on a train and I feel like crying for you.

It reads like you have built up this ridiculous twisted logic to justify the whole situation, that you now completely believe in. That you ASKED him to 'just' slap you instead of do something that would cause respitory arrest...read that back to yourself. Can you not see how twisted that is? I can see its all part if your wider coping mechanism, and that you view your responses generally as measured and non hysterical, but... god. This isnt something to be measured and controlled about! I'm not surprised you're having these bloodthirsty fantasies as a side effect of so much repression.

There are far worse things in this world than divorce. Thousands of children go through it every year. They are fine. As an adult, I am part of a blended family with divorces and step parents and half siblings all over the place. The children ate surrounded by love, more than they would have seen if their parents remained together. They are happy. As a child, my parents had bitter, viscious rows throughout my childhood. At the time I still wanted them to stay together, but now I look back at myself regularly crying under the covers with my fingers stuffed in my ears, and I just feel desperately sad for myself and them. My mother should have got out, I know she stayed for my sake, and I feel truly awful about it.

Imagine your kids as grown ups. Do you think they would look back and be happy and grateful that your put up with yearly beatings so they could have a chocolate box childhood? Would you even WANT to raise kids who thought like that?

Yes, being a single parent can be shitty at times, you're on your own with all the responsibility and little immediate support. Five years on, I'm single with three teenagers and my own business to run, but do you know what - I wouldn't change it for a second. I walked out of a marriage that looked perfect from the outside and now I can choose how to run my life, I'm not walking on eggshells in case I upset anyone, I'm choosing who's in my life, who I can trust to be around myself and my children and who's not worth the trouble. So many women I know stay for the sake of appearances while life moves on and the years go by, hoping that something will change - I see them every day and wonder when they'll grasp the nettle. There's only one person you're fooling...

Can you access any counselling/mental health help where you are?

Because

Isn't that how we maintain the smooth running of civilized society.

Erm, no.

You could be killed if you stay.

You live with a man who chokes you and threatens you with knives.

He does this when he is completely out of control.

There is a reasonable likelihood that in one of these rages he will hold on for just a moment too long, or use the knife.

And then your children will have no mother.

The day to day stuff, about you martyring yourself by accepting all the psychological pain so they can be happy, founders when you get to how dangerous this man is.

If you die at his hands (and it has to be considered as part of the happiness sums here), there will be a world of pain for everyone.

Except you, obviously, since you will be out of the picture entirely.

Two days ago the choking could be considered a regrettable once off, never to be repeated.

Now you (both) know that this extremely dangerous form of abuse is part of his repertoire.

The maths has changed.

You can't argue that there is no risk of harm to your children while there is a genuine risk (that you acknowledged to start with) of him killing their mother.

I think I would rather put up with being violently abused 3 times a year than my children not living with their Dad and me being a single parent. Sorry if that upsets anyone but I really truly do. At this level and ratio of violence to normality anyway. If I left I would be cutting off my nose to spite my face and I would be even more miserable than I am now, as well as making my whole family and my husband miserable too. Better one person unhappy than everyone.

So things aren't that bad but yet you're "terrified"? I honestly don't see the point of you posting, as you're clearly not in the least bit interested in changing your situation. You bat away every comment that's made and go on the defensive.

The maths is not

Being abused x 3pa > being a single parent

anymore

It's

Being abused (3xpa x risk of death from choking*) < being alive to raise my children

*choking is very dangerous. The risk here is high

If you are happy with this bargain you have made, why are you here posting?

And this fantasy you have created - of the only way for anyone in the whole world to be happy is for you to stay married and 'taking' the abuse - do you really think that is what your parents and children would want? If you explained this choice to your mum and said you were staying partly so as not to upset her, d'you think she'd say, 'oh fantastic, Revenge, you are a trooper, yes it is only 3 times a year, well worth it'. Do you imagine in the future your children saying 'Yeah, my mum was fantastic, she let my Dad violently abuse her so he could stay in the house with us'.

Really?

I think I would rather put up with being violently abused 3 times a year than my children not living with their Dad and me being a single parent.

Why would you come to that conclusion? Your children will not be babies for ever and as they get older they will become aware of his rages - it doesn't matter if you live in a mansion or a tent.

You are clearly a highly intelligent woman with financial security but you have also sounded very very angry at points in this thread. The revenge fantasies are part of channelling that anger.

I don't know what more we can say to you OP. If you were reading this about another woman what would you say to them? This will escalate as the years pass and you know it's wrong but until you act i wish you all the best in the future. Stay safe.

If he succeeds one day and kills you are you happy to accept him to going to jail and your kids going into care?
Because that's the trade off.
Not one person being unhappy, but lives over and a family destroyed.

You're not responsible for everyone else's happiness. Every day we make choices about how we behave and your husband chooses to beat you up to make himself feel better, in the knowledge that you've promised never to abandon him. He's passed all the responsibility over to you and you're taking it. When your children grow up would you recommend that as a course of action to your son - follow in his father's footsteps? - or to your daughter - take a beating now and then so everthing will look rosy and you can play happy families? Its only a matter of time before the children become aware of what's happening.

Your children not living with their Dad wouldn't be the end of the world for you, him or them. You can arrange access, he may even make an effort to sort himself out for their sake and they can have the strong, caring, responsible mother they deserve.

You aren't ready to leave yet, that much is clear. It's great that you've talked about it though, that's at least something. You have completely justified staying, and it doesn't sound like you're going to be convinced otherwise. It's hard to argue against your logic because it's based on so many assumptions - the main one being that everyone else's happiness and safety is worth a lot more than yours. I'm not sure where you got that idea from but it is firmly entrenched and is the basis of your beliefs. Until you start valuing yourself your happiness and safety you're going to continue to be abused. Just remember you can always come back here for (sometimes tough-talking) support.