Reaction to wife hitting me

[strugglingdad15]

Hi. My scenario in a nutshell: Mid 40's, 3 kids aged 13 and under. Working dad, stay-at-home mom.

Over the past few years my wife has on occasion of extreme anger, become physical. She's attempted to hit me, torn clothes I've worn, and thrown things at me. To be perfectly fair, at no point have I been actually concerned of being injured.

On three occasions I've successfully walked away/deflected until it was over.

But on two occasons, I restrained her. I held her arms until she calmed somewhat. On one of these I actually held her down until she stopped, but not to the point of harming her, just holding her back.

My perspective is we've both done wrong, fairly equally. While I wish I hadn't even held her back in these moments, I also feel somewhat better that at no point did I ever even try to hurt her, hit back, etc. I don't feel like I'm a victim per se, but I have never, ever started any form of physicality with her.

Her perspective on all this is that my restraining her and holding her down is a far, far worse crime than her attacks. She brings it up over and over again, says that since I'm stronger/bigger and "the man" I have no excuse, this isn't okay, etc. She treats these moments that she was actually the victim here.

Am I crazy? Any perspective would be great, I'm at a total loss as to how to even address the topic.

Abuse as well is not about communication, or a perceived lack thereof.
It's about power and control.

I felt sad when you said you hadn't thought about leaving before. Almost like you're normalising the situation. Commendable of you too. I really hope this is the turning point for you and your wife to get help and address this situation through counselling or the like. But I think it's unanimous that your wife's behaviour needs addressing urgently

Oh ffs when will we ever get equality when a woman can do something clearly wrong then play the little woman card.

I wouldn't be worring about if I did anything wrong but would be thinking about leaving the relationship tbf.

she isn't abusive to the kids. I have extremely mild concerns about what happens when they become teens and confront more, but as of now she's a pretty great mom

She may not, yet, be abusive to them but they will see & hear the way she behaves towards you and that in itself is very damaging.

ask yourself are you ok with your kids witnessing this? telling their friends/ teachers about it? Repeating it in their own lives?
Abusers rarely stop it often gets worse

Restraining someone whose is trying to hurt you is not abuse.

It's obviously always better to walk away if you can, but that's not always possible.

That said, I'm also of the opinion that one time, is still one time too many.

When people feel entitled to act this way and face no repercussions then it's a green light to do it again.

The twisting of the facts to make it the victims fault is a classic behavioural tactic of an abuser.

It's a ploy designed to give them all the control - if you behave how they want then the violence stops.

The problem is the reasons for which the abuse is used get more and more unreasonable (I'm not suggesting it was reasonable in the first place however) but like a "boiled frog" victims just can't sense the water getting hotter until it's too late.

The only way to response to domestic violence is to remove you and your children from it.

No one is a good parent whose abusive to their spouse - ever.

There are a number of organisations that specifically help with Male victims of domestic abuse and I'd strongly suggest you get in touch with one of them.

Don't think it will change - it won't. It will only escalate.

Good luck

www.mensadviceline.org.uk/

Here's one source of support OP.

Alternatively, a victim may have a false sense of security during a session and reveal information they normally wouldn’t disclose. Then, back at home, the abusive partner could decide to retaliate with more abuse.

This is terrifying but such a good point.

sounds mad if it comes from nowhere without any argument or disagreement beforehand.
Getting physical is always a step too far. Shes lost control. Do you have a lot of arguments?

i don't think i truly normalize it, i know it's wrong. i guess i've viewed it as isolated incidents of extreme emotional outburst.

just went to have a conversation with her to try to talk through some of our issues - she basically seems to take a stance that this is just who she is, she's "given up her life" for the marriage/family, and it's completely unfulfilling, and that's that, nothing will ever get better, etc. but at the same time, mostly from her background/upbringing, has zero interest in a conversation about separating other than accusatorially telling me she's always known one day i'd leave her...

i hate writing this all down. i hate it. makes me feel even worse about it. my optimistic outlook is we'll get over it. but i also know there's some foolishness in that.

sorry, need to take a pause here, i'll be back

Well I would leave. Because despite all the statements here about your actions be defensive, if you ended up in court it could easily be portrayed very differently. And of course this could be held against you if had not taken steps to protect your children in family proceedings.

The other point is that conduct like this escalates. It could be either one of you in the future. You should not be restraining your wife because eventually she is likely to do something to even the score or try and beat you. Domestic violence is what is happening here and it is often has fatal results. It doesn’t matter that you are unequal partners in terms of strength - what matters is the behaviour.

She's making excuses. If she's unhappy, she needs to change the things that make her unhappy. If that means you two split up, so be it. She's not doing that because it's easier to stay in her comfort zone and use you as her scapegoat.

And she absolutely is abusing you and your DCs by attacking you in this way. As the abuser, she needs to leave.

She's allowed to be unhappy. She is not allowed to take that out on you with violence.

You do need to leave. She's an absolute victim with no intention of treating you the way you deserve.

"She's telling me she's always know one day I would leave her".

See this for what it is OP.

She's making her behaviour your fault - it's not. She's emotionally abusing as well as physically by manipulating your feelings.

You can't change how she feels about her life. That's on her.

If she wants to be happy then she needs to take responsibility for her own feelings.

Also 5 incidents isn't isolated - it's a pattern of abuse.

The men's support website I linked to offers a pdf you can read online. If you don't yet feel ready to call someone then maybe that's a good first step (you might want to edit your browsing history afterwards though).

Please remember that just because she's yet been able to physically hurt you to date, doesn't meant in a "rage" she's not capable of doing so.

Mate log it with the police every time.

You'll get put away when she goes to them with arm bruises and says you're abusing her.

Then make a plan to leave

It pains me to say it, but Tea may well have a point.

She sounds like she has the potential to be quite nasty if it ever came to needing to be around the outer world... meaning I agree with @TeaForDad she’s already howling that your essentially the abuser and she is the abused.. again another crazy thing these abusers do. Though people might find this warped, Ive known a woman who was vile, and well done for not hitting back. Seriously.

It doesn't matter how you look at it, she is abusing you and no amount of abuse is right.
After a year of dating my now husband he turned to me and said "I can't believe we've been together a whole year and you've never once hit me". It made me cry to think that someone could ever believe that being abused is normal and something a man should just accept. (His ex also threatened to through herself down the stairs and tell people that he pushed her if he left!)
I agree with @TeaForDad too!
Please make sure you have all of her actions documented!
I hope you manage to find a way out

I don’t think you are doing anything wrong-gentle restraining is the best option I think! I’m terms of what causes rages I would consider anxiety-extreme stress expresses it this way in a lot of people.

@TeaForDad is right. She sounds unhinged.

My mum treated my dad like this.
It will affect your kids. That's all I can really say without opening old wounds. Get out. And get them out. One reason I believe my dad took it is because in those days he wouldn't have stood a chance of having me live with him, and she was aggressive with me too.

Good luck

Agree with the poster who questioned Bored’s post about her being unhappy. That’s for her to work through with someone, not a reason for physical abuse. Not OK at all.

No matter what she may or may not be going through there is never an excuse for abuse either by male or female. She is in effect trying to gaslight you into thinking you're actually the one in the wrong. That in some ways she has no choice... Just like when an abusive man will tell his wife well you know what sets me off so you caused this.. Its all the same. Abuse is abuse.. I'd seriously be concerned her abuse would escalate and towards my kids. No shame in being an abused man at all. Those days are long gone. Ask for help and leave, take the kids and have a happy life instead of always trying to work out what the triggers are and walking on eggshells. Life is for living. Her problems are hers and hers alone to solve if she won't seek help or admit she is abusing a spouse.. You sound like a great person. Think of you and think of your kids. No one deserves to live this way xxx

Get out now. Been there, it ain't fun.

www.mankind.org.uk/
A male oriented domestic abuse information site, might be worth a look OP.