My Verbally Abusive Marriage

If you “initiate” physical violence, it is not in your best interests to file a police report UNLESS your verbal abuser hits you, chokes you, or does worse to you in response to your act of violence.

Here are the notes I used during this video:

Update: my husband is deployed and has been gone for about a month. About three weeks before he left, he started being really sweet and pleasant to be around. I think he changed his attitude after he pushed me over the couch and held me there so he could yell at me. It was scary, and I took the kids and left for a night right after.

I slapped his face before that happened. We were fighting and he called me the c-word for the second time in as many weeks. When I asked him, “What did you call me?” He said, “I called you what you are.” And that’s when I slapped him.

I felt bad immediately for doing it, and he said, “DO YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN HURT ME?” I turned away to remove myself from the area. I obviously needed a time out; I shouldn’t have slapped him. When I reached the living room, I felt him grab my shoulder and spin me around to face him, while at the same time pushing me backwards. I fell over the end table onto the couch. He held me down firmly by my throat and chest. The ferocity in his face and the ugliness of his words signalled to me to stay put, don’t move, don’t struggle. Take it.

I was shocked. Nothing like that had happened in years, and it had never been so violently unexpected.

I also filed a police report because I thought that’s what I should do.Â

However, after talking to my dept. soc. services counselor, she told me to only make reports when I do not contribute to the physical violence. I shouldn’t have slapped him, and I was violent first. I shouldn’t have reported it.

Let me remind you that if your abuser acts violently first, then you are well within your rights to defend yourself. Never fail to file a report if HE acts first. But protect yourself – let HIM file any report if you strike him first, and let the story reveal itself in time.

Slapping him was a first for me. It didn’t feel good or right when I did it, and I do not feel justified for doing it. When I told him I was sorry for slapping him the next day, he said, “Yeah. That was stupid.” I don’t know how to take that comment.Â

He never said he was sorry for what he’d done in response. He only said that he was raised better than that and shouldn’t have done it.”

So, to the one of you who asked if I was all right, the answer is yes, I am. I am fine, and I am working my way through this entire abusive situation by trusting myself and my instincts, and learning all I can along the way. Thank you for asking.

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