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Physical violence is not ok. It's also illegal...for a very good reason.

Men are just as likely to be victims as women although far less reported. Men aren't often believed and stupidity is rampant connected with this crime. Some idiots believe that because of size difference no harm can occur. Yeah, lethal blows are quite possible whether the perpetrator is 5'2 or 6'2.

I've read about men being kicked in the balls. Fucking really?

I've been on this site over 3 years. I don't remember many men posted they smacked, punched, kicked their wives. They'd be wearing orange and looking through bars in no time. Most states don't even require spouses to press charges. If there are marks they go. Futures ruined. Jobs lost.

Blind rage is an excuse. Think men don't suffer from rage? They don't go primeval yet I've read stories that make me want to climb through the screen and go off on their wives myself. They control themselves because they know they will fuck themselves six ways to Sunday.

Women hit men because they think they can get away with it. It's really just that simple. It can become a real habit. That blind rage can become a default. Domestic violence is a progressive condition. Once you do it and excuse it the next time is oh so much easier.

Wayward men, please do not allow your horrific choices to enable another to start making their own toxic soul changing choices. Do not tolerate violence. Nothing good ever comes for tolerating shit. Nothing.

There is definitely a double standard. Physical violence is wrong, period.

Women hit men because they think they can get away with it.

And more often than not, they do, thus enabling them to do it again. It's easier to fly off the handle than work on finding better coping skills. "Blind rage" is acceptable when it shouldn't be. EVER.

Do not tolerate violence. Nothing good ever comes for tolerating shit. Nothing.

Indeed. Very well said, UO and I completely agree.

Sorry this was TG, thought I was logged in.

[This message edited by hardlessons at 1:10 PM, August 22nd (Thursday)]

Message: Agreed.

Just as there is no good justification for having an affair, there is no good justification to be physically violent with your spouse.

There is nothing the BS did to "deserve" being cheated on; There is nothing either spouse can do to "deserve" being hit/punched/kicked.

***Do not delete your posts***

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:35 PM, August 22nd (Thursday)]

Now logged in.

I have never understood the double standard. Physical violence is never ok. And should not be tolerated by either gender.

In the first few weeks after d-day I was a victim of physical violence. I let it happen, I felt I deserved it and if that was what she needed to do to release then she could. It went so far as my lying on the kitchen floor bleeding from getting hit in the head with a flying mason jar.

I finally stopped it one day, told her she would never hit me again. When she's really angry or I have inadvertently triggered something, I sometimes revert and tell her she can hit me if that is what it takes to let the anger out. Thankfully, She has yet to take me up on my offer.

I have caught myself restraining her when her rage gets so bad that I'm afraid she will hurt me or herself.

We are working to heal. I know it's a long process and we are only a couple months into it. I keep telling that when all the anger and rage subsides, I will still be there.

[This message edited by fdupbigtime at 1:46 PM, August 22nd (Thursday)]

BeyondBreaking...

This thread has nothing to do with any WS justifying and/or excusing cheating. It's about violence.

Please stay on topic.

Thank you.

BS here and haven't ever posted in Wayward, but am because I've been on both sides of the violence.

TRIGGER FOR DESCRIPTION OF VIOLENCE:

My first marriage was incredibly abusive, emotionally and physically. I've had the bruises; I am familiar with the whole scene.

After DD#2 with my current WH, while the OWs were actively emailing with me, giving me the full story when WH wasn't, they told me he had bought them things.

We have six children, all living at home, two at the university, where WH is also a full time student. I work overtime at an underpaid job so stress filled, it's hyperbolic. I support everyone. And I budget the heck out of everything out of utter necessity.

And WH bought those OWomen recreational things with that money. Claimed he earned "more than he needed" to them.

When I confronted him, he wouldn't talk. Just gave me a stubbornly blank face. (He was still completely immersed in fantasy land at that point.) I was on my knees. I begged, pleaded, demanded. Nothing. Finally, I slapped him. He wouldn't look at me. I slapped him twice more, realized what I had done and stopped, stunned and horrified.

He's literally twice my size - 6'8" to 5'2". Weighs double my weight. And it didn't matter. I hit him.

There is nothing I regret more about my reactions during that awful week of TT. It was completely wrong of me. I was terrified, desperate, and WRONG.

I will stand behind the statement that ALL physical violence is wrong, with both perspectives.

I will, however, say that this:

Women hit men because they think they can get away with it.

and this:

Men are just as likely to be victims as women although far less reported.

Are bullcrap.

Women hit men for the same reasons men hit women. Women don't have secret ulterior motives and schemes "to get away with it." They respond out of fear, anger, jealousy: you name it. Just like men. Amazing that - women and men responding the same, without the gender disparity bullshit. PEOPLE responding the same.

And the statistics don't lie, guys, about domestic violence and what percentages are of who hitting/killing who. LOTS of women never report DV, just like men, but:

http://www.victimsofcrime.org/library/crime-information-and-statistics/intimate-partner-violence

People shouldn't hurt people.

Let's not take a good message (Violence is BAD!) and taint it with the way too common: "When it comes down to it, women responding like men shows they are SO MUCH WORSE, because they're WOMEN."

It was terrible to be brutalized. It was terrible OF ME to slap WH.

Edit: fixed tags.

[This message edited by Reality at 2:33 PM, August 22nd (Thursday)]

Are bullcrap.

Nope. Men are victims of Domestic Violence at an alarming rate and it's horribly unreported.

You may not agree with what I said about why women hit men. I feel very strongly that many of the women do it have that thought process somewhere in that shit. How do I know? Because they've told me in DV support groups I've attended and some of the women I've responded out on calls with.

Quite a few of them were outraged they were being arrested.

There is nothing the BS did to "deserve" being cheated on

That has nothing to do with this thread. Look, everyone can come to terms with the way they reacted or responded. My thread was posted to men that feel they deserve being kicked, hit, shit thrown at them. People get seriously injured and die from that.

Almost every abuser feels their victim deserves it. You read that on here. I hear it. My ex felt if he wasn't so stressed and dealt with so much shit at work he'd be a saint. Yeah? Well he didn't punch the guys at work.

You find the "blind" rage people reference ain't blind at all. It's quite targeted and laser focused. They're not whacking away at whomever happens to be standing near. If they have control enough to target they also have control enough to not.

Everyone has to deal with their own choices. Don't let "your" guilt or shame make you a target. You destroy two people. Yourself and your partner.

Men are just as likely to be victims as women

Do not tolerate violence. Nothing good ever comes for tolerating shit. Nothing.

Yep.

Oy. That link SHOWS men victimization, too. I'm in no way I'm denying it happens. Heck, I told a story about it.

BUT.

Problems don't get solved by pretending all other problems don't exist. Gently but frankly, isn't that the very thought process that most people in this forum have been troubled with to extremely sad results? I include myself in this issue on this forum.

Men are outraged at getting arrested for hitting their wives/sisters/daughters/mothers/SO, too. Men and women get upset when they are discovered doing all manner of terrible things.

There isn't a need to make the issue gendered. I agree with your stance on physical violence, but NO, the smaller percentage of female on male violence shouldn't get vilified by some special gendered expectation, especially with the numbers involved pointing the other direction.

People shouldn't hurt people.

[This message edited by Reality at 4:24 PM, August 22nd (Thursday)]

but NO, the smaller percentage of female on male violence shouldn't get vilified by some special gendered expectation, especially with the numbers involved pointing the other direction.

Disagree, until women are as horrified by their choices to be violent and there is as much stigma attached to a woman being violent with her husband, then ya, we need to be vilifying this act. If a man came on this site and casually spoke about slapping his wife, how well do you think that would fly? Yet it has been flying for a few days in another forum, because it is women doing the slapping and hitting.

Our culture absolutely has a double standard with this. It is time to stop it.

That's exactly my point, TG. The act is wrong no matter who does it.

It's not worse for women to hit men or men to hit women.

BOTH ARE EQUALLY WRONG.

GENDER literally shouldn't matter. Building in additional weighted response because of gender trivializes and distracts from the issue.

Should women get called out on it just as men are now? YES. Has is always been verboten for men to hit women? NO. How did it get that way? By changing cultural expectations. I can't see that placing additional rather than equal blame for the same choice will ever help that. That just turns into zero sum yo-yo games.

Let's address the issue as people. Call it out no matter WHO does it or WHO the victim is, regardless of gender, pigmentation, orientation, or any other sub-classification of PEOPLE.

I agree. I think what is being said is that this is not happening.

Reality, gender shouldn't matter but it does. I've been a member on this site for over 3 years. I have never read a post where a man talks about hitting his partner, kicking her in the vj. Never. I can't tell you how many threads I've read where women do it.

If gender isn't a factor why is that so? Think men don't have rage? Think they don't feel the same pain? So, two options...they do it but don't post because they know how it would be viewed, or they don't do it. Either way it speaks to just how differently this crime is viewed.

I've seen how some police treat men who have been battered. Discounting their injuries. Asking what they did to cause it. Sound familiar?

You're absolutely right that problems don't get resolved by pretending other problems don't exist. And yep, the process used to discount the actions of some is exactly why some members of this forum are here. So that needs to stop, right? Bad shit is bad shit regardless who's doing it. Period. The gender skew of my post reflects the very real and easily verified environment it's posted in.

I see it happening. Is it lagging behind where men are on the subject? Yep, but that applies to many experiences, unfortunately, in gender disparity. But will it change by making it a Women's Issue versus Men's Issue? Nope.

No hitting. No cheating. No lying. No abusing. No stealing. No murdering. No violence.

Sorry to sound like I'm morphing back to my parents' hippie tie ins, but love is what it's all about. Treating people LIKE people and loving them for it tends to make all the bad stuff go bye-bye.

I will weigh in as well.

My BW hit me a few times after Dday.

Slaps/hit to the head, hits and a couple of scratches too. Not a lot, but more than once or twice.

I too got to the point where I started to put down boundaries about this, and verbal abuse.

She was remorseful, posted about it here on SI. I know she is sorry she did it, and I am sorry I allowed it.

UO, you mentioned upthread about blind rage and being "zeroed in". How true that is and I never thought of it that way. Just blind rage is blind, end of story. I remember several years ago my mom hitting our DS with a switch that left long red welts across his legs and took several days to go away. He was 3. I grew up with that shit and her justifying it, its in my past, whatever. To rage on my child, however, was different. I'm shaking right now just remembering it. Anyway, I saw black except for the broom handle and my mom.

I've never hit my mom growing up. I've blocked her, but never struck back. I knew when I saw my sons legs and when the room was going black that I was going to beat the ever-loving shit out of my mom. I KNEW exactly what to do and how. I was so fuckin zeroed in I could have shot lasers. I stopped myself though. I said some choice words, left then called the police.

Our DS isn't around her, BTW. Anyway, blind rage I get. I've been there more than once. Sometimes I walked away because I knew what I was capable of if caught. Other times I didn't walk away and was a monster.

As far as women hitting men and thinking they can get away with it, whenever I stood up to a "man" to fight, I was ready. Not because I thought I could get away with it. I was ready for one of us to be laid out. I clearly remember the emotions and some of the thoughts and they damn sure weren't "I can totally get away with it". However, I know there are women who do hit because they think they can get away with it. Its a mixed bag sometimes.