 Hi out there! Hope y'all are well. I'm just sitting here with my morning coffee and thinking about things. There's this really weird situation happening in life that could use some thought. My daughter Alicia is dating a man who has had two previous physically abusive relationships with women and who cannot understand why my daughter doesn't behave violently toward him. Stuck in a pattern, it seems, he tries to methodically push her buttons in order for her to give him a negative response...to blow up...to react on him.... As if he wants her to hit him. That's pretty strange. Why would someone actually want that I don't know. My former husband was the same though. Almost like he desired it deeply. My former husband was the type to follow on my heels like a raging little chi-wa-wa casting insult after insult at my family and kids. Calling them names you wouldn't believe. We were married for about 7 years when he decided to do this one night while I was putting away groceries. In order not to escalate it, I ignored it as usual...he only became more insulting as if to beg a response. I left the room and he kept after me, on my heels, making the insults worse and worse on my daughter. The things he was saying would chill your blood so I gave him a warning to shut up and back off. He didn't and carried it on for another 10 minutes non-stop. My granfathers words "Be like a duck and let it roll off your back" played over and over in my mind. He pursued me down the hallway seethingly "You're not gonna walk away from me. You're gonna listen to what I have to say!" as I attempted to diffuse the situation by removing myself. In honesty, he was just being mean and getting meaner. With this, I turned and gave him a second warning to back off. Relishing that, he started to verbally hit below the belt, at which point I turned and slugged him in the head with a Walmart bag filled with Suave shampoo. The big bottles! They were on sale for 99 cents. and calmly told him "Now shut up." He did...for like five days. Wow. In retrospect, and the reason I'm speaking about this, is that much like Alicia's boyfriend, there is something creepy in the fact that I sincerely believe that Joe actually enjoyed that. Somehow took a great deal of pleasure from it. He talked about it. " Yea, my wife hit me in the head with a bag of shampoo haha!" Happy about the fact that I went split second schizo on him and knocked him down. If anyone understands that mindset, please feel free to chime in.
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Hidden PlacesLife outside of the mainstream |
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oh for the love of god why
did I come back here and happen to stumble onto this. Because your daughter doesn't have to use force and deceit to get her way. You raised her right.
"a simple judgment of my character is how I treat a person who can do absolutely nothing for me." -Stephen Howard
"The most thoroughly wasted of all days is one in which you haven't laughed" -Julian Howard
I found this on the subject:
It can help us to understand the rationalization process and how it obstructs our ability to identify the early warning signs of trouble ahead.
Anger is one of the numerous "domains" of dating where rationalization shows up most
frequently: A man who is too angry too often (and too early in the relationship) may be emotionally unstable. Anger can make us feel less vulnerable and can often impersonate intimacy. Genuine intimacy is about trust and feeling safe, and it is impossible to experience either with someone who is angry most of the time. Rage should never be a first-line response. So don't try to spin it like his ease in expressing anger is indicative that he feels close enough to be authentic.
More here:
http://www.postfest.info/debra-weiner-how-to-recognize-your-future-ex-hu...
My 1st husband was like that, too. I never understood why. I thought it was my fault for a while. But it wasn't. God knows I can legitimately take the blame for a lot of things that really are my fault, without accepting the blame for someone else's personality disorder which has nothing to do with me. Maybe he didn't get enough attention when he was a little boy and decided that negative attention is better than no attention at all, and then that personality defect carried on into his adult years. I don't know. These days, I don't much care, either. He's dead now, anyway. Maybe he'll sort it out on the "other side". All I know is, I wish I had come across this book before I ever met him. BTW, I'm proud of Alicia, too. Took me 11 years to come to my senses.
Here's a riddle for you: Why do some of us women feel that it is our job to try to "fix" a man like that?
"Stand up for what you believe in. Even if you stand alone."
~ Sophie Magdalena Scholl
"Let it not be said that we did nothing."
~ Ron Paul
"You must be the change you want to see in the world."
~ Mahatma Gandhi
I'm really not sure. Maybe it's something hardwired in our maternal instinct.
The thing I'm most thinking about is that we tend to bring our baggage from previous relationships into our new ones. Many of my former husbands habits came from his first marriage...like wanting to have nit picking arguments...or engage in senseless nonstop bickering over words. As if there was a child in a mans body that craved being corrected.
In Blake and my former husbands case...they seem to desire physical punishment. Thats where it gets a little twisted and although I know what to do...my daughter is too young to understand where to take this...
since you're not in this world...it would may be hard for you to comprehend, as well...but thats where a womans Dominatrix must come in
sleepy Kat says goodnight. :)
I have another answer.
If a woman was abused or ignored as a child by her father, she may not have learned how to identify honorable character or real love. Worse, she may subconsciously think that her past pain can be erased by marrying a man who needs to be "fixed", thus making everything work out right.
My dad didn't leave me or abuse me, but his generation was not comfortable telling their children that they loved them. They felt that showing their love in ways like providing food, clothing and shelter was enough. In my case, it probably would have been enough, if my mother hadn't died when I was young. And the beat goes on. Now my daughter is having relationship problems. I'm trying to teach her now, as an adult, something that I didn't know as a young woman - about the benefit of turning with faith to our heavenly Father for a love that will never fail her. We actually experienced a miracle together this week that could help me drive the point home to her. I am so thankful to be able to witness God's love in action! But that doesn't mean I'm "not in this world", Kat. Believe me.
Sleep well.
"Stand up for what you believe in. Even if you stand alone."
~ Sophie Magdalena Scholl
"Let it not be said that we did nothing."
~ Ron Paul
"You must be the change you want to see in the world."
~ Mahatma Gandhi
UPDATE!
Alicia packed her things and left him in her dust. Proud of her.
Good.
.
"a simple judgment of my character is how I treat a person who can do absolutely nothing for me." -Stephen Howard
"The most thoroughly wasted of all days is one in which you haven't laughed" -Julian Howard