My husband of 9 months bruised my arm

When a woman marries an abuser, leaving is the only solution to the problem. Better sooner than later.

I will talk to him tonight. I'll tell him how much he has hurt, and scared me and why I'm so angry at him. It feels as if he want to talk to me, but he is too scared of rejection as am I. But I will put all m fears away and try and sort this thing out.

I really love him so much, and leaving him will be the very last resort. Right now, all I want is for it to be the way it has always been, we had a loving respectfull, relationship. We had trust an honesty and lots of hugs and kisses.

I know that he loves me too, this is so much of a shock to me and I will avoid debating with his cousin ever again for the rest of my married life, or at least when my husband is around.

Thank you all for all the heartfelt responses, it means so much to me to know that the are people out there who cares! I feel so much beter now....

LoveCharms

I know you rightly want to resolve the issue but if he is not ready to discuss it, dont push as I think it may rattle him again and may be a step back in the plan.

Good luck.

Yes, I won't push him if he doesn't want to talk about it.

I think though, that he will talk about it, because he looked more sad than angry this morning. I'll come back tomorrow, hopefully with good news.


Thanks guys!

I agree. That's why I'm so hung up on seven years and there must be more to this than we know.

Just how heated was the debate? Was Charms going for the jugglar (figuratively) and verbally abusing the cousin before her husband stepped in? Again, I am NOT in any way condoning his actions and I would be very concerned if my husband said or did those things to me but I think there might be two sides to this story.

From her first post...



The words heafty debate and overpowered by a woman keep coming back to me. Sounds pretty intense. Maybe it was getting out of control and her husband was afraid his cousin was going to hit her and stopped it any way he could for her own safety. I'd like to hear his side.

Is this really all pre-written somewhere? People can't fight destiny? Just from reading so many of these horror stories, I know what happens next. He's going to apologize and convince you it will never happen again... it's just that you disrespected him with respect to his family somehow. You're going to agree never to do that again and the matter is going to slowly fade into memory. Boy will you ever be relieved when this is all behind you, but you'll never quite feel the same again.

Love won't change, sex may be even better with this powerful man and you may even feel like you love him more than ever, having so narrowly avoided losing your future together and all. After a spell you'll hardly remember the shocking fury you saw that day and will only think about it during arguments. Of course, even then it will be no big deal, because you're already trivializing it to mean less than it does.

He on the other hand, may bring gifts or flowers to show you how much he really cares and you'll eagerly accept his love as a sign of how sorry he is. Things will be better than ever until suddenly it happens again... and it will... because it always does. Of course next time, it won't be a bruise on the arm either. That's when you'll start this whole process over again.

Of course you don't want to leave. Of course you love him. Of course he loves you. Things will go back to normal and your marriage will pick up where you left off. Nothing has changed... and nothing will change. He's the same man he was when you married him. You just know him better now. Pity, you're doing everything in your power to pretend you don't, and I sure can't blame you for wanting to either. An ugly truth has been revealed to you, but, as is seemingly always the case you don't want to see it. Try hard to enjoy the next several days, weeks or months that go by without incident. It might be a while yet before the abuse resumes. Right now you're saying, "if it happens again, I'll leave". Of course, had someone asked you last year it would have been "if it happens at all, I'll leave." But you wont. You'll repeat the same mistake, for the same reason (you love him) that the countless millions of abused women before you made.

I'm truly saddened for you, but I do wish you the very best of luck.

Bill....very well said!

Either a man knows how to control his anger and finds other ways to vent it and does not abuse women.

Or he will abuse women.

Thats flat out how it is. There are no in betweens. And I don't care how provoked the abuser was it is NEVER ok!!!!!!!!!!!

This argument between the cousin and her ...was just that. An argument. I would have taken offense to the cousin also. His idea of women is outrageous.

But now Charm has to be careful of what she says. When this cousin speaks she must be silent. THAT'S BULLSHIT!

The cycle has begun and may God be with you Charm.

Bill, I think you're absolutely correct here. Geez it makes me so sad. If only she didn't have to run the whole gamut....it'll probably take years for the whole thing to play out.

Charms, I really feel for you. I wish I could just whisk you away from it all, and save you so much pain.

I think you're right, Bill. It is some sort of sad, pre-written script.

I wonder if Charm could have him admit to the authorities that this has happened so that if/when it happens again, there will be an official record of a previous problem.

One of the tricks in an abuser's arsenal is a fulsome, abject apology (starting with "I never should have hurt you but you made me so angry....

....and life is peaches and cream until the next time.

Even a dog gets one bite, but the next time the cur shows his teeth Do Something.

Agreed, I think she should photograph the bruise if it's still visible (said that before), investigate local shelters so she knows where to turn if necessary and tell him there won't be a third chance.

Brooke, she doesn't have to be silent around the cousin but she probably shouldn't egg the Neanderthal on either. It sounds like she was looking for a fight, found one and was deep into the glory of victory over him when her husband flipped because she was mocking his family. I totally agree he was out of line but perhaps so was she. I am NOT saying she deserved anything. He over reacted to say the least and I would be mighty pissed off and hurt if I were her. I'd also make some just in case plans but I wouldn't throw a 7 year relationship in the toilet because my husband got angry at me for 'debating' a relative he admires. If I let loose on my SIL the way I would like to sometimes my husband would flip out too. He wouldn't call me an A$$hole and he wouldn't grab my arm but I wouldn't attack his family either so we'd never know for sure. Sometimes lines are crossed in more than one direction.

That was an exeptional good posting Bill (in contrast to your
political views )

You're so right. I think, with every argument Charm has
with her husband, the fear of violence will be with her.
She already said, that another debate with her cousin
won't happen. She's restricting herself so to not anger
her husband. Charm is fearful already.

He didn't hit her, he didn't do anything with the intention to hurt her, he merely pulled her down into her seat. Without being there, we can't really judge the intensity of this situation...especially only hearing one side. Some women bruise very easily. Also they could have been a little drunk. Not that drunken violence is OK, but if he was drunk, maybe he accidentally squeezed a little harder than he meant to...which is not an indicator that he's going to punch her in the face next time! If Charms takes photographs of her bruise and goes around looking at women's shelters thats only going to make the problem worse. There is no sense exaggerrating what he did because if she DOES exaggerrate it then he will just mentally see her as being in the wrong and he'll have a very logical mental avenue of denial of the whole incident. There's also no reason to exaggerrate the issue because what he did do -- yell and insult her - is bad enough to warrant a serious discussion.

J_B......she does indeed have to be silent around this cousin. At least if it is something she disagrees with. And she had every right to get her gander up when she was listening to this cousin tell how women should be subservient to men. I know of not too many women that would take that kind of trash talk about their gender.




I get the feeling that you think she should have just kept her mouth shut and not spoke her own thoughts in this discussion? Because it turned into a debate? She said herself that this cousins wife does every little thing he tells her to do. From everything she has said......this cousin probably did the provoking. And she reacted by stating her feelings. Nothing wrong with that in my book. If it turned into a debate, so be it. That does not excuse anything the husband done. Does not matter who was out of line.....there are ways to let your displeasure be known to a mate. It does NOT have to get violent.



Nor would I. But that is not at all what happened here. He didn't just get angry. He abused her. That makes it a whole different area. And J_B.....I volunteer in a womens abuse shelter. And I am here to tell you that her relationship with him, even though it is 7 years.....is truely only 9 months. That is the length of their marriage. Many abusers do not abuse until ownership comes into play. Marriage gives them their so called ownership.

Getting angry with someone is one thing......hurting them physically is something else.

wow i just came on here for the first time and i read the first message about the abusive husband, thats so terrible, i've noticed an ever growing trend of men thinkin that its ok to treat women this way and it has to stop, as a young man (20) who was raised for the first 9 years of my life by my grandmother and mother, i definitely wouldnt stand for violence against women weather physical or mental, makes no difference its all wrong and anyone in that situation should leave immediatly

bites her tongue and walks away

aarondavid- Welcome to A2K!

"My husband of 9 months bruised my arm" for a thread title is a reach out for help from someone who knows deep down that she's in trouble.


This is the defining phrase of all these animals. They always blame the victim… that's how they get away with it. If the victim realizes she's not responsible, she'll be gone in a flash. Only someone who thinks they deserve a beating will accept one.
Here we can see that even after the fact, he's pretending it's her fault. Whether he really believes that, or is just manipulating her into thinking that (so she blames herself), is of little importance. What he isn't doing is recognizing that he was wrong. Now from what I've read, even if he were remorseful, it wouldn't matter. It would come up again regardless. But the fact that he doesn't know he's wrong makes it 100 times worse. Notice I didn't say think he's wrong, there is no second side to this kind of story.

This classic power play (silent treatment) is coming after he squeezed her arm hard enough to bruise, called her a bad name and told her to shut up? In my family, the man would be knocked out for such behavior. If I did something like that, I would deserve to be knocked out. Meanwhile, the cousin was arguing that wives should do what ever their husbands told them and this is the reason she was silenced? And you think there's room to question whether this is major sickness? The man worships his cousin the abuser, so when his wife vehemently disagreed that a wife should be obedient, he shut her up. I don't think the roadmap to her future with this man could be any clearer.

As for a dog getting away with one bite, I say that's nonsense. That's like the catholic church cracking down on any priest who molests more than one child. A man can either hurt women or he can't. There is no middle ground. If there were any question about intent, he wouldn't be blaming her. This man is an abuser in training and it's only a matter of time. I don't know if any of you read Brooke's website, but you should… But then, these stories are all the same anyway. Hers just happens to be the most tragic. Maybe charms will be as lucky as Brooke and still be pretty even after she gets her face pounded in.

I think it's important for the victim of abuse to seek therapy, more important than hoping the abuser will go into therapy because she must gain control of her own life and not wait for him to act. The two pieces of the puzzle fit together: abusers seek victims and victims seek abusers. It's all unconscious, and the only way to break the cycle is therapy.

There is one thing that a victim and an abuser have in common.
Neither one takes responsibility for their own life

Simple fact of the matter is........ Without a victim...there can be no abuse

He abused her. PERIOD. That much we know.

Charm....nobody controls your life, but your own self. You have to set limits as you go through life...in many different areas. This is one of those times.

You see the pain in your husbands eyes because he hurt you. It is true that he did not get up that morning and say to himself " I am going to hurt my wife today." But, it did indeed happen. He has remorse. Most abusers do afterwards. An abuser gets stuck in his own fear of himself and what he is going to do next. In his neverending quest for power.....he realizes he has lost all power to this horrible cancer growing inside of him that causes these abusive outbursts.

My point in all of that is this: An abuser looks to the person that they abused to set the boundries on them. Even THEY fear their own self. When these boundries are not set.....the victim is regarded with increasing contempt and each beating becomes worse.

I truely wish you the very best. Do you have an email address where I can email you my phone number? If you ever need to just talk...I would like that very much. Please know that I am not asking for your number. I just want you to have mine.

And OCCOM BILL? Cmere Thank you for trying so hard to help.