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Echodork · 10-20-2004, 06:30 PM

Not really enough information to give you any sort of advice other than the "get help" that you've already gotten. But do let me try to crack out a few suggestions that will hopefully shed some light on your situation.

1. There is no excuse for your husband to hit you, ever. I don't care. That is not a tolerable situation, and it is not normal. Likewise, it is not ok for you to hit him. If your squabbles are turning into fistfights, it's only a matter of time before serious injury is done. And trying to fix your marriage in the face of a broken bone and police investigation is like pushing a tank up a hill; it's not a situation you want to be in.

2. It sounds like you have a bit of a temper. There are two things you can do about this. First, realize and acknowledge your temper, and perhaps look into anger management. If you're the one escalating the fight... approaching your husband aggressively out of the blue, being the first to yell, being the first to strike him... then that is a problem that you can learn to work with. The second thing you can do is open the lines of communication when both of you are calm. Discuss, without shouting, the things he does that set you off. Come to an agreement on each issue whether you need to cut him more slack, he needs to knock it off, or the two of you need to learn to cope with each others' habits. And then follow up on your decisions. Learn to walk away and count to thirty if you're getting mad over trivial things.

3. Stop blaming your mother. Sorry, but this one might be "tough love." Your mother isn't the one yelling and hitting her husband. Upbringing has a lot to do with the way we conduct ourselves as adults, but human behavior is not hard coded at conception, nor is it set during adolescence. You can change, you can break the mold, but the key is YOU. You have to acknowledge that your anger problems are your own issues to deal with, they are not leftover baggage from your mother or from your upbringing. The first step to getting over this is to stop mentally connecting yourself to your mother's behavior. You are your own person, capable of controlling your own actions and responsible for your own behavior. It's very easy to say "yes I know that," but do you ever walk away from a fight cursing your mother for her terrible parenting? You were quick to mention her in your post, before you even told us your problem. From what little I know about you and your situation, it sounds like you're resting an unnecessarily large part of the burden on the wrong person. Stop using your mother as a crutch for your own behavior.

4. Finally, you're implying that your relationship is at a point where one more big fight might end it. At this stage, it's time to take stock of things. Is this relationship salvagable, realistically? Are you pursuing this because you're afraid of change, or because you honestly believe your relationship has a solid foundation and can be saved? Take a step back, look at your life rationally. Write down a summary of your major issues, put it in a drawer, and read it a week later as if it were your best friend asking you for advice. What advice would you give her, based on what you wrote?

Good luck with things. Remember that no marriage is "happy all the time." I'm married, and every few weeks we have a knock-down, drag-out fight that scares the pets and shakes the walls. Sometimes things get thrown. But we both know our relationship has a solid foundation, so we have something to come back to once we've done enough screaming. I think that's the key.

10-20-2004, 06:30 PM	#7 (permalink)
Echodork Tilted	Not really enough information to give you any sort of advice other than the "get help" that you've already gotten. But do let me try to crack out a few suggestions that will hopefully shed some light on your situation. 1. There is no excuse for your husband to hit you, ever. I don't care. That is not a tolerable situation, and it is not normal. Likewise, it is not ok for you to hit him. If your squabbles are turning into fistfights, it's only a matter of time before serious injury is done. And trying to fix your marriage in the face of a broken bone and police investigation is like pushing a tank up a hill; it's not a situation you want to be in. 2. It sounds like you have a bit of a temper. There are two things you can do about this. First, realize and acknowledge your temper, and perhaps look into anger management. If you're the one escalating the fight... approaching your husband aggressively out of the blue, being the first to yell, being the first to strike him... then that is a problem that you can learn to work with. The second thing you can do is open the lines of communication when both of you are calm. Discuss, without shouting, the things he does that set you off. Come to an agreement on each issue whether you need to cut him more slack, he needs to knock it off, or the two of you need to learn to cope with each others' habits. And then follow up on your decisions. Learn to walk away and count to thirty if you're getting mad over trivial things. 3. Stop blaming your mother. Sorry, but this one might be "tough love." Your mother isn't the one yelling and hitting her husband. Upbringing has a lot to do with the way we conduct ourselves as adults, but human behavior is not hard coded at conception, nor is it set during adolescence. You can change, you can break the mold, but the key is YOU. You have to acknowledge that your anger problems are your own issues to deal with, they are not leftover baggage from your mother or from your upbringing. The first step to getting over this is to stop mentally connecting yourself to your mother's behavior. You are your own person, capable of controlling your own actions and responsible for your own behavior. It's very easy to say "yes I know that," but do you ever walk away from a fight cursing your mother for her terrible parenting? You were quick to mention her in your post, before you even told us your problem. From what little I know about you and your situation, it sounds like you're resting an unnecessarily large part of the burden on the wrong person. Stop using your mother as a crutch for your own behavior. 4. Finally, you're implying that your relationship is at a point where one more big fight might end it. At this stage, it's time to take stock of things. Is this relationship salvagable, realistically? Are you pursuing this because you're afraid of change, or because you honestly believe your relationship has a solid foundation and can be saved? Take a step back, look at your life rationally. Write down a summary of your major issues, put it in a drawer, and read it a week later as if it were your best friend asking you for advice. What advice would you give her, based on what you wrote? Good luck with things. Remember that no marriage is "happy all the time." I'm married, and every few weeks we have a knock-down, drag-out fight that scares the pets and shakes the walls. Sometimes things get thrown. But we both know our relationship has a solid foundation, so we have something to come back to once we've done enough screaming. I think that's the key.