Kyp's Girl

I recently posted about this in the ladies lounge and now I want to hear from a guy.

When I was younger my mother aboused me and I swore that I would never treat anyone the way she treated me and I was/still am afraid to have children of my own because of it. But I know I got some of her traits and I find that I get upset really easily over little things that my husband does. I get upset-he gets upset-I start yelling-he starts yelling-then I completley lose it-and then he does, by hitting me. Yes I have hit him too, but he has hurt me pretty bad before. This only happens when both of us have exploded and I'm just the one who gets hurts the most being more fragile.

When we are not fighting hes great. I love him. I have tried to control myself and not take things out on him that are my fault but sometimes it doesn't work. But now he is to the point that if I yell at him for anything he will leave me. I want my problem to be fixed but I dont want to lose him. One lady said I need professional help but we cant afford that. Someone else told me that I need to get out of the marriage, but I cant do that because I want to solve my problem and I want us to be happy all of the time.

Suave

I can almost guarantee that you can get professional help affordably. Go to your local university/college with a psych department, and ask some of the faculty about places their students go, etc.

I had a brief period where I was seeing a student psychologist (I believe they're all grad students), and I was charged exactly six dollars (Canadian) per session. When I finally stopped (because parking was too expensive, other issues), they even offered to charge me less if I couldn't afford the 6 bucks per session.

Kalnaur

Get Help. Those two words are all you need. If you get physical when angered, you need help. This isn't something that just disappears overnight. You need to get good help, for your safety, his safety, and for the safety of any future children you might have.

__________________
PC: Can you help me out here HK?
HK-47: I'm 98% percent sure this miniature organic meatbag wants you to help find his fellow miniature organic meatbags.
PC: And the other 2 percent?
HK-47: The other 2 percent is that he is just looking for trouble and needs to be blasted, but that might be wishful thinking on my part.

shakran

o . . k. . .

We got a lotta work to do here.

I'm gonna be brutally blunt and honest. Just an upfront warning.

First off, he's hitting you. That's unacceptable. It needs to stop. If it ever happens again, leave the house and call the police.

If you ever hit him again, he should do the same.

You're both yelling at each other and hitting each other, and then you say
All this is telling me that you do not have realistic views of relationships. No one is happy all the time, there is no such thing as happilly ever after.

It seems at first blush (and admittedly two paragraphs is not enough to know for sure) that you entered into a marriage that you were not emotionally or maturationally ready for, and so did he. You both need joint marriage counselling right now, no ifs ands or buts.

You go to church? Often times clergy is also trained in counselling, or knows someone who is and who is free or very inexpensive.

I'll put it this way - if you do not get counselling, the cycle of mutual abuse will continue until you get a divorce or one (or both) of you gets arrested.

splck

When my ex and I did some counseling it was provided at no cost to us via the local mental heath office. This is in Canada and I don't know if you get the same down in the states or not. You could also try a church counselor or something like that.
No matter how bad things get, there is no excuse for the violence.
Best of luck.

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nice line eh?

JumpinJesus

You've made a big step in recognizing that it's a problem. So, first, I would say that you should be proud of the fact that you recognize it. Many people never recognize they're in an abusive relationship. Second, you want to change it. That's another huge step. A HUGE step. I commend you for that.

Now, the big issue is what to do. Yes, you need counseling. Not just for your marriage to survive, but for you as well. You were abused as a child and have not dealt with those issues. Even if your current marriage fails, if you do not deal with your past abuses, you will be doomed to repeat those cycles. As suave has said, there are many places that offer counseling for people who otherwise cannot afford it. I urge you to seek out those resources.

What also is of great importance is that your husband recognizes the problem as well and is willing to get help. If he is, then you're already on your way to a better relationship. If he's not, then you need to help yourself.

Part of an abusive cycle is the urge to please the other person, as you've stated.

You need to realize that this is a fantasy statement. No couple will ever be happy all of the time. There is nothing wrong with that. We are humans and are unhappy, and even angry, from time to time. It's not an issue of fixing it so you're always happy; it's an issue of fixing it so you can do something constructive and meaningful with your anger. Learning to direct your anger in a healthy way is imperative.

However, I want to reiterate that the most important aspect of all of this is that you get help for yourself. You will follow one abusive relationship after another if you don't deal with what you went through.

I wish you the best of luck and hope you get the help you need.

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"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

Echodork

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.

bud4

Every response here has been good advice. I just want to repeat that you need PROFESSIONAL help. Don't try to do it alone. There is too much at stake, and the situation is way too involved. Any church, synagogue, police station, school counsellor or Salvation Army office can put you in touch with FREE professional help if you are in financial need. Don't put it off, please.

Kyp's Girl

I am sorry to have mentioned my mother so fast but it is a trend because she too was treated this way by her mother.

Kyp's Girl

I do know when I make mistakes. I know that I have hurt my husband but your're right its wrong I know that. I also know that its wrong for him to hit me back. But I have tried talking to him about it. I know that little things bug me and I can feel them starting to bug me so I speak up about it. I try telling him about the things that bother me so maybe he can try to stop too. Int the middle of a fight I realize that I was wrong and I suggest that we go to different rooms to calm down so that we can talk with out the other hurtful things. As a child when I had problems with my mom I tried talking to adults about it that I knew I could trust. But none of them believed that my mother would ever do such a thing. Maybe that is why I havn't really tried talking to someone about it. But the way I see it is that I started here. I am not ready lose my husband or to give up trying to solve my problem. And I know that there is no such thing as being happy all of the time. But I can be a lot happier if I can have an argument with my husband where neither of us hits eachother.

Kyp's Girl

By the way thank you for the responses. I need to hear them.

JaySpencer

I am glad to see that you are thankful for the responses, will you go get help now? I can not comment regarding you or your husband as people, but I do hope that you will be smart enough to get help. You have taken a step, and a good one, BUT this is not the help you need beyond affirmation that you and the hubby have some serious issues.

I hope you are not stupid, sorry for the harsh word, enough to think that you can solve this yourself, the odds are against you. What the odds do favor is you or your husband being jailed, seriously hurt or one of you killing the other, or worse still, both of you dying.

Tell me, do you see your unborn children in each other's eyes? If you do, remember one thing: It aint gonna happen if one of you kills the other or you are both dead.

MageB420666

First off, I would just like to say, good job on not automatically jumping to divorce as a solution for your marital problems, far to many people see that a solution, instead of working on the actual problems.(But don't stay in the marriage if it becomes unsafe or you realize that it just can't work out no matter what you do) As everyone has said before, get outside help and advice(professional, the TFP doesn't count), if will make things much easier if you hear possible solutions from someone else.

Second off, I don't care how mad you or your husband get, neither of you should be hitting the other. Your only going to make things much worse by doing that.

Third, don't blame your mom. That's not going to help you solve YOUR problems. Accept that you are the way you are and that you want to change that, don't rationalize your behavior with your past, that just lets you make excuses for behaving in the way your trying to change.

Next, telling your husband what bothers you so that he can avoid doing it does NOT solve the problem, it just avoids it and maybe they are things that, while they seem reasonable to you for him to stop, are not reasonable to him for him to stop. Try to deal with your anger issues instead of avoiding them.

If you or anyone has problems with some of the advice I have given, just ignore it, it's advice from a person you have never met, don't know, and besides, its advice, you don't have to follow it.

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Apathy: The best outlook this side of I don't give a damn.

Kyp's Girl

I am not trying to avoid my problems. I am trying to avoid causing more pain. And yes I do plan on getting help. Like I said earlier, I started here. For me that was a very big jump. I just have to beable to jump a little farther to talk with some one face to face. But I am getting there.

maleficent

Instead of face to face, make a phone call. Look in the phone book for a domestic violence hotline -- they exist practically everywhere... It's anonymous, and they can steer you in the right direction.

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mistered

Please turn to others for help. Please. You have to break the circle of violence.

People often repeat the ways of their parents. But you don't HAVE TO do that. It does NOT have to be that way. Find a good counselor that believes that and will help you realize that you're in control of your life, you're don't have to be a slave to history.

justjt

Not very experienced in this dept. but here are a few of my thoughts

It seems as if you both have issues with your temper and it is unhealthy for your relationship. As for him hitting you well that is not acceptable no matter what, and that is something he seriously needs to address with himself. Because to cross that line and hit someone that you love...well there are some deep personal problems there.

It sucks...but the truth is it will never get better until you both fix yourselves on the inside before you can even start to make the relationship work right. The two choices are pretty simple-1. Get the help you need...both of you need to get better on the inside. Then begin to heal your relationship. 2.Get out of this relationship fast...because it's just gonna get worse.

Ok good luck with this!