Deadline for Decision 8/15

[Zues126]

Regarding the resentment about the police call...I've seen this pattern a lot. It reminds me of juju's WAH who was angry at her for getting the courts involved to get child support. Whether these actions were necessary or not isn't really the point. It's not hard to understand his point of view. It ties in to the card game from my first post.

It's 2016. What are some of the worst things people can say about a man? He's abusive, I'm not safe around him, he's a deadbeat dad...those words paint the picture of a guy straight out of the 50's wearing a wife beater, drinking too much beer, insulting his wife and bullying her around, and ignoring the kids. These days that's considered not just a deal breaker, but a deal breaker that leaves the woman talking to her friends about what a jerk her guy was, and setting him up to be the villain in her personal narrative, where the next guy that jumps in gets to be the white knight, the good guy who isn't like that. So when he sees you talking about him like you think he's abusive or a deadbeat, that is going to provoke a reaction.

XW did this to me. She called me abusive, said she was walking on eggshells, that she couldn't be herself when I was around. She couldn't feel safe. And much more. I was nothing like the guy in the description above. I certainly never laid hands on her, I've never been abused or abusive. But I know. "Not all abuse is physical". These days any time a woman is in emotional pain the husband is thought to be abusive. I don't know, I spent three years in a soul torturing painful sexless marriage, that's not abuse, in fact it always comes back to "she had a reason, probably because YOU were a bad husband..."

Yes, there is abuse out there, it is extremely serious, and I'm not dismissing that. What I was though was more of the "Nice guy" type. If you look at the forum here you'll see that applies to like 90% of guys. It's because for decades we've been saying the guy from the 50's is a monster, so we're all trying to be the opposite. Sensitive, thoughtful, respectful, anything you say dear. All with the expectation that the wife will reciprocate, appreciate him for not being a 'bad guy', and that she'll meet his needs. When this doesn't happen he becomes hurt, then resentful, and often passive aggressive. What the husband wants more than anything else is for the wife to love and respect him, and to meet his needs. His behavior, be it guilting, punishing, avoiding, different forms of control, is often a desperation attempt to communicate what he needs from her. But instead of her saying "oh, love of my life, I can see you were in great pain because I wasn't doing xxxxx and you need that from me", she says "you are abusive, I don't feel safe with you, you need to leave!"

So calling the cops, getting the courts involved, all of these things...it is the most grievous character attack that can be made on a man, coming from the person who's viewpoint he cares about the most. I think it's a good thing he is so upset about the cops, that means he cares what you think. What I'm guessing he wants to hear is something along the lines of "H, you're a good guy. There are a lot of bad guys out there, you've always made sure to take care of me and the kids, and I was lucky to find you. I was upset when you did a/b/c, but in retrospect I can see that was a reaction to something else, and that you were really wounded by x/y/z and simply doing everything you could to communicate that to me. I'm sorry that x/y/z ever hurt you that much, and that instead of hearing you I blamed you and your reaction."

Maybe you can't say that. Maybe he is an abusive dangerous animal. Maybe you can't provide x/y/z, or he's unreasonable for expecting it, maybe he's carrying open wounds and no matter what you do he is in pain and blaming you. I can't speak to any of that. But the bottom line is this. Validate both that he's a good guy, and the wounds you inflicted that he feels drove him to behave this way. Do that and he'll follow you around like a puppy dog.

What would he say drove him to that escalated state? Why did he feel he had to raise his voice? What weren't you hearing?

***REMINDER, I'm not suggesting that abuse is the victim's fault. Somewhere there's a line between abuse and normal pain/anger. If it's abuse, it's abuse, and you at some point walk away and protect yourself. Only thing is that you can't save a marriage if that's your call. So while we don't want to rug sweep or be in harm's way, we also don't want to jump the gun on that label when this dynamic plays out in many normal relationships.