Honest question about divorce -- for women

[lionfamily1999]

I don't know how to double quote. But, I think we're talking about different definitions of nagging.

 

There's: Will you take out the trash? Will you take out the trash? Will you take out the trash?

 

And: Will you take out the trash? How come you can't do one simple thing I ask? I work around here, too, you know! You think you can come home and just sit on your a$$ and I have to do it all? What are you, 5? Am I your mommy? TAKE OUT THE F-ING TRASH!

 

The abusive nagging is the latter. The former is just annoying.

 

OH, and, I think anything that tears the other down, no matter how innocuous it might sound, is abusive. Veiled threats, veiled or backhanded insults, controlling what and who you can see, allowing or not allowing certain friends, belittling disguised as teasing. Refusing intimate relations as a punishment or weapon. In my state, refusing relations is grounds for divorce, calling it mental abuse. Abuse takes many forms and many levels of intensity. The abuse I experienced (or you, or her, or him, or whomever) may not be the abuse someone else experiences, but it's still abuse.

Can't double quote either :) You said it better than I did, thank you.

Michelle,

 

I completely agree with your post. And, at least for this thread, understand some of our disconnect. Your first example is what I am talking about when I say "nagging". The second is abuse, clearly.

 

As far as sex, I see differences there. A spouse can not have sex because the situation in the marriage temporily does not foster intimacy. That happens and is not emotionally abusive. Witholding it (or other intimacy and affection) as punishment or manipulatively is abuse.

The problem, as I see it, is that many people will say that both examples are nagging. When a man gets torn down like that, it's seen as his wife 'training' him or just nagging, or even worse, people will say, why don't you just do it already, sheesh.

 

In the times when situations do not foster intimacy, I would say it is the most important time for s*x. It's like saying, I love you, before he leaves for work, even if we were fighting a minute before hand. Because, no matter how angry or confused I am, I do love him.

 

My dh sees physical intimacy as the ultimate sign of love. For him, that's how he knows I love him. I know that. If I were to start using sex as a tool to get what I want, to express my displeasure or anger, it would cut him deeply. The essence of an abuser is knowing where it hurts worst and then digging in. Some women know their dhs are like mine and they take away s*x to make a point. That, imo, is abusive. Granted, no court is going to find a woman guilty of emotional abuse for withholding s*x, but then it's very difficult to get any emotional abuse punished in a court of law.

 

I appreciate how non-confrontational you were in your response to me. I was not trying to point fingers or anything, but as a victim of abuse, I can easily understand why it would be difficult for you to believe that men can be abused at the same rates, iykwIm, as women. My point, or the one I was trying to make, was that the ways many women abuse their dhs are so.... sly (for lack of a better word) as to go, not just unnoticed, but noticed and accepted. Noticed and made the fodder for jokes.

 

Oh, it's just hilarious to watch some mundane sitcom where the wife rails against her husband, calling all sorts of names, not to mention inadequate, or rolling her eyes behind his back, making gestures, saying (or implying) what an idiot he is. Later, when they're in their bed and she turns a cold shoulder, the canned laughter goes through fade out. It really bothers me, but I guess I've made clear ;)

[Jill- OK]

Michelle...Your first example is what I am talking about when I say "nagging". The second is abuse, clearly.

 

I see differences in the definitions of "nagging", too, and I'm talking about the more 'traditional' (for lack of a better word) type that causes men to turn off their hearing.

[KidsHappen]

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Edited March 4, 2009 by KidsHappen
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[OnTheBrink]

Oh, it's just hilarious to watch some mundane sitcom where the wife rails against her husband, calling all sorts of names, not to mention inadequate, or rolling her eyes behind his back, making gestures, saying (or implying) what an idiot he is. Later, when they're in their bed and she turns a cold shoulder, the canned laughter goes through fade out. It really bothers me, but I guess I've made clear ;)

 

OH, don't even get me started! I won't even watch sitcoms anymore. I can't stand it.

 

And, I have to say, I was not raised in a home where the husband was honored or respected. My mother was very disrespectful to my father and her current husband is nothing more than a lap dog. It was through a very loving male friend, who gave me some books to read on relationships and on how men think, that helped me see how wrong my mother was, and helped me see some of my own bad behavior toward my EX. Behavior that I thought was normal and ok, but wasn't. It doesn't excuse his cheating, but but my upbringing didn't excuse my treatment of him. These issues were also discussed in counseling, but the adultery with men just overshadowed any of the smaller issues. Add in the fact that EX was raised in a home where the wife was not respected or honored, (my FIL is also g*y and cheated on MIL for almost 17 years before she divorced him), we were doomed from the get-go. Although, I want to think that had the g*y issue not been there, things could have improved and we could have gone on to have a good marriage.

 

I hope some day I get a second chance at marriage.

[Joanne]

Julie,

 

I understand your points about culturally sanctioned abuse. I do see abuse laughed at, discounted and used as fodder when it comes to women abusing men.

 

I understand, in part, because I was verbally and mentally and emotionally abused. This, as you likely know, is discounted by many. I hate even having to add "verbal" and not calling it ABUSE. Like the husband situations you describe, I can't seek legal protection from being called names (it went beyond that, but you get my point). Contemporary music, comedians and other entertainment reinforce certain abusive and manipulative behaviors, serving to normalize instead of call out non physical abuse.

 

On this board, during a similar topic, many posters lamented the "stretching" of the word abuse. I'm afraid many more people are suffering under abuse than are stretching the definition.

[lionfamily1999]

OH, don't even get me started! I won't even watch sitcoms anymore. I can't stand it.

 

And, I have to say, I was not raised in a home where the husband was honored or respected. My mother was very disrespectful to my father and her current husband is nothing more than a lap dog. It was through a very loving male friend, who gave me some books to read on relationships and on how men think, that helped me see how wrong my mother was, and helped me see some of my own bad behavior toward my EX. Behavior that I thought was normal and ok, but wasn't. It doesn't excuse his cheating, but but my upbringing didn't excuse my treatment of him. These issues were also discussed in counseling, but the adultery with men just overshadowed any of the smaller issues. Add in the fact that EX was raised in a home where the wife was not respected or honored, (my FIL is also g*y and cheated on MIL for almost 17 years before she divorced him), we were doomed from the get-go. Although, I want to think that had the g*y issue not been there, things could have improved and we could have gone on to have a good marriage.

 

I hope some day I get a second chance at marriage.

I'm only learning now how twisted my parents' marraige is. My mother puts on a grand show of cowing to my father, but her remarks, always behind his back, blinded me to the truth. My dad is a good man. An incredibly good man, especially considering his own childhood. He's put up with over thirty years of nasty back handed remarks, relationship sabatoge (sorry for my spelling), not to mention the accusations of abuse that have been leveled at him. My mom is manipulative and controlling. She used both nagging and back stabbing to turn my dad into a man that is cold and distant. I'm learning who my dad really is, only now, as an adult and with my mother too sick to intervene. I'm so angry that I've lost so many years, believing my dad to be everything she said he was, when in reality, he is kind, smart, gentle, loving, he listens and pays attentions, and he CARES.

 

I'm unbelievably lucky to have a husband that comes from a shattered childhood, with no real role models, but is able to be a stronger, kinder, more loving man than any other I've ever met.

Julie,

 

I understand your points about culturally sanctioned abuse. I do see abuse laughed at, discounted and used as fodder when it comes to women abusing men.

 

I understand, in part, because I was verbally and mentally and emotionally abused. This, as you likely know, is discounted by many. I hate even having to add "verbal" and not calling it ABUSE. Like the husband situations you describe, I can't seek legal protection from being called names (it went beyond that, but you get my point). Contemporary music, comedians and other entertainment reinforce certain abusive and manipulative behaviors, serving to normalize instead of call out non physical abuse.

 

On this board, during a similar topic, many posters lamented the "stretching" of the word abuse. I'm afraid many more people are suffering under abuse than are stretching the definition.

:grouphug: :iagree: :grouphug:

[runninmommy]

OH, don't even get me started! I won't even watch sitcoms anymore. I can't stand it.

 

And, I have to say, I was not raised in a home where the husband was honored or respected. My mother was very disrespectful to my father and her current husband is nothing more than a lap dog. It was through a very loving male friend, who gave me some books to read on relationships and on how men think, that helped me see how wrong my mother was, and helped me see some of my own bad behavior toward my EX. Behavior that I thought was normal and ok, but wasn't. It doesn't excuse his cheating, but but my upbringing didn't excuse my treatment of him. These issues were also discussed in counseling, but the adultery with men just overshadowed any of the smaller issues. Add in the fact that EX was raised in a home where the wife was not respected or honored, (my FIL is also g*y and cheated on MIL for almost 17 years before she divorced him), we were doomed from the get-go. Although, I want to think that had the g*y issue not been there, things could have improved and we could have gone on to have a good marriage.

 

I hope some day I get a second chance at marriage.

 

 

:grouphug:

[KidsHappen]

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Edited March 4, 2009 by KidsHappen
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[OnTheBrink]

Well, like I said before, it's legally considered mental abuse in my state. It's grounds for divorce.

[KidsHappen]

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Edited March 4, 2009 by KidsHappen
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[OnTheBrink]

:001_huh: Wouldn't it make more sense to call this an irreconcilable difference? I really think that calling it mental abuse cheapens the meaning of the words not only for people who suffer from real abuse but for society as a whole.

 

I guess what I went through wasn't abusive enough for you. Gee, sorry I wasn't "really" abused. Maybe I should have let him kill me, as he threatened. Would that have been enough?

 

Take it up with the Illinois legislature.

[KidsHappen]

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Edited March 4, 2009 by KidsHappen
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[Nestof3]

Honestly, at this point, I really wish the thread would just end. We all have our own experiences, and whether we want to admit or or not, they influence how we perceive others' situations.

 

I will never understand some of the relationships you ladies have had, but I can feel for you.

 

I don't really need to put a label on anything (was it abuse or not)-- perhaps we should just all agree to strive to put our best into our marriages and let others (us) heal from their negative ones?

 

I do also know that God can work for the good in us -- that we who have sinned can be forgiven and even rise above it -- that we can be changed by the renewing of our minds. I do still believe in that. I am so thankful that I have that forgiveness for every unkind thing I have ever said or done.

[Joanne]

Honestly, at this point, I really wish the thread would just end. We all have our own experiences, and whether we want to admit or or not, they influence how we perceive others' situations.

 

I will never understand some of the relationships you ladies have had, but I can feel for you.

 

I don't really need to put a label on anything (was it abuse or not)-- perhaps we should just all agree to strive to put our best into our marriages and let others (us) heal from their negative ones?

 

I do also know that God can work for the good in us -- that we who have sinned can be forgiven and even rise above it -- that we can be changed by the renewing of our minds. I do still believe in that. I am so thankful that I have that forgiveness for every unkind thing I have ever said or done.

 

Dawn, I appreciate the thought behind thid post. In my experience, it is VITAL for victims to know that what they wexperienced was abuse; this is one area where labels are needed.

 

While I believe in God's grace and miraculous healing.....abusers very rarely recover. Many pretend to go through the motions of change but few -- very very few -- ever experience sustained change.

 

A dismal reality to be sure. So many people, usually women,

stay hoping for that change and end up dying. Some literally and most figuratively.