Reconciling Life With An Abusive Spouse

Forgiving Abuse And Understanding The Abuser

It’s not easy reconciling with abuse from a spouse. Loving someone is difficult enough to understand, but loving someone that hurts you makes it much more confusing.

Speaking about domestic abuse as a man is complicated.

It’s highly stigmatized and often seen (by other men and some less empathic women) as emasculating and pitiful. The bigger, stronger sex can never really be abused because they can just fight back, right? I was a victim of that thought process as well and it’s the reason that I never told my friends or family.

We married young.

We were in our mid-twenties and had not spoken to each other for two years before we got engaged, pulled apart in our last attempt at a relationship by vicious and embittered disputes over accountability. The time apart allowed us to mature from our teens but I don’t think that either of us was prepared for what it took to make a marriage work.

She had always been fickle and flighty but now that she was in a relationship that she could not easily run away from, she did not know how to deal with her emotions.

She screamed and threatened me when our minor disagreements became heated; got in my face and jabbed at my temples with pointed fingernails when I answered her (code for talking back); asked if I was stupid and told me that I was crazy if I felt like something was unfair; and forbade me from using my phone or computer if she was upset.

In the beginning, I tried to defy her but it became clear very early on that that was not a safe option.

If I tried to use my computer when she was angry, she would unplug it from the wall. If I tried to use my phone, she would snatch it and throw it across the apartment. If I tried explaining my feelings, she would twist her face in pity and disgust and say condescending things to make me feel small. If I argued with her, she would grow increasingly loud and violent. If I tried to move or push her hand away from my face, she would attack.

I am passive by nature, so when she slapped me the first time, I just stood by bewildered and sorry. I thought that I must have done something bad enough to deserve it. She used that confusion and meekness against me.

If we disagreed about something, she would leap in my face and threaten to lose her mind.

Especially if I made a point that she couldn’t refute another way. She knew that I would never hit her back (she later acknowledged how fortunate a pair we made because of it).

I explained away or made light of the scratches and cuts on my face and hands to friends and family. Every time she punched me in the face or threw something around the house, I was scared and apologetic. It seemed like she was blind during these episodes and nothing I did or said could calm her down. I wasn’t scared that she would hurt me, rather of what she could do to my things, our finances, my livelihood, and our home if she got too angry.

She slapped me on the street and in grocery stores, berated me in public in deliberately personal and emasculating ways, sometimes surprised herself by scratching my face and drawing blood, and always silenced my arguments with threats of explosive violence.

On nights where I sat in the living room vibrating with rage and confusion, bleeding from some cut on the face or hand and listening to her screaming in the next room like I was still there, I thought about what I could do to show her how wrong this was. Calling the police was never really an option for me. I could not bear to see her in handcuffs being carted off to jail— even if it was just for a night. And, I was afraid that somehow I would be found at fault and taken to jail myself.

I made excuses for her behavior.

I reduced her “rage” to “passion” and her “attacks” to “mistakes”. I learned to back down from disagreements and to keep my desires to myself unless she was in a bright mood. I saw the best in her because I loved her so completely.

She poured 95% Isopropyl alcohol over my head.

I won’t go into detail about specific incidents except one of the last ones. Things reached a fever pitch one evening while I was putting away laundry. We were arguing about something too trivial to sustain the strain of time and I did not even notice the alcohol in her hand. I bent down to place something into a lower drawer and she poured it over the top of my head. It went into my eyes and mouth. It burned. I shouted and raced out of the room. I heard her gasp — surprised by her own impulse.

While my face was under the water in the tub, she lingered silently in the doorway. After a while, she asked if I was okay. I didn’t answer. She walked away. I was alright but my eyes were bloodshot for a few hours.

That incident confirmed my long-brewing suspicion that she didn’t really know how to stop herself from being rash and impulsive. She was probably sanitizing her earrings at the time and just happened to have the alcohol in her hand.

I knew that if we were going to last then we needed to get some help.

The revelation happened during the pandemic, so we had to find a therapist online, which ended up working out just fine. We had sessions with her privately and some together and she was able to root out my wife’s personal trauma that made her so defensive, suspicious, and quick to violence. Once out in the open, we were able to discuss it and she was able to see how it affected our relationship.

She did not make excuses for herself.

She knew that she had been doing the wrong thing and admitted to feeling guilty in the moment but being too proud to apologize or acknowledge it. We had riveting emotional breakthroughs where she cried, begged for forgiveness, and made timid promises about future behavior.

Sometimes, she would still get loud and poke me in the temple with her nail, but I would remind her of what she was doing and she would back down, perform breathing exercises, or go into another room to cool off. Sometimes, she was evolved enough to apologize on the spot, but that was rare and special. She would always apologize eventually though.

I got my best friend back.

We never actually stopped being the best of friends, always laughing and joking with each other, making wild discoveries around the city, playing video games, and getting high on the roof of our building. But now we could do all of the things that we loved together without that ugly thing festering in the back of my mind.

Therapy has helped her to understand and control her impulses. Talking to each other about it has helped us to heal.

In the year since we’ve had our breakthrough, she has not hit me, broken any of my things, or lost her cool in any big and bombastic way. Our arguments are thorough discussions now and she takes her time to respond, which I imagine helps her to better understand where she’s coming from. I take my time too and we always find that there’s really nothing to argue about at all.

Now, she would be the first person to admit to her shortcomings as a partner and the mistakes of a younger woman.

I often wonder how things would have turned out if I had not given her a chance to show me the best of her. I would have lost a wonderful, loving, complex, and magnetic friend and lover.

There were times when I wanted to hurt her.

Trying so hard to get through to someone with your words while they scream at the peak of their lungs, break your things, and throw themselves at you like a wild animal is the most frustrating thing that I’ve ever dealt with. I’ve had vivid thoughts of knocking some sense into her with a backhand or a closed fist, and I’m definitely bigger than her. No matter how tempting the fantasy was, I never gave in to it. She understood that without me having to shame myself by voicing it, and she was very grateful for my patience and affection.

I forgave her for the first five years.

It was easy. I wondered if it was too easy. Should I have made more of a big deal about it? Should I have punished her with threats of divorce and police? I did not know, but I knew that I felt for her — the difficult and troublesome life that she had lived — and the complicated, short-tempered person that it turned her into.

This is not meant to vilify my wife in any way. It is simply a broad-stroke story about our battle with her lesser self. She is flawed (like the rest of us) but willing and eager to change. Over the last year, she has proven herself to be thoughtful, careful, and kind.

I believe in second chances, but a second chance should never be given to an abuser unless they are able to admit to their mistakes and display a proven and unconditional commitment to change. If you or someone you know is suffering physical or emotional abuse by a partner or spouse, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1(800)799–7233.

More from my life:

A Witch Begins | A brief story about my introduction to witchcraft at 7 years old and how it became a lifelong practice. ⤵

My First Sexual Experience As A Queer Black Boy In Rural New Jersey | The story of my first sexual experience at 11 with a close friend in middle school. ⤵

Teenager’s Guide To The Starvation Diet | How I starved myself for weight loss in high school. ⤵

My blog Metallically Black where I talk about life, depression, dissociation, LGBTQIA issues 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈, writing, sex, and death. ⤵

Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.

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