I Am Afraid Of My Husband
“Last week, I had my husband arrested,” said Nina, 28, a kindergarten teacher and mother of 2-year-old Kelly. “He grabbed the back of my sweater as I was walking upstairs, dragged me down three steps and smashed my face into the wall.”
That night, Nina called the police, who took John to jail. The judge issued a protection order and required John to take a six-week class on anger control.
Their three-year marriage has never been easy. “This wasn’t the first time John hit me, though it was certainly the worst. He reminds me so much of my stepfather, who hit my mother often and treated her horribly.”
Nina is worn out. John expects her to do everything around the house. “He’s a slob and leaves so many things half done, I might as well do them myself,” she snaps. Compounding her anxiety is the fact that they can barely make ends meet, though she also works part-time as a bookkeeper.
“For some reason, we bring out the worst in each other,” Nina sighs. “I’ll say something, he’ll argue, and, before I know it, we’re pushing and shoving each other.” If there’s any chance of saving this marriage, she says, “I owe it to Kelly to try.”
John, 30, feels the same way. “My love for Kelly is the only reason I’m here,” he says. The youngest of four kids, John grew up in a violent home. “My father was a brute,” he recalls. “He screamed at my mother and often came after me with a belt.
“I know I’m not an easy guy to live with, and I’ve always been too physical, but Nina is no angel,” he insists. “She baits me. Maybe I don’t help as much around the house as I should, but she’s like a broken tape recorder.”
Last week, John had to work late, and Nina went ballistic, calling him at the office and screaming. “It was embarrassing. Everyone heard me getting scolded.”
They continued the argument at home. “Nina smacked me across the face, started hammering me with her fists. That’s when I lost it,” he recalls. “I was wrong, and I want to change. But we can’t have a marriage unless she changes, too.”
Bring a marriage back from the brink
“When there is abuse of any kind, it must stop before a marital counselor, or the partners themselves, can begin to address the underlying issues,” said Paul Moschetta, a Huntington, N.Y., marriage counselor. John is not a hard-bitten abuser. This young family is so weighed down by financial and emotional pressures, and so lacking in the basic marital skills necessary to handle stress, that they are on the verge of becoming another statistic.
Many couples are in the same destructive pattern. If you and your partner are too close to crossing the line, ask yourselves the following questions:
1. Was there a history of violence in either of your families? Countless studies have drawn a direct link between violence witnessed as a child and abusive actions later on. What’s more, women raised in violent homes are more likely to marry men who will abuse them.
2. Do either of you feel on some level that you deserve to be treated shabbily? Many victims of abuse unconsciously believe they did something to cause their partner to treat them the way they do.
3. Does your spouse tell you that you’re making mountains out of molehills or are crazy to feel the way you do? Do you often question your feelings? Such self-doubt is often the result of having your feelings discounted time and again. To grow personally, as well as to keep your relationship healthy, you must accept the validity of your own feelings.
4. Do you feel trapped in a lopsided relationship? If the scales in a marriage are always tilted in one direction, someone is giving too much. Though she was unaware of it, Nina buried a lot of her rage - against her father, stepfather, even her mother - and it came spewing out against John. Once she was able to separate past anger from the present, she learned to react appropriately to what was happening in her life today.
5. Do people’s actions or comments reopen old childhood wounds? For instance, Nina’s demeaning remarks enraged John because they reminded him of his father. This doesn’t justify his use of force, but it was essential for Nina to understand the part she played in the marital dynamic.
If any of these questions hit home, it’s time to seek professional counseling. That way you can both better understand and deal with the problems you share.