Hit my wife -- is this an anger management issue?

by workNprogress » Tue Oct 12, 2010 1:40 am

So, I have been married 3 years. My wife has serious anger management issues. I've always been very calm, but her destructiveness (screaming obscenities at me over something trivial like her anger I am not more interested in her gardening ideas while our little children are crying and screaming at her to stop) can really push my buttons. We generally have a blow up about once a month. Yes, I've considered it is related to PMS, but my issue here is my own behavior, not my wife's.

With concerted effort on both our parts, we went 2 months without a major blow up, until yesterday. The kids were napping. My wife expressed her opinion I caused our daughter grief when I took our son to the store a week ago. My reasons were very practical -- my son was ready to walk out the door, I was trying to run a quick errand as a favor to my wife, I figured leaving her with just our daughter instead of both kids would be doing her an additional favor, my daughter is still in diapers which means a production whenever we leave the house of preparing a diaper bag, bringing a bottle of milk, and my daughter is much more bonded to her mother than to me (our son is the opposite) which raises the specter that my daughter might realize at the store that her mother is not in sight and have a melt down. The easiest thing to do was take my son. As I was walking out the door with him, my daughter went to follow us (she follows her older brother everywhere) and I shooed her back inside. My wife said something like, "Oh, she feels left out," and I said something like,"Oh, she's not missing out, I'm sure she's going to be doing something special here..."

I was hinting -- strongly -- that my wife should distract our daughter from feeling like she was missing out, by getting her excited about something they would do at home while I was gone, like have tea party or go on a treasure hunt, or whatever. The point is, a 2 year old is very easy to distract and can get excited about almost anything. When I got back from the store, my wife hits me with the news that my daughter was hysterically upset that she was left behind, and she thinks it is my fault because I have now taken my son but not my daughter three times in a row on errands of this sort over the past 2 months. Again, my reasoning was always based on practicality -- these are quick errands and my son is old enough to hop in the car -- and I never figured my wife was so unable or unwilling to distract my daughter from feeling as if she was being left out.

So all week, my wife keeps bringing this issue back up, of me not treating our daughter fairly. I have spent the last week wracking my brains on how to tell my wife that I really think she could have tried harder to make staying home something special for our daughter so she didn't feel left out. It's exactly the sort of thing I would have done without even being asked. To me, it's what parents do, as partners, to help each other. I wanted my wife to realize she could have made an effort to make my daughter feel like she was going to do something special so she would not feel left out simply because she was being left at home. I did not say anything for a week because I feared it would set my wife into a rage. Anything that seems critical of her parenting does that.

Finally, yesterday, she made a comment again about my not taking our daughter a week ago. I finally said something about how I thought there were two sides to that, and I thought she could and should have made an effort to get our daughter excited about staying home, instead of reinforcing that she was being left out by saying stuff like, "oh, don't worry, you'll get to go another time." That sort of stuff just reinforced that she WAS being left out of something special. As I had feared, this threw my wife into a rage. She started shouting how I don't love my daughter like my son and how I ignore her and am causing her psychological damage. Both our kids awoke from their naps and started crying. Not knowing how to calm my wife, I left the room. My wife followed and continued yelling.

I told her to stop and think of the kids. She did not. I said it over and over. I shouted it. She kept on swearing at me. The kids were crying. I was holding a glass of water. Finally, I threw the water at her. She looked shocked, then she came at my swinging her fists. She's smaller than me, but strong and in better shape. She hit me a couple times, and something in me broke. I knocked her back and said, "YOu do NOT get to hit me!" I hit her again, and grabbed her, subdued her, then let her go. She came at me again swinging. I again knocked her, told her she does not get to hit me, grabbed her, immobilized her, and let her go. It happened one more time like that.

Afterwards, her view is that, as the man, the same standards do not apply, and she gets to hit me without me being allowed to hit her back. I should have subdued her by grabbing her arms without landing any blows myself. On reflection, I wish I would have done that. I've always thought I was the kind of man who would never hit a woman, even if the woman was hitting me. But at that moment she was hitting me, I was enraged that she was so out of control, so disregarding our children's emotional health, and so insistent on turning a simple discussion of differing views on child-rearing into a screaming argument -- and that she does this regularly. But part of me was also enraged at the double standard that I should let her hit me and she gets off unscathed. I probably could have subdued her without landing any blows myself, but at that moment, I wanted to land a couple blows myself. For whatever it's worth, it's not like a swung first, and it's not like I hit her after she was subdued. But I also did more than the bare minimum to subdue her.

Now that I've hit a woman for the first time in my life, I am forced to ponder what kind of man I am, how badly I am flawed, and what type of problem I have, whether it's an anger managment issue or an interpersonal issue, whether it's a function of a lot of stress I've been under, or what. Any opinions would be appreciated.workNprogressConsumer 0

Losing my friends due to my anger

by lagringasarah » Sat Jan 01, 2011 11:32 am

Hi to anyone who is reading this and thankyou if you reply.

Anger has been ruining all my relationships lately. I have lost a lot of friends over the last couple of years, so many I won't have any left soon. Some of them have been draining me anyway but I have gotten to the point where I have realised I am the common denominator here. I hate the way I can't control my temper. My dad is the same way and I hate that part of him and I hate that I see it in myself.

I was an angry teenager but I didn't really express the anger, it was more directed at myself. At that age I was painfully shy and really insecure. At the age of 20 I pretty much made peace with myself and was happy for a couple of years. Then when I was 22 a close friend died and I blamed myself for his death. I won't go into the details unless someone wants me to. I have pretty much stopped blaming myself for his death but feel I could have treated him better. In all the years I was unhappy with myself I never questioned that I was a good person, but now I feel that I am a bad person and I don't know if I can ever get back to liking myself.

Over the last couple of years (I'm 24 now, soon to turn 25) I have been losing my temper a lot at all the people close to me. Then I hate myself for doing so and feel I'm a horrible person for treating them that way. And I know in my heart that until I can learn to love myself again I'm going to keep on doing this but it's so hard. I have been trying to get myself back on track by doing exercise, eating well, and meditating, esp loving-kindness meditation. But I don't really see an improvement yet. I lost it at my landlord earlier and I lost it at one of my friends a couple of days ago.

I can't go on like this. If anyone has any suggestions or just wants to tell me their story I'd appreciate it.lagringasarahConsumer 0

Boyfriend wants to break up because he has anger problems...

by Samantha93 » Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:32 am

So I'm 18, and he's 20. We've been dating for a few weeks, gone to movies, I met some of his family, and I honestly thought it was going fine. Just last weekend he admitted to me that he punched his Dad a few years ago in a fit of rage. He's never actually yelled at me for anything, or tried to hit me ever. After he told me about what happened with his Dad he said he wanted to break up with me. I don't understand this at all. He said some small things that I do really annoy him, and he's afraid of hurting me. I want to help him through this and he's such a great guy, and a pretty amazing friend. He's really been there for me... I don't want to lose him

Help understanding ex and her anger

by JayL » Fri May 20, 2011 2:37 am

I just got out of a relationship with a girl who had a very bad past. Father abused mother, step father abused mother. Dysfunctional brothers.

Her- Very successful and driven. She thinks she is strong, independent, which on the surface she is. Stands up for what she believes and anger comes out. Almost very womens rights, etc. Cant stand the status of old fashion relationships where the women basically take care of the man, house, raise kids etc. (not that is what I expect or even want) She gets very testy and argumentative.

The tough part when things were good, they were real good. She was very kind and thoughtful, affectionate, happy, etc. I still felt I was on egg shells that my opinion on something could set her off. I am very laid back and know to pick my battles in which most of the time I wouldnt respond or change the subject and all is well.

When we got into the few arguments that we did she was BRUTAL. Name calling, and as calm and nice as I could be she would just get angrier. It was like I was talking to a child that there was nothing you could say or do.

She did at time mention that she made a new years resolution this year to be nicer to people, be more mature, so I guess she understands she has a problem.

Our relationship ended over something very petty, and the one time I stood up to her diplomatically and ask her not to talk to me that way she went off the deep end and I left and we havent talked since.

This is frustrating

Can anyone shed some light on what this sounds like? if she is close to say over mid 30's is it even tougher to change?JayLConsumer 0

Husband's anger is driving me nuts.

by anemone999 » Fri May 27, 2011 2:11 pm

Hello all. I've posted in this forum a few times for myself, now I'm posting on behalf of my husband.
Long story short, my husband (I'll call him Q) has been out of work for about a year now (he's a carpenter) and has been drumming up odd jobs here and there, nothing real steady though. There's just no work for carpenters at the moment.
Q is angry and frustrated, and did I mention angry. He's like a caged lion.

Q has some anger issues from childhood. Dad walked out when he was 2. Mother is a very angry person and they get into arguments when they're under the same roof.

I've been paying the bills on my teacher's salary. We both won't say it but it really, really sucks being as broke as we are. There's things we really need and we just don't have the money.
We also have a 4 year old daughter.

A few months ago Q and I got into a raging argument about how I "don't do $#%

intrudction and traffic anger

by ycinsha » Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:43 pm

hi i am a guy early 20's and i have anger issues only in some situations lik driving in traffic. when other cars are going sooooo slow or refuse to turn right on red or things like that it just gets my blood pressure up and i want to yell at them so mcuh.

i know it doesn't help but it's just so hard, like why can't they see that the light is green and go instead of still sitting there for a long time?

i mean i don't want to hurt anybody ever but i'm afraid if i ever wud get out of my car near one of those drivers that i would yell at them