Nope... that would be a very long post. I have NEVER had the intent or desire to hurt my wife physically. The "door incident" was not an instance of me trying to hurt her. I felt very bad about it afterwards, and still do. Unintended consequences are still consequences, of which I am responsible for.

It's not that I wouldn't want to get assistance from Dr Harley, I do. But currently my W doesn't want to speak with him, period. If she comes to the point where she wants to "re-engage" in trying to reconcile, and I am still wanting to as well, everything will be on the table from my perspective. I would welcome Dr Harley's input for sure. I am not trying to hide or sugar coat any of my behavior.

I still say that I am not physically abusive. Numerous times during our marraige during arguements, W would push me, etc... and dare me to hit her. I never did, never have, never will.

I yell. I get nasty mean when I yell. It has to stop, I know this. I need to learn how to communicate like a mature adult. But I do not physically assault anyone.

I believe you.

Pepper,

I would say thanks, but my mean verbal habits have been pretty bad. They are enough to make me embarrassed about my behavior in general.

Regardless, I will continue to work on "me". I hope my W is the benefactor of that work, just as at this time I still hope to be the benefactor of her work on herself.

Only time will tell if the marriage survives. But I am confident that I will change for the better regardless of the outcome of my marriage. Heck, my marriage is basically over right now, but I continue to stay committed to working on my issues.

The door incident is physical abuse.

Yes, I know you want to define physical abuse in such a way that doesn't include that incident. But your definition of physical abuse is irrelevant to what you want to accomplish. What is relevant is the effect your behavior has on your wife, and any expert in dealing with such scenarios would classify that incident as physical abuse because of the effects it has on your wife.

Ok, so you have a reason for not telling Dr. Harley some relevant information for now. If you're going to post his advice to you like you did here, you really should be honest enough to include the info that he was working off incomplete information, that you hadn't told him a critical part of the problem.

What about the contract idea I mentioned above? Why not offer that idea to your wife?

TD...

After the description of thie door incident and your attempt to mince words about whether it is abusive or not, I'm beginning to see MOS's point about you not wanting to acknowledge the problem.

Early during my treatment for depression, I related an incident to my therapist about throwing a TV into the backyard because I was angry. He told me that was abusive to my family. I wanted to argue y saying exactly what you are saying..."But I would never hurt them!" My therapist told me that if it happened so much as ONE more time, that he would advise me to separate from my family for THEIR safety.

THAT hit home with me. I have never since punched a wall or thrown an object.

But here's the rub...you are showing them out of control behavior. How do THEY know it won't be them next time? Your actions speak far louder than your words.

As MOS suggests...make the deal. If you EVER behave badly again, then your wife is free to go...and probably should. If you don't think you can do this, then I'd recommend you separate from them until you can control yourself fully.

While you may not consider yourself "physically abusive", you are violent and lack self control. You have already injured your wife because of it.

Your family is not safe around you. Do what must be done to protect them from you. You cannot wait until you get "better" to do it.

Low

Tired Dad --

My H kicked in furniture, put a hole in a door, broke a windshield, etc. before he threw ONE punch and broke my ulna (one of the bones in the forearm) into seven pieces. Physical abuse of things is just training for physical abuse of people.

Even if your W is not willing to talk with Dr. Harley, you could ask his advice about how to proceed. She has three young children. You are not replaceable. What would be best for her and those children would be if you went through the MB program and learned how to negotiate to win-win agreements.

And look at her post:
"Last week T_D came over, got upset, and broke a crystal bowl that was on the coffee table. That is when the counselor told me to file for divorce. Only after no signs of change in T_D's behavior and continued violent outburts did she say this. She was not looking for an "easy" way to solve my problem.
<p> I am in no way wanting to come on here and "bash" my H. I know he is in his own horrible pain due to what I did, and he is entitled to anger, grief, and sadness. I care about him deeply, and do not want to cause him any more pain. I only wanted to clear up the sitch a bit because the impression that my counselor is just telling me to file for divorce as an easy way out is just not correct. I hardly call divorce an "easy way out," no matter what the circumstance. She feels that at this point, it is the safest choice for me, and the kids, so they hopefully won't have to see any more of this stuff."

Your W probably looked at that smashed crystal bowl and considered what would happen to her three children if she ended up in a graveyard and you ended up in jail. Now you are lamenting on this site how your W has left you, how she had an A, how she won't speak with Dr. Harley...

AND you are not owning up to the fact that she has very good reason to fear for her safety and the safety of her children.

First step to take: own up on the private forum to the behaviors that led to the divorce filing. It was not her inability to get over an affair. It was her seeing a crystal bowl smashed by you in her presence.

Cherishing

PS My H still doesn't get the hang of win-win negotiating, but he has not hit me since he threw me down on my cast March 22, 2002. It is possible to get over being physically abusive. The first step is to take 100% responsibility for it.

This is how his wife describes the event:


and this ....


He is really making an effort here to change ... and I, for one, support his efforts.

Please note, his wife was also physically violent. And he did not escalate when she became violent, he stopped.

I went to one domestic violence meeting at a women's shelter and saw all these women complaining about the men, as if they didn't have anything in common.

Women who stay in homes with domestic violence believe in win-lose agreements. This woman certainly made a decision to have an affair without having her husband's best interest in mind. The root cause of an affair is similar to that of abuse -- it is lack of care for the spouse.

Whether she "smacked" him or not, he's bigger than she is and can kill her. It's easier that I realized. I have a cracked skull.

Cherishing

Just as a point of clarification, I happen to know that this did NOT happen in her presence. And her conclusion that that Damage_Inc smashed the crystal bowl in anger is circumstantial and, I believe, wrong.

Exactly.

Damage_Inc has, so far as I know, never hit BreakingThread. I don't think you can find where she claims he has, either.

No one is excusing her behavior, Pep. And I appaud his efforts to change as well...but MOS and Cherished have a point. Male on female DV is MUCH more likely to result in serious injury or death.

He cannot afford even ONE more incident. He has to decide TODAY that there will be NO MORE.

It would be healthy for BT to make the same committment, but she is not on this thread.

It reminds me of a parable...a cop pulss me over for rolling through a stop sign. He says "You ran that stop sign". I say "But I slowed down". He says "If I were beating you with my billy club, would you want me to slow down or would you want me to STOP?". I said "I get your point...write me the ticket"

T-D must STOP

I agree - I think that one more AO on his part will be the end of this marriage.

T-D has not refuted this. If this did happen...his W was injured as result of his violent behavior...abuse has occurred. Intent is irrelevant. It was not "accidental"

We do him no favors by downplaying the severity of this act.

I am exceptionally sympathetic...I've had to make that same decision years ago. It was sobering.

How do you know this? Cuz he emailed you that it didn't? I was only about 10 feet away when the bowl was broken. I did not see it happen as I had my back turned and was facing into the kitchen. Did he tell you that after he broke it the first time he picked up the several of the biggest of the broken pieces and threw then down on the floor again as I walked away from him because he was angry with me again? A couple small shards of that glass hit me in the back, but did not break the skin. Our kids were all in the vicinity when this was going on, not int he room, but downstairs and within earshot. I'm sure he claims to you that he kicked or bumped the table the bowl was on and that it fell onto the floor and broke. That is bunk. I have placed a similar glass bowl on the table and kicked and pushed the table as hard as I can to see if that would happen and the bowl did not budge. It did not even fall off of the table, let alone fly the 2 plus feet needed to hit the tile in front of the fireplace, which is where the original bowl landed and broke into pieces.

This is a man exposing his dark underbelly here ... and a man saying he is struggling out of years of uglyness.... and he may not be "there" yet ... but read what he says ... he is fighting to become a better man!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ he says:

I have come to the rational realization that her A is no more of a sin than my past repeated porn use.

But honestly, first and foremost I just want to end the behavior. If I can come to the point of understanding why I did it, great, but my primary concern is ending it for the present and future.

And when I think of how I used to treat her, I feel very bad and guilty. I would love to have that opportunity to do it all over again. To go back to that first night on our wedding day and start again. But I can't.

Make no mistake, I am not the victim here. I put myself in the situation I am now in.

I want my marriage to work. I feel guilty for the pain I have caused my W.

The door thing I take full responsibility for, it was a bad f**ked up situation that I did not handle well at all.

I have always had a severe lack of control when it comes to lashing out verbally.

Nope... that would be a very long post. I have NEVER had the intent or desire to hurt my wife physically. The "door incident" was not an instance of me trying to hurt her. I felt very bad about it afterwards, and still do. Unintended consequences are still consequences, of which I am responsible for.

I still say that I am not physically abusive. Numerous times during our marraige during arguements, W would push me, etc... and dare me to hit her. I never did, never have, never will.

I yell. I get nasty mean when I yell. It has to stop, I know this. I need to learn how to communicate like a mature adult. But I do not physically assault anyone.

my mean verbal habits have been pretty bad. They are enough to make me embarrassed about my behavior in general.[/quote]

OK, this thread has officially gone to [censored].

Is my behavior with the door something that I am proud of? Absolutely not. Although physical harm was not anywhere near my intent, it did occur. I understand that I cannot allow my emotions to escalate to the point that such things can occur. Why my emotions were escalated to such a level is irrevalent to the arguement about my behavior, but very revalent to the "reconciliation" efforts taking place, but I don't feel like going into that mess.

Point taken. I was wrong. My behavior was very innapropriate and cannot be tolerated.

I didn't want to argue with my W on here, but, what the heck, its not like we talk otherwise. I call bullsh!t on the crystal bowl. I was actually going in another room to be by myself and cry about a mean thing W had just said to me. As I sat down in the DARK room I bumped the coffee table hard with my leg, not out of anger but of frustration. The bowl fell off, bounced on the carpet once, then landed on the tile and broke into a couple pieces. As soon as it broke I knew I had stepped in it deep. W came out and tore in to me. I took it. After a while I picked up the bigger pieces and was going to throw them away when she came back in and said some more very mean things. I turned my hand over and let the pieces drop to the floor. I know, passive aggressive move. Her first story to the counselor about this was that I threw the picees across the room at her. No dice.
I cleaned up the mess and left, all the while with her verbally berating me.

One thing I think my W needs to be aware of is that some people on here have noticed that the only time she ever posts is to "set the record straight" about my posts. However, she has a history of doing this while being less than truthful herself.

I think I am done with this thread.

I am off to the store to buy some white tank top undershirts.........

(I know, that was a smart-as$ comment, I am working on that too).

TD

I don't know the extent of your verbal abuse or the nasty things you say...

When my H get upset or angry - his words become knives...early in recovery when we both were angry alot - my words were knives too.

I realized that when my H gets nasty with me - i don't have to be nasty back. I can walk away.

My husband calls it a case of saying things he wishes he never said or saying more than he ever meant to...his way of apologizing the next day.

I see a cycle - like my husband and I were in - one person getting hurt, hurting back, the other getting hurt, then hurting back until you are in a cycle of name calling, berating and hurt - with one person blaming the other and never realizing their contribution to the cycle.

I see abuse from both you and your wife...

So what are you going to do about - I think you are already on the right path - you are getting help, you are trying to learn to bite your tongue.

This is NOT an easy behavior to stop - and you will fail on some days - but you are taking the first steps...you have admitted that you do this and this is a problem.

I have curbed down so much of my knife tongue as I call it. Even on the bad night the other night, I said some facts that hurt my husband, but they weren't the way I used to - name calling, nagging, putting him down as I did it...My H has gotten to the point where he atleast recognizes he has done it after the fact and apologizes...(nasty few nights ago) - but atleast he is recognizing it. If you deny it or don't recognize it - you can't fix it.

Breaking Thread

I dont see your husband on here complaining about your affair, about how you hurt him, about what you do to him - I see him examining himself, complaining about some walls he is hitting with, saddened you arent willing to try the MB way...which he thinks may help and he is intitled to what he feels may help. I see a man who acknowledges his wrongs, what he has done wrong to you, and is trying to find a way to fix it - and this isn't easy - and it wont be fast.

What I see from YOU BT, though, is a woman who has NOT taken claim for HER contributions - INCLUDING her affair, and I still see you blaming your H, complaining about him - you are holding on to resentment of his treatment of you...and this will be the downfall of your recovery. You have a right to hurt, but if you expect your H to look in and change drastically - you better put that same expectation on yourself.

Start looking at what YOU need to change, and not what your H TD needs to change - I can see from his posts he KNOWS what he has to change...do you know what you need to change?

BREAKING THREAD

This is what you wrote in August this year

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[color:"green"] My H must love me an awful lot to be so kind and caring to me. I am a very lucky woman in that, and I pray that 5 years from now, our marriage will be better and stronger than it ever has been.

[/color]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and I am wondering.... how long has there been NC with OM?

so not to thread jack - BT - I am starting a thread cause I have a very real question for you...

It’s generally true that the things WS or FWS complain the most about regarding the BS is in fact what they themselves do in spades.

Something even my FWW figured out a while ago.

With prayers,