Hi,

I need to talk about something that happened this morning that really bothered me.

Last night, my husband and I stayed at his parents' house because he had to go to a meeting for work this morning and his parents' house is closer to the location of the meeting. The plan was to drop me off either at work or take me to the bus station on the way to his meeting.

It didn't go without a hitch. We got up on time and got ready. Things were peaceful and happy then.

But then we couldn't find the car keys.

We looked all over the place! I was the last to have them and I knew I put them on the kitchen table, but they were not there! We looked all over the place, and my H was getting more and more upset. He blamed me for losing the keys and repeatedly said that he was going to be fired for being late. He said that I was F'n dense and other names as he slammed around the house (while his 76 year old father was trying to sleep).

We were delayed about a half hour... I finally found the keys... on the key hook!!! His dad must have thought they the keys to the Buick, not my car (they have identical key fobs), and hung them up. Not my fault, but he didn't apologize either. So we are getting ready to leave and he tells me that I have to call out to work because he would NOT go out of his way to take me to the bus station. He changed his mind, but probably only because his mom was standing by me.

I got in and he drove my car very irratically because he was upset. He went on and on about how he hates where we live and how he wants to move back near his parents. I didn't say anything about that because I knew he was ranting. But then he turned onto a side street with traffic calming (speed humps and curbed islands)... He was driving through those obstacles at at least 40mph!!! It was very scary and I pleaded with him to slow down. I could feel the car go airborne when he sped over the speed humps. I was crying then because I was scared.

So in a (in hindsight) stupid effort to make him stop, I punched his upper arm a few times. I don't even really know why, it was such an irrational an awful way of reacting. I'm really embarrassed that I did it because it probably put us in more danger than his driving and it was not an acceptable way of handling the situation.

So, now I'm upset about this whole incident. I'm horrified I reacted this way, but I'm not sure how I should have reacted to the situation. Was it a defensive reaction to the fear? I want to say yes, but that's still not an excuse.

He called me at work (yes, I did get to go to work today) to apologize... but he always does that when he behaves like that. I didn't apologize, yet, but I'm afraid that if I bring it up, he'll blow up again.

Hey, BR...I've seen you posting on MB and wanted to welcome you.

What you experienced in the car going too fast over speed bumps, would you consider it felt like he was using the car to jar, to shake, to beat you, in a sense? You weren't going to die from it...sure could feel like he was out of control...and you were under attack.

Have you contacted a battered women's shelter? They have great information...and you can research it on the web, too, so you can study and learn what constitutes abuse and what doesn't.

And you can look at your own hitting him...your permission to attack his person, too. Be open to learning more in many ways, not just as him being the problem.

You have equal power and limits, BR. You aren't out-matched or dominated. You choose to react to your fear or hold it and act to your code. Really difficult to do because fear has been given permission to make us reactive for most of our lives. As adults, we choose...to state or demonstrate. We learn that acting out or in (as we did as children) isn't healthy or reasonable. Taking action is different.

You can't go back and change this experience...you do know your H was already reactive, nearly out of control...so when you found the keys, you could have said, "I'm driving to the bus station and then we'll switch. I hear how upset you are right now. I want us to be safe when we're really reactive. I love you."

Not appeasement or manipulation...straight out protection of the marriage, your partner and yourself.

Doesn't mean what you did was wrong...you have choices...would you consider dialing 911 if he were to use the car again in this manner? Predetermine your boundary enforcements and then take those actions...not to make him anything...to make you know your own half, your power and limits...and know you can keep yourself safe, 'k?

LA

I think you have a pattern of letting him go out of bounds like this. You are thinking of apologizing to him? For what? Pounding on his arm? Give me a break! He was acting like a child, like he always seems to do from what you say, and your learned pattern is to try to appease him or at least minimize the situation (by not bringing it up, etc.).

That is the road to being abused.

Please read the book "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men" by Bancroft. Learn about his behaviors so that you can control your half of the equation. Right now, all you do is react to his outlandish childish antics. That's no way to live.

The only way it can get better is if you fix YOUR side. If you pull your support system - your enabling behavior - out from under him, he will either learn to stand up on his own, or he will fall. But it will no longer be tearing you apart, and beating you down into a submissive wreck. Please also read my thread. You'll see a lot of your situation there, in that my H overreacts, acts out, etc., and I try to make up for it. All that does is not make him own his own bad actions. Just yesterday, we went for a walk, and he made one of his typical racist comments about a Black driver who pulled in front of him; and not 10 feet behind us, was a Black woman walking with her son. So I (finally) asked him to stop doing that, but for 30 years, I've just been letting him be a jerk like that without calling him out on it. But what happens, is he burns a lot of bridges, because I enabled him by letting him think he was acting acceptably. Just to keep the peace.

What's worse, it was my enabling of his bad behavior that led to my stepmother doing something truly horrible to try to get rid of him that pretty much ruined our lives. If I had stood up to him and helped him learn how selfish and abrasive he was being early on, my stepmother wouldn't have been having to deal with his bad behavior ten years later. Not doing what's right can have far-reaching consequences.