Vows4Good,

I spoke with Dr. Harley about my son hitting his sisters, and he told me that it is one thing for an 8 year old boy to hit his sisters and another for a man to his hit wife. He thought a lot of anger is simple immaturity -- an unwillingness to see other people's points of view and to negotiate to mutually acceptable solutions.

Will my son model his father's past behavior when he is an adult? That is a definite concern. I hope that he sees the benefits of treating your wife well and decides to model his behavior on the behavior of his father today rather than on the bheavior of his father when he was a toddler.

Believe it or not, we get a lot of compliments on our kids -- that they are polite and considerate.

Cherished

My son is a model of good behavior...he is 24, has never hit anyone, never smoked, never drank, is responsible, was class valedictorian, owned his own computer business for several years as a teenager, and has volunteered much of his time in the community and church, has excellent credit, and has served in the Air Force. I would have been concerned if I was married to an abuser and saw my son begin to display signs of the same.

Vows4Good,

I am concerned, and so is my husband. We cannot change the past. All we can do is model the behavior going forward that we hope our children will emulate.

Surprisingly, they are very happy kids. My husband was at the laundromat the other day picking up his dry cleaning, and he came back laughing about the Cambodian who runs the shop and who is just as jolly as could be. As a teenager, he was in the "killing fields" of Cambodia, and now he is thrilled to be in America and providing a stable home for his family. Sometimes, I think our kids are so happy because the way we are today is so much better than it was a few years ago.

Cherished

I forgot, why are you here telling us about the severe beatings your husband gave you?

1. Are you here to tell us about the three years in your marriage where he was neither beating on you nor cheating on you?

2. To give beaten abused women hope that if they just wait long enough, and "leave it up to the abuser to realize he needs to change" that soon they will have a few years of peace in the marriage eventually?

3. To tell us how you hid your husband's abuse again and again and now he is working with children!!??

4. To tell us how insane you are?

I don't understand what you get out of posting or what you hope to share to others about your abused life?

What is your goal posting here?

I think the fog is really thick. It is really sad and I don't know what to say except it makes me feel ill to read all of the responses. It still sounds like, "Oh, I ran into a door, clumsy me!" to me.

Charlotte

Duh.



So, a lot of abusers are polite and considerate to everyone but the abused.

And with all due respect to Dr. Harley, I do not recall seeing anything on this site that speaks to his expertise when it comes to spousal assault.

Oh, your daughter will model it all right...and you will be lucky if she doesn't wind up with a tag on her toe, lying on a slab in a cold morgue.

You modeled that she should stay...no matter what.

MEDC, sorry to T/J, but I'm concerned about Mom2FiveKids on Recovery board. The topic is "Need Opinions" or something like that.

Very concerned about this being an abusive situation.

Thanks.

Why am I here?

I am here to promote the idea from the thread "Be still". Over the years, I have come to recognize that my commitment to marriage no matter what got me the no matter what.

Mulan -- oh, she has tried so hard and for so long. She was one of the first to post to me six years ago. What happened? She had a nervous breakdown. Her husband treated her with contempt, and she fell apart. Last year, I found a book on Leo Tolstoy's wife in a used book store, and it led to my reading William Shirer's book Love and Hatred: The Stormy Marriage of Leo and Sonya Tolstoy. What happened to Mulan is very similar to what happened to Sonya.

My credibility is zilch, obviously.

Cherished

I don't know...why are you here? I can tell you that you are lucky to be here...or anywhere for that matter. You may not be so lucky NEXT TIME. Your child may not be so lucky.

done.

Thanks TST. I hope you are well my friend.

medc,
I agree with you that I am lucky to be alive.
Cherished

I would like to hear you say you are angry at your husband for ruining your health and keeping you in fear all these years and that FINALLY you are reporting him to the police since the statute of limitations is not over, and you are going to quit lying for him and you are LEAVING HIM!

That is what I would love to hear. From you, Cherished. Anything much else is dribble drabble mouth foam. And is insane. Maybe he finally beat the spirit out of you.

**EDIT**

No wonder you cannot run or walk very well. How's the arm he twisted and broke in a million places? Are you on really heavy drugs or something that you can actually stand to be around this monster you married???

Cherished, forget being happy he took you to the fair (and for once did not abuse you or cheat on you "today")

If I were you (and I had any brains left) here is what I would do:

1. I would report your beater husband to the authorities, and everyone who will listen and take action. You have the medical records to support you and the kids witnessed all the violence too.

2. I would get a law suit going against him for the permanent damages he did to your body. Again, med records support it and the kids can be witnesses.

3. Divorce him and make him pay child support and alimony...and damages.

Yours was and is a marriage of pain and suffering and now you can get out and be free and sue him for what he did to you. The kids are old enough and you are not helpless anymore with three young kids.

Stellakat,

I had a rare form of cancer at the injury site. It is not known what causes it. The injury was in January 1998, and the diagnosis of cancer was in August 2007. The expert at the Mayo Clinic has had only had 70 cases in his career. I very much doubt that, in a court of law, my husband would be blamed for my cancer just because I can prove that it occurred at the site of an injury.

As for the broken arm, my parents did call the police just after D-day, when I told them about the affair and the broken arm. The police said he could not be prosecuted for a broken arm that had occurred five months before.

My arm is fine. It looks like my forehead is fine. The Mayo Clinic doctor has a 100% success rate in wide excision to get rid of the cancer. None of his patients have had a recurrence. The arm doctor said that I won't have arthritis in the arm. I have no pain and only some tautness when I put my arms on my hips.

It is not that I haven't wrestled with the question of whether to stay or to leave. I got close on a few occasions but then changed my mind. The amazing -- truly amazing -- part of my story is that I would stay with this guy and I'd be the one to put the effort into trying to repair the marriage. That's what's stopped. If he wants to stay married, he needs to demonstrate it.

Joyce Harley, on the radio show, once said that it sounds like I'm "pushing a wet noodle." Perfect description. I stopped. We did little to nothing. Now he is initiating. It may seem incredibly inadequate. It is. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, he can do to make up for the affair or the abuse. He is, however, doing what he can. I'm happy with how he is treating me today.

What if he reverts back to old behavior as is characteristic of abusive men? He's gone. He's gotten the message. I didn't plead with his when I told him to leave and his response was to say he'd quit his job so he wouldn't have to pay child support. I told him to leave anyway, and he apologized. It's not that I gave up as that I gave out. I'd just had enough. Look at Mulan. She had a nervous breakdown. How could she have stood being treated like that for so many years? I had had enough, and he was either going to change or he was going to be out of the house.

There is no question it is premature for me to celebrate. I should not have gotten on the board. As medc knows, there is a "cycle of violence" where things seems to go better and then they deteriorate. He's only been consistently kind since mid-July. Could his behavior deteriorate again? Yes.

I don't have it in me to go another round with him. I just don't. He's just not treating me badly anymore. That's the message I want my children to hear. If a boy treats you badly, dump him. When you marry, always be in a position to separate.

That is not the message I heard growing up where commitment to marriage meant you stayed married and worked things out. If he makes choices that are negative for me, I'm booting him out. That doesn't mean, as he put it, that I'm a Pharisee because I won't forgive him. What is means is that I have enough self-dignity to expect to be treated in a civil manner. There is a difference between forgivenss for past behavior and tolerance of current behavior. I forgive. I no longer tolerate.

I cannot justify my choices to people who are set in their opinion that abusive men do not change. One of those people is my mother, although even she seems to be softening in her view because, as she said to me the other day, "you sound happy." How about if we take a break and I report back in several months how it is going?

I do thank you for your concern.

Cherished

PS. "Why Does He Do That?" is a great book about the real cause of abusive behavior in men. It's not out of control anger. It's a strategy for getting what you want. I've read lots of books on abuse, and this is the one that rings most true for me. If anyone is dealing with abuse, try reading that book.

A strategy for getting what you want...it's manipulation/control and abuse is intolerable. Forget what you've been taught, use the common sense God gave you! And you said your mother had been bragging on your husband...how sick is that?! You tell your kids one thing but live another. It is what you LIVE that they will emulate. The police aren't prosecuting your broken arm because they do not believe you will see it through, pressing charges. They get tired of people like you that go back for more and more and waste their time.
As for child support, if your husband was ordered to pay it, he'd have to pay or be in contempt...here in Oregon they revoke your driver's license if you get so far behind. I'd post an ad in the newspaper showing the balance he owes on it if it was me...people like him care what OTHER people think, just not about their wife and kids.
It's not that I don't think people are capable of changing, but I believe they should demonstrate those changes before any consideration is given to the change, and they can do so from a safe distance, and for that matter, OUT OF MY AND MY KIDS' LIVES! You don't owe him anything. He owes it to himself to prove change to HIMSELF!

This is ludicrous and I am left to think that you misinterpreted what was said.


That may be the lesson you want them to hear...BUT, most learning comes from observing...and they have observed things that will put them at risk for the rest of their lives. YOU could teach them a VERY valuable lesson by leaving a man that has not even two months of fair treatment to his credit.

I will VERY STRONGLY suggest that YOU are not in any position to be giving others advice on how to deal with abuse and abusers. Any book that you read that adds to your justifications for staying with a horrid human being isn't worth the paper it is written on.

More than you can possibly imagine. And it is even sadder when eventually we have to cart off a body...I fear that is in Cherished future..either for her or one of her children. The cycle of abuse is horrible.

If ANY counselor, Dr. H included, suggested that she stay with this monster, they are incompetent and have no business offering advice.

At best, they should be apart and he should demonstrate over a period of a few YEARS that he has indeed changed. ONLY then would it be prudent to consider that this man has changed. This poster has her own ideas though...and not one of them are based on intellect...she wants what she wants and any advice that is contrary to that really means squat to her.

I do not see a post called "Be still"...I see one that says "DON'T be still", but no "Be still"...

medc,

When I told my parents that my husband had broken my arm, they got on a plane and traveled 1,200 miles and called the police to our home. They told them in front of me that they could not prosecute him for an injury that had occurred five months previously if I was unwilling to press charges.

The book I recommend was very helpful to me. You don't indicate that you have read it. The book recommends separation until/unless the man shows commitment to be non-abusive.

Like PM, my mother's maternal instincts came out when she learned her daughter was being abused. She isn't sick for bragging about my husband. She's relieved. She asked me to tell her if he is ever again abusive, and I have assured her that he is not. She and my Dad were visiting in June, and they are so pleased by how happy and energetic the kids are.

The bottom line is that people can change.

And Dr. Harley did not recommend my staying with him. He told me he was safe. He has had a lot of experience dealing with newly-released prisoners who were in jail for domestic assault.

Dr. Harley's entire program is based on the premise that people can change their behavior. If you cannot change your behavior, then you are not responsible for it. There's actually a philosophy that is developing that stipulates exactly that -- we are not responsible for our actions because we have no free will because our actions are a combination of genetics and environment. I do not believe it. I believe in free will.

A man who has made free will decisions that are as bad as my husband's can make different choices. He is demonstrating that ability.

I will add, however, that I would respectfully pray for him but separate for life if he had hurt one of the children. He never has. I was worried about it. In fact, I told our children that no one should ever keep a secret from a parent. One day, our middle daughter came up to me and told me Dad told her to keep a secret. The secret was he fed the kids whipped cream on spoons!

I do agree with you that an abusive man should be separated from his wife for a few years and have the opportunity to demonstrate change during that time. He woke up to the enormity of what he was doing when he broke my arm, and I did not. I was so focused on the affair that I didn't appreciate the problem of abuse. By the time I figured out that the appropriate response should have been separation, it had been a few years. Again, here I had the problem of a therapist who recommended I not separate from him. This was the same therapist who told me not to call the OW or her husband. She told me later that she thought I was so fragile emotionally that I could not have handled a separation.

Vows4Life,

The "Be still" thread hsa been bumped many times. I'll try to find it and bump it.

Cherished