I routinely see posts from scared husbands who can't expose or do many other things for fear his wife will be "angry." They avoid making her angry at any and all costs.

Fess up, guys, you are so afraid of her anger because she is beating you up, right?

Why else would a man be so terrified of her "anger" that he would sacrifice his marriage? Many are more scared of her anger than they are of the impending DIVORCE from inaction.

Do y'all need lessons in self defense too?

I don't think men are afraid of getting physically beaten, save for a few cases.

However, emotionally beaten, or to lose in the courts, etc, often means it makes more sense to shut up and go along, rather than fight.

There is no visible upside to such a fight for most men.

And to remind you, I was a betrayed husband who exposed the affair, doing everything short of buying air time and bill boards to publicize the affair.

So I certainly wasn't afraid of the conflict.

Heck, I was even hit and slapped by my wayward ex-wife and visited the police to file a complaint against her.

There is little to be gained from such conflict in my limited experience. My former marriage ended, she is primary custodian of my child, the courts didn't care about her behavior.

So what is the point?

I got a vasectomy and will never father another child, ever!

EE, my frustration is great with men who won't defend themselves and their children for fear of making a WW angry. The TYRANT WW automatically WINS when the man gives up out of FEAR.

On the other hand, we have numerous examples of men who won primary custody of children, possession of their home and in several cases, saved their MARRIAGES when they overcame their paralyzing fear of her anger.

Mel,

There is a man getting whipped in his marriage, newly posting on the Divorce forum. He tells of how he is like a butler in his family, and when he tried to talk to his wife recently about finances, she threatened to beat him with a hockey stick.

Are you (and others) able to offer him any advice? I'm a bit stumped myself.

If I have to go over there and tell that boy how to act like a man, I am going to start charging commission.

As someone who used to be 'fearful' of wife's anger until very recently, I can say that it's not from physical fear. It simply goes against your nature as a husband. You ask 9 out of 10 husbands what they want (before seeing this site) in their marriages and they will say "I just want her to be happy". I'm not sure totally why that is, only that that was how I felt too.

I think some men just feel that it is our 'job' to please our wife. Sometimes at all costs and at the expense of our own happiness. Far too often we don't really know how to please them. We try to meet their needs and assume what is important to us is the same for them. At least before finding this site and reading HN/HN.

Is there a point where logic steps in and tells you guys that if you appease a TYRANT who is hell bent on the destruction of your family, that you may end up with a destroyed family? Surely folks can see that they are contributing to their own demise by digging the grave for their killer?

Yes.

For me it was the point when I found this site!! Then I began to understand and see things for the way they truly are. Thanks for being here.

Thanks, SOL! Glad you found this site!

Mine tried to entice me into striking her on several occasions.

Even when she was trying to have me killed.

Should I have cleaned her clock and went to jail?

I could have easily done her serious injury from rage as she wasn't over 120lbs soaking wet.

I was more afraid of what she would try to do to me in my morphine induced sleep than her taking an ineffective swipe at me.

When I got the speech from WW, I turned into a person paralyzed by fear. Men in general are fixers which tends to lead to being a paralyzed doormat when an affair occurs with their spouse.

Yep, 'cause an affair is not an easy thing to "fix". Sometimes it's simply unfixable.

I have known two abused men, that I know for sure.

One was punched and slapped, and the other was all of the above plus cut deeply with a knife.

Eventually, both gained the courage to end the relationships.

I was afraid of losing my kids and family and did a fair bit of appeasing, pre-infidelity. Once she played that card, however, it was on. Exposure, cut finances, told the kids, the works.

I should have walked away much earlier. Thank God for her cheating.

I think we need lessons in seeing that women are not the gentler sex and do not occupy the higher ground in any way, morally.
I think men should just get their heads out of their butts.

I think the same, Zelmo.

Everyone wonders why I'm not dating...

It's because most of the men in my area are like this, they are "trained."

The women are the bosses.

It's turning into an epidemic.

Wow I was afraid of my wife getting angry. I would argue with her about dissapearing for days and her drinking. When I exposed the bullcrap and called her on the lies she would just drink more.

When I left her for a couple years early on in our relationship she had to straighten out but she still got angry and there was allways a chance she would drink again if I didn't let her have her way.

After we got back together and 11 years or so later..

It only takes a one lie and a person who wont admit it to ruin trust in a relationship. I was torn for years between thinking she needed to take part in the financial end of our marriage and thinking I was to blame for our money problems. I worked like two hard jobs for years and she stayed at home or took off spending money foolishly.

I was told that she would take the children and ussually at the times she was really off her rocker .. example..

11 yrs later..

One time when she had her alcoholic Mom and sister at the house she was drinking and so weren't they. I talked about how I needed the alcohol out of the house and when things got out of hand i insisted. I told her that if it wasn't stopped I would call the authoritys. My wife promptly threw a plate of potatoe salad in my face. I pushed her and then got ahold of myself. I went off to work and called during the day to see if things were calmed down. No real response but I was calm. When i got home that night the state police were there. She had gone down to the local courthouse and got a restraining order on me. I had to move out. My wife started spreading rumors that I was abusive, controlling, and I even had her half-brother come over and threaten me. I told him he was a good brother and that there was no truth to what she was saying.

Three days later when she was sobering up she called me crying that she missed me and was sorry. I brought her gatorade and nursed her back to health. It was common for this to happen when she was drinking. She never had the restraining order recinded and I was the only sober person around for my kids.

The courts ussually recognize that women are afraid and blame the man. If a women goes into court and crys and says the man scared her or said bad things to her that sounded like threats then they believe them. In my wifes case she was all-out drinking and blaming the world for it. She had no problem lieing to achieve the pity of the courts.
To tell the judge she was drinking and endangering the children would have resulted in losing the children to the state. The same state that took my wife out of her home at 5 yrs old and put her into other homes that abused her. It takes a ton of money to get your children back and I was afraid that it would be worse for my children if I caused that plus I would probably had to evict my wife from the house. My adolescent children were going though enough at that time.

Its been my experiance that the courts view problems in the home as the Males fault. If a woman does drugs it was his fault. Many times they see men introducing drugs to a woman to control them. Lets face it, many times it is a man who is abusive physically and emotionally.

If I had the financial position to take my children away I would have. I was struggling with keeping the roof over our head and could not afford the lawyers, daycare, and counselling for my kids. I was afraid for them and took the lesser of two evils. I begged her to get the restraning order taken off so I could come back home. She didn't. She used it to control me and threaten me. Eventually the stress got so great that I lost my Job. It was a cycle we never seemed to get out of.

Men getting abused? lol welcome to my nightmare. At least thru it all my children saw that I was there and would never leave them. They are all grown up and adjusting to Moms passing. They saw the good times and the bad and do not have drug problems. I plan on being around for any questions they might have but they really just need me to be strong for them. They have healthy relationships and wont ever allow themselves to get into abusive ones.
I feel sometimes that I took that abuse because it was the only way to deal with the situation without causing more damage to my family. Its taken its toll on me and I still feel bad that I didn't come up with another solution

Wow, sorting, what a different ending from my story. Here is how my story went:

Alcoholic wife, husband and 2 little boys. Wife is a SAHM. Abusive wife tormented H and threatened him often. If he objected to her abuse, she just drank more and abused him more. He lived in terror of her next outburst and tried to keep the kids quiet and keep her happy.

One night, wife gets drunk after all the family is asleep. She decides that there is no reason she can't go to a bar alone and have a drink. Men do it all the time! So she goes to the bar, sits up at the bar alone and orders a drink.

She doesn't remember anything after that, except standing in her driveway with some strange man and her H yelling out of the bedroom window "GET YOUR GD HANDS OFF MY WIFE." She doesn't remember anything afterwards. She woke up fully dressed in her children's room the next morning with her enraged H standing over her.

That was on April 27, 1985 and he said "you have a choice to make. You can go to AA and stop drinking or you can pack your bags and go to your mother's in Texas without the kids today."

She went to her first AA meeting that day and has never had a drink since.

Because of his refusal to enable a drunk, his kids were raised by a sober mother. My life has not been a bed of roses, but it has largely been a happy, productive SOBER life for the past 24 years.

Sorting,

If your wife was so abusive...how is it you came about having an affair from 1987 to 1989 when you were 30-32 years old just 3 years into your marriage?

Why weren't you afraid of her then?

Where was your concern for your children then?

Were you manic at the time?

Mr. Wondering