Is this abuse or just normal problems?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-10-2004
Is this abuse or just normal problems?
3
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 1:19pm
My wife and I have been experiencing strain in our relationship since shortly after our daughter was born about 5 years ago. Over the past year we have been going to counseling and seemed to emerge from it with hope. For her, the issue seemed to be accepting me for the way I am and not expecting me to change. For me, the issue was getting in touch with my feelings and expressing them. Our counselor thought that I had a lot of stored up anger and I needed to recognize it and express it.

Anyway, one thing that we spoke of in our sessions was what I called my wife's tendency to be abusive. By this, I was referring to her tendency to shift back and forth quickly from being a loving partner, to being vicious, mean and hurtful, and then back again in the span of a minute. She did not recognize this as abuse, but preferred to call it her way of being a bitch sometimes.

Over the past few months, whenever we have gotten into heated arguments, I have tried to express my feelings of anger and I feel I have made progress. For example, my wife knew that I was very critical of our daughter's preschool for lack of supervision issues, but she felt it was a good school and wanted her to keep going there. One day my daughter told me that she was being chased by several boys on the playground who were trying to "pull down her unders and look at her privates." After our daughter went to bed that night, I spoke with my wife about my concerns. It turned out she knew about this issue but didn't want to tell me about it since I already had reservations about this school, and knew I would want to pull her out. I expressed my anger to her for keeping this from me, at which time she accused me of only being a part-time parent to my children.

This remarked made me extremely mad. I told her how I work very hard each day at a job I do not like so that she could stay home with the kids and we could afford the house and the things she wanted, and that she had no right to accuse me of being a part-time parent. After a brief period of time, she apologized for this remark, but what sticks with me about this encounter is how she seemed to be emotionally uninvolved in the whole conversation, when I was bordering on being out of control.

Then yesterday, after what has been a good period of openness and closeness for each other, we had another encounter. This time it was in the car with the kids. We were running late so she was frustrated. I made a remark about how I didn't think we should be leaving the house for 10 hours with food laying out in the kitchen as it would attract bugs. Then she made a remark about the direction I was driving. I told her I was going the way I thought we should go, at which point she turned to me with a very evil look on her face and yelled "knock it off". I was taken aback by her words and her tone, and told her that I was not her child and she had no right to speak to me that way, and then things became very quiet.

After about 10 minutes of silence she apologized for "making me mad", and told me that she didn't see anything wrong with what she said or the way she said it. She said it was her way of telling people who were getting "in her face" that they should be careful as she was going to say or do something that might not like. I told her this sounded like a threat, but she disagreed, and told me that the last 10 minutes would have been much easier for me if I hadn't have brought up the issue of food being left our in the kitchen.

So am I correct in telling my wife that she is being abusive, or is this just another symptom of a stressed relationship? Should we go back to counseling, even though she doesn't see this as a problem, or is this something she needs to deal with by herself and not as a couple? Or am I totally wrong her and should I just make efforts to avoid situation where she may become agitated? TIA!

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 2:40pm

Hi -


While it is completely possible that this could be construed as abuse, it could be taken many other directions as well.

CL-Blueliner4

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-10-2004
Mon, 09-20-2004 - 3:01pm
Yes, I called her preschool teacher, who assurred me that she was aware of the situation and that it was being handled. She also told me that it was more in line with "typical preschool behavior" and that I shouldn't be too concerned. At any rate, my daughter has left that preschool and is now attending kindergarten.

I like your suggestion of attending counseling alone for a while. I will see if my wife will agree to this. She has made the comment in the past that the counselor we have been seeing seems to pick on her too much and favors me, which I don't see at all, and the counselor said she thought the opposite was true.

I guess I should add that the thing that pushed us into counseling in the first place was that I became scared of the way my wife was treating our children when she became frustrated. Our daughter was being a little pesky one evening and pulling on her shirt, and so my wife turned around and threw a cup of cold water in her face. We had talked about counseling before that, but when this happened I knew we needed some outside help.


iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-1999
Tue, 09-21-2004 - 12:48am

If you have a library nearby, maybe you should go look at the book "The Verbally Abusive Relationship"

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Paula = 43; Mike = 38; Tubal reversal 12/4/08, one tube reparied; Healthy baby girl born 2/16/10; PG again, EDD 3/18/11!