Let's talk about abusive relationships - Page 3

Otto You're not going to convince her, but I 100% agree with you.

I had a close friend get raped, even though I'd gone through training, it was still completely different when it happens to someone close to you. I can't imagine actually being in her shoes. I know how MAD I got at people who tried to accuse her of lying or being at fault. She may not have been the most innocent person in the world but NO ONE deserves that crap. You certainly didn't either.

Congrats again on your new life, you must feel fantastic to finally be free of that debt.

What do i need convincing about?!. I've already said i've seen people affected by abuse, but that doesn't mean i would go there?.

No one knows what i would and wouldn't put up with apart from myself.

flash is the same thats why me and blaine wont have an argument in front of her or arguments for that matter she really freaks out

People just don't realise how sensitive they are

yeah i know.

I understand both points of view between you both, but theres no right or wrong to this kind of discussion its not black and white, mental abuse isnt always before physical abuse sometimes its a case of theres no mental and its just straight to being hurt for no reason

Definitely!. The point i'm making is that i wouldn't let anyone abuse me mentally or physically no matter what, and i think i'm the one who knows myself better than anyone

When it happened to me I was young and immature and vulnerable. I was flattered and he offered me an emotional escape from the bad relationship I had with my father. But I learned from it all, and I am certainly a strong person , and have been for most of my life. No one can get away with anything - but maybe that is not all good and explains why I am twice divorced! We are formed by all sorts of things.

Jenny, reading your situation is very much the same as my former office manager and friend Andrea. Andrea's father in her words ruled her and her sisters lives with an iron fist, they also had to witness their mother being beaten up.

Andrea went into a relationship with someone who she thought would protect her from her father because he wasn't afraid of anyone, but she went from the frying pan into the fire as they say.

Two children later, she found the strength to kick him out and she's never been happier.

She's now a qualified counsellor on sexual abuse for adults due to her experience

I just want to say, before anyone gets the wrong idea, that I would not describe my father as abusive, though he expected a lot of us. He would be angry if we did not reach the high standards he set in every aspect of our lives. It was hard to make him proud of us - nothing was ever quite good enough, though we were all at or near the top of the class almost all the time. I was the most difficult of my siblings, I know, the eldest and the most rebellious. And I was bad by his mores- I got expelled from (convent) school at 15, I left the Catholic church at 16 (these two things were related), I was a university drop-out the first time I entered college, I was the first in our family ever to get divorced, and I got pregnant with my daughter before I married her father. I remember in 1995, when I was 51 and we were on our way to Buckingham Palace for me to receive an OBE from the Queen, I said to him in the car 'Finally I have done something to make you proud of me' and he was quite surprised that I felt like that.

So I guess it is not surprising that when at 17 I met someone who flattered me and seemed to take me seriously that I fell for it.

My point, people should live together before getting married. If they are not compatable they can just split up without the hassle. Once you're married and it's all wrong, it is a way larger mess. I am also of the older generation but I believe in trying before buying.

Actually, splitting up from living together can be much messier than a divorce because in the case of a non-amicable breakup the legal structure isn't there to untangle it for them.

The one and only time my Fiancee ever hit me I was not too stunned to hit him back, but I kept my own emotions in control and the most I did was shove his shoulders down and pin him to the ground. Of course he's much stronger than I am, athough I am bigger, and he managed to shove me off and bruise my arms pretty good.

I'm a lover not a fighter I guess but I have no doubt at all in my mind that my fight or flight instinct is pretty good and if it had escelated to where he'd hit me more than once I probably would have socked the right out of him.

I don't view my relationship as abusive, it was well over a year ago that this happened but to this day he still knows that if he ever raises his hand or punches me again that I'm gone because I'm not going to marry a man who is exactly like my father was.



In this type of situation though I think that I wouldn't call it abusive but more of a very very bad temper tantrum where we were fighting and I turned suddenly on him (only to yell back of course) and he swears that I only scared him and made him think that I was about to hit him which is why he reacted the way he did.

Never again though, I think I'm a strong person and I could probably forgive just about anything once but I'm no fool and I wouldn't ever let anyone beat up on me or abuse me in any way with any regularity.

I do expect that sometimes people do tend to lose their tempers and that accidents can happen, but I do like to believe that he's kind of learned a lesson... Although there have been a few incidents where i'm just not so sure sometimes...

I think this is true in all aspects of a relationship. Not just living together... For instance, people who want to save their very first KISS for marriage really really confuse me.... To me kissing is such an intimate and fundamental part of a great relationship and that first kiss tells you a lot about the other person!

I know that people have to start somewhere and learn sometime, but I really just can't imagine being tied down to someone who is bad in bed, let alone hasn't even kissed anyone.

I'm not sure what this has to do with abusive relationships

I believe that with the common-law rules these days that one would be protected and able to sort out the legal issues.

What does someone being good in bed have anything to do with an abusive relationship? You can teach someone how to please you or you can learn together, but abuse is abuse. Not having an orgasm is not abuse.

How many men (or women) actually act all sweet and perfect, doing everything for you, until you are actually hooked? Then they change suddenly because they feel they can because they "got you". Abusive relationships aren't only between married people. They can also be between people that live together.

I didn't imply that it ever was. I was just responding to and interpreting in my own way to another post that was made.

I know what abuse is, i suffered it through all of my childhood.


But if you think of it abstractly, in some ways, not having an orgasm could be a form of abuse. =O Perhaps sexual abuse by your partner? Someone who always takes and takes and never gives could be viewed as an abusive controlling person.

Ok, you have a point. I don't think that would be sexual abuse though as long as they weren't hurting you. More emotional or mental abuse. Either way, still bad, if they were doing it on purpose and not just because they didn't know how to please you. Some guys just need to be trained, and some are very evil and/or selfish, I agree...BUT, that is why man invented battery operated friends Not the same I know. (ok...this may be too much, delete this if needed).

Addressing calico2222's comment on people acting all sweet until you are actually married, I know about that all too well. My ex smacked me in the face and grabbed the front of my dress at our wedding reception. I knew right then I had made a monumental mistake. I started to bail on the whole wedding, I wish I had.

your last sentence cracked me up!

But IMO asking for sex while knowing the other person doesn't want it and won't enjoy it and guilt tripping or begging the person to have sex just in order to receive and not give pleasure- that IS abuse..
And it doesn't even take an evil person to do that, it can be an ignorant, immature or inexperienced person who doesn't try hard enough to be good in bed or actually work in order to get their partner willing and happy to give them what they want.
Some guys are unwilling to be trained, they think they are great and there is nothing that can convince them otherwise..

In states with common-law marriage, for those couples who meet the criteria, that's true. Not all states recognize common-law marriage and those states that do usually have a minimum amount of time the couple has to live together for a common-law marriage to be in effect. We've all heard of ridiculously short marriages (like just a few months)...those people, if they'd lived together for that time instead of marrying, would generally* not have had the benefit of the legal system helping them sort their lives out.

It's true that for most things they can go to court in other ways, but judges are less consistent because "living together" is not a legal status in this country, and more complicated. As an example of complication, a baby born to a married woman is generally assumed to be the husband's child, so a divorcing couple doesn't usually need to do blood tests for their kids to get child support (or to establish custody/visitation). A baby born to a just-living-together couple that decides to stop living together doesn't get to have that assumed, so it's pretty common for them to have to do a paternity test in order to get a child support order in...until which time the kid and the mom might be in some pretty tough situations. You'll have noticed that there are, for example, few or no married women on "Maury please find my babydaddy**" episodes.

*I'm sure there are some who also lived together before they were married for long enough that the combined time would have added up to the minimum in their state, but that still leaves the rest

**As a side note, and yes I realize this is off on a tangent, I find the words "babydaddy" and "babymama" sad...people are so casual about who they make kids with that it's not even in the context of enough of a relationship that they refer to each other as so much as ex-BF and ex-GF any more...it's like they're referring to each other as something analogous to being in-laws through their kid, because choosing each other for the process by which they made the kid isn't worth mentioning as what they are to each other.

That was how my ex was and I had to go along with it to keep the peace. He was also mentally and physically abusive.