JustPearlyThings - November 17, 2023


Modern Admits To Abusing Her Husband


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

207.10246

Word Count

1,526

Sentence Count

115

Misogynist Sentences

12

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 You know, and this increase in violence I have seen from both men and women in my lifetime.
00:00:05.660 Growing up, I really did not see this violence every, you know, it was kind of something that
00:00:11.240 happened. Like, I'm from Chicago. I lived in the suburb. And all of the violent stuff would just
00:00:16.020 happen in the city. Like, we would know, okay, there's one part of the city, all the crazy stuff
00:00:20.860 happens in. We're in the suburbs. We're kind of avoiding that. But more and more, I see the
00:00:26.600 violence seeping out into the suburbs and happening in more places that I know, and also happening in
00:00:33.240 more relationships. You know, we've talked a lot about how I believe that women are more violent
00:00:37.320 than men. And I saw an article recently of a woman talking about how she used to hit her husband.
00:00:42.980 Let's pull it up. I used to hit my husband. I felt scared and ashamed of what I'd done. I apologized
00:00:50.220 and thought it was a one-off, but it was a pattern that would carry us on for the next 10 years.
00:00:55.740 So I wanted to read this article. A lot of times we act like female violence is rare and not common.
00:01:02.860 But through interviewing thousands of people, I actually couldn't believe how common it was
00:01:07.760 for men to be in abusive relationships. It actually blew my mind. The amount of men
00:01:13.420 that I have met that have camera rolls on their phone dedicated to protecting themselves from the
00:01:18.720 women. They never want to be accused of abuse, so they make sure they keep videos of what the
00:01:23.340 chick is doing. I was also shocked and surprised by the amount of men that have told me they've been
00:01:29.280 hit by their partners. I've even had a guy say that a girl tried to hit him with a car. I've heard women
00:01:35.740 laugh about that on podcasts. And there is an article by Florence Terry talking about how she used to hit
00:01:42.460 her husband. And I wanted to read it to you guys to give really a little more insight from the female
00:01:48.020 point of view of an abusive woman because it's never talked about. It's always the abuse of men.
00:01:53.040 It is never the abuse of women. Experience. I used to hit my husband. The first time I struck him was
00:01:58.120 during an argument over money. He decided to pay off a loan without telling me and we'd gone overdrawn.
00:02:03.420 I was worried and tried to discuss it with him, at which point he left the room. I felt we hadn't
00:02:08.280 talked it through properly and followed him. The next minute I was hitting him around the head. I remember
00:02:13.700 losing control of my limbs lashing out. Afterwards, he was upset and I cried. I felt scared and ashamed
00:02:19.440 of what I'd done. I apologized and thought it was a one-off, but the pattern carried on for 10 years.
00:02:24.380 I met my husband through mutual friends at Durham University. I was 19 and he was five years older,
00:02:29.760 more worldly and mature. He was less serious too and made me laugh. We were married five years later.
00:02:35.520 He had a job in IT and by then I had started working as a divorce lawyer. The early days of our marriage
00:02:40.780 were steady, but as the stress of my job and responsibilities grew, I took it out on him.
00:02:45.380 After the first time it happened again, about 18 months later, I felt a surge of rage I couldn't
00:02:50.320 control. My anger would escalate during arguments over household chores or my husband coming to bed late.
00:02:56.740 I remember feeling I was out of my body watching myself and telling myself to stop, but I couldn't.
00:03:02.120 I would hit him hard, hitting to hurt. One time I picked up a table and crashed it down so hard on the
00:03:07.640 ground. I left fight marks on his arms a couple of times. It was similar to the way siblings fight,
00:03:12.520 yet he never struck back. He'd hold up his hands to shield himself, which made me feel even worse.
00:03:17.980 I know my husband felt emotionally hurt at times. It was upsetting for him to think the person he
00:03:22.860 loved wanted to hurt him, but he never threatened to leave me. He felt there was more to me than my
00:03:27.380 behavior and that we still had a strong marriage. I'm a petite woman, a little over eight stone,
00:03:32.620 and my husband is a big man. Yet he said he didn't feel emasculated and that I never physically
00:03:37.440 hurt him. While I exploded, he remained calm and I was thankful, but I was also frustrated that he
00:03:42.500 wasn't communicating fully with me. What is there to communicate? Okay, sorry guys. What is there to
00:03:51.900 communicate? So she's beating him and she's frustrated that he wasn't communicating. All right. All right.
00:03:58.460 Sorry. I was using violence to get a reaction. I was verbally aggressive too. I'd make demanding
00:04:03.740 comments, sarcastic and personal attack. All things that erode love, I'd blame him preaching,
00:04:09.200 criticize. I couldn't understand why I wanted to be so aggressive to someone I love. I lacked
00:04:13.680 self-awareness. I now realize the anger I felt was to do with my stress and low self-esteem. I was
00:04:19.340 packing my life too tightly, working long hours a day as a lawyer, volunteering the citizens and vice
00:04:25.260 brew and doing soup runs for the homeless. I had what I felt was a privileged upbringing. My family
00:04:30.800 was middle-class and I went to private schools. I felt I had an obligation to repay this to society.
00:04:35.900 I thought I should be superhuman and I felt my husband should be too. To other people, I seemed
00:04:40.140 calm and accommodating, a kind of peacemaker. But inside, I was pent up and deeply ashamed of myself.
00:04:46.540 And I wanted to point this out too, because you never know what happens with women behind closed
00:04:51.620 doors. Many women in public are perfectly pleasant. Many women to everybody else is a nice
00:04:58.880 person, but behind closed doors, you have no idea how they treat their husband. And this is why a lot
00:05:04.040 of men are afraid of marriage because women switch up. And she admitted that she did. And if she's
00:05:10.100 admitting this, guys, how many people has this happened to? Eventually, I accepted something had
00:05:15.240 to change. I'd heard about domestic violence groups, but only for men. I felt my behavior carried an
00:05:20.300 added stigma for women. Women weren't expected to be violent, especially high-powered working women
00:05:25.320 who volunteered for charities. Then I found an anger management course on the internet. It was
00:05:29.540 nerve-wracking at first, and I knew I'd have to face up to the aspects of my life I'd prefer to
00:05:34.040 overlook. Yet, the course was a turning point, and by the time it had finished, I felt confident I
00:05:38.540 could control myself. Then, two years later, I hit my husband again. I had become complacent, assumed that
00:05:43.840 I'd changed. When I slapped his face for the last time, I was forced to confront the situation.
00:05:48.220 This time, I told my family and my friends what had been happening, that they didn't criticize or
00:05:52.580 judge was a huge help. Soon, after I decided to go part-time as a lawyer and a mediator, I now run
00:05:57.600 a course on how to help people deal with anger and conflict. My husband and I are still together.
00:06:02.500 I'm careful not to choose language that is aggressive. If I ever feel angry and feel my
00:06:06.720 heart beat quicken, I leave the room, but that is rare. I wouldn't claim our marriage is now perfect,
00:06:10.780 but it's pretty good. A caring and gentle relationship, which feels like an achievement for me.
00:06:15.200 What if we looked at male abuse like that? You know, she talked about how this was a terrible
00:06:21.240 thing that she wanted to overcome, and yet she's still married. And, you know, I think this story
00:06:26.520 is important because a lot of people will say that women are not violent. A lot of people will say that
00:06:32.040 women are not abusive. But in my experience, women are more abusive than men. They are more violent
00:06:36.920 than men. And oftentimes, when it comes to abusive relationships, they are much more likely to hit
00:06:43.440 the husband than the husband is to hit the wife. This is not uncommon. I've heard stories like this
00:06:48.140 so many times. And the issue is, really, we tell women that being crazy is a good thing. Oh, we even
00:06:56.520 have phrases like, I went crazy. How is going crazy socially acceptable in society? It's not. It should
00:07:02.820 not be. And when these stories like that, it kind of begs the question, if this is one woman that this
00:07:08.560 has happened to, how many women are there that are abusing their husband and their husbands are just
00:07:13.440 sticking it out because they love their wives? Men are much more likely to work through conflict
00:07:18.220 than women are. Women throw in the towel. Men tend to try to work it out.