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Thursday, October 25, 2007 12:00 AM

What's so funny about abusive girlfriends?

News about women's role in domestic violence inspires comedy, as well as cries in defense of men.

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  • Friday, October 26, 2007 03:11 PM

    I now realize that I was an abused wife.

    According to the criteria that the study gave I was abused. Three incidents illustrate this point.

    Earlier in my marriage, my spouse came home drunk one evening. He begged me to please get him up in the morning in order to get to work on time no matter what I had to do. I told him I was setting the alarm clock for him (he was too blind drunk to set it) and that I would do my best to see he got up. Morning came. The alarm went off but he simply turned it off and stayed in bed. "Get up," I said and shook him. He pushed my hands off his shoulders and mumbled. I tried again. More mumbling. However, I knew he was very ticklish on his feet, so I pulled back the covers and began to tickle his feet. That is when he sent the alarm clock whizzing past my head. It it had hit me, it would have killed me.

    Then he got out of bed and threw up. While he was shaving, I gave him this lecture: "I grew up in a violent home. You grew up in a drunken home. You can get as drunk as you like but I am not becoming your codependant. Get your own ass out of bed from now on. If you become a drunk, I will leave you. If you ever throw anything dangerous at me again or physically hurt me, then just remember this, I come from a violent home. I will not put up with abuse. Abuse me at your own risk."

    At that time and with the way that I thought, if he had ever been truly abusive after that, I might have retaliated. He knew that he had better not.

    Actually, I don't recommend this much. I should have left him. My life would have been improved it I had.

    Now, I would like all the guys who are talking about equality in this thread -- just to satisfy my curiosity -- to tell me what they would have done if they were the one charged with waking the drunk and the drunk was their SO.

    (The second incident involves exuberantly punching my arm when the Cowboys made and touch down and the third pushing me once. With the second, I just stopped watching football with him, and with the pushing, which was deliberate and angry, I asked him if he knew why a gun is called a equalizer.)

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