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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I see your point, but I would phrase it differently, as in "People who hit people who are weaker than them are subhuman." As in, not fully developed human beings in the larger sense.
As a believer in equal rights for both genders, I believe in equal responsibilities to. A man shouldn't have to "take it" if a woman hits him. He should defend himself just as he would if a man was hitting him. In most cases that would be to walk away; once you're beyond their reach, they can't hit you. If they follow after you and you cannot walk away, and you cannot defuse the situation by talking, you clobber them, be they man or woman.
To AKA Smith
Yeah, I have heard a lot of stories about abusive relationships that would make your marriage look like a picnic. My parents got divorce before I was 7, and though my mother remarried for a period of 3 years during my childhood, she was always the dominant one in any relationship that I saw her in, even though she was poor. My father never remarried, and I didn't really get to know him till I was well into my teens, and his drinking kept me at arms length even then. Despite being dominant emotionally and intellectually my mother was (and is) a frail woman (though she sure got viciously angry when the police brought me home), so of course I took on the role of family protector, and with my sister that was no easy task. I hated my temporary step father, and every other man that my mother dated while I was a child, but I never saw my mother abused, or abuse someone. I only met one of my father's girlfriends, but to the best of my knowledge he never abused a woman, though when he got drunk he was not one of the most charming people to be around.
I have never seen an adult become a monster. All the monsters I met were already monsters when I came across them. But I have come across a lot of monsters, and a few of them were women. But the biggest difference I have noted regarding the victims of monsters, is that the male victims get out of the abusive relationships pretty quick, where as I see the women going back like moths to flame.
that is why women are more likely to stick around. The biological reality that caused these instinctively different reactions to evolve also explains a lot of other things about the way men and women relate to their own gender and to each other.
"According to karma theory, don't you think I might have deserved everything I got? Might I not have done some evil in a past life which I needed to repay."
No, I would believe your karma was meant to be an example of how powerful a woman could be for your ex-husband to learn from. Karma doesn't not exist in a vacuum. We are all connected, and your karma is meant to have an effect on your surroundings, and our surroundings will also have an effect on our karma. In a past life your ex-husband probably had not learned something from you that he was suppose to, so he came back to you. Lets hope he learned his lesson this time. Do you feel you learned something from him? If not, then you might have to find him again in a next life. The beauty of karma is that it continues to learn for all eternity.
"I have chatted with people who thought everything was karma. I once chatted with a guy who thought that an abused child should not be encouraged to report her abusive mother but rather should let the karma play itself out lest she incur more karma debt."
I would think it would be her daughter's karma to tell the police, so that her mother can learn from her incarceration, and not abuse in the next life.
I must say that I think that the challenges of this life are enough for me. I don't want to come back.
>> Do you feel you learned something from him? If not, then you might have to find him again in a next life. <<
I learned something about power and the lust for power. My ex was a rather undeveloped man, both emotionally and somewhat intellectually. He was emotionally stunted. Only after I divorced him did I learn something rather disturbing about his childhood. I believe that he had been extremely humiliated in his childhood. (He always said that he remembered little of his childhood.)
It will seem odd to say, but when someone hits you, you actually know what you are dealing with. Hitting is direct. There is rarely a hidden agenda to hitting except to vent anger and control the victim. As a strong woman, I would not allow my husband that outlet, which he might actually have indulged with a weaker woman.
I learned that those who will abuse power will always find an outlet. That is why I say, don't suffer abuse. Don't imagine that those who display the more subtle characteristics of an abuser are not giving you clear warning signs. Always, always leave.
People know the difference unless they have been brought up in homes so abusive that they no longer recognize up from down. A person who loses his temper and lets off a bit of steam verbally or a person who is substantially provoked is much different than one who seeks to control and/or punish by whatever means necessary.
It is really a mistake to think that a weak but furious manipulator will not find the means to punish. My ex-husband was always rather envious of me, actually competitive with me. My the time I left him I was no longer under the illusion that he loved me as he always professed. He hated me. I paid.
Recently on Oprah, a gew women admitted that they had had affairs with married men. Some were aware that the men were married and didn't care while others didn't find ouit until after they "had fallen in love" with the brute. The second part of the show starcased wives who had been cheated on. One wife admitted that she had knocked out her ex-husband's front tooth during her tirade against him. The audience, almost all female and clearly upscale, cheered and clapped.
Women have felt powerless in their stations as wives, mothers and co-supporters. Unfortunately our culture makes it "okay" for women to physically attack if they feel that they have been wronged while other women will stand and cheer her actions.
Until women confront and deal honestly with their submerged angers and frustrations against men and themselves, then women will continue to excuse their violent outbursts while villyfying men for the same actions against them. Until women are honest with themselves about why many women force their men out of their homea and into affairs while condoning and relishing their own dalliances, then divide that exists between men and women will continue to expand.
You said: "so of course I took on the role of family protector, and with my sister that was no easy task"
You are the eldest? That is no surprise. I am also an eldest. I was charged with tending to and protecting my brothers. Protection is often "the karma" of the eldest in this life.
Remember when I told you that you were protective toward women. You didn't want to think so. You are protective still. Under certain circumstances it is something you never get away from. I believe I have a rather overdeveloped sense of duty. I was protective of my clients to my own detriment. I am even protect of the dog. He is a pretty big and healthy dog. But the one time I was homeless briefly, I saw to it that he had a home though I didn't.
And my ex? I was protective of him too.
You recounting of the garbage disposal incident moved me. I once lost my temper with my daughter because she broke my VCR. It was my fault really. I had not made it clear enough to her how to put a tape in correctly and she broke it jamming one in backwards. It now occurs to me that I did not sufficiently apologize to her and I feel bad about it.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
