The Excuse for Abusing Your Wife

It was 2:30 am. I was so tired. I put our four little children to bed earlier, and after taking care of everything that needed to be done, I was finally in bed with my husband. My oldest was 7 and my youngest child was only 2 1/2 weeks old. I was crying, I told him what he demanded hurt and I felt demeaned. I told him the baby was going to wake soon, and I would need to nurse her, and I hadn't slept yet. He demanded. While the lights were off, I had tears in my eyes I kept drying. I knew I couldn't appear weak to him. Any weakness was an excuse for anger. The degradation I felt was so complete my heart ripped inside. I fought an overwhelming desire to die. I finally told him I couldn't do it anymore. I shouldn't have to put up with a wife who complains about pain or feeling demeaned during sex. He said angrily. Did he understand how much he was hurting me, body and soul? The events leading up to my child's birth, and after, with two deaths in the family, and everything my husband had done, left me emotionally and spiritually destroyed. I was scared and confused. Over the last few months my husband had become suddenly crueler and angry for reasons I couldn't begin to understand. He kept saying I was controlling him. I never told him what to do. I accepted the choices he made for our family. If I was just really kind and loving during this traumatic time, he would come back to his senses. I just had to put up with and forgive his cruelties during this period. It was going to pass, and the good husband I once new would come back. And our family was going to be okay. My children needed him as a father. You can't raise good children without a good father. He was going to look back on all of this with sorrow and remorse. His state of mind was temporary. He was going to get better. I just had to endure. But when he said those words, I shouldn't have to put up with a wife who complains about pain or feeling demeaned during sex. I suddenly realized, all those times he hurt me during intimacy, he knew. It wasn't accidental, he didn't just forget that that same thing hurt. He didn't care. He took pleasure while knowingly inflicting pain. I can't say what happened next. Later, hen he was done, we laid there as he explained to me what he likes and doesn't like. He grabbed different parts of my body, and told me how he wanted them shaped by my working out. He told me exactly how long he wanted my private hair. He told me he deserved a prettier wife. I needed a body like Jamie Lee Curtis and a butt like Jennifer Lopez. He lectured me until the baby woke, I got up, got her out of bed, took her too the living room and nursed her, bewildered. Every night for years, I remembered that night. He's never said he's sorry. Even when I confronted him years later. Over those last few months, he kept talking and obsessing about me controlling him. He said I was only kind to him to control him. He related many of the kind things I had done through our marriage and explained to me that he knew I just did them to control him. He told me that our last two pregnancies were just to control him. The first of the two, we decided together, he took a year off of school, and got a job with insurance so we could have the child. The second of the two, I told him if we got pregnant, our child would be disabled due to the medication I used that month. He didn't listen, he used force. And I forgave him, overwhelmed by the possible consequences. Then he was angry about those last two pregnancies. Why had my husband, my eternal companion, the father of my children, become so cruel over the last few years of our marriage? He would ignore me when I told him he was hurting me. He would hold my wrists when I tried to push him away from doing something I wasn't comfortable with. Until I finally accepted that I had no say. I accepted that for now, I would have to feel pain. How could a man who goes to church every Sunday, and reads the Bible justify this. I thought he loved me. I thought he was just going through a difficult time. Since kindness provoked him as a tool of manipulation, and I was determined to prove my love by kindness, the marriage didn't end well. For years his behavior confused me. He never expressed the slightest remorse. He stood before me with confidence so many times. How is that possible. Years later I read about the Hutu/Tutsi and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. In Bosnia the Serbian's were taught that the Croatians and the Muslims were using every means necessary to subjugate and control them. The Serbian army used rape as a major weapon to punish the other two populations for their actions. In Rwanda, the Hutu's were told the Tutsi women were using there feminine abilities to seduce, control, manipulate and pollute the Hutu population. The Hutu's targeted and slaughtered the women. In a marriage, once a man becomes convinced his wife is using intimacy to control him, his whole nature changes. Intimacy in no longer an act of love and bonding. It's about control, and a place where a man can punish a woman for trying to control him. See the standard Rhetoric of Hate The woman doesn't have to actually be controlling the man, he just needs to believe it. It's very easy to twist reality to convince a man his innocent wife is trying to control him. The Savior taught that we all have control over ourselves. If all you have is a mite, you still have the self control to decide to offer it up to the Lord. If someone is cruel, we can exercise ultimate self control by reciprocating with sincere kindness. But once someone becomes convinced that kindness and Christlike values are used only to control and manipulate others, all actions provoke them. Christ was crucified by those who believed all his kind service, healings, teachings, were just manipulations to take away their power and control of the people. The righteous assert self control and agency by unearned kindness. The cruel assert their power by cruelty and aggression.