Richa had reached her limit. Her youngest daughter, who was 2 years old, was sick with the flu, her son who was 6 had chicken pox and her 8 year old daughter needed supplies for an art project, which she forgot to pick up. With two young children crying and an older child feeling stressed about her homework assignment, Richa wanted to run away. She had already yelled at the kids to calm down, put the oldest girl in time out, tried to organize her day to get everything done but she just couldn’t. She felt overextended, exhausted, unappreciated and fed up.
When Vivek walked in the door after work, Richa had reached her boiling point. She was so glad another adult was home to help her. Vivek, who had come to fear the look of stress on her face, walked in tepidly. He worried about that Richa might blow up at him in anger and wanted to tiptoe around her so he did not trigger an anger spell.
“I have had the worst day in the world,” Richa exclaimed. “These kids drive me crazy. I can’t stand them today.”
“Richa, let’s talk about this later,” Vivek said curtly, feeling sad that his children had to hear their mother complain about them. Richa hated when he talked like that to her. She felt unheard, unimportant and like he didn’t want to have a conversation with her.
“You don’t get to tell me when we can talk about this. You have no idea what kind of day I’ve had!” Richa raised her voice.
“I understand but let’s talk about this when we’re alone,” he tried to reason with her.
“Oh so you can look like the good parent and I’m always the bad parent?” Richa blamed Vivek for her frustration. “You’ll never be the good parent. Who’s there taking care of the kids when they’re sick? Who goes to school and drops off their lunch when you forget to pack it in their backpack? It’s me! If they need something they come to me, not you.”
Vivek became very defensive. The worst quality about his wife, in his eyes, was when she put him down as a father. He could never stand that and when it happened, he always decided to check out of the conversation. He refused to accept blame for something he never did wrong. He calmly replied, “I go to work to support this family. It’s not that I don’t want to be home with the kids. I would love to if I could. Why don’t you go take a bath or lie down and I’ll deal with dinner?”
This infuriated Richa more. She just wanted him to take some blame and accept that he was part of the problem. But he never did. On top of that, he offered such simple solutions thinking that would fix everything.
“What will a bath fix?” she yelled. “Nothing! I’ll be in there and the whole time I will hear Chirag screaming and the girls fighting and probably smelling dinner that you will burn. How is that relaxing?”
“Ok calm down,” Vivek offered. “Just take a breath.”
At this point, Richa felt Vivek was no longer trying to understand what she was going through. She felt invalidated and felt like he was trying to draw a comparison between the two of them – he was perfect and she was the messed up mother who couldn’t take care of her children.
“I don’t think I’m perfect,” Vivek said with a long sigh. “I never said that. I’m trying to help!’
“You have no idea how to help. All you do is throw around solutions that don’t even make sense and try to come off as the better parent and better spouse. You have no idea how to listen and help me feel better.” Vivek felt helpless and decided to disengage from the conversation.
“Here you go with the silent treatment,” Richa said sarcastically. “You just have to do everything your way right? You stay quiet when you feel like it. Doesn’t matter what I need!” This was the point in their arguments when she became so fed up with him that she would insult him just to get a rise out of him. He just stood there upset, stone cold and unresponsive.
“You are nothing but a workaholic who doesn’t care about your family. You remember that we got married because you loved me right? That means you’re supposed to take care of me. You’re supposed to make me happy. But you do none of that. You just waltz in here and try to fix it with two magic words but you don’t fix anything. You make things worse for all of us!” Richa yelled.
Vivek started to walk away in efforts to end the fight. Richa had lost control of her emotions and he knew that without him trying to end it, this could go on all night. Seeing him walk away, though, enraged Richa. She picked up a hot spoon from the pot and threw it as hard as she could toward Vivek’s head. With his back facing her, he didn’t see it coming and it grazed his ear and hit the wall next time, creating a small dent and a large splatter of food.
He turned to look at her, shocked, confused, and scared. Her eyes were burning with fire from rage and Vivek felt helpless. He didn’t think there was anything he could do to prevent these fights from happening. He slowly continued to walk to their bedroom and he had a fleeting thought that would build over the next few months, “Maybe this is my fault. Maybe I’m not a great husband and a great father.”
Such self-destructive thoughts are generated by the power that the abuser exerts over the man. By repeatedly telling him how he is a terrible husband and father, two things men are the most sensitive at being criticized about, he starts to internalize these messages.
Domestic abuse of all types can and does occur against men. In fact, recent statistics show that physical attacks against male partners occurs at a comparable rate as physical attacks against female partners. It goes so underreported, however, that it seems violence against a female partner occurs far more often.
The most commonly cited reasons, according to a study published by California State University, why female partners attacked their male partners were that the female partner felt her male partner : 1) was not listening to her, 2) was not being sensitive to her needs, 3) was not giving her attention.
Men stay in abusive relationships for similar reasons that women also remain with abusive partners. They may begin to believe that they are causing the situation. South Asian men and women tend to believe that being in an abusive relationship is punishment for something they did in their past life. In addition, men may believe that if they stay, they can protect their children from their abusive mother. They also worry that if they leave, his wife might keep him from seeing his children again. In addition, like women, abused men might be dependent on their wife emotionally or financially. Thinking of being alone or separated from her might create such strong anxiety that it reinforces the need to stay.
An added factor for men in abusive relationships that prevents them from leaving is the stigma attached to abuse against men. South Asian men are raised and expected to be tough, strong and more powerful than a woman. In addition, it is mistakenly believed that a woman, who is physically smaller than a man, could never hurt him. However, abuse begins emotionally and is a form of psychological control. Most South Asian men, were they to openly admit they were abused by a woman, would be laughed at and ridiculed as being a weak man.
Physical abuse can happen to anyone. Be aware of the signs of physical abuse. Being able to safely remove yourself from an abusive situation makes you strong, not weak, and a great role model for your children about how people should and should not be treated. For help on how to safely remove yourself from an abusive situation, please visit our resources page.
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