My fiancé became enraged with me tonight because I ran late with his daughter and it's a school night. He said I'm worthless and he does not trust me with his daughter. I was running about 20 minutes late. We got in a nasty text war then he got in my face , took my glasses off threw them on the ground and pushed me. We have been together for over 5 years and although he can be verbally nasty he has not used physical violence. Im so upset I'm numb and need an unbiased opinion

You need to get away from him now. His violence will only escalate. Do you have somewhere safe to go?

When a man pushes a woman, it's just a matter of time until he does it again, or worse. The fact that he's always been verbally abusive should have been a wakeup call 5 years ago, but it's too late to go back in time. You can look to your future, and I don't see a future with a man like this.

Well, my opinion is that he has a volitile temper and does not have self control. He has been verbally abusive in the past and now it is escalating to a disrespect for your belongings and physical violence to you. Taking your glasses off and throwing them is more than just throwing something of yours - I mean, he's taking something you need, off your FACE, and trying to break it - or at least showing zero regard for it.

I think you should leave if you are in the same home with him and do so immediately. Have a man pick you up - your father, brother, a male friend. Do not tell him you are leaving until your ride gets there. Go back later with the police to get your stuff. End the engagement and end the relationship.

It is hard to leave someone you love but you cannot marry someone who is dangerous. You cannot have your future children withness this type of behavior, and cannot live on eggshells wondering when he will erupt next, and what imagined reason he will be mad at you.

Leaving him is not over-reacting at all. Staying is foolish and self-destructive. He will promise to change. Hope he's right so that next time he has a girlfriend, he'll know how to behave. If you stick around though, he won't change. It will be good for a while, then he'll start being abusive again. Next time he might punch out your teeth, or shove you through a window, or push you down the steps, or break something that means a lot to you. And it will always be your fault.

How does he treat his daughter?

How does he treat his daughter?
Good question

Honestly? If you were my good friend and you were married for years and he so much as touched you maliciously in a way you did not want, I'd grab you and hide you from him until he comes back to his sense that that sort of behavior is NOT okay.

People can change, people can learn right from wrong. Your duty is to never allow him the satisfaction of thinking violence is an acceptable method of getting points across. You get to a friend's house, someone whose house he doesn't know, and you only talk to him on the phone, or with a third party within the area if he wants to say something. Make sure help is within reach if it turns out he's ever thought about laying hands on you.

He sometimes gets overly angry at his daughter but never touches her. He said I was being abusive to her because I didn't have her home in enough time for her normal activities and because I asked her not to call him while out because we were only slightly late and I knew he would erupt. We also argued in front of her last night which I feel is the biggest wrong to her.

My thought right now is regardless the physical piece is way too far... I keep thinking maybe I was so wrong somehow it was OK but also it is not healthy to be thinking this way

Oh helllllll no. Unbiased opinion? No you don't. Please have more self worth than to stay with someone that has put and WILL PUT his hands on you. If he is unwilling to take anger management classes for you and for his daughter, then he isn't worth it. Move on. Never let someone touch you that way and accept it.

Pushing you and throwing your glasses is abuse, I am sorry you probably don't want to hear this but you need to get you and your daughter away now, before it gets worse, once they lay their hands on you, even if its pushing he's testing your strength and his power, making insults because you were late with your daughter is so out of order, I wouldn't of took that especially if your daughter heard him putting you down, what she will learn is that its OK for men to push women around and she will get a abusive relationship.

He has not used physical violence before because this type of behavior escalates over time - he's just getting started with physical violence now and it will likely only get worse. You need to leave him. 20 minutes late is a very small problem and if he reacts so badly to something like that, wait until you're married and you have a major problem. This man is a child who throws violent fits when he hasn't been able to control things. That is not a man that you want to marry. If he's treating his daughter the same way, you should inform the mother and call CPS right away. Leave him, leave him, leave him.

As everyone else has stated above, you need to leave this abusive relationship before it escalates into something deadly. It's not just the physical abuse he has subjected you to. It's the mental, verbal and emotional abuse as well.

To help you see past your current situation, ask yourself what would your life be like if you were to marry this person and have his kids? Would you want to excessively worry if he's going to hit your child, or that he will hurt you and you won't be able to protect your family from him? Would you want your kids to grow up knowing their father is an abuser and you are his victim? If kids continually see or are subject to abuse, they may always live in fear or worse--repeat the same behaviour as the person who is physically abusing their mother.

Don't be a victim! Stand up for yourself in the relationship and prevent this type of scenario from occurring in your immediate future. He is not a fiancé you should be proud of.

Also, his anger towards you is not justifiable. Obviously he has some deep-rooted issues that haven't been resolved and thus he is using you as his personal punch bag to vent all the personal baggage he is facing. Really, this is not your problem unless you continue to stay with him.

Don't start accepting his excuses and thinking of why it might be your fault that he was so abusive.

I want to share something with you. I was in a marriage with a man who I thought treated me very well. I did not recognize that he was actually very controlling and was emotionally abusive. He did such a number on me that I thought anything that went wrong in our relationship was my fault. I once found out he was running ads for sexual partners in a local newspaper. When I confronted him, he blamed it on being stressed and his stress, of course, was my fault. I was raising our small son and working two part-time jobs, doing most of the housekeeping and lawn work and we were also doing major rennovations on our house. By the time he was done convincing me that his infidelity was "my fault" he had posted a chore chart on the refrigerator for me (again, I was already cleaning the house by myself, raising a toddler with little help from him and working two part-time jobs). He also put me on a budget. When I was out of the marriage for quite a while, I looked back on this incident and saw it for what it was - outrageous. He abused me by cheating on me. He abused me by blaming it on me. He abused me by deriding my considerable contribution to the chores, most of which I did regularly and without his help at all. He abused me by acting like I, who made a lot of money but only spent on essentials for our household, was financially irresponsible. This man did a lot of damage to my psychological well-being and never raised his voice, never broke anything, never threatened me and never raised a hand to me.

I recognize my own thinking in you, as you wonder whether he was justified in being abusive to you. No. Nobody is ever justified in being abusive. Even if you were abusive to him, it will remain inappropriate for him to be abusive back. There is never an excuse for being abusive - never. And abusive is the only word for it.

You're already in a situation where you can do nothing right. If you had called, he would have been enraged. Because you didn't, he was still enraged. You cannot make it through life never being late, never making a mistake, saying the wrong thing, getting in an accident with the car, making a bad parenting decision, fixing a dinner he doesn't like or whatever else he will actively look for to harass and degrade you over.

You cannot fix this because abuse is caused 100% by the abuser. If you fix one thing he doesn't like, he'll say it took you too long and you only fixed it because he made you. Then he'll find something else about you he doesn't like. It will never end, for the rest of your life.

He is escalating his behavior and you need to leave before he hurts or kills you. You should get a restraining order and report the incident that occurred. Do NOT drop the charges under any circumstances.

^^^ Excellent post.

I have to add... once that threshold of touching you that way has been crossed, it will become easier for him to do it again and it will get worse each time it happens.

My one sister went through abuse. It started as her just getting the silent treatment. Then it went to him yelling at her. The next step became pushing and shoving. Then it turned to slapping... Punching... even biting. He finally broke the toilet bowl with her head. Yes, you read that right. He smashed her head into the toilet bowl so hard, that it broke.

This is an abusive pattern. This guy is already controlling you. Look at what you wrote:


i asked her not to call him while out because we were only slightly late and i knew he would erupt.

You were worried that he would explode simply from a phone call telling him that you would be late. What kind of man freaks out over something like that? An abusive, controlling man.

You should not even be here asking, you leave him period, no talking no discussion.

Running late is not even a reason to raise your voice, yet alone do this,
It sounds that over these years he has slowly conditioned you to accept abuse and even try to justify it as your own fault.

Yes, Fr. Chuck - you hit the nail on the head. These guys (or women can be this way too) work slowly to erode their partner's self-esteem, which sets the partner up to feel responsible for being abused. This guy has been working at her for quite a while, I'm sure.

And of course, there's "But I LOVE him!" And "If I love him enough, he will change."

And of course, there's "But I LOVE him!" And "If I love him enough, he will change."
Unfortunately

Yeah don't fall for that. Love will make you stay but if you're strong, then a lifetime of hell will make you leave. Make the right call to ensure a bright future!

I was married to an abusive man. I'm a pretty strong woman. I heard, "But you're the one who made me get mad" so many times I started to believe him.

You've been assaulted once. That's enough. Nothing will change him except his intent to change.