Why am I always reminded here on DU that women can be abusive just like men?

[JohnnyRingo]

38. I believe there's a double standard.

When a man attacks a woman it's a case of a big bad man wailing on a poor defenseless little girl, but when the roles are reversed, men are asked what they did to provoke her. I know because I lived it with my 1st wife over 35 years ago.

First, I'll make an admission that no woman can offer after a domestic violence incident, I did indeed provoke her ire. Though we were both unfaithful throughout our relationship, she was what a psychologist later told me was a "weapon grabber" when she felt scorned. Perhaps it was to augment her petite stature, but she would always grab an equalizer when she felt a rampage coming on.

Her favored weapon, at least in the beginning, was the old black telephone people had in those days. Though she seldom made contact, I recall many a time when that big chunk of plastic went sailing past my head and hit the wall behind me. The phone company had to come to the house so often to reinstall the phone they eventually added a 30 foot cord. The phone guy, who knew what was happening, joked with me that I better watch myself now that the cord wouldn't slow the phone's travel across the living room. It would be years before we could afford a safer Princess phone.

Another time when I arrived home late from the night shift, she came at me with a large Crescent Wrench. Swinging wildly, she managed to take a chunk out of my arm that left a scar that remains nearly 40 years later. In that case I disarmed her but she turned back to my toolbox and grabbed the claw hammer. As she raised it above her head I pushed her backward causing her to trip over the toolbox and breaking her arm. The fight was over at that point and we made the trip to the ER. Close friends who knew us both understood what had happened, but I was scorned by so many others who assumed I was the the big bad biker who injured this little 5'5" 110lb angel for no good reason.

Another time she laid me up for two weeks when she grabbed a .22 rifle from the gun rack and swung it Davy Crockett style down across my knees as I sat on the couch. Though I don't recall why I didn't see it coming, the rifle broke in half at the stock and I was on crutches for the rest of the month. Friends laughingly ribbed me with Alamo jokes for months because of that. Once when a neighbor called the police they were defusing the situation when she struck me in the back of the head right in front of him. The cop informed her that he witnessed that and could press charges... if he wanted to.

During our 17 years together there were so many more incidents that I've forgotten many. At a recent family gathering where we both were present, our oldest son brought up the story of how she sprayed me in the face with a can of Raid. He laughed as he explained how it frightened him so that he behaved himself for weeks out of fear of what she could do to him. I still don't remember that particular event, but the point is that it wasn't related as a woman on man crime, but a bit of anecdotal family history. I could go on with many more incidents, but you get the idea.

My 1st and I are good friends to this day and share 7 wonderful grandchildren. We maintain communication and do our best to keep the family together, but in our case she wasn't seen as abusive or dangerous, she just had a lot of "spirit" or "passion". No one would ever write an article in DU asking why men stay in such a volatile relationship nor would anyone claim that this is an epidemic where women grab a dangerous object to even the odds in an argument. Instead, society demands that men should avoid making the little woman so angry that she causes bodily injury.

I want to mention again that I still don't harbor any ill will toward her. These things happened in part because I provoked her with my actions and she did horrible things as well, but I never raised a hand to strike her. Through it all we still loved one another and raised three boys who are non-violent adults. Though at 62 she still harmlessly threatens our 6'5" son with an ass kicking now and then, no one considers her a domineering psychopath. Had the roles in the above narrative been reversed, she'd be a no good woman beater deserving of a lengthy prison sentence and my forgiveness considered a chronic fault. That's the double standard.

I don't expect sympathy or advice, I just don't like that men are portrayed as the root of all evil in cases of DV here. Some read like a newsletter from the Men Haters Club with provocative titles slanted toward female victims. They aren't articles exploring the damage caused by domestic violence so much as a one sided demand that men answer for the crimes they commit toward women. I understand that the bulk of these posts come from people in the HoF group, but they conveniently only tell half the story from a perspective that men are bullies and women are physically helpless against them. They obviously never met my ex.

DV is a serious social problem that deserves more than a one size fits all solution of "protecting the women" against abusive men like Ray Rice. Near here a man went home earlier this week to find his children shot to death and his wife dead with the gun next to her body. Cases like that are indeed rare, but men do not have a monopoly on violence in the home. Unfortunately, society in general considers gender as the difference between a simple marital spat and a hate crime. If a woman strikes a man in an elevator the likely response from onlookers would be "feisty one, isn't she?".