Not a bad guy...

[morph19]

During an arguement earlier this evening with my girlfriend, she hit me twice and kicked me without provocation (she claimed I had an "ass-hole" additude) and when I told her to shut up so I could speak (I'm almost never so upfront in conversations and almost always go along with anything), she got very upset and tried to throw me to the side.

Well, in this motion, I grabbed her shoulders to talk to her, but she resisted and I pushed her (not very roughly) towards the car (her back was against the side panel, not hitting any specific on the car and no, I wasn't beating her...). But in doing this, I did hurt her a bit and she says I left marks on her arms. I haven't seen her arms, since I had to go to work as did she. I love her dearly and never meant to hurt her.

I am a big guy and can cause alot of damage, but I'm a pasifist. I detest violence toawrds women. She has had her share of rough relationships with mean and they DID beat her and cause harm purposely. I do have a temper and I could stand some anger management (my old therapist said to find physical outlets like construction or wood cutting or mental outlets like my hobby computer repair and just submerage myself...focus my energies towards that instead), but in all this I'm not violent and I could never strike her with ill intentions.

Am I violent because I had that outburst? Or do things like that "just happen"? I don't plan on it happening again, but I didn't plan for the first time either. She loves me and has said so, after the event...but we haven't spoken in great detail yet.

 

[Cat Dancer]

It sounds like she was violent first. Maybe she needs anger management classes.

 

[Banned]

She might have been angry first, but I think we have a responsibility to respond charitably, regardless. Maybe you can both use anger management courses...who knows.

I can't say whether or not your anger warrants a course, but I would certainly be cognizant of this in the future, and instead of trying to "force" her to talk to you through physical means (when you probably won't have much rational conversation anyway), why not take a break - walk away from the situation and revisit it when you're both a bit calmer.

In my opinion, trying to make-up up for a fight during the fight is the worst time - tempers are flaring, people aren't thinking rationally, we say and do things that we'll regret later.

My two cents.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Sometimes, an experience like this can actually be helpful. What you learned today is that you are capable of being aggressive with a woman, however much you may despise that kind of behavior. Knowing this arms you -- now you know that you need to take steps to make sure you never allow yourself to give in to sich an impulse again.

I'm not saying that you are solely responsible for what happened, but you are responsible for your part of it. Use that knowledge for positive change.