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Pimp slaps and relationships
Dr. Frenchenstein
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So 2 weeks ago, my GF (now ex) slapped me in the face, in public, in front of my friends. It wasn't the first time it's happened, and i've told her twice before that it's not ok to do that. It was never meant to hurt me i don't think, it wasn't "hard" per se. However, i don't see the velocity of the slap as a factor. It's about as disrespectful as you can get, and really she should not be putting her hands on me like that. She was drinking at the time (honestly, i think she has a drinking problem) and doesn't remember it... or the other times she's done it, and i've told her not to. Basically the relationship is broken beyond repair, in my eyes. She is still desperately trying to get me back. I honestly believe she is sorry, but i also believe it would happen again. She keeps calling and texting saying she loves me, and we should work this out, but i don't know what to do. I talked to her the day after, gave her stuff back (unfortunately i found some more the other day...), and pretty much told her things were over. I think my exact words were: "I still love you, but i am not in love with you and I can't do this" probably a poor choice but emotions were flying. We were together for more than a year, i just don't know when enough is enough, and what to tell her to get my point across that it's over. I still need to give them rest of her stuff back to her, so i'll have to talk to her at least briefly. I do NOT want to get back together with her, but i also don't want to hurt her. I've never had a relationship where i was actually wronged by the other person, let alone hit by them. I'm kind of at a loss.
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If she did it after you told her it was not okay, especially while drunk, she's probably going to do it again.
Whether or not you hurt her, so long as your intent is not malicious, is not something you can control. Do what's right for you.
Changed a few things around. How does that look? It is never okay to slap someone, male or female. This is a touchy subject for me because my wife works at a women's shelter for domestic violence.
My advice is do not fucking talk to her. Ignore her texts. Do not see her at all. Leave her stuff with a friend. Do not fucking contact this woman.
edit: Except to say "do not contact me anymore."
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You wouldn't have needed to hurt her if she didn't hurt you first, quid pro quo. You can feel bad about it, but it's necessary. You should feel great about yourself, honestly, you did what was right, and what was good for both of you. The last thing you want is to be in an abusive relationship, this goes for both men and women. Every time you feel like you don't want to hurt her, remember being slapped and what it felt like, and how you felt, and keep that emotion as your deterrence.
You probably will get slapped again. What's worse, it'll probably escalate next time.
It should be noted that this is a touchy subject for me as well, having been through a somewhat abusive relationship myself.
Probably because he has the human capability that we call "empathy."
You have officially won the title "ceres' favorite forumer" for the day.
I've seen over the top sarcastic slaps that are playful and joking from a girl when she if feigning offense, and that can be fine because it's a play slap that makes you grin because you just scored a point in the ever ongoing game of "oh snap! BURN", but to actually slap someone as a negative response to something is totally different and completely unacceptible.
Simply leave her stuff for her with a friend or mail it to her if need be. If you can't do either of those then bring it to her and hand it to her at the door and say you have to go. Don't go inside don't stay there in the doorway and talk, hopefully she doesn't follow you to your car or make a scene in this instance. Just tell her the damage is done and it can't be repaired so she needs to move on because you are.
Too bad you can't have both. If she loves you, you're already hurting her. You can either extricate yourself from her life quickly and permanently there by minimizing the long term injury to all parties, or you can walk that tightrope of 'trying not hurt her' and winding falling back into it and hurting one or both of you anyway.
Pain is unavoidable. Her pain, your pain, both of you will hurt from this. Accept it, and don't expose yourself to more abuse by making futile attempts to avoid it.
Then let that be the last time for a month. Stop taking her calls. Block her from whatever internets you communicate on, and add her to your spam filter. In one months time, ask yourself: "Do I even want to talk to her?"
Then maybe you unblock her, or maybe you wait another month.
Why does somebody always make this point? If it was the same it wouldn't matter if you switched the genders. This is coming from a guy who would have slapped her back. Anyway I guess that's not really a relevant point in the thread, so I'll just throw my hat in with the "don't be with somebody disrespectful" camp.
Also don't worry so much about her feelings, they are her problem.
If the president had any real power, he'd be able to live wherever the fuck he wanted.
This isn't for her. No matter what side-effect it may have (a wake-up call; hurt; joy; relief; sorrow) this is about you and it's about what's best for you. That's one of those hard-to-learn-sometimes lessons about other people, especially those with whom we're intimate and share a life.
Let me tell you, as someone who has been involved in similar situations, that this probably isn't about violence or hurt feelings, really. This is about communication and provides a glimpse into how you and your now-ex girlfriend didn't communicate so well. It's okay. Last time around, for me, it took seven years to learn that myself and my partner weren't fit for each other because we had negative experiences which provided a baseline of distrust and obscured communication. I'm an alcoholic. This fact, alone, has ruined a number of relationships for me. In many cases you have to learn to let go and make peace with the fact that trying to make it work isn't the same as a relationship working. You can heal wounds, and we do it all the time. But here we're talking about a step-over-the-line disrespectful/violent behavior which is becoming a pattern. That's a problem.
You and she talked about it. Obviously it didn't make a big difference. Obviously there's still something there that hasn't sunk in with her (and you know, maybe with you too). But what I see from my comfy armchair isn't the specific incident, but the fact that the pattern of behavior that made you leave in the first place is enough of a concern for you to leave. And that you're leaving because the pattern of behavior is bad enough that you want to leave. Tuck the rose-tinted glasses aside and remember that hindsight, while 20-20 is also selective and can be skewed to the positives when we want to remember good things. I have to remind myself of this all the time, otherwise I know that I fall into the habit of selectively remembering old people, places and things and drowning out the bad in order to bask in the good, which isn't healthy when you start longing for your own fiction. In the end, it's always better in your head.
Of course she "can change" because she loves you so much, but that's her issue. If she promises you she'll change, respond with something like, "That's good, because if you do to your next boyfriend what you did to your last one, you're going to be alone for a long time."
The reason it matters if you switch the genders is because, in the vast majority of cases, a man hitting a woman is going to do serious damage. A woman hitting a man, not usually.
In either case, it's not simply about the fact that you are physically harming someone. That's part of it, but there is a lot more to it.
Dr. F, I would leave her stuff with a friend and send her one last message (text, email, phone call, whatever): "I have a few more of your things, and I've left them with So and So for you to pick up. Don't contact me again, because I'll just ignore it."
That's it. I understand you feeling bad about handling it this way, but it's best for the both of you. She needs help, and it's not your responsibility to either ensure that happens or wait it out. The relationship is too young, and you should be expending your energies surrounding yourself with people who deserve you. From what you've said, she is physically abusive and has a drinking problem. You've said yourself you are absolutely not getting back together, so if you want to minimize the emotional impact of this breakup, finalize it sooner rather than later. Break all contact. End it.
It's for the best.
All you can do is whats good for you in this situation, and you've already made big steps. You've declared it over, you've returned her things. If you don't want to see her again, then UPS it...the 20 dollars in delivery is worth every cent.
You are no longer responsible for listening to her or answering her e-mails, txts, or phone calls.
You have to get away, and by doing that, you will hurt her. Sometimes being selfish is the answer. In order to love others properly, you have to love yourself.
Be strong. As cold as it may sound, she doesn't deserve your kindness.
Which is why I utilized qualifiers like "usually."
Cut her off completely and don't look back.
There are a surprising number of women who think that physical violence against men just doesn't really count. And when I say "surprising" I mean it quite literally that I was surprised when I found out how widespread this attitude is. And just like any other bullies, they're always shocked and offended when their threat-display bluff is called. You know, like they genuinely think it's OK for them to hit you, but not for you to hit back because of ~rules~. I saw my best friend get slapped in public, right in front of me, by his fiance for the abominable crime of saying that he wanted to have pizza at my house rather than go to some other (I don't recall) fast food place. I was actually stunned. If I'd seen some guy do that, I would have defended my friend right there, right then, but there's a big amount of social conditioning involved: DONT HIT WOMEN. (Also: don't fuck with someone else's relationship.)
I don't get to see my best friend any more. She's a horrible control freak who's successfully alienated out of his life literally everyone who know him before she did. Yes I feel pretty bad about that.
Anyway wrt: the OP. You asked nicely, she kept on doing it. The respect isn't there. Deep down, at heart, she doesn't think that what she did is wrong. Sure, she's sorry that she's paying for what she did, but she basically thinks it's OK to hit you. Staying with her inevitably leads to you either becoming one of the men who make up 40% of the receipients of domestic violence or one of the men who make up 60% of the committers of domestic violence. Neither is an attractive choice in my opinion.
This is a popular myth. Female-on-male violence is more likely to result in serious injury or fatality, because female domestic violence far more frequently involves weapons. Where man will beat his girlfriend up, a woman will stab her man with a carving knife or run him over with a car.
But we're talking about slapping someone, not stabbing someone. I was commenting that it's a powerful argument to flip the genders around in the OP's case to illustrate why it's not okay.
Once again, man slaps woman; woman slaps man. Usually very different results, always just as disrespectful and wrong.
Anyway OP, this person has pretty clearly demonstrated that they can't or won't respect your desire not to be physically struck. This to me would be a basic reason to not interact with a person any longer in any capacity, nevermind a romantic relationship.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Yes, there are exceptions and some women are stronger than some men, but it's not unreasonable to say that a man slapping a woman is a far more powerful image than the reverse. Which was my entire point in defending the "what if the genders were reversed" statement.
I know you guys love to play devil's advocate about anything and everything in here, but this tangent has stemmed from a pretty normal statement, and I'm going to drop it.
As should you all.
If you want to avoid her (which is fair enough) give the box to a friend, give them her number and ask if they can sort it out for you. Don't think, I don't want to bother anyone, they're your friends, they will be happy to do this. It doesn't even need to be someone she knows.
Satans..... hints.....
She's not hounding me for her stuff (i assume because that's a way she can see me again), it's a crockpot and some serving dishes so shipping it would probably be pretty pricey. Crap i just realized my friends have another dish of hers from a party way back when. oy....
I'd say to get her stuff together and then ask a mutual acquaintance to deliver it to your ex. If you feel that there's nothing more to say, then there's no reason you need to give her the opportunity to try and change your mind.
Physical abuse is absolutely NOT something anyone should put up with, especially not to prove that you have 'balls'.
A slap that didn't even hurt, and she was drunk? If she's great when she's sober, that's something they could work on. No one's perfect. I'd rather have an exciting and fun girl who slaps me when she's drunk than someone boring and humdrum who does nothing wrong but nothing particularly amazing either.
edit: I know he told her to stop multiple times, but there's other ways. Tell her he's not going to go out with her, or that he'll grab her wrist, something like that. Only if she's really worth it, though.
Then you're a stalwart bastion of terrible, terrible ideas at best, and a [silly goose] in any case. OP, listen to every other person in this thread, and you'll be fine.
Give her stuff to a friend and ask them to take it to her, so you don't have to see her and deal with her manipulation to try to get you back.
The only way she will learn to change her behaviour is when she sees the consequences of it - something you can't control.
I hope you meet someone who really values you.
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"The power of the weirdness compels me."
You definitely shouldn't revel in the fact that it's going to hurt her or anything like that, but at least that'll be an educational experience for her. "I slapped someone, he told me not to do it again, I did it again anyway, he left." Honestly, you're doing her a favor by showing her that she can't behave in polite adult society by acting like a fucking spoiled child.
You don't 'help' someone with an alcohol or drug problem. Only they can help themselves. You can be supportive but you can't do it for them. And any form of abuse is unacceptable.
I stayed with a violent addict and alcoholic for a long time.
You are giving terrible advice here.
pretty par for the course for mr halfhand unfortunately.