Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
On 2005-03-14, jmcquown penned:

I am ashamed to say this. No, let this be a lesson to people. My
ex-husband (divorced 21 years ago, thank Bast) got angry at our
puppy for pooping on the floor and he hit him and then flung him
onto the cement balcony where he'd constructed sort of an enclosure
for him. A few minutes later he was yelling, "Jill! Something's
wrong with Sampson!" He made me drive him with the dog to the
emergency vet without me even getting my glasses. I'm blind as a
bat and there I was driving in the dark unable to see. The man
examining him said, "Oh my, was he hit by a car?" My husband said,
"Yes!" I was so ****ed, I said, "Oh no, he wasn't! You hit him and
threw him down on the pavement because he pooped on the carpet!" My
ex was appropriately ashamed. After we got home he made an excuse,
left and didn't come back for 48 hours. As far as I'm concerned he
should *never* have come back. I got the dog in the property
settlement.

Jill

Poor Sampson! Poor you!

Thanks. The pup was okay but he had contusions and a little internal
bleeding. They kept him a couple of days. Sampson lived to be nearly 18
under my loving care

Reading this story, I have to wonder, were you afraid your ex would
retaliate for telling the truth?

I was, but I was so angry he'd hurt a defenseless puppy for doing what
not-yet-housebroken puppies do - poop - I didn't care at that point. No way
could he hit me in front of the vet tech and he was so ashamed it didn't
even occur to him to seek revenge.

I remember one time when my ex got angry at a computer game and
punched his keyboard so hard that he broke it (and nearly broke his
hand). It upset me so much that I was crying and truly scared,
especially when I saw the expression on his face. We didn't last
much longer. He never raised a hand to me, but after that experience
I never quite trusted him.

My ex-husband never actually hit me. He was good at slamming things around
and yelling. And lying. The night I left him he knocked over a bookcase
which prompted the downstairs neighbor to call the cops; she thought he was
killing me. The police pulled up just after I'd gathered some of my things
and the dog and he'd agreed to drive me to my parents house. I explained to
the police we'd had a fight and he was driving me and requested they follow
if they could. They could and they did. I think they appreciated the fact
that I wasn't making excuses for him... my tear-stained face must have been
a dead giveaway.

Since then, I've punched a door (also angry at a computer game)
myself, and I wonder how I could have such a negative reaction to
others' violence when I did the same thing myself. It's not logical
or fair. Is breaking an object an acceptable way to vent anger, or
is it one step on the way to letting loose on people? I think it's a
bad thing, but I've spoken to other people who think it's normal.

I don't know that it's normal to break objects in order to vent anger. When
I worked in a restaurant years ago I'd go into the walk-in cooler, shut the
door and yell! (They are pretty much sound-proof.) Then I'd go back and
wait on the annoying as heck customer who had tripped my trigger Grab a
pillow and yell into it rather than hurt your hand on a hard object. Or hug
Oscar until your blood pressure goes down.

NOTE: 2 years after the divorce I had my ex-husband imprisoned for stalking
and threatening me, harrassing phone calls at work, threatening my
co-workers and vandalizing my car.

Jill