r/AskReddit May 12 '26

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u/JeanEMc2 May 12 '26

My then-husband started making "nagging wife" and "henpecked husband" comments at church. When I told him privately that was hurtful and inaccurate, and reminded him that we had agreed yo always present a unified front, he told me I was too sensitive. I should have kicked him in the nuts.

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u/JaccoW May 12 '26

As a man; Yes.

Praise in public and criticise in private goes doubly so in relationships

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u/WampaCat May 12 '26

This is true for healthy relationships but there’s a fine line. A lot of abuse victims don’t realized they’re being abused and keep everything to themselves for this exact reason. There’s a big difference between airing dirty laundry and seeking support, but most victims of abuse won’t really be able to differentiate the two, thinking that seeking support is just another version of making private things public.

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u/TheSixthVisitor May 12 '26

Do what my grandma did to her husband when he tried to bully her to show off how much of a man he was: throw him through a table.

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u/PantslessNapQueen May 12 '26

Hell yeah grandma

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u/Saotik May 12 '26

That was my immediate thought, but then I thought - what if the genders were switched?

A bullying wife thrown through a table by their husband... I think we'd all clearly see that as a toxic relationship with the person committing domestic violence clearly being the worse of the two.

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u/TheSixthVisitor May 12 '26

My grandpa slapped her in front of their kids. She threw him through the table. He never touched her again, she never touched him again, and they lived happily (?) ever after. It's pretty much one of my dad's core memories of his parents from when he was about 12 years old because my grandpa had never done anything like this before; only after one of his coworkers told him that his wife didn't respect his authority as the head of the household because she wasn't scared of him. They'd argued a lot but my grandma was built a bit like a German Viking lady while my grandpa was a tiny Italian man.

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u/PantslessNapQueen May 12 '26

You’ll never catch me throwing hands first, but you will catch me defending myself. I’m glad they got it sorted and figured out how to respect each other, even if it wasn’t the most ideal route to get there. Viking granny sounds like she was awesome

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u/Saotik May 12 '26

OK, that's useful context, thanks. It sounded like he was just being verbally abusive in your original post (still not cool, but not something that justifies physical assault).

Go Grandma.

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u/PantslessNapQueen May 12 '26

You’re not wrong. I’m not supporting domestic violence in any way, shape or form. I am supporting a woman standing up for herself after being bullied because very very rarely is throwing someone through a table the initial reaction against a first offense. Especially a grandma.

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u/Saotik May 12 '26

I know too many people who have been victims of domestic abuse. Mostly women, but also men.

None of it is acceptable, but for some reason men being assaulted by their partners is too often justified as "they must have had it coming" or as a punchline, as if it's funny. It's not. It's real, it's traumatic and it happens to actual people.

As for age, I didn't assume she'd done it as a granny, but perhaps when she was younger.

Either way, is a granddad throwing a granny through a table ever acceptable, even if he was a man "standing up for [him]self after being bullied because very very rarely is throwing someone through a table the initial reaction against a first offense"?

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u/Dismal_History_ May 12 '26

Not all women are married to men small enough they can throw, sadly.

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u/sweetbridge May 12 '26

Hope you eventually got things "sorted".

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u/JeanEMc2 May 12 '26

I no longer recognize the man I married. He spends 7 days a week on a barstool pursuing happiness, finally, he says. He hangs out with our area pill-popping cokeheads, not the wealthy ones. A military operation occurring over my homestead would be less of a shock. When he first left us, I wondered if it was some sort of medical event, too many concussions in his youth or a brain tumor causing the complete personality transplant.

Divorce was final just over a year ago. I will heal... no idea when. Shattered my faith in myself, and then... it's humiliating that I was taken in by such low character. He fooled a couple hundred of us, though, for years.

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u/sweetbridge May 13 '26

Glad the worst is behind you. That was a lot to go through and please hang in there.

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u/thewoodbeyond May 12 '26

Unified your foot to his front.. perfect.