When my husband and I argue, he hurts me. He tackles me to the floor, sits on top of me, crushes my rib cage, prevents me from breathing, pulls my hair. Crying and screaming in pain has no effect. Eyes wide-open in terror, I beg him to go ahead kill me then and there.

He says hurting me is the only way I’ll listen to him.

When we argue, I ignore what he says, filtering out whatever I disagree with. Going off on tangents gives me an excuse to avoid the real issue, and I interrupt him when he expresses his point of view. He is so angry yet so sad at the same time. He tells me that after all this time we’ve been together, I should understand him by now. Thoughts race through my head regarding who really is correct, my silence causing him to become more furious.

And then he begins to hurt me. Only then, when I fear that saying the wrong thing will cause more pain, I force myself to absorb what he is saying and to really begin to work with him to solve our problem.

For causing him emotional pain, he is just in physically hurting me. I really want to get better at listening so this never happens again.