Life Lessons You've Learned While Dating

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
141

In my area (northwestern Ontario), the police arrest the person who does not have any wounds in a domestic dispute, so it is best to escape and call them, rather than fight back and call them.

I am just finishing a case in which my client was charged for assaulting her husband. She is a petite and demure church secretary. He is a big athletic fellow who suffers from a frontal lobe injury that causes him to have poor reasoning ability, significant anger management problems and extremely poor impulse control. She says he slammed her from behind into a refridgerator and she pushed out from under him to escape and call the police. He says he was walking past the refridgerator when she spacked him. There was a slightly red area on his cheek when the police arrived, so she was arrested.

I was speaking on Thursday with a womanwho has been separated from her cusband for over two years, and who’s husband has been in and out of psychiatriac institutions for years due to his repeatedly being deemed to be a danger to himself or others. He was let out recently, and showed up at her house, where he grabbed her. She fought him off by biting his hand, fleeing, and calling the police, who arrested her for assault. While she was in custody, he returned to the house and broke all the ground floor windows, leaving a fair bit of his blood on the broken glass. I expect that hee too will be arrested.

Bottom line? Where I live, women must take care no to leave marks when they defend themselves, for the policy of the police is to arrest and let the court decide if the contact was in defence or not. I find this astoundingly stupid, and have said to so to several arresting officers. I think that in such circumstances they should arrest both parties when both parties are claiming that the other assulted him or her.

142

I don’t know about arresting both parties when they both claim to have been assaulted, I think that would lead to a LOT more women being wrongfully arrested. I think the system where the one who leaves a mark is the one to get taken in is the best we can hope for. You have to think about the kids, too, if both are taken in, who watches the kids?

I don’t know, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but it’s tough when you have someone who you are REALLY afraid of that is hitting you. I may not have ever been any more afraid of my husband than he is of me. Not from him wounding me in a fight that is.

Anyway, to get back to the OP, I want to add that one thing that maybe people SHOULD learn from dating that it seems to me that too many of us don’t is; find out what kind of team member you are and learn to get with someone who makes you a better, more effective team player. For instance, if you need a lot of attention to be your wonderful productive self, don’t date people who won’t verbally adore you, even if you lust after and respect them. If you need someone to wake you up and get you going in the morning, don’t date a person who couldn’t care less if you are up before noon or not.

I think we can all be better human beings with the right help, find out what helps YOU and get with that. Or just smoke dope and sit on the couch all day and fuck whoever walks into the living room. I’m not the boss of you.

143

A data point: a relative of mine was married to a woman who would hit him. She was into drugs etc. When the cops arrived, they saw him all scratched up and heard her screaming. He’d talk calmly to them; maybe they could tell she was high. She’d get hauled away. He was, of course, careful not to hold her back or restrain her—nothing, because if it left a mark, they wouldn’t take his word.

144

I’ve been monogamous for about 28 years, and married for almost 25. Almost half my life married now. I have to think hard to remember dating. Maybe I’m just lucky and whatever I did to get to this point would not work for you, and maybe you would not even like to be in my shoes. But I just want to say that a very long term relationship can be really, really, really wonderful. Sure there have been tough times. My wife pisses me off some times (but I have never hit her - never). She puts up with a lot too. And I still love the hell out of her.

Dating is becoming important for me again, though. My 16-yr-old daughter has just started dating. Aack.

145

Indeedy - I listened to a news piece just this week on the issue of men who are domestically abused (particularly men aged 18-30) and a recurring theme was people not believing it was happening to them. In one case the police came to investigate and argument between a man and his wife, she had stabbed him and hewas arrested.

Whilst I can see that Canada’s policy on arresting the injured party, no matter what sex, may look mad on the surface I can see why they have it.

146

If you dig about in Statistics Canada’s annual reports on family violence http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collectio...5-224-XIE.html (for the specific cite, fix the SDMB search function – I’ve pinpointed it a couple of times in the past) you’ll come across figures that indicate that both sexes are violent to each other at about the same rate, but the severity of the violence is greatly disproportionate (men hit women and women hit men at about the same rate, but the severity of physical injury caused when men hit women is far greater). (The exception to this is the rate of murder by aboriginal women against aboriginal men, which is way up there, mainly because that the assaults by aboriginal men against aboriginal women are so frequent and so severe that the defences by the aboriginal women tend to also be severe.)

From my own experience as someone who deals with domestic violence on a daily basis through my job, I say that the Stats Can figures hold true – domestic assaults go both ways with relatively similar frequency, but the physical size difference results in greater severity of injury to women.

Why do I think that both parties should be charged when there are mutual accusations of assault but only one party shows injury?

  1. Only listening and acting on one of the party’s claims risks punishing the true victim if indeed the injury was caused by the true victim in self defence. If both are alleging assault, then let the judge sort it out. Let’s have equal justice for all.

  2. In domestic abuse, usually there are many assaults before the victim leaves, and usually the victim returns to try to patch things up a few times before finaly leaving forever. Punishing the true victim just reinforces this pattern, for it creates a greater sense of hopelessness in the true victim, and makes the true victim far less willing to call the police when there are further assaults against the true victim, and makes the true victim less willing to defend him or herself sufficiently to escape. In other words, just take the beating, for if yo defend yourself, you’ll just end up getting arrested, and next time the beating will be worse.

  3. Although domestic abuse takes place at all ages, most of it takes place between fairly you people, who usuallly are parents. Ever heard of the expression “possession in nine tenths of the law?” Well, when it comes to custody of children, this is a good rule of thumb. The best way to get custody is to get in a fight with your spouse, have the spouse arrested for assaulting you, get a restraining order, and interim custody order, and an order for interim possession of the matrimonial home, all without notice to your spouse, while your spouse is trying to get out on bail. Then you put the breaks on the case, slowing it down for a year of two. By the time it comes to trial, you rely on the status quo of the children having lived with you for a couple of years, and you rely on the stain surrounding your spouse concerning the assault, even if there was no conviction. End result? You get the kids. I see a great deal of this happening in the lower socio-economic sphere.

  4. When it comes to women, they tend to be smaller than men and tend to have less experience at fighting. When a man is pushing a woman about, odds are that she will have to use a weapon (the cup in her hand, an ashtray, a dinner fork, a carving knife . . .) if she wishes to effectiely defend herself, leaving immediate wounds on the man for which she gets arrested.

Lest I sound like I am promoting the stereotype of women being victims of men, please note that I stress that it goes both ways. For example, comments from different male clients in the last little while have included: “I just wish she would stop stabbing me in the head with a fork,” “She kept coming home drunk and would try to claw out my eyes,” “I woke up on the couch with my wife stabbing me with a kitchen knife and my son trying to take it away from her,” and “The tactical response unit told me that she was inside with a shotgun waitng for me.”

So yes, domestic assault goes both ways. When police ignore a person who claims that he or she has been assaulted, they are just making the problem worse.

Fortunately, I have learned this from my career, rather than from dating. I know one thing though, if a date indicates any controlling or hostile behaviour to anyone, dump the dodo immediately and don’t look back, lest you end up in a world of emotional and sometimes physical hurt.

147

Never scrimp when it comes to buying rubbers. A cheapy will resemble a rubber band and cost you more money in the form of a pregnancy test, which if we’d waited a couple of monthes we wouldn’t have needed for very obvious reasons.
Also some gals like a little hair pulling & some don’t.
Some like aeramatio & some like fellatio, but only til they are married. And some women never like to please a man in an oral fashion. It is to be presumed that these women are gay. And there are some women that do not want to give or receive oral sex. These women are nuns. They don’t want none.

148

Yeah. Here are some possible reasons: your dog is jealous, or just does not like guys, or is just psychotic. Back when my wife and I were pretty early in our relationship, her roomate’s dog pretty much hated me. I like dogs, and usually get along with them pretty well, but this dog wanted me dead. I don’t think I deserved the hate.

Dogs do get jealous. My stepfather’s dog doesn’t like it when he hugs my mom, although generally mom and the dog get along very well. But if there is a hug going on, the dog wants to get between them and push them apart - no growling or anything, but it is pretty obvious that the dog considers my stepfather HER guy, not my mom’s. That marriage (the human one) has been around for more than 40 years, a lot longer than the dog has been around. Mom thinks it is hilarious.

149

I had a dog that did that once but for a different reason. He wanted a group hug and would jump up and slobber at both of us and wag his tail like crazy.

150

I haven’t been reading the thread because it’s depressed me how many women bitch about men, (with no regard to saying, “most” or “almost all”), and it’s goddamn depressing. I live in a place where single mom’s are waiting for their boyfriends to get out of jail. Yet I sit alone typing this. You want to know what I’ve learned about dating? Most women are… I can’t even say it because this isn’t a pit thread.

I’m a nice man, WITH self respect. So when a woman I WORK WITH gives me the wrong F’ing number, I get pissed. I was nice to HER, and let HER off easy. But then when I tell other women, they try to justify it. WTF!

They say; “Well they don’t want to say ‘NO’.”

I KNOW WHY THEY DO IT, DINGBAT! If I have the balls to ask a women out, they should have the f’ing ovaries to say no to my face. I know I’m not what every woman’s looking for, I can take it! What I can’t take, are the games, (which I SO often her women say they are sick of). MOST are ignorant. MOST don’t know what it does to a man.

Any woman that condones that behavior is sexist.
Just like any man to condone and of the shit they’re commonly known for bring on women are sexist.

I was born 1980, so spent a lot of my youth in the 90’s where it was ok for my hairdresser to say all SORTS of crap about how “men are pigs”, right when I’m there. So many women I know try to downplay this behavior as if it’s acceptable. ITS NOT. I WAS BORN F’n INOCENT, MY FATHER’S MY HERO AND NEVER WRONGED MY MOTHER! MY BROTHER’S MARRIED TO A WOMAN WITH BOARDERLINE PERSONALITY DISSORDER, EVEN THOUGH FAMILY AND FRIENDS URGE HIM TO LEAVE WHILE HE’S STILL YOUNG.

DON’T TELL ME WOMEN CAN’T BE SEXIST TWARDS MEN! -OR WOMEN!
They can also be their own worst enemies.

THEY SHOULD NOT GET A FREE PASS!

That’s what I’ve F’n learned about dating. If you’re a person that doesn’t agree, well I think YOU’RE A SEXIST PIG!

151

…

I have learned that, when someone in whom I am interested hijacks a conversation in order to steer it toward a value that she intensely holds, and this behavior is repeated, along the lines of,

“Wow, nice day, isn’t it?”
“It’s a nice day, but not as nice as the day I found out that I was finally free from nose cancer.”

“Ow! Ow! I just dropped this paint can on my foot!”
“You want to know what pain is? Pain is wondering for three years whether your nose cancer was going to come back.”

“Sorry babe, I’m not really up for going out- I’ve had a rough week.”
“Oh, oh, I see. Look, I sucked up a lot of things when I was diagnosed with nose cancer and I did things I didn’t want to do anyway, so…”

Then maybe the person who jumps in to trumpet their issues actually ISN’T worth dating.

152

I have learned quite a few things, mostly things that have changed myself and not so much things that were wrong with other people… Such as:

Don’t try to control the relationship, if someone wants to do something, they are going to do it regardless of how you feel.

Don’t be catty of the other women in your boyfriends life… They are a part of his life for a reason, accept them, or don’t say anything at all.

Don’t let yourself get so involved in the relationship that you forget about yourself.

You should always get out of something, as much as you give, if you’re not, the relationship isn’t the right one for you.

Talk about everything that is important, issues that you are having or things that are bothering you, if you need time to lay your thoughts out in order, take it, but make sure you have the talk about your feelings sooner rather than later.

… and now I’m just getting bored trying to sound all knowing… so that’s it.

153

I noticed a lot of people have mentioned things about “if you see no future in this relationship” or “if you know its not going to last” or something to that effect, then you should end it.

I have learned that not every relationship has to be long to be important or significant… Even ones that only a few short months can leave a bigger impact on you than others. Not everything has to be long and drawn out to be worthwhile… I genuinely feel that sometimes things are meant to be short, and also meant to happen…

…Think of all the short relationships you have had, did you not learn something about yourself? Or maybe you realized more of what you were looking for in a potential partner… Either way, something came from it, and it IS okay if it’s not marriage.

154

Very good lesson to have learned. Psychologically, while opposites attract, overall when looking for a partner, people generally want someone who has a lot in common with them. Someone different from you is exciting at first, but it won’t last if you don’t have enough commonalities between the two of you. The people you end up marrying and staying with are the people that are more like you than you would expect.

155

Thanks for posting this. I thought I was the only person on the planet who felt like this.

156

Fundamentalist religion is going to the dogs.

157

Nah - I feel the same way too. I’ve never understood this idea of breaking up with someone because “s/he’s not the one”, as if such a thing exists (yeah yeah, different debate). But if you like someone and enjoy seeing them surely that’s enough to keep a relationship going even if you’re not sure you want to grow old together and die in each other’s arms.

158

Exactly. (With nods to **CallMeKate **and SHAKES.) If you’re looking for the Forever Person, then sure, it makes sense to keep moving when you realize the person in front of you isn’t it. But it’s also okay to *not *be looking for the Forever Person, and even better, to realize that people who aren’t the Forever Person still have lots to offer. Too many people seem to see every relationship that doesn’t end in marriage as a disappointment or a waste or time, but IMO if you enjoyed the ride, it was time very well spent.

159

I don’t see anything wrong with casual relationships that don’t have to go anywhere to be great experiences, and I’ve had more of them than I care to admit. The situation that I was talking about is when the other person has convinced themselves that you’re the ‘one and only’ and you’re already thinking about your exit strategy. IMO that case is more about integrity and not pointlessly helping someone delude themselves about your feelings.

160

I agree with that.

Lesson learned while dating: Be honest about your expectations, and check in every once in a while to make sure everyone is on the same page. You’ll never regret NOT hurting someone.