I love this. I’m imagining the whole thing playing out.
“So, what brings you guys ov–” <PUNCH>
(Ooo! msmith537 beat me to it. Sorry! I got excited and didn’t read all the replies.)
It was specifically phrased that way in the thread that apparently only exists in my head now, so that’s what I was thinking about because this:
…was how I always experienced it in the past. Asshole boyfriends who would get all pissy when I was handling myself just fine. More often than not, they’d actually escalate things, rather than de-escalate them. Exactly like this:
I guess this is the first time in my experience where male intervention was a) actually a good idea and b) de-escalated matters.
Guys!! I Saw what she just did to you! Let’s get her!!
I don’t NEED someone to intervene for me. I can handle it myself. Having said that, I am an old fashioned girl when it comes to relationships. If my guy doesn’t intervene if some dude is going to hit me, I will think less of him.
Interesting that some stories have terminology in common: don’t hurt “my wife.” I can see how this might upset some people, in that is has overtones of men’s control/“ownership” over women.
Totally. And if I was armchair quarterbacking it from behind a keyboard, I know I would be totally fixated on that. Funny how in real life, I felt more, like, pride and love and shit. 
Well, yes, that’s a possibility that I had definitely taken into account.
Now we’re in a public venue (presumably?) and you just punched me. Your behavior will look inappropriate to most viewers. I’ve been punched before. I’m not worth a damn at dishing it out but aside from interrupting my sentence you probably haven’t accomplished anything aside from making yourself look ridiculous in front of other people and perhaps signaled the bouncer to remove you from the premises.
So at this point I’d observe that you appear to be rather angry, and also have an attention-span problem…
Interesting that some stories have terminology in common: “my husband/my man/my guy.” I can see how this might upset some people, in that it has overtones of women’s control/“ownership” over men.
A. is my answer. An illustration:
Story time:
In college I was walking down a very crowded hallway with MY girlfriend and she and a guy, who was with two other guys, bumped shoulders as we passed each other. She flew of the handle cussing the guy out calling him an asshole and how dare he and blah blah blah. They look at me like, “WTF is her problem.” So I turned around and walked away while she was still yelling at the guys. Later that afternoon she called me and started bitching me out for leaving her and not kicking the guys ass. I told her, “Hey you’re the one that wanted a fight so I left so you could fight the guys.” then I dumped her ass.
Eh, nice try, but no. In those quotes, we’re referring to our relationship to avoid using personal names or confusing pronouns (so he - the guy I was working with (who I happen to be married to) - said to him -the guy I had pinned and bent over the railing-…)
In the “my wife” examples, one by me and one by Doctor Jackson, the “my wife” was a clear attempt to clarify to the antagonist precisely why the speaker was intervening here. Ownership or teammates may be debated, but it wasn’t a simple storytelling device.
It’s kind of meant to in this sense because the perp has to believe the threat is real. You’d have to have an extremely trivial life to be upset over something like that.
On top of that, when the average guy says “My wife” we all know his wife owns him.
Or it could be because when talking to a third party, I call my husband “my husband.” I don’t call him “that man” or “the dude over there.” “Don’t hurt that dude over there!”
I’d probably use “him”, as in, “Don’t you dare hurt him!” if the roles had been reversed, but yes, there’s that possibility.
I think I love you. So… what am I so afraid of? I’m afraid that I’m not sure of a love there is no cure for. I think I love you…isn’t that what life is made of? Though it worries me to say that I’ve never felt this way.
Or we could just have a ‘like’ button…
Yeah – or how about if the situation had been reversed? Would you have stepped in to protect your husband, had he been in danger?
Many people have died from a single punch to the head. If that’s a risk you want to take, fine, but allowing yourself to get punched is neither quality conflict resolution nor self-preservation.
Not a husband, but I have stepped between a dude intent upon doing bodily harm to a good (male) friend at a bar one night. Eddie would have done the same for me. Stepping in in that situation diffused it, given the good ol’ boy didn’t want to loose face by fighting a woman.
Agreed, the men in defensive positions were possibly “announcing” to the potential attacker that the women in question weren’t defenseless or alone. This reminds me of the street harassment threads where harassers back off once a women is known to be “taken.”
My husband and I haven’t ever gotten into a physical confrontation with anyone, but he has “gone silverback” for me a couple times when someone verbally harassed me. Actually, both were when I was pregnant, which is interesting. It scared the crap out of me, both times.
I will allow no one to harass my wife. Raise a hand to her and you are holding your life in that hand. My wife is a great beauty and the most wonderful woman in the world in my eyes, but objectively, she is a rather shy, attractive sixty three year old lady. you assault her at your peril.
I am not some young, muscular MMA fighter. I am a short and rather chunky little old man. If you hit my wife, I WILL shoot you.
I call him Paul!