You don’t know reactive abuse until you lived it.

It was the year 2010. I was a young mother accompanying my husband on a team building event where spouses were invited. It was the last day of our three day stay. We were at a bowling alley. At around 6:15 pm when he ordered another beer I exploded and yelled at him that we had to go.

Everyone looked at me in shock. A woman in her 50s pulled me aside, telling me I was an embarrassment to my husband. I told her she needed to stay out of it.

My husband turned blood red and was angry. Like visibly angry. We left. He did not speak a word to me for two or three days. The only thing he told me was that I had to write an apology letter to the woman that had pulled me aside.

For the next 8 years of my marriage my husband used this incident as one of many examples how I had anger management issues and was severely abusive to everyone around me. This incident made it into our divorce recovery document as an example of my abusiveness to his employees.

At the time I was fully convinced I was a bad person with no self control. Even today, after years of therapy, I feel deep shame explaining this incident. But events in Minneapolis and the accusations of the left, plus the latest Disaffected podcast by my friend Josh Slocum make it important to me that I share what actually transpired that day. And why our current cluster B world is prone to having disasters and yes, death, happen.

What happened that weekend? And that day?

What happened is a long, long line of provocation and passive aggression from my now ex husband. He set me up to explode in front of an audience. And he used this incident to exclude me for years to come from social events and outings, because I could not be trusted around people. What I did not know then is that this also allowed him to maintain a full blown affair with his subordinate… without me being in the way. In hindsight, his actions were evil. I did only blame me then. Not him. That is what abuse does to the mental state of a person.

The weekend started with a planned agenda for two days. My then husband wanted to fly home after the second day. I suggested instead to do a couple’s day, kind of like a full day date, to see the area and also see friends of ours who had just moved there.

He was hesitant. Did not really want to, but reluctantly agreed. So I called these friends and we agreed we would meet at 6:30pm at their house. Their house was at least 60min of a drive away from our hotel.

On the day off, mind you the official agenda of the team building event was over, my husband woke up in a terrible mood. He barely looked at me and immediately went down for breakfast with some work colleagues who were also still there. Without asking me, he agreed to go somewhere (I forgot where) for an hour with some of them while we wives were told to just spend the time at the mall.

We did.

I was at least 15 years younger than the other wives and do not really enjoy shopping. I was also very disappointed that my then husband would sacrifice our date so easily.

At about 1pm, we, the wives, were told to meet them at a bowling alley for lunch and a game. I texted my husband and said: “Hey, should we just go and leave now? We wanted to see the area and I would like to also get ready for seeing our friends.” He said, we had to go at least for one game.

At the bowling alley, he ignored me. The game immediately was assigned as “men vs women” and my husband made it a point to absolutely never stand next to me.

I had experienced this behavior for a long time. It was kind of his signature move. As soon as we were with his friends, he would never spend time with me and purposefully avoid standing next to me. It went so far that whenever I joined a circle he was in, he would find an excuse to leave and join another group of people.

It was maddening.

It was also the first time he did this at a work event. He knew this behavior was deeply upsetting to me. He knew that I was not comfortable not knowing the majority of people that were in completely different life stages. I had very little to talk about with these people.

My then husband proceeded to visibly enjoy himself throughout the afternoon. Ordering one beer after the other.

At 4pm I pulled him aside telling him I really wanted to leave.

He said we would leave soon.

At 5pm, the same.

At 5:30pm. I said we had to leave or we would be late to see our friends.

He said, he would just finish his beer.

At 6:15pm, he ordered a new one and I yelled at him in front of all people.

We arrived at our friends’ house an hour late. He was cheery. I was in tears. The entire evening, which we cut short, he did not talk to me directly nor did he look at me. It was awkward even for our friends. We never saw them or talked to them again after this day.

I can still feel everything from shame to embarrassment. I went over the day in my head so many times that it is branded into my brain and I still do not know how I could have changed the outcome.

Because in all honesty with all I know about psychopathy and narcissism now, I did not stand a chance. I was set up. He wanted this to happen. Just like it did, so he could play victim.

So he could exclude me from future events.

Do you know what my biggest fear right now is? That he will find this post somehow and will use me writing about it as another possible way to play victim. Maybe even with lawyers. But I do believe this is a lesson learned that is important to share. So you can all see Minneapolis and all leftist protests through a different lens.

Looking at the Minneapolis incident and the death of Renee Good, I hope you see some similarities.

Provocation.

Smugness: “I am not mad at you.”

More smugness from her wife: “Big boy”

And finally being hit by her car.

Did you ever stub your toe just to yell every swear word you know trying to combat the intense pain?

Yes, the officer said “fucking bitch”. This is not a sign of misogyny like some want to make you believe. It is just a sign of him reacting to the shock of nearly being run over by a car and being provoked all day by her and the other protesters.

Stop looking at the reaction as the abuse. Look at it in a context on how passive aggression is designed to provoke violence. Violence, so the abuser can play victim.

Sadly, in Minnesota a woman died. She played with fire just to burn.

I do not wish death on any protester.

But to claim she is the victim is just plainly false.

Thank you for listening to this very painful chapter of my life. I hope I could explain something new to you.

And that it helps you to not give abusers what they want: a reaction!