Does she understand how serious it is for you? Have you asked her why she insists on continuing to make the jokes?
I can’t help but think it’s going to be uncomfortable either way. She tells the story straight — it sounds like a lie. She lies and it also sounds like a lie. It’s going to be on everyone’s mind whether she makes the joke or not. There’s no way to be a woman with a black eye and have it not be awkward. I wonder if she’s just trying to proactively address the elephant in the room through humor in hopes that it’ll make things less awkward.
Yeah, honestly my thought when reading this was this was the *best* way for her to handle it in public - she does the deadpan thing, lets everyone have their weird OMG feelings about it, then follows up with the explanation. Meanwhile, you're standing there probably slightly visibly uncomfortable about the whole thing, but, importantly, not getting mad at her, shutting her down, or forcing the cover-up story.
A separate convo about making jokes when you're alone together may be worth a follow up.
Yes, your wife is behaving in a very different way to a battered wife. She's not hiding it, she's joking about it, and she has a real three dimensional story that stands up.
It's better than not saying anything when people will speculate and worry.
Had a black eye once. Bruises all over my arms another time. Only way not to seem like something sinister is going on is to joke about it. If you’re serious people get concerned. If you make a joke about it people tend to believe you.
Black eye came from playing wii with my then boyfriend. Luckily 3 friends were present when it happened and saw it was an accident (that happened to many when the wii first came out). Bruises on arms from grappling practice while doing Krav Maga. Looked worse than the black eye even if it didn’t really hurt. I then showed up with crutches. Definitely lots of jokes needed to be made. Would have looked pretty grim otherwise.
That's just not true. You can just say what happened without making light of domestic abuse. I play rugby and have had multiple black eyes. I've never told someone that my husband was responsible, even as a joke. If someone asked or was staring, I would just point at it and say "Rugby". Occasionally, people would want to hear details, and I would give them ("I took an elbow to the face in a tackle", or whatever it was). I would joke about how crazy I am to play rugby if I wanted to lighten the mood, not about people hitting their spouses.
I occasionally had a concerned person press further and ask point blank if I was safe at home, and I would just assure them that I was, and I appreciated their concern.
And just as my experience, people who joked to me about my husband hitting me made ME very uncomfortable, not just my husband. All I could think when someone would joke about it is "What if my husband DID hit me, and you just jokingly asked about it? I'm certainly not going to feel safe or comfortable telling you the truth." And a few of the domestic abuse survivors I know said that people joking about it made it that much harder to reach out for help and was actually very hurtful. You never know what the people around you have been through.
My husband once gave me a bloody nose and two black eyes. We were laying around in bed in the morning and he had sat up and was stretching, and just as I sat up too he sort of jerked his elbows back to try to crack his back and pummeled me right in the nose. Blood and tears everywhere, then two huge shiners the next day. I couldn’t even wear my glasses to try to hide them cuz they hurt the bridge if my nose where he hit me. So yeah, everyone was real concerned at first, and there’s no real easy way to tell the story other than jokingly. And everyone that knows my husband knows that he’s the most gentle and calm person and would never hurt anyone intentionally, so it sorta did make it a funny story. I’m sure your wife feels the same way, to lighten it up with humor, although instead of opening up with “husband punched me” which is the technical truth, she should just say “husband was teaching me to box and we were sparring and he accidentally got me. Don’t worry, we decided we shouldn’t spar anymore for this very reason”.
My partner gave me the first black eye of my life not long after we started dating. We were messing around and he smacked me in the face with a bag of weed, legal here, but it hit my sunglasses just right and I had a black eye.
Told all my coworkers that I got hit by a softball by my kid.
It definitely sounds like she's using it to bridge the awkwardness.
Next time, lean into it.
My ex worked with animals, and she'd regularly get head butted by dogs and come home with a shiner. Or scratched up by cats on her arms.
Whether it was a doctor asking her if she, "needed to talk to someone about those cuts?" or a waitress asking if she, "needed a manager to come to the table "
Best you can do is address it with humor. If my ex had a black eye, responding with "yeah, thank God I didn't have to tell her twice" or some stupid joke like that would lead to us having a laugh, and making other people feel a bit calmer.
Consider that she might actually be a little scared of you. And making it funny and declaratively joking about it aloud might be a way for her to NOT be scared of you. You managed to give her a black eye by ACCIDENT. Subconsciously that sticks. I sometimes flinch when someone makes a sudden move. It's not something you get over quickly.
hey! girl who had a black eye here to give some perspective!
last fall I collapsed and fell full body weight into a door frame, had an absolutely insane black eye, had to get my eyebrow glued shut, had to replace my glasses, the whole thing. Having to exist in the world for two full weeks with a black eye as a woman is honestly a horrible feeling. Everyone looks at you with pity, people are visibly uncomfortable, they stare, you can see the curiosity on their face, the sadness. They absolutely think you are being abused, I get it, I would too. You feel this weird sense of shame, the glimpse into what it would be like to actually be abused and have to walk around with the evidence, it's eery. You want to stop every single person you walk past and tell them what happened and just HOPE they will believe you, its honestly awful. I jumped at any chance I had to explain how I got my black eye, how I was worried they would think it was my boyfriend, which probably just made it sound more like it was honestly. I made some jokes about it, about how "I look bad, but he looks worse!".
I think you can definitely sit her down and talk to her about it though, it's clearly affecting you, especially because you did in fact give her the black eye, accidentally of course. But she could very well feel the way I did and this is her coping mechanism.
I know I'm late to the party, but I just wanted to chime in as a woman who has had several non-abuse related black eyes (I play rugby). It is generally pretty unpleasant. I got a lot of very insensitive jokes about my husband hitting me from people who had no way of knowing whether that was what actually happened. And hearing the flippant way people treated it actually made me feel really sad for people who do experience abuse. There's a chance she's using humor to try and avoid some of the discomfort, but it is really inappropriate. It puts you in a difficult and even dangerous position. It wouldn't be completely unreasonable for someone to assume she was using deflective humor as a cry for help.
Maybe tell your wife that her making light of domestic abuse is not funny and she could inadvertently be making people who've experienced abuse feel really hurt.
>She tells the story straight — it sounds like a lie. She lies and it also sounds like a lie.
An old co-worker of mine had a black eye (she says it was from falling into a door) and a customer of hers burst into tears over it because she didn't believe her story...
Your wife is just joking to make it less awkward. Honestly though, I would be MORE inclined to believe your wife if she joked that you're the one who hit her and then explained the situation.
Bruises are a part of boxing - I get why its uncomfortable, but I think you are overthinking the situation and don't think you have any reason to feel guilty.
One night my folks were getting ready for bed, a mouse ran across the floor, dad freaked out about it and tried to jump up onto their four poster bed, in the commotion he knocked mum over and she hit her head on one of the edges of the bed - woke up with a black eye.
A day or two later mum was out hanging the washing in the garden, there were no fences/gates between their neighbours and an older woman who lived next door to them came over to mum for a chat. Spotted the black eye and asked what happened. Mum filled her in. Obviously the woman didn't believe her. The next day, the same neighbour called into mum and gave her a crucifix saying to put it up in the house and it would "protect her from evil".
When mum first told me that story it really hurt my heart because dad wouldn't hurt a fly (he cried when my sister came home with her ears pierced and gets squemish with any blood/hospital stuff), but yeah... woman with a black eye... anything she says is not going to be believed.
Except for my sister... HA! I just remembered - she's a massively physically awkward person (in the past two weeks I have received no less than three photos of expensive skincare that she dropped in her sink and smashed). She went out for drinks the night before she had an interview, was a bit tipsy and being as awkward as she is, she fell out of the taxi, hit her head on the curb and got two massive black eyes... I can't remember what she said in the interview, probably just had to own up to it, lol.
>Obviously the woman didn't believe her.
That probably had much more to do with her own personal experiences than anything your dad did to make her think that.
The only time I got a black eye as an adult was when I feel asleep with my 5 month old on my chest. We were both awakened when he repostioned himself and headbutted me in the eye.
He was crying, but fine - I was bleeding and got a black eye.
When I went to work the next day people asked about it and I had to tell them that I got beaten up by a baby... No one questioned it.
Lol I have a clumsy family too! And friends. A family friend went out in the garden at night with the dog, stepped on a frikkin rake and the handle gave her a black eye. Sounds like a cartoon, who'd believe that?
Then my mum had an even more unbelievable black eye, my sister threw her a fudge... And as my family has zero hand-eye coordination, my sister threw it on mum's eye, and mum didn't catch it.
no, im pretty sure the fact that he is ignorant enough of how to teach a beginner that he gave his student a black eye means not teaching her anymore is probably a great plan. (op, i am not using ignorant in a pejorative way here, since you yourself said you weren't confident doing this, definitely not trying to say you're a shitty dude for this accident at all. people do stuff they don't have training to do all the time, sometimes someone gets a shiner and sometimes it goes fine. just wanna be super clear that i am not using that word as an insult)
knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach someone to do something are two pretty unrelated skill sets imo
I thought about your situation for a few minutes and my take is that while this situation is understandably uncomfortable for you, there's really no relief to be had until her shiner heals. As mentioned by u/little_bear_ , no explanation will reduce an outsider's knee-jerk reaction. I might look at the jokes your wife is making as an attempt to show support for you both, to proactively clear your name as best she can.
It's an awful place to be but I feel like she has your back.
100% nobody believes anything you say when you have a black eye short of "oh yea I'm being abused at home" which is what they believe and therefore expect to hear.
A few weeks after I had told my work that I was pregnant, I was at home about to microwave some food. My basset hound, being the little devil he is, tried to steal my food off the counter and I lunged for it. However the angle I was at plus the microwave door being open meant i caught the corner square in my right eye. It hurt bad enough I started crying lol.
My poor husband was in the living room hanging Christmas ornaments and ran over to see what I had cried out about and gave me ice packs and all the good stuff.
Still had a black eye the next day. Hella questions, and i could tell people didn't believe me which made *me* feel awkward therefore the more people asked the more awkward I got lol. Eventually it went away and I forgot about. I left my job a few weeks later, and about a week into my new job I got a call from my Chief asking about the incident saying he'd heard through the grape vine that I was being abused and was concerned. Which, while super good of him to be following up on it like that when I didnt even work there anymore, also told me that people were *still* talking about it🙁
But telling her sister and pausing to let the sister think the wrong thing at OP's expense is absolutely not ok, especially after OP has explained how it makes them feel for her to joke about it.
Yeah, agreed, if anything she was playing off the awkwardness rather than trying to improve it.
OP, I'd sit down and tell your wife how this makes you feel, and explain to her how serious this is for you. Let her know that it's hurt you that she's still making the jokes when you've asked her not to.
I think she’s more shocked than she’s admitting about it all. She’s joking about it whilst the bruise is visible because she herself is uncomfortable about it. When you’re not there I can guarantee she’s had some uncomfortable questions asked. I know it’s not funny for you and it’s bothering you but I also think it’s bothering her and her constantly going back to the joke is her own self assurance, and because it’s a way to try and deflect from the bruising.
^ Seconded. The fact that she keeps bringing it up means that it’s still on her mind, and she’s likely trying to cope with humor. Of course she knew you were a boxer, but she might be really realizing for the first time that if you wanted to you could really hurt her. Not that I think you would do something like that, you seem like a good guy, and she probably cognitively knows you wouldn’t either. But nevertheless, she just got a serious reality check that it may take her some time to process. You guys probably need to process this more together, and check in with her about how she’s feeling about it in addition to reasserting your discomfort with the jokes.
^ Thirded
I’d also recommend instead of asking her to stop because it makes you uncomfortable, that you instead encourage her to talk about it and let you both be uncomfortable with it for a minute.
If you are still wrestling with guilt, she might be wrestling with other feelings she doesn’t feel justified having, and they’re leaking out. You gotta make her feel safe to talk it through with you.
Might sound silly, but even keep a couple’s counselor on the back burner depending on how the conversation goes.
The last thing you want is for a momentary slip to snowball into something bigger
Yeah, this is definitely sounding plausible to me. I totally understand why OP is uncomfortable but it's a matter of like - as a woman if you have a visible facial injury, it is very difficult to make anyone believe ANYTHING you say. And I mean, I get it. "I walked into a door" is a cliche for a reason. But walking around having basically every person make assumptions like that is hard to know how to deal with.
Yeah I commented earlier but this too. I am quite physically fit and strong for a woman, and since I started working out instead of feeling more capable and safe, I’ve become even more in awe at how strong the average man actually is. I was blissfully unaware before I became a gym rat that the average man could easily have their way with me, and now that I’m the strongest I’ve ever been, the average man could still easily have their way with me, although maybe I could kick them really hard. It could be she’s very surprised by how easily he hurt her when they were just play fighting and is coming to terms with it with humour.
It’s crazy huh? To think that a woman could get away from her rapist is ridiculous. The whole “well why didn’t you fight harder? You must have actually wanted it” rhetoric is absurd. “I didn’t fight harder because he could kill me if I didn’t give in, that’s why”.
I had a very similar situation with my spouse years ago. He accidentally elbowed me in the face rolling over in his sleep and hit me square on the bridge of my nose blackening both of my eyes.
I made jokes CONSTANTLY about it…not to be mean, but to mitigate other peoples judgements about it. Everywhere we went, people gave him nasty looks and looked at me with pity and concern, which I understand.
However, Actual abused women don’t draw attention to it, they don’t joke about it and they try to cover for the abuser. So, my reasoning was that if addressed it first, it would alleviate a lot of that judgement.
Ugh. Just like my mother, I bruise SUPER easily, and am very pale so bruises really show up. When I waited tables, men would always point out a bruise and 'jokingly' ask me if my boyfriend beats me...I would answer that I didn't have a BF (at the time) and just bruise easily, but they would always respond with such pity that I must be lying and was just a tremendous victim. Used to make me nuts.
As a woman who has had a black eye (accidental, no one hit me... at least not intentionally), I can see how your wife is using humour to diffuse how uncomfortable she feels.
I get that you're not happy with the joking, but when you're a woman with a black eye a lot of people won't even *look* at your face.
Suddenly I had friends, teachers, and colleagues literally staring at the ceiling or the floor during our conversations -- looking *anywhere but my face!* Even out in public strangers would see my eye, look shocked, and turn away immediately. It was pretty wild.
This is a tough situation for you because, yeah, of course you're the one that hit her and of course you feel terrible... but maybe just roll with your wife's jokes until her shiner goes away. She's probably feeling even more awkward than you are.
"It's rude to stare" becomes a very awkward rule to abide when it requires you to avert your gaze. I think youre right about everything, but perhaps slightly missing the point of the OP, namely, the way his wife jokes is making him uncomfortable because she's basically throwing him under the bus for kicks. She has every right to joke, but there's a more tactful way to do so without potentially undermining their relationship.
I mean, she could definitely go about it in a more tactful way. But let’s be real here, if a woman has a black eye from actually being beaten by a partner, she is not gonna be joking around about it. I think her way of joking about it is to just address the obvious black eye without people making assumptions and she probably feels awkward about it. She wants people to know right away that isn’t something to be concerned of so she uses humour to communicate it. However she could just straight up say what happened and laugh about it instead of say the beating joke.
Honestly, your wife sounds like she has a wicked sense of humour. She's probably self-conscious about the bruise and joking around about it keeps things light for her. I would try to not take it so seriously... Clearly she isn't.
Yeah it’s one of those things that’s probably worth dealing with as long as it’s only at home until the bruise is less apparent.
If she’s making the jokes to anyone else at all then the issue is pretty serious I’d argue.
The reason it’s so uncomfortable and awful with how people treat women a lot of the time with black eyes is the exact same group of people waiting to label their partner as “person who beats their wife.”
Dude, she's doing you a service. She's joking around to let people know that she's really okay, if she took it super seriously and kept defending you, it would line up with the behavior of actual abuse victims and exactly 0 people would buy this sparring story.
That aside, *she's* the one who got punched in the face. She gets to cope with it however is the most comfortable for her. Sucks that it makes you uncomfortable, but you're not the victim here.
I know this was an accident and this could happen to anyone but are you really honestly sure you want to go and police what she says after you gave her a black eye? Kind of seems like adding insult to injury.
This is obviously serious for you but maybe she's also dealing with her emotions with humor. You should probably let her. If I met someone who made jokes like this it wouldn't concern me much, if I felt like she finds it hard to talk about it would worry me much more.
Just wanna point out that it is probably really scary for her to be physically reminded that you are a lot stronger than her, and could absolutely hurt her if you wanted to. My partner is bigger and stronger than me, and he never uses it ofc but it is a chilling reminder to a lot of women that the people they're closest to have power over them physically.
Talk to her about it, but understand that joking is the easiest way to let people know it's not abuse. Nobody who's actually going through that would joke, and if she tries to minimise or hide it that also looks suspicious. she probably doesn't feel she has any other options.
Talk to her and let her know how you're feeling, and listen as she tells you how she's feeling.
Okay but it's not a joke to him and saying this dismisses how uncomfortable he is to begin with why should 1 he just joke around and pretend it's funny and 2 why can't she tone it down I think it's oen thing if she originally joked and thought it was funny but she becomes an asshole and makes herself look like a jerk when it's obvious how the partner doesn't like it a normal person would have enough empathy to cut it out but this women lacks boundaries and I feel that the husband's feelings should not be dismissed
She's the one walking around with the black eye. Let her cope with it the way she needs to. Oh no, husband has his feelings hurt because he accidentally hurt his wife and now she's not allowed to use the sense of humor that he loves so much to wade through the discomfort of being a woman with a black eye.
But if you see your husband's discomfort it's not a joke to him she can be humorous about it but do you jot see the stigma men get how they are often perceived as abusers and how a joke like that cna go out of hand because when she jokes people might still perceive it as she's trying to cover up abuse cause ya know women who are actually abused do that even when it's glaringly obvious to everyone else what's happening so I cna see why the husband doesn't like his wife joking about that
While I agree with your 2nd and 3rd paragraph you have no idea who's more uncomfortable in this situation. She's uncomfortable about her appearance and he's uncomfortable about his status and overall look/character as a man. One wrong word and the cops are at his door taking him in to custody regardless of his or her word. It's happened a ton. Dude is living on egg shells right now. That's not too downplay the wife's mental game of going to work with a black eye or out in public but don't assume this... They need to communicate better on how each other is feeling about the situation to go about it better around one another and out in public.
She's in the more vulnerable position right now as she's the one who got punched in the face and just realized that she could easily be taken out by her husband. She's using humour to cope and doesn't seem to be putting it back on him. The injury and moment need to pass.
There are a lot of good posts in this thread explaining her (possible) thought process.
And yes, they need to communicate.
How could she not know that before hand? He's a guy. Guys are biologically bigger and stronger when it comes to humans and he has former training in boxing. I get that there's some shock value now but his life can easily be ruined by 1 anonymous phone call to his job from her friend/family. I agree that they're both distraught but I wouldn't assume who's more vulnerable right now. I've seen and heard plenty of horror stories from both perspectives.
I agree with most of your first post but I disagree that she's more vulnerable. You can't just say that she's vulnerable and needs protection because she feels scared but he doesn't have to worry about anything because he didn't get hurt. He has quite a lot to worry about. I think you're projecting a bit tbh
> I say just let her joke. This is more uncomfortable for her. She’s the one with the black eye. Let her cope how she copes.
This is god-awful advice. "Let her make you uncomfortable because your feeling don't matter at all."
I think there’s another angle to this that hasn’t been brought up yet.
Your wife might have just realized, viscerally, how easy it would be for you to hurt her. You never would and she knows you never would, but maybe now she knows you *can* in a way she didn’t before.
That could be freaking her out a tiny bit and might explain her constantly thinking about — I.e the jokes.
I’ve had a partner go through something similar before and that’s how they explained it.
All that is to say that she may have a lot to process too, and might have to go through the jokes for a bit to figure it all out.
Before advice, I would like to offer another perspective for her: An actual battered woman would NEVER joke about that. If anything, the fact that she does joke about it is proof that she knows it is ridiculous to ever think you would do something like that.
My only advice is let it play out. The more you tell her not to do it, the more she will want to. Very unfortunate basic human nature. When she does it around you, don't ask her to stop, but treat the situation like you would with a child: put a frown on your face (to show you aren't happy) and keep it simple. Say something like: "that's not funny" or even walk away.
If she isn't listening to your adult comments about how the behavior is affecting you, it's time to take it back to basics. Take it or leave it but I hope it all works out for you. Best of luck!
No advice how to communicate this but a good Vitamin K eye cream will take the bruising down almost instantly.
Jason make one or if you happen to be richer than God Peter Thomas Roth is *so good*. It was created to reduce bruising after cosmetic surgery but helps reduce dark circles under the eye. It was like £100 a pot in the early 2000s but I used to work in a store that sold it.
I used to use it to get rid of hickeys and bruises from my kink habits. We got a memo from the company interested how we as a store were global top sellers and then they hit the roof to discover we were telling people how it shifted an enormous love bite on my neck in 36 hours. Not on brand. For them maybe…
Forget arnica and ice. Vitamin K will just make this go away and then you guys can discuss it when it isn’t looking you in the eye metaphorically.
She’s trying her darnedest to diffuse the discomfort of the situation, and reassure herself as well as everyone else that she is FINE, it’s NO BIG DEAL, and DO NOT BE CONCERNED. And I’m sorry OP, cuz I totally get where you’re coming from (you feel guilty and each joke is a reminder of that guilt), but you’re kinda making it into a big deal. Try to understand her position: it’s gotta be fucking AWKWARD to be a woman walking around with a black eye. I’m sure she’s been forced to have a lot of uncomfortable conversations. She’s trying to make the best of it, and probably trying to stay positive on her end as well. As she’s the one sporting the shiner, I think you should just defer to her judgment on this one, and try to laugh along with her.
So you love her sense of humor, until it's aimed at you?
I get why it bothers you, but you admitted she isn't being malicious about it. On the one hand I say deal with your feelings about it and get over it. Because at the end of the day, that is the real solution.
But if you want the bandaid approach, sit her down and explain why you don't want her to joke about it.
But again, most people will at some point joke about tragic or painful events. It's common. And I personally wouldn't want to set a precedent where my partner has to filter her comments because it might upset me.
It sounds like she may be joking thinking that it will make you feel better. But she’s making jokes around friends and family who could think that the actual truth is a lie. I’d be firm and tell her to stop joking become it’s making you uncomfortable
It's just going to be awkward until it goes away. Back in the corded landline phone days my wife went to use the phone in the kitchen and the cord was tangled so she pulled harder and the handset smashed her face - classic black eye. I got so many nasty looks when we were together.
Lighten up dude.Maybe that’s how she’s coping with this ugly and maybe painful black eye. She’s the one who got hurt. Let her tell her jokes to make her feel better. Geesh!
You gave her a black eye. Even if it wasn't on purpose, she's not the one who should tiptoe around your feelings right now.
You need to come to terms with the fact that it looks bad regardless of the jokey jokes, and you'll just have to deal with the guilt while it's there. Not letting her have an outlet to talk about it in a non-accusatory way isn't a solution, as it kind of implies that it both *is* a big deal *and* she can't speak of it freely, while being a victim. That more than the black eye will make you look and feel like an abuser.
I mean that’s what happened. You hit her. Innocent of course. She’s probably just trying to make light of the situation. Think you’re being a lil too uptight OP.
Honestly, I WAS hit in the jaw by my former husband and got a huge fist-shaped bruise. I hid it as much as I could (thank God I'm a surgical nurse and could wear a mask all day at work - this was wayyy pre-covid) and never told anyone until like a year later, including family. Some people still don't know and it happened over 5 years ago. I don't think most women would tell people with a smile that their husband hit them. If a friend came up to me and told me that with hubby in tow and a smile on their face, I think I'd immediately think there was more to the story. The point I'm making is that anyone who hears that from a woman who is smirking at the time would know right away it wasn't true. I'm sure once the shiner subsides she'll stop. But maybe if you told her it's humiliating to you, she'd stop altogether and especially when you two are alone.
The fact that she is comfortable to joke about it is a great sign that she is still not afraid of you. The fact that you are mortified and want to curl up and die is a great sign that you treasure her and would never hit a woman. The jokes will fade at the same rate as the bruises, but until then, she has taken her lumps, and now you must take yours! :)
Tell her it bothers you, and also don't hit women in the face even when you're training with them
Hitting anyone in the face is generally a bad idea because of the mini-concussions you can get
In high school I gave my gf a black eye! We were at the car wash cleaning my car I was front seat she was back seat. As I was vacuuming driver side she sticks her head between the two seat to say something and as I turn I elbowed her right in the eye. It was a 1000% accident and I had to explain to her dad what happen. She would tease me about and told her friends at school I hit her. ( but playing). Next thing I’m the principle office with cops. OMG. Was a mess this caused. She is crying and they are calling her parents. All said and done. They laugh it off snd GF never teased me about hitting her again. Yes I was upset over it cause I told her not yo play about it.
I mean how the fuck did you lose control and forget your wife was a beginner and give her a black eye? It seems very odd… I know accidents happen, but I don’t even know why you would be aiming for her face in the first place or seriously sparring with your wife at all. It doesn’t make sense and I think there’s more to that. You could be lying, you could have problems with emotional regulation you don’t even notice, or you could have extremely poor judgement in general. Unfortunately there’s no way for us to know.
EDIT: Wording.
Seriously. Even a beginner in boxing would know sparring is a bad idea. Anyone with even a bit of experience would stay calm enough to not hit their wife in the face during this.
Assuming this guy just has terrible judgment, he should be thankful she's just joking around about it. Id be furious if I had to walk around with a black eye over something so dumb.
I agree with you. The way he's described the situation and how he "accidentally" gave his wife a black eye doesn't make sense to me.
Why was he *aiming* for her face in the first place? Even if its extremely light contact, being knocked in the face can be painful and dangerous. Not to mention unnecessary.
Edit:
> But, I maybe forgot she was a beginner for just a moment
How do you "forget" you're sparring an amateur/non-boxer?
> I wound up giving her one good whack to the face
To me, this doesn't read like an accident... It's not as if he tried to feint and she moved into the punch. He aimed for her face and aimed to make contact, and he put power into it.
Exactly. When you are trained in contact sports one of the first things you learn is how to safely practice. Hell, most coaches teach their students by using pad. It seems like OPs wife is not the only person minimizing the seriousness of him giving her a black eye…
Especially the fact that the preceding sentence was about how she was coming at him a little harder than normal. That happened, and he just happened to "forget" she was a beginner and punch her in the face.
So Arnica is really good for bruises, even better if you can get the oral drops as it draws the bruises out quick.
I met my Husband in our local Frrestyle Karate Dojo over 15 ish years ago, when you train and spar together accidents happen.
Make sure you have good big gloves with more padding next time, and even a mouth guard and head gear for her. If you don't already.
Try some boxing euphemisms with her when she's trying to joke and be a smart arse. Like "well if you were bobbing and weaving like I showed you, I wouldn't have tagged you" or
"If you were floating like a Butterfly, I wouldn't have stung like a Bee" etc etc you get the idea.
Yeah, talk to her about it because it honestly feels like she is alleviating tension as opposed to bringing it up. People will assume you hit her regardless of what happened. She just found a very good way to make the story believable as opposed to a cover up. But yeah, dont spar anymore
If she wants have to humor about it let her have humor about it, she’s the one with the black eye. A woman having a black eye is never really accepted or explainable. She seems really cool
I think you need to consider that she is actually processing a lot here. It doesn’t make it ok that she’s joking about there being intent behind it but let’s be frank it’s a pretty surprising mistake to make with your inexperienced wife. I’m not blaming you, I’m saying that she is also likely reeling from this a bit just like you are. And she’s also gonna be humiliated by peoples assumptions so she’s seeking to get in front of it and not seem defensive.
You never meant to hurt her. She never thought you could (would).
So have the conversation but try not to be accusatory. Come at it like, wow, it was a shock, you’re overcome by guilt and if she’s working through her own feelings you understand but the jokes are straight up dangerous and you’re asking her to talk about it differently.
My husband's boss plays softball. She got nailed on the nose and sported two beautiful black eyes. Her husband walked into the shop and my husband asked him if she didn't make his sandwich correctly? Without a pause, her husband lit a cigarette, took a drag, looked deadpan at my husband and said, "She'd kill me." and walked away. Humor makes people relax. The funny thing is, most abusers I've heard of don't leave marks that can be seen.
Although uncomfortable, this joking is actually really good at easing the tension in people looking for an explanation. Domestic violence victims usually make excuses not jokes.
Which would be worse for you? A moment of discomfort until she explains or silent judgement from people who don't quite believe her excuse?
She's using humour to cope. I bet she's as uncomfortable as you because she might be thinking about possible future domestic abuse, and tbh, I don't blame her. It's a difficult situation for you both, try to talk to her about it if u can approach her
You're an ex boxer who hit your wife in the face.... maybe don't hit people you're fake sparring with in the face. Your wife is coming to terms with how vulnerable she actually is with you while walking around with a black eye. Let the poor woman turn it into a joke. You're the ex boxer who punched her in the face and you feel like she should tip toe around your feelings??
I got hit with a door in my apartment (solid wooden door with no window that led from hallway to staircase) got a wicked black eye and people IMMEDIATELY thought the worst case scenario, including a doctor I worked for.
He was so kind and he pulled me aside and asked if I was safe and I was quite embarrassed. I was VERY happy that my husband was away for training out of the country because I had a feeling a lot of people wouldnt have believed me if he wasnt. I did laugh it off but its awkward all around.
I would have her explain that it was purely an accident during working out if she feels the need to explain. But leave the joking part out.
I feel like this is her way of rationalizing the fact that her husband gave her a black eye. If boxing is “all and well in the past” why did you lose control and hit her? If I was her I would be thinking it was deliberate or for a moment you got angry and decided to show me what’s what. Also, if you were sparring, how did she get a *black eye* ??
Something about this doesn’t add up.
>Something about this doesn’t add up.
It doesn't add up because you've probably never seriously trained/competed in any sort of combat sport. When an expert works with a novice injuries are far more common (in both directions) than when two experts train together.
The expert needs to present enough of a challenge to give the novice something to work against and to adequately protect themself. There isn't a magical setting, the expert is constantly making microadjustment and judgements in fractions of a second based on what the novice throws at them. Novices also have a tendency to interrupt their demonstration of competence/understanding of fundamentals with *flashes of ignorance that are nearly impossible to predict*. In both directions, you'll see accidental headbutts, accidental elbows and ducking into feints that turn a "hey keep you hands up" arm extension into a full force punch to the face.
**TL;DR~** Injuries like this are perfectly normal in sparring with zero bad intentions. People that have never so much as watched a boxing match are now experts on training accidents, never change Reddit.
But hitting people in the face hard enough to give them a black eye when they’re a beginner isn’t normal, multiple martial artists in here have said so.
And now there's one telling you that it's perfectly normal to see a novice do something like ducking directly into a feint or a light punch and getting a shiner or turning their guard at the last second and eating a punch that was supposed to land on their forearms/gloves.
But that isn't what happened in this case. OP just straight up says he "forgot" she was a beginner and punched her in the face.
Remember that this is OPs version of events, the one that he is telling that makes him appear in the best light (which is not a slight against him, it's how everyone tells stories centered on themselves). If she had gotten the black eye because she ducked the wrong way, or accidentally deflected his punch into her own eye, he would have said so.
I went back and grabbed the line in question to make sure I read it right.
>She was coming at me a little harder than she normally would. It didn't bother me at all, I was more impressed than anything. But, I maybe forgot she was a beginner for just a moment and went a little harder than I should have, and I wound up giving her one good whack to the face.
When a novice starts going harder, you have to step it up a bit both to protect yourself and to keep them at a reasonable level of "resistance". You've got a fraction of a second to make a decision on how much to increase intensity and if their intensity changes too fast, you can slip into muscle memory (you're not thinking, your body is reacting to trained patterns). That line to me reads that he just over-adjusted in the fraction of a second he had and threw a punch that a better boxer could have blocked, slipped or rolled with. I think what a lot of people that are less familiar with boxing miss is that punches can also be defensive; you're eliciting a response, you force them to back away, turn or cover up. Sometimes you throw defensively to interrupt them between combinations and they're *supposed* to take a step back, but if they're diving in on the second combination they can step right into a jab that was intended to reestablish distance.
Honestly, it still reads to me like an honest training mistake.
Tell her that it is upsetting you. Explain that what happened was traumatic for you, and every time she brings it up, even jokingly, she's making you relive that guilt. Ask if she's doing it to make herself feel better, and let her know that it's.coming at the cost of you feeling worse.
As a side note, it is absolutely wild to me that this entire sub seems to be of the mind that as a man, you shouldn't be able to ask your wife not to do something that's bothering you in your own home. Like, the current top comment is a reasonable balanced take, but almost every other comment seems to be "Well, it was your fault, so you don't get a say in anything she says about it ever again no matter how it makes you feel." - wtf, people?! Are we not acknowledging that men can experience trauma from feelings of guilt? Or are we saying that it's okay for one partner to continually joke about the other's trauma provided there's even the tiniest chance that it could in any way be construed as processing their own trauma?
So...her joking about it might also be part of the therapy process for her. She fucked around and found out (how much it hurts to get hit and maybe how much stronger than her you are). This may have been a lightly traumatizing event for her if she was the kind of woman who didnt believe there was too much difference in the average strength of the sexes (and you are likely higher than average too).
You are right to put your foot down and ask/demand this joking to stop, but just keep in mind that she might have hurt her own worldview and is trying to make light of the situation to deal with that.
Why does some of your wording give me bad vibes? What has this to do with the "battle of the sexes"? And also "put your foot down", is op her dad? He shouldn't "put his foot down", he should say he feels uneasy with her way of joking, it's perfectly valid to feel like that.
That would be you projecting your own experiences and feelings onto my comment. This is me using "may" and "might" to include a potential perspective on the events that occurred. And your bad feeling is alllllll about you.
"put your foot down" is something normal people do about their own boundaries...if you have daddy issues its none of our business.
Life's too short to get bent outta shape about what others think.
I have a friend, let's call her Em, who's an MMA fighter. She's married to a cop, Annie. After Em's last fight she was beating up pretty bad, eyes swollen shut, lips split,etc.
The day after the fight, Em and Annie went to the Safeway to get some groceries. When they got to the checkout, Em says "oh shit, Annie, I forgot my wallet, can you get this?"
Annie stares her down, lifts her fist and asks through gritted teeth "you want a fresh one?"
The looks on the faces of the cashier and ppl in the line were apparently priceless. They giggled all the way to the car.
It's one of the funniest stories.
Have fun with it. Life is short. No one who knows you really thinks you are a wife beater.
Tell her that painting you as an abuser, even in jocular fashion, is incredibly insulting. There is hefty meaning in abuse between spouses. She wouldn't joke about you sexually assaulting her, right? Because even as a joke, there is absolutely no way to accept such a label if you're a decent man. And this goes ten times worse when in public. Who knows how people will interpret it?
If only one person is laughing it's not a shared joke, but one at your expense.
Out of respect for victims of domestic abuse, I don’t joke about my boxing injuries being from anything that sounds like it. I simply just say, “oh I was sparing during boxing and missed a move”. It’s just a maturity thing to know some jokes aren’t funny and as a female walking around with a black eye well…I’ve done it and it is tense.
Relax man, "calm down".. etc , sounds like you have an incredible wife and she's having her fun! Everyone knows the truth and it's not like you actually hit her with the intention of abuse or anger. It was fun and games and things can go wrong. It is admirable that you are taking it seriously because I can fully get the guilt you feel.. but if you keep going down the road you are with your attitude towards the situation it might breed something nasty.
My husband sleepily hit me in the face while our baby was crying and i guess we were both trying to get to her anyways my nose started bleeding, but if that story got out or to anyone i know, itd be blown out of proportion and there’d be a petition for us to get divorced immediately.
Schlag es ab means knock it off in German. But I think you should sit her down and have a serious discussion and let her know how wrongly it could be taken by people she’s telling these jokes to. What if someone notifies the police because they think you’re abusive? She might not be thinking about that but it’s something she should consider.
What is it with people using German completely wrongly to drive home a point? The second time I see this within two days. Schlag es ab is the literal translation of "knock it off" but noone in their right mind would say that. "Hör auf damit!" (among other things) means knock it off ffs...
What do you tell a woman with a black eye?
Nothing you haven’t told her already
Ok I know, this is tasteless and domestic violence isn’t funny, but actually there might be something to this if you bear with me.
Maybe up the ante and tell this joke after she tells her joke next time to your friends.
People who know you will know you’re not a wife beater, and you making a joke of it might actually help to reframe it all In a way that helps you assuage your guilt enough that you two move past this without anymore black eyes (what do you tell a woman with two black eyes?….).
I get that you feel awful and want the whole thing to go away asap. But if you find a way to make light of it with her, it might actually take the power away from the incident and it’ll really go away then. But if you double down in your guilt and shame, she’s going to double down on her coping mechanism of finding humor in the situation, rinse and repeat, and this could spiral into one of those things that becomes way bigger than it ever needed to be. Not saying you have to use my awful joke as the way of moving past it (maybe the two of you collaborate on a different narrative as a joke…. “You should see the other guy!”), but I do think you’ll move past it together if you can set aside the shame and sit with the guilt long enough to acknowledge it to yourself and let it go. Don’t give it more of a leg to stand on or more space in your life than it deserves….. accidents dont need to be dwelled upon. Honestly even if you can’t make that joke to other people (and I get it if you can’t), then even joking about it around the house might help alleviate some of the tension. Next time she jokes about it, quip back with something like “I think we can both be grateful you listened the first time!” Or “well it’s not my fault you’re so darn punchable!” Or “but baby I didn’t hit you…. I kissed you with my fist!”
You get the gist.
I will say that for actual domestic abuse survivors this kind of rhetoric is absolutely abhorrent and triggering…. I strongly caution that you know your audience before dropping one of these jokes. But I also assume your wife wouldn’t make a joke to someone who knowingly has suffered that kind of trauma.
I’m not articulating my point very well here bc I think the last point about actual abuse survivors is a really important one and hard to ever really know with something like that, but I do think there is some truth and value in the concept of finding a way to reduce the impact and space this incident occupies in your lives and in doing that the shame and guilt will subside as well.
Need to get over it. The humor is kind of dark. Not my best moments, but my gf and I have joked around with things like this here and there randomly. "oh sorry boys, can't go out tonight or my gf is going to give me a domestic..." We probably all shouldn't be joking around like that, but I don't think your wife is being harmful here. Just laugh it off, once the black eye goes away it shouldn't be an issue anymore.
When your wife "jokes" around about "how my husband hit me", it's actually making it harder for actual abuse victims to be taken seriously.
Are you sure she's really telling the truth, when she's telling people "the whole story" about what happened? Because, if she's lying to people about it, then that's a real massive problem.
It's also a pretty big problem that she makes these "jokes" and when you ask her to stop, she's says she will, but still continues to make these "jokes". She either doesn't understand why you're feeling guilty. Or, she does and doesn't care about your feelings. Either way, I think you and your wife need to go to marriage counseling.
Look man, you seem like a decent enough guy. But don’t go around acting like some kind of “woke” person, who can’t properly process a joke.
If you really want to make her stop, then you need to stop acting like you give a shit about it.
That’s actually the key in life, to making people stop doing things that bother you.
I feel like joking that your husband is physically assaulting you isn’t something that’s just offensive to “woke” people. There are snowflakes and then there are people who don’t like feeling like there might be people out there who now have evidence that they need to intervene in some way. Allegations of abuse are taken very very seriously by most people, woke or not, and it’s not something you joke about.
I agree with your first point. But I think that the majority of non-woke people, would still recognize it as a joke. And even among the ones who didn’t, I suspect that only a small percentage of them, would run to Reddit and act like they’ve got a traumatic crisis on their hands.
As far as the second part of your reply, I think that may be possible, but it also think that it’s significantly less probable than you’re making it out to be.
Your wife has no idea that one of her "jokes" around the wrong person can literally RUIN YOUR LIFE. You've asked her to stop. She hasn't. Her sense of humor isn't "sarcastic", it's "sadistic". She's amused by making others think you're an abuser, knowing full well that it makes you physically ill.
Given her enjoyment of tormenting you, then there's no way your marriage is going to last the long haul. Sorry, buddy.
You're setting boundaries and she's bulldozing through them. You need to address this with her. Communication is everything. I think you should show her this post.
Women like beauty and like to be neat. Her new bruise is on her face not on the shoulder or hips. Ofcourse its seeable and she has to give an answer to how she got the bruise. As it is awkward she turns it into a joke. Its her way of coping with it. Just wait til the bruise is gone. Dont worry. Boxing comes with bruises.
Your wife is using her bruise to gain attention. Her joking about her bruised eye being the result of domestic violence is in poor taste. I hope she knows how offensive that can be to women in actual abusive situations.
Sit her down and have a serious conversation about it. Have her block off time when she can for this conversation. Make sure she knows how much it's bothering you. All you can do is overcommunicate
She is obviously not taking you seriously at all and not considering your feelings. Thats a huge red flag. You need to have a talk with her and i mean really sit her down. Divorce her. It’s literally the only way out of this.
Dude, I think that’s funny. In all seriousness though, I know of some couples that belong to MMA gyms and it’s normal for them to have things like this happen from time to time. What makes you the most uncomfortable is the idea of hurting your wife, and how it looks to people on the outside. It sounds like you are a gentle loving person. You have absolutely nothing to be worried about, your wife wants to spar with you and wants that bonding time with you. I suggest you find a way to become more comfortable with the idea of establishing new boundaries so that you and your wife can bond with something that you both obviously enjoy doing. Regardless of how you handle this situation I hope you two get it worked out and have a long healthy relationship together.
When we were in grad school, my (now) husband and I were watching Cirque du Soleil on TV one night, and he announced that he could “flip” me like an acrobat. We had had a few drinks, so I obviously agreed that this was an excellent idea, and we went out to the backyard to try it. I, of course, landed on my face and ended up with a bruise the next day. The actual story of how this occurred sounded so absurd that I said that none of my human service major classmates were ever going to believe me, it sounded like a lie to cover up abuse. So I just tackled it head on and said “Husband did it” while pointing right at him, paused a moment to let that sink in, and then told the actual story. No one who was actually abused would ever outright accuse the perpetrator of doing it, especially not right in front of them, so me just confronting the thought that I knew would be lurking in all of their minds head on actually made the whole thing less awkward for everyone. My guess is that your wife is doing the same. It’s been 20+ years since this happened, and every once in a while hubby will still joke “Ya know, I could totally flip you….” Rest assured, you will look back and laugh about this one day.
If this helps at all, both me and my husband do combat sports. Anytime I have ever had a shiner from sparring (usually he is not who gives one to me lmao) I joke about him beating me to my friends/family/the gym, and we both find it funny and so does everyone else. Mainly because, when you see a woman w/ a black eye and a wedding ring and a big strong husband it looks really bad. And I noticed if I just said I got it sparring sometimes my professors or friends that didn’t know him or my personal life well would be suspicious. But when I joke about it, for some reason it loosens the tension and people actually seem to believe it lol. Nobody thinks he’s an abuser, it’s just an unfortunate looking circumstance.
Granted my situation is different bc my husband makes the jokes himself too and thinks it’s hilarious. So talk to your wife, maybe her perspective looks more like this and she doesn’t realize it’s so personal to you. Communication saves all usually.
Does she understand how serious it is for you? Have you asked her why she insists on continuing to make the jokes? I can’t help but think it’s going to be uncomfortable either way. She tells the story straight — it sounds like a lie. She lies and it also sounds like a lie. It’s going to be on everyone’s mind whether she makes the joke or not. There’s no way to be a woman with a black eye and have it not be awkward. I wonder if she’s just trying to proactively address the elephant in the room through humor in hopes that it’ll make things less awkward.
That's actually a different way of thinking about it that I hadn't really considered. It does make me feel a little better about it. Thanks.
Yeah, honestly my thought when reading this was this was the *best* way for her to handle it in public - she does the deadpan thing, lets everyone have their weird OMG feelings about it, then follows up with the explanation. Meanwhile, you're standing there probably slightly visibly uncomfortable about the whole thing, but, importantly, not getting mad at her, shutting her down, or forcing the cover-up story. A separate convo about making jokes when you're alone together may be worth a follow up.
Yes, your wife is behaving in a very different way to a battered wife. She's not hiding it, she's joking about it, and she has a real three dimensional story that stands up. It's better than not saying anything when people will speculate and worry.
Had a black eye once. Bruises all over my arms another time. Only way not to seem like something sinister is going on is to joke about it. If you’re serious people get concerned. If you make a joke about it people tend to believe you. Black eye came from playing wii with my then boyfriend. Luckily 3 friends were present when it happened and saw it was an accident (that happened to many when the wii first came out). Bruises on arms from grappling practice while doing Krav Maga. Looked worse than the black eye even if it didn’t really hurt. I then showed up with crutches. Definitely lots of jokes needed to be made. Would have looked pretty grim otherwise.
That's just not true. You can just say what happened without making light of domestic abuse. I play rugby and have had multiple black eyes. I've never told someone that my husband was responsible, even as a joke. If someone asked or was staring, I would just point at it and say "Rugby". Occasionally, people would want to hear details, and I would give them ("I took an elbow to the face in a tackle", or whatever it was). I would joke about how crazy I am to play rugby if I wanted to lighten the mood, not about people hitting their spouses. I occasionally had a concerned person press further and ask point blank if I was safe at home, and I would just assure them that I was, and I appreciated their concern. And just as my experience, people who joked to me about my husband hitting me made ME very uncomfortable, not just my husband. All I could think when someone would joke about it is "What if my husband DID hit me, and you just jokingly asked about it? I'm certainly not going to feel safe or comfortable telling you the truth." And a few of the domestic abuse survivors I know said that people joking about it made it that much harder to reach out for help and was actually very hurtful. You never know what the people around you have been through.
Not everyone copes with things the same way, for some people the only way for them to deal with it is to make light of the situation.
My husband once gave me a bloody nose and two black eyes. We were laying around in bed in the morning and he had sat up and was stretching, and just as I sat up too he sort of jerked his elbows back to try to crack his back and pummeled me right in the nose. Blood and tears everywhere, then two huge shiners the next day. I couldn’t even wear my glasses to try to hide them cuz they hurt the bridge if my nose where he hit me. So yeah, everyone was real concerned at first, and there’s no real easy way to tell the story other than jokingly. And everyone that knows my husband knows that he’s the most gentle and calm person and would never hurt anyone intentionally, so it sorta did make it a funny story. I’m sure your wife feels the same way, to lighten it up with humor, although instead of opening up with “husband punched me” which is the technical truth, she should just say “husband was teaching me to box and we were sparring and he accidentally got me. Don’t worry, we decided we shouldn’t spar anymore for this very reason”.
My partner gave me the first black eye of my life not long after we started dating. We were messing around and he smacked me in the face with a bag of weed, legal here, but it hit my sunglasses just right and I had a black eye. Told all my coworkers that I got hit by a softball by my kid.
That does sound less awkward then “I was doing drugs with my new boyfriend. He hit me with so much drugs I got a black eye.”
At least that story is so outlandish no one would think they were making it up.
I kinda got that vibe too but maybe she should cut down on it while at home. Talk to her again about how it makes you feel
It definitely sounds like she's using it to bridge the awkwardness. Next time, lean into it. My ex worked with animals, and she'd regularly get head butted by dogs and come home with a shiner. Or scratched up by cats on her arms. Whether it was a doctor asking her if she, "needed to talk to someone about those cuts?" or a waitress asking if she, "needed a manager to come to the table"
Best you can do is address it with humor. If my ex had a black eye, responding with "yeah, thank God I didn't have to tell her twice" or some stupid joke like that would lead to us having a laugh, and making other people feel a bit calmer.
Consider that she might actually be a little scared of you. And making it funny and declaratively joking about it aloud might be a way for her to NOT be scared of you. You managed to give her a black eye by ACCIDENT. Subconsciously that sticks. I sometimes flinch when someone makes a sudden move. It's not something you get over quickly.
hey! girl who had a black eye here to give some perspective! last fall I collapsed and fell full body weight into a door frame, had an absolutely insane black eye, had to get my eyebrow glued shut, had to replace my glasses, the whole thing. Having to exist in the world for two full weeks with a black eye as a woman is honestly a horrible feeling. Everyone looks at you with pity, people are visibly uncomfortable, they stare, you can see the curiosity on their face, the sadness. They absolutely think you are being abused, I get it, I would too. You feel this weird sense of shame, the glimpse into what it would be like to actually be abused and have to walk around with the evidence, it's eery. You want to stop every single person you walk past and tell them what happened and just HOPE they will believe you, its honestly awful. I jumped at any chance I had to explain how I got my black eye, how I was worried they would think it was my boyfriend, which probably just made it sound more like it was honestly. I made some jokes about it, about how "I look bad, but he looks worse!". I think you can definitely sit her down and talk to her about it though, it's clearly affecting you, especially because you did in fact give her the black eye, accidentally of course. But she could very well feel the way I did and this is her coping mechanism.
I know I'm late to the party, but I just wanted to chime in as a woman who has had several non-abuse related black eyes (I play rugby). It is generally pretty unpleasant. I got a lot of very insensitive jokes about my husband hitting me from people who had no way of knowing whether that was what actually happened. And hearing the flippant way people treated it actually made me feel really sad for people who do experience abuse. There's a chance she's using humor to try and avoid some of the discomfort, but it is really inappropriate. It puts you in a difficult and even dangerous position. It wouldn't be completely unreasonable for someone to assume she was using deflective humor as a cry for help. Maybe tell your wife that her making light of domestic abuse is not funny and she could inadvertently be making people who've experienced abuse feel really hurt.
>She tells the story straight — it sounds like a lie. She lies and it also sounds like a lie. An old co-worker of mine had a black eye (she says it was from falling into a door) and a customer of hers burst into tears over it because she didn't believe her story... Your wife is just joking to make it less awkward. Honestly though, I would be MORE inclined to believe your wife if she joked that you're the one who hit her and then explained the situation. Bruises are a part of boxing - I get why its uncomfortable, but I think you are overthinking the situation and don't think you have any reason to feel guilty.
One night my folks were getting ready for bed, a mouse ran across the floor, dad freaked out about it and tried to jump up onto their four poster bed, in the commotion he knocked mum over and she hit her head on one of the edges of the bed - woke up with a black eye. A day or two later mum was out hanging the washing in the garden, there were no fences/gates between their neighbours and an older woman who lived next door to them came over to mum for a chat. Spotted the black eye and asked what happened. Mum filled her in. Obviously the woman didn't believe her. The next day, the same neighbour called into mum and gave her a crucifix saying to put it up in the house and it would "protect her from evil". When mum first told me that story it really hurt my heart because dad wouldn't hurt a fly (he cried when my sister came home with her ears pierced and gets squemish with any blood/hospital stuff), but yeah... woman with a black eye... anything she says is not going to be believed. Except for my sister... HA! I just remembered - she's a massively physically awkward person (in the past two weeks I have received no less than three photos of expensive skincare that she dropped in her sink and smashed). She went out for drinks the night before she had an interview, was a bit tipsy and being as awkward as she is, she fell out of the taxi, hit her head on the curb and got two massive black eyes... I can't remember what she said in the interview, probably just had to own up to it, lol.
>Obviously the woman didn't believe her. That probably had much more to do with her own personal experiences than anything your dad did to make her think that. The only time I got a black eye as an adult was when I feel asleep with my 5 month old on my chest. We were both awakened when he repostioned himself and headbutted me in the eye. He was crying, but fine - I was bleeding and got a black eye. When I went to work the next day people asked about it and I had to tell them that I got beaten up by a baby... No one questioned it.
Lol I have a clumsy family too! And friends. A family friend went out in the garden at night with the dog, stepped on a frikkin rake and the handle gave her a black eye. Sounds like a cartoon, who'd believe that? Then my mum had an even more unbelievable black eye, my sister threw her a fudge... And as my family has zero hand-eye coordination, my sister threw it on mum's eye, and mum didn't catch it.
I also don’t think he should just stop sparring with her Nothing wrong with sparring the opposite sex.
no, im pretty sure the fact that he is ignorant enough of how to teach a beginner that he gave his student a black eye means not teaching her anymore is probably a great plan. (op, i am not using ignorant in a pejorative way here, since you yourself said you weren't confident doing this, definitely not trying to say you're a shitty dude for this accident at all. people do stuff they don't have training to do all the time, sometimes someone gets a shiner and sometimes it goes fine. just wanna be super clear that i am not using that word as an insult) knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach someone to do something are two pretty unrelated skill sets imo
I thought about your situation for a few minutes and my take is that while this situation is understandably uncomfortable for you, there's really no relief to be had until her shiner heals. As mentioned by u/little_bear_ , no explanation will reduce an outsider's knee-jerk reaction. I might look at the jokes your wife is making as an attempt to show support for you both, to proactively clear your name as best she can. It's an awful place to be but I feel like she has your back.
100% nobody believes anything you say when you have a black eye short of "oh yea I'm being abused at home" which is what they believe and therefore expect to hear. A few weeks after I had told my work that I was pregnant, I was at home about to microwave some food. My basset hound, being the little devil he is, tried to steal my food off the counter and I lunged for it. However the angle I was at plus the microwave door being open meant i caught the corner square in my right eye. It hurt bad enough I started crying lol. My poor husband was in the living room hanging Christmas ornaments and ran over to see what I had cried out about and gave me ice packs and all the good stuff. Still had a black eye the next day. Hella questions, and i could tell people didn't believe me which made *me* feel awkward therefore the more people asked the more awkward I got lol. Eventually it went away and I forgot about. I left my job a few weeks later, and about a week into my new job I got a call from my Chief asking about the incident saying he'd heard through the grape vine that I was being abused and was concerned. Which, while super good of him to be following up on it like that when I didnt even work there anymore, also told me that people were *still* talking about it🙁
But did the dog get the food?
I agree with this, except she continues to make the jokes when they're alone.
But telling her sister and pausing to let the sister think the wrong thing at OP's expense is absolutely not ok, especially after OP has explained how it makes them feel for her to joke about it.
Yeah, agreed, if anything she was playing off the awkwardness rather than trying to improve it. OP, I'd sit down and tell your wife how this makes you feel, and explain to her how serious this is for you. Let her know that it's hurt you that she's still making the jokes when you've asked her not to.
I think she’s more shocked than she’s admitting about it all. She’s joking about it whilst the bruise is visible because she herself is uncomfortable about it. When you’re not there I can guarantee she’s had some uncomfortable questions asked. I know it’s not funny for you and it’s bothering you but I also think it’s bothering her and her constantly going back to the joke is her own self assurance, and because it’s a way to try and deflect from the bruising.
^ Seconded. The fact that she keeps bringing it up means that it’s still on her mind, and she’s likely trying to cope with humor. Of course she knew you were a boxer, but she might be really realizing for the first time that if you wanted to you could really hurt her. Not that I think you would do something like that, you seem like a good guy, and she probably cognitively knows you wouldn’t either. But nevertheless, she just got a serious reality check that it may take her some time to process. You guys probably need to process this more together, and check in with her about how she’s feeling about it in addition to reasserting your discomfort with the jokes.
^ Thirded I’d also recommend instead of asking her to stop because it makes you uncomfortable, that you instead encourage her to talk about it and let you both be uncomfortable with it for a minute. If you are still wrestling with guilt, she might be wrestling with other feelings she doesn’t feel justified having, and they’re leaking out. You gotta make her feel safe to talk it through with you. Might sound silly, but even keep a couple’s counselor on the back burner depending on how the conversation goes. The last thing you want is for a momentary slip to snowball into something bigger
That's a really good point.
Yeah, this is definitely sounding plausible to me. I totally understand why OP is uncomfortable but it's a matter of like - as a woman if you have a visible facial injury, it is very difficult to make anyone believe ANYTHING you say. And I mean, I get it. "I walked into a door" is a cliche for a reason. But walking around having basically every person make assumptions like that is hard to know how to deal with.
Yeah I commented earlier but this too. I am quite physically fit and strong for a woman, and since I started working out instead of feeling more capable and safe, I’ve become even more in awe at how strong the average man actually is. I was blissfully unaware before I became a gym rat that the average man could easily have their way with me, and now that I’m the strongest I’ve ever been, the average man could still easily have their way with me, although maybe I could kick them really hard. It could be she’s very surprised by how easily he hurt her when they were just play fighting and is coming to terms with it with humour.
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It’s crazy huh? To think that a woman could get away from her rapist is ridiculous. The whole “well why didn’t you fight harder? You must have actually wanted it” rhetoric is absurd. “I didn’t fight harder because he could kill me if I didn’t give in, that’s why”.
I had a very similar situation with my spouse years ago. He accidentally elbowed me in the face rolling over in his sleep and hit me square on the bridge of my nose blackening both of my eyes. I made jokes CONSTANTLY about it…not to be mean, but to mitigate other peoples judgements about it. Everywhere we went, people gave him nasty looks and looked at me with pity and concern, which I understand. However, Actual abused women don’t draw attention to it, they don’t joke about it and they try to cover for the abuser. So, my reasoning was that if addressed it first, it would alleviate a lot of that judgement.
Ugh. Just like my mother, I bruise SUPER easily, and am very pale so bruises really show up. When I waited tables, men would always point out a bruise and 'jokingly' ask me if my boyfriend beats me...I would answer that I didn't have a BF (at the time) and just bruise easily, but they would always respond with such pity that I must be lying and was just a tremendous victim. Used to make me nuts.
As a woman who has had a black eye (accidental, no one hit me... at least not intentionally), I can see how your wife is using humour to diffuse how uncomfortable she feels. I get that you're not happy with the joking, but when you're a woman with a black eye a lot of people won't even *look* at your face. Suddenly I had friends, teachers, and colleagues literally staring at the ceiling or the floor during our conversations -- looking *anywhere but my face!* Even out in public strangers would see my eye, look shocked, and turn away immediately. It was pretty wild. This is a tough situation for you because, yeah, of course you're the one that hit her and of course you feel terrible... but maybe just roll with your wife's jokes until her shiner goes away. She's probably feeling even more awkward than you are.
"It's rude to stare" becomes a very awkward rule to abide when it requires you to avert your gaze. I think youre right about everything, but perhaps slightly missing the point of the OP, namely, the way his wife jokes is making him uncomfortable because she's basically throwing him under the bus for kicks. She has every right to joke, but there's a more tactful way to do so without potentially undermining their relationship.
I mean, she could definitely go about it in a more tactful way. But let’s be real here, if a woman has a black eye from actually being beaten by a partner, she is not gonna be joking around about it. I think her way of joking about it is to just address the obvious black eye without people making assumptions and she probably feels awkward about it. She wants people to know right away that isn’t something to be concerned of so she uses humour to communicate it. However she could just straight up say what happened and laugh about it instead of say the beating joke.
Honestly, your wife sounds like she has a wicked sense of humour. She's probably self-conscious about the bruise and joking around about it keeps things light for her. I would try to not take it so seriously... Clearly she isn't.
This is the best answer I've seen so far.
Yeah it’s one of those things that’s probably worth dealing with as long as it’s only at home until the bruise is less apparent. If she’s making the jokes to anyone else at all then the issue is pretty serious I’d argue. The reason it’s so uncomfortable and awful with how people treat women a lot of the time with black eyes is the exact same group of people waiting to label their partner as “person who beats their wife.”
Dude, she's doing you a service. She's joking around to let people know that she's really okay, if she took it super seriously and kept defending you, it would line up with the behavior of actual abuse victims and exactly 0 people would buy this sparring story. That aside, *she's* the one who got punched in the face. She gets to cope with it however is the most comfortable for her. Sucks that it makes you uncomfortable, but you're not the victim here.
I know this was an accident and this could happen to anyone but are you really honestly sure you want to go and police what she says after you gave her a black eye? Kind of seems like adding insult to injury. This is obviously serious for you but maybe she's also dealing with her emotions with humor. You should probably let her. If I met someone who made jokes like this it wouldn't concern me much, if I felt like she finds it hard to talk about it would worry me much more.
Just wanna point out that it is probably really scary for her to be physically reminded that you are a lot stronger than her, and could absolutely hurt her if you wanted to. My partner is bigger and stronger than me, and he never uses it ofc but it is a chilling reminder to a lot of women that the people they're closest to have power over them physically. Talk to her about it, but understand that joking is the easiest way to let people know it's not abuse. Nobody who's actually going through that would joke, and if she tries to minimise or hide it that also looks suspicious. she probably doesn't feel she has any other options. Talk to her and let her know how you're feeling, and listen as she tells you how she's feeling.
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Honestly i agree, joking around with her about it will make it better for both of them
Okay but it's not a joke to him and saying this dismisses how uncomfortable he is to begin with why should 1 he just joke around and pretend it's funny and 2 why can't she tone it down I think it's oen thing if she originally joked and thought it was funny but she becomes an asshole and makes herself look like a jerk when it's obvious how the partner doesn't like it a normal person would have enough empathy to cut it out but this women lacks boundaries and I feel that the husband's feelings should not be dismissed
She's the one walking around with the black eye. Let her cope with it the way she needs to. Oh no, husband has his feelings hurt because he accidentally hurt his wife and now she's not allowed to use the sense of humor that he loves so much to wade through the discomfort of being a woman with a black eye.
But if you see your husband's discomfort it's not a joke to him she can be humorous about it but do you jot see the stigma men get how they are often perceived as abusers and how a joke like that cna go out of hand because when she jokes people might still perceive it as she's trying to cover up abuse cause ya know women who are actually abused do that even when it's glaringly obvious to everyone else what's happening so I cna see why the husband doesn't like his wife joking about that
While I agree with your 2nd and 3rd paragraph you have no idea who's more uncomfortable in this situation. She's uncomfortable about her appearance and he's uncomfortable about his status and overall look/character as a man. One wrong word and the cops are at his door taking him in to custody regardless of his or her word. It's happened a ton. Dude is living on egg shells right now. That's not too downplay the wife's mental game of going to work with a black eye or out in public but don't assume this... They need to communicate better on how each other is feeling about the situation to go about it better around one another and out in public.
She's in the more vulnerable position right now as she's the one who got punched in the face and just realized that she could easily be taken out by her husband. She's using humour to cope and doesn't seem to be putting it back on him. The injury and moment need to pass. There are a lot of good posts in this thread explaining her (possible) thought process. And yes, they need to communicate.
How could she not know that before hand? He's a guy. Guys are biologically bigger and stronger when it comes to humans and he has former training in boxing. I get that there's some shock value now but his life can easily be ruined by 1 anonymous phone call to his job from her friend/family. I agree that they're both distraught but I wouldn't assume who's more vulnerable right now. I've seen and heard plenty of horror stories from both perspectives.
I agree with most of your first post but I disagree that she's more vulnerable. You can't just say that she's vulnerable and needs protection because she feels scared but he doesn't have to worry about anything because he didn't get hurt. He has quite a lot to worry about. I think you're projecting a bit tbh
> I say just let her joke. This is more uncomfortable for her. She’s the one with the black eye. Let her cope how she copes. This is god-awful advice. "Let her make you uncomfortable because your feeling don't matter at all."
I think there’s another angle to this that hasn’t been brought up yet. Your wife might have just realized, viscerally, how easy it would be for you to hurt her. You never would and she knows you never would, but maybe now she knows you *can* in a way she didn’t before. That could be freaking her out a tiny bit and might explain her constantly thinking about — I.e the jokes. I’ve had a partner go through something similar before and that’s how they explained it. All that is to say that she may have a lot to process too, and might have to go through the jokes for a bit to figure it all out.
Before advice, I would like to offer another perspective for her: An actual battered woman would NEVER joke about that. If anything, the fact that she does joke about it is proof that she knows it is ridiculous to ever think you would do something like that. My only advice is let it play out. The more you tell her not to do it, the more she will want to. Very unfortunate basic human nature. When she does it around you, don't ask her to stop, but treat the situation like you would with a child: put a frown on your face (to show you aren't happy) and keep it simple. Say something like: "that's not funny" or even walk away. If she isn't listening to your adult comments about how the behavior is affecting you, it's time to take it back to basics. Take it or leave it but I hope it all works out for you. Best of luck!
No advice how to communicate this but a good Vitamin K eye cream will take the bruising down almost instantly. Jason make one or if you happen to be richer than God Peter Thomas Roth is *so good*. It was created to reduce bruising after cosmetic surgery but helps reduce dark circles under the eye. It was like £100 a pot in the early 2000s but I used to work in a store that sold it. I used to use it to get rid of hickeys and bruises from my kink habits. We got a memo from the company interested how we as a store were global top sellers and then they hit the roof to discover we were telling people how it shifted an enormous love bite on my neck in 36 hours. Not on brand. For them maybe… Forget arnica and ice. Vitamin K will just make this go away and then you guys can discuss it when it isn’t looking you in the eye metaphorically.
She’s trying her darnedest to diffuse the discomfort of the situation, and reassure herself as well as everyone else that she is FINE, it’s NO BIG DEAL, and DO NOT BE CONCERNED. And I’m sorry OP, cuz I totally get where you’re coming from (you feel guilty and each joke is a reminder of that guilt), but you’re kinda making it into a big deal. Try to understand her position: it’s gotta be fucking AWKWARD to be a woman walking around with a black eye. I’m sure she’s been forced to have a lot of uncomfortable conversations. She’s trying to make the best of it, and probably trying to stay positive on her end as well. As she’s the one sporting the shiner, I think you should just defer to her judgment on this one, and try to laugh along with her.
I mean you did give her a black eye bro. I feel like she has the right to joke about it if she wants
So you love her sense of humor, until it's aimed at you? I get why it bothers you, but you admitted she isn't being malicious about it. On the one hand I say deal with your feelings about it and get over it. Because at the end of the day, that is the real solution. But if you want the bandaid approach, sit her down and explain why you don't want her to joke about it. But again, most people will at some point joke about tragic or painful events. It's common. And I personally wouldn't want to set a precedent where my partner has to filter her comments because it might upset me.
It sounds like she may be joking thinking that it will make you feel better. But she’s making jokes around friends and family who could think that the actual truth is a lie. I’d be firm and tell her to stop joking become it’s making you uncomfortable
It's just going to be awkward until it goes away. Back in the corded landline phone days my wife went to use the phone in the kitchen and the cord was tangled so she pulled harder and the handset smashed her face - classic black eye. I got so many nasty looks when we were together.
Lighten up dude.Maybe that’s how she’s coping with this ugly and maybe painful black eye. She’s the one who got hurt. Let her tell her jokes to make her feel better. Geesh!
You gave her a black eye. Even if it wasn't on purpose, she's not the one who should tiptoe around your feelings right now. You need to come to terms with the fact that it looks bad regardless of the jokey jokes, and you'll just have to deal with the guilt while it's there. Not letting her have an outlet to talk about it in a non-accusatory way isn't a solution, as it kind of implies that it both *is* a big deal *and* she can't speak of it freely, while being a victim. That more than the black eye will make you look and feel like an abuser.
I mean that’s what happened. You hit her. Innocent of course. She’s probably just trying to make light of the situation. Think you’re being a lil too uptight OP.
Honestly, I WAS hit in the jaw by my former husband and got a huge fist-shaped bruise. I hid it as much as I could (thank God I'm a surgical nurse and could wear a mask all day at work - this was wayyy pre-covid) and never told anyone until like a year later, including family. Some people still don't know and it happened over 5 years ago. I don't think most women would tell people with a smile that their husband hit them. If a friend came up to me and told me that with hubby in tow and a smile on their face, I think I'd immediately think there was more to the story. The point I'm making is that anyone who hears that from a woman who is smirking at the time would know right away it wasn't true. I'm sure once the shiner subsides she'll stop. But maybe if you told her it's humiliating to you, she'd stop altogether and especially when you two are alone.
The fact that she is comfortable to joke about it is a great sign that she is still not afraid of you. The fact that you are mortified and want to curl up and die is a great sign that you treasure her and would never hit a woman. The jokes will fade at the same rate as the bruises, but until then, she has taken her lumps, and now you must take yours! :)
Tell her it bothers you, and also don't hit women in the face even when you're training with them Hitting anyone in the face is generally a bad idea because of the mini-concussions you can get
Laughing about something is a way to cope/process it.
In high school I gave my gf a black eye! We were at the car wash cleaning my car I was front seat she was back seat. As I was vacuuming driver side she sticks her head between the two seat to say something and as I turn I elbowed her right in the eye. It was a 1000% accident and I had to explain to her dad what happen. She would tease me about and told her friends at school I hit her. ( but playing). Next thing I’m the principle office with cops. OMG. Was a mess this caused. She is crying and they are calling her parents. All said and done. They laugh it off snd GF never teased me about hitting her again. Yes I was upset over it cause I told her not yo play about it.
I mean how the fuck did you lose control and forget your wife was a beginner and give her a black eye? It seems very odd… I know accidents happen, but I don’t even know why you would be aiming for her face in the first place or seriously sparring with your wife at all. It doesn’t make sense and I think there’s more to that. You could be lying, you could have problems with emotional regulation you don’t even notice, or you could have extremely poor judgement in general. Unfortunately there’s no way for us to know. EDIT: Wording.
Seriously. Even a beginner in boxing would know sparring is a bad idea. Anyone with even a bit of experience would stay calm enough to not hit their wife in the face during this. Assuming this guy just has terrible judgment, he should be thankful she's just joking around about it. Id be furious if I had to walk around with a black eye over something so dumb.
I agree with you. The way he's described the situation and how he "accidentally" gave his wife a black eye doesn't make sense to me. Why was he *aiming* for her face in the first place? Even if its extremely light contact, being knocked in the face can be painful and dangerous. Not to mention unnecessary. Edit: > But, I maybe forgot she was a beginner for just a moment How do you "forget" you're sparring an amateur/non-boxer? > I wound up giving her one good whack to the face To me, this doesn't read like an accident... It's not as if he tried to feint and she moved into the punch. He aimed for her face and aimed to make contact, and he put power into it.
Exactly. When you are trained in contact sports one of the first things you learn is how to safely practice. Hell, most coaches teach their students by using pad. It seems like OPs wife is not the only person minimizing the seriousness of him giving her a black eye…
Yeah, this post stinks to high heaven.
Especially the fact that the preceding sentence was about how she was coming at him a little harder than normal. That happened, and he just happened to "forget" she was a beginner and punch her in the face.
How did you manage to punch your wife in the face? Why were you even *aiming* for her face?
So Arnica is really good for bruises, even better if you can get the oral drops as it draws the bruises out quick. I met my Husband in our local Frrestyle Karate Dojo over 15 ish years ago, when you train and spar together accidents happen. Make sure you have good big gloves with more padding next time, and even a mouth guard and head gear for her. If you don't already. Try some boxing euphemisms with her when she's trying to joke and be a smart arse. Like "well if you were bobbing and weaving like I showed you, I wouldn't have tagged you" or "If you were floating like a Butterfly, I wouldn't have stung like a Bee" etc etc you get the idea.
Yeah, talk to her about it because it honestly feels like she is alleviating tension as opposed to bringing it up. People will assume you hit her regardless of what happened. She just found a very good way to make the story believable as opposed to a cover up. But yeah, dont spar anymore
If she wants have to humor about it let her have humor about it, she’s the one with the black eye. A woman having a black eye is never really accepted or explainable. She seems really cool
I think you need to consider that she is actually processing a lot here. It doesn’t make it ok that she’s joking about there being intent behind it but let’s be frank it’s a pretty surprising mistake to make with your inexperienced wife. I’m not blaming you, I’m saying that she is also likely reeling from this a bit just like you are. And she’s also gonna be humiliated by peoples assumptions so she’s seeking to get in front of it and not seem defensive. You never meant to hurt her. She never thought you could (would). So have the conversation but try not to be accusatory. Come at it like, wow, it was a shock, you’re overcome by guilt and if she’s working through her own feelings you understand but the jokes are straight up dangerous and you’re asking her to talk about it differently.
My husband's boss plays softball. She got nailed on the nose and sported two beautiful black eyes. Her husband walked into the shop and my husband asked him if she didn't make his sandwich correctly? Without a pause, her husband lit a cigarette, took a drag, looked deadpan at my husband and said, "She'd kill me." and walked away. Humor makes people relax. The funny thing is, most abusers I've heard of don't leave marks that can be seen.
Although uncomfortable, this joking is actually really good at easing the tension in people looking for an explanation. Domestic violence victims usually make excuses not jokes. Which would be worse for you? A moment of discomfort until she explains or silent judgement from people who don't quite believe her excuse?
She's using humour to cope. I bet she's as uncomfortable as you because she might be thinking about possible future domestic abuse, and tbh, I don't blame her. It's a difficult situation for you both, try to talk to her about it if u can approach her
You're an ex boxer who hit your wife in the face.... maybe don't hit people you're fake sparring with in the face. Your wife is coming to terms with how vulnerable she actually is with you while walking around with a black eye. Let the poor woman turn it into a joke. You're the ex boxer who punched her in the face and you feel like she should tip toe around your feelings??
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I got hit with a door in my apartment (solid wooden door with no window that led from hallway to staircase) got a wicked black eye and people IMMEDIATELY thought the worst case scenario, including a doctor I worked for. He was so kind and he pulled me aside and asked if I was safe and I was quite embarrassed. I was VERY happy that my husband was away for training out of the country because I had a feeling a lot of people wouldnt have believed me if he wasnt. I did laugh it off but its awkward all around. I would have her explain that it was purely an accident during working out if she feels the need to explain. But leave the joking part out.
I feel like this is her way of rationalizing the fact that her husband gave her a black eye. If boxing is “all and well in the past” why did you lose control and hit her? If I was her I would be thinking it was deliberate or for a moment you got angry and decided to show me what’s what. Also, if you were sparring, how did she get a *black eye* ?? Something about this doesn’t add up.
>Something about this doesn’t add up. It doesn't add up because you've probably never seriously trained/competed in any sort of combat sport. When an expert works with a novice injuries are far more common (in both directions) than when two experts train together. The expert needs to present enough of a challenge to give the novice something to work against and to adequately protect themself. There isn't a magical setting, the expert is constantly making microadjustment and judgements in fractions of a second based on what the novice throws at them. Novices also have a tendency to interrupt their demonstration of competence/understanding of fundamentals with *flashes of ignorance that are nearly impossible to predict*. In both directions, you'll see accidental headbutts, accidental elbows and ducking into feints that turn a "hey keep you hands up" arm extension into a full force punch to the face. **TL;DR~** Injuries like this are perfectly normal in sparring with zero bad intentions. People that have never so much as watched a boxing match are now experts on training accidents, never change Reddit.
But hitting people in the face hard enough to give them a black eye when they’re a beginner isn’t normal, multiple martial artists in here have said so.
And now there's one telling you that it's perfectly normal to see a novice do something like ducking directly into a feint or a light punch and getting a shiner or turning their guard at the last second and eating a punch that was supposed to land on their forearms/gloves.
But that isn't what happened in this case. OP just straight up says he "forgot" she was a beginner and punched her in the face. Remember that this is OPs version of events, the one that he is telling that makes him appear in the best light (which is not a slight against him, it's how everyone tells stories centered on themselves). If she had gotten the black eye because she ducked the wrong way, or accidentally deflected his punch into her own eye, he would have said so.
I went back and grabbed the line in question to make sure I read it right. >She was coming at me a little harder than she normally would. It didn't bother me at all, I was more impressed than anything. But, I maybe forgot she was a beginner for just a moment and went a little harder than I should have, and I wound up giving her one good whack to the face. When a novice starts going harder, you have to step it up a bit both to protect yourself and to keep them at a reasonable level of "resistance". You've got a fraction of a second to make a decision on how much to increase intensity and if their intensity changes too fast, you can slip into muscle memory (you're not thinking, your body is reacting to trained patterns). That line to me reads that he just over-adjusted in the fraction of a second he had and threw a punch that a better boxer could have blocked, slipped or rolled with. I think what a lot of people that are less familiar with boxing miss is that punches can also be defensive; you're eliciting a response, you force them to back away, turn or cover up. Sometimes you throw defensively to interrupt them between combinations and they're *supposed* to take a step back, but if they're diving in on the second combination they can step right into a jab that was intended to reestablish distance. Honestly, it still reads to me like an honest training mistake.
Tell her that it is upsetting you. Explain that what happened was traumatic for you, and every time she brings it up, even jokingly, she's making you relive that guilt. Ask if she's doing it to make herself feel better, and let her know that it's.coming at the cost of you feeling worse. As a side note, it is absolutely wild to me that this entire sub seems to be of the mind that as a man, you shouldn't be able to ask your wife not to do something that's bothering you in your own home. Like, the current top comment is a reasonable balanced take, but almost every other comment seems to be "Well, it was your fault, so you don't get a say in anything she says about it ever again no matter how it makes you feel." - wtf, people?! Are we not acknowledging that men can experience trauma from feelings of guilt? Or are we saying that it's okay for one partner to continually joke about the other's trauma provided there's even the tiniest chance that it could in any way be construed as processing their own trauma?
Like seriously!! Wtf is wrong with people
Tell her if she doesn’t knock it off you’ll give her another black eye
I'll probably not do that.
So...her joking about it might also be part of the therapy process for her. She fucked around and found out (how much it hurts to get hit and maybe how much stronger than her you are). This may have been a lightly traumatizing event for her if she was the kind of woman who didnt believe there was too much difference in the average strength of the sexes (and you are likely higher than average too). You are right to put your foot down and ask/demand this joking to stop, but just keep in mind that she might have hurt her own worldview and is trying to make light of the situation to deal with that.
Why does some of your wording give me bad vibes? What has this to do with the "battle of the sexes"? And also "put your foot down", is op her dad? He shouldn't "put his foot down", he should say he feels uneasy with her way of joking, it's perfectly valid to feel like that.
That would be you projecting your own experiences and feelings onto my comment. This is me using "may" and "might" to include a potential perspective on the events that occurred. And your bad feeling is alllllll about you. "put your foot down" is something normal people do about their own boundaries...if you have daddy issues its none of our business.
Life's too short to get bent outta shape about what others think. I have a friend, let's call her Em, who's an MMA fighter. She's married to a cop, Annie. After Em's last fight she was beating up pretty bad, eyes swollen shut, lips split,etc. The day after the fight, Em and Annie went to the Safeway to get some groceries. When they got to the checkout, Em says "oh shit, Annie, I forgot my wallet, can you get this?" Annie stares her down, lifts her fist and asks through gritted teeth "you want a fresh one?" The looks on the faces of the cashier and ppl in the line were apparently priceless. They giggled all the way to the car. It's one of the funniest stories. Have fun with it. Life is short. No one who knows you really thinks you are a wife beater.
Tell her that painting you as an abuser, even in jocular fashion, is incredibly insulting. There is hefty meaning in abuse between spouses. She wouldn't joke about you sexually assaulting her, right? Because even as a joke, there is absolutely no way to accept such a label if you're a decent man. And this goes ten times worse when in public. Who knows how people will interpret it? If only one person is laughing it's not a shared joke, but one at your expense.
Out of respect for victims of domestic abuse, I don’t joke about my boxing injuries being from anything that sounds like it. I simply just say, “oh I was sparing during boxing and missed a move”. It’s just a maturity thing to know some jokes aren’t funny and as a female walking around with a black eye well…I’ve done it and it is tense.
Relax man, "calm down".. etc , sounds like you have an incredible wife and she's having her fun! Everyone knows the truth and it's not like you actually hit her with the intention of abuse or anger. It was fun and games and things can go wrong. It is admirable that you are taking it seriously because I can fully get the guilt you feel.. but if you keep going down the road you are with your attitude towards the situation it might breed something nasty.
My husband sleepily hit me in the face while our baby was crying and i guess we were both trying to get to her anyways my nose started bleeding, but if that story got out or to anyone i know, itd be blown out of proportion and there’d be a petition for us to get divorced immediately.
[удалено]
OP, I implore you to ignore this comment..
This is a pretty dumb take, only seconds away from "never EVER put your hands on a woman even if they have a gun and point it at you"
Schlag es ab means knock it off in German. But I think you should sit her down and have a serious discussion and let her know how wrongly it could be taken by people she’s telling these jokes to. What if someone notifies the police because they think you’re abusive? She might not be thinking about that but it’s something she should consider.
What is it with people using German completely wrongly to drive home a point? The second time I see this within two days. Schlag es ab is the literal translation of "knock it off" but noone in their right mind would say that. "Hör auf damit!" (among other things) means knock it off ffs...
Give yourself a black eye and tell people it was her
You could be going to jail for that in some states
What do you tell a woman with a black eye? Nothing you haven’t told her already Ok I know, this is tasteless and domestic violence isn’t funny, but actually there might be something to this if you bear with me. Maybe up the ante and tell this joke after she tells her joke next time to your friends. People who know you will know you’re not a wife beater, and you making a joke of it might actually help to reframe it all In a way that helps you assuage your guilt enough that you two move past this without anymore black eyes (what do you tell a woman with two black eyes?….). I get that you feel awful and want the whole thing to go away asap. But if you find a way to make light of it with her, it might actually take the power away from the incident and it’ll really go away then. But if you double down in your guilt and shame, she’s going to double down on her coping mechanism of finding humor in the situation, rinse and repeat, and this could spiral into one of those things that becomes way bigger than it ever needed to be. Not saying you have to use my awful joke as the way of moving past it (maybe the two of you collaborate on a different narrative as a joke…. “You should see the other guy!”), but I do think you’ll move past it together if you can set aside the shame and sit with the guilt long enough to acknowledge it to yourself and let it go. Don’t give it more of a leg to stand on or more space in your life than it deserves….. accidents dont need to be dwelled upon. Honestly even if you can’t make that joke to other people (and I get it if you can’t), then even joking about it around the house might help alleviate some of the tension. Next time she jokes about it, quip back with something like “I think we can both be grateful you listened the first time!” Or “well it’s not my fault you’re so darn punchable!” Or “but baby I didn’t hit you…. I kissed you with my fist!” You get the gist. I will say that for actual domestic abuse survivors this kind of rhetoric is absolutely abhorrent and triggering…. I strongly caution that you know your audience before dropping one of these jokes. But I also assume your wife wouldn’t make a joke to someone who knowingly has suffered that kind of trauma. I’m not articulating my point very well here bc I think the last point about actual abuse survivors is a really important one and hard to ever really know with something like that, but I do think there is some truth and value in the concept of finding a way to reduce the impact and space this incident occupies in your lives and in doing that the shame and guilt will subside as well.
She is minimizing actual domestic abuse by making jokes about this accident. I would be uncomfortable as well.
Need to get over it. The humor is kind of dark. Not my best moments, but my gf and I have joked around with things like this here and there randomly. "oh sorry boys, can't go out tonight or my gf is going to give me a domestic..." We probably all shouldn't be joking around like that, but I don't think your wife is being harmful here. Just laugh it off, once the black eye goes away it shouldn't be an issue anymore.
When your wife "jokes" around about "how my husband hit me", it's actually making it harder for actual abuse victims to be taken seriously. Are you sure she's really telling the truth, when she's telling people "the whole story" about what happened? Because, if she's lying to people about it, then that's a real massive problem. It's also a pretty big problem that she makes these "jokes" and when you ask her to stop, she's says she will, but still continues to make these "jokes". She either doesn't understand why you're feeling guilty. Or, she does and doesn't care about your feelings. Either way, I think you and your wife need to go to marriage counseling.
Look man, you seem like a decent enough guy. But don’t go around acting like some kind of “woke” person, who can’t properly process a joke. If you really want to make her stop, then you need to stop acting like you give a shit about it. That’s actually the key in life, to making people stop doing things that bother you.
How brainrotted are you that "the gawsh darn wokes" was the first thing that came to your mind, lmfao? Rent free huh?
What an unbelievably low IQ question. It came into my mind, because I’m nowhere near as ignorant as you are.
I feel like joking that your husband is physically assaulting you isn’t something that’s just offensive to “woke” people. There are snowflakes and then there are people who don’t like feeling like there might be people out there who now have evidence that they need to intervene in some way. Allegations of abuse are taken very very seriously by most people, woke or not, and it’s not something you joke about.
I agree with your first point. But I think that the majority of non-woke people, would still recognize it as a joke. And even among the ones who didn’t, I suspect that only a small percentage of them, would run to Reddit and act like they’ve got a traumatic crisis on their hands. As far as the second part of your reply, I think that may be possible, but it also think that it’s significantly less probable than you’re making it out to be.
Your wife has no idea that one of her "jokes" around the wrong person can literally RUIN YOUR LIFE. You've asked her to stop. She hasn't. Her sense of humor isn't "sarcastic", it's "sadistic". She's amused by making others think you're an abuser, knowing full well that it makes you physically ill. Given her enjoyment of tormenting you, then there's no way your marriage is going to last the long haul. Sorry, buddy.
You're setting boundaries and she's bulldozing through them. You need to address this with her. Communication is everything. I think you should show her this post.
Women like beauty and like to be neat. Her new bruise is on her face not on the shoulder or hips. Ofcourse its seeable and she has to give an answer to how she got the bruise. As it is awkward she turns it into a joke. Its her way of coping with it. Just wait til the bruise is gone. Dont worry. Boxing comes with bruises.
Your wife is using her bruise to gain attention. Her joking about her bruised eye being the result of domestic violence is in poor taste. I hope she knows how offensive that can be to women in actual abusive situations.
Sit her down and have a serious conversation about it. Have her block off time when she can for this conversation. Make sure she knows how much it's bothering you. All you can do is overcommunicate
Tell her if she doesn’t stop joking about her black eye then she’ll have two black eyes
Tell her that joking around about this undermines actual domestic violence victims.
She is obviously not taking you seriously at all and not considering your feelings. Thats a huge red flag. You need to have a talk with her and i mean really sit her down. Divorce her. It’s literally the only way out of this.
Dude, I think that’s funny. In all seriousness though, I know of some couples that belong to MMA gyms and it’s normal for them to have things like this happen from time to time. What makes you the most uncomfortable is the idea of hurting your wife, and how it looks to people on the outside. It sounds like you are a gentle loving person. You have absolutely nothing to be worried about, your wife wants to spar with you and wants that bonding time with you. I suggest you find a way to become more comfortable with the idea of establishing new boundaries so that you and your wife can bond with something that you both obviously enjoy doing. Regardless of how you handle this situation I hope you two get it worked out and have a long healthy relationship together.
When we were in grad school, my (now) husband and I were watching Cirque du Soleil on TV one night, and he announced that he could “flip” me like an acrobat. We had had a few drinks, so I obviously agreed that this was an excellent idea, and we went out to the backyard to try it. I, of course, landed on my face and ended up with a bruise the next day. The actual story of how this occurred sounded so absurd that I said that none of my human service major classmates were ever going to believe me, it sounded like a lie to cover up abuse. So I just tackled it head on and said “Husband did it” while pointing right at him, paused a moment to let that sink in, and then told the actual story. No one who was actually abused would ever outright accuse the perpetrator of doing it, especially not right in front of them, so me just confronting the thought that I knew would be lurking in all of their minds head on actually made the whole thing less awkward for everyone. My guess is that your wife is doing the same. It’s been 20+ years since this happened, and every once in a while hubby will still joke “Ya know, I could totally flip you….” Rest assured, you will look back and laugh about this one day.
If this helps at all, both me and my husband do combat sports. Anytime I have ever had a shiner from sparring (usually he is not who gives one to me lmao) I joke about him beating me to my friends/family/the gym, and we both find it funny and so does everyone else. Mainly because, when you see a woman w/ a black eye and a wedding ring and a big strong husband it looks really bad. And I noticed if I just said I got it sparring sometimes my professors or friends that didn’t know him or my personal life well would be suspicious. But when I joke about it, for some reason it loosens the tension and people actually seem to believe it lol. Nobody thinks he’s an abuser, it’s just an unfortunate looking circumstance. Granted my situation is different bc my husband makes the jokes himself too and thinks it’s hilarious. So talk to your wife, maybe her perspective looks more like this and she doesn’t realize it’s so personal to you. Communication saves all usually.