Good Friday afternoon, Nea

Before I continue, I want to say this part is quite direct and long, and it might be easier to read it slowly or in two sittings. You’re already processing a lot — postpartum, sick, and navigating family pressure — so please take your time with this. There’s no rush.

I hope you get over your cold soon 🤍

There’s a pattern that shows up in families with an aggressive or intimidating person, and it’s called Two-siding. It means treating an unequal situation as if both people are equally responsible. It usually happens because people feel safer smoothing things over instead of naming the real source of the problem.

Two‑siding blurs the difference between the person who starts the aggression (the perpetrator) and the person who reacts to being threatened (the victim). It puts the non‑aggressor in a position where they feel guilty and responsible for the aggressor’s behavior. And it protects the aggressor from being confronted.

“Equal accountability” doesn’t match what actually happened during the incidence between the two men. In that incident, your father was the sole aggressor. He initiated every part of the escalation.

* He issued a command meant to silence another adult: “When I tell you to stop talking, you stop talking.” This is coercive control — a classic aggressor behavior.

* He became verbally abusive, swearing and calling your husband names.

* He advanced physically toward your husband.

* He created the conditions of fear and danger in the room.

The person who starts the aggression is the perpetrator. The person who is responding to aggression is not. This is not a “both contributed” situation. It is a one‑sided aggression followed by a defensive reaction.

Your husband was the victim because:

* He did not initiate anything.

* He tried to explain.

* He refused to be silenced — which is healthy.

* He responded verbally to being threatened.

* He moved forward only after her father charged at him.

This is a normal human response to being approached aggressively. It is not escalation — it is self‑protection.

A victim is not responsible for ‘disengaging perfectly’ while being attacked.

* About your husband saying “come hit me then”- your father didn’t proceed to hit your husband, did he? Your husband may have called out your father’s bluff which can make your father think twice before threatening violence again, in which case, your husband’s words may have a positive effect (It reminds me of what I shared with you early on: my mother stopped hitting me only when- at the age of 20 something- I finally resisted her violence by grabbing her hands and pushing against her)

The incident was congruent with your father’s physical and verbal violence through decades:

Nea: “Growing up, there was serious domestic violence in my home. I witnessed significant physical violence between my parents, and there were times when I was trying to guard doors or intervene because things were getting out of control.

“I also experienced physical and verbal abuse myself which continued into young adulthood, with the last incident happening in my mid-20s, and there have been verbal incidents since…

“My dad has also been horrible to my mom over the years. It’s been about 35 years of her going back and forth between hating the situation, saying she should have left, and then deciding she’ll stay and everything is okay again…

“There has been a lot of name-calling directed at me personally over the years. I mean actual swear words and degrading language—being called a “bitch,” being told to “shut the fuck up,” “get the fuck out of my house,” or things like, “You think you’re my mother? You don’t fucking know anything.” Those are just examples that come immediately to mind.”

🌿 Anita

Continued: “So, why the hell can’t I just get a job?”-

Frozen and exhausted is what I figure.

“I’m quite tired emotionally.. it would be like leg day at the gym after having just finished a marathon”-

Tired emotionally, like a marathon, because Freezing is exhausting. Not practicing autonomy is exhausting.

“I have everything I need”- except for a sense of autonomy thawing out of the Freeze and developing?

The beagle is fine. He too needs to practice his autonomy. That’s why it often looks like he’s taking me on a walk vs me taking him on a walk: he decides the direction and the pace 🐕🚶‍♀️

I didn’t respond to everything you shared. Please let me know your reactions to my 2 responses so far, and what you want to talk more about.

🐕🚶‍♀️Anita

Nea, I keep thinking about what you wrote — especially your father’s “pushed” comment. It reminded me of something I learned very late in life:

Some parents have a rigid win/lose template. When they feel even slightly challenged, they switch into “I must win, you must lose.” There’s no middle ground, no mutuality, no repair.

Your father’s reaction fits that pattern exactly. My mother did too. When they’re not triggered, they can seem charming or reasonable, but once the switch flips, the only goal is dominance.

It’s not something you or I can negotiate with or soften.

For them, once triggered, the only resolution they recognize is the other person yielding completely — whether it’s a wife, daughter, son‑in‑law, or anyone else.

Anita

Good Tues very late night, Nea:

Below is a shortened version of the longer post I prepared for you this Tues eve- night-

I went back to your original post, because the language you used matters. You wrote that “we were led to believe…” and “my husband was repeatedly told…” about plans and opportunities.

It was your father who led you and your husband to believe these things. He was the one making promises that didn’t materialize. Naming that clearly is important.

You also described growing up with serious domestic violence — guarding doors, intervening physically, being abused yourself into your mid‑20s, and still experiencing verbal aggression now.

This paints a very consistent picture: your father has a long‑standing pattern of anger, intimidation, and coercive control. He created an environment where violence was normal, and you had to become the mediator and protector as a child. That conditioning doesn’t disappear just because you’re an adult.

This is why I’ve been referring to him since page 1 as ‘your father’ rather than your ‘dad’ (Nea: “my dad”).

Children in violent homes often hold two versions of the parent at once — the abusive adult, and the imagined loving figure underneath.

“Dad” belongs to that imagined version, and it can make it harder to see the harm clearly.

About the recent incident: your father initiated the aggression. He was already angry, he escalated, he swore, he charged toward your husband. Your husband tried to clarify his comment, and when your father ordered him to stop talking, he refused to submit. That refusal is healthy. It’s self‑protection.

Your criticism of your husband — that he “continued engaging verbally” — comes from the survival strategy you learned growing up. In your childhood home, the safest thing was to appease, stay quiet, and avoid provoking the aggressor. You had to do that for years.

So, when your husband didn’t do it, your nervous system reacted as if he was escalating, even though the escalation came entirely from your father.

On a psychological level, you expected your husband to submit because that is what you had to do for decades to survive your father’s violence.

You learned appeasement as a survival strategy: don’t challenge the aggressor, don’t talk back, don’t assert yourself, don’t defend yourself, don’t escalate. Stay small, quiet, compliant. This is how children survive violent parents.

In reality, your husband didn’t go quiet the way you had to as a child. And that difference is exactly why this feels so charged.

Your husband responded: “Are you going to hit me?” and “Come hit me then”-

It’s the stance of someone who has a spine, who refuses to be intimidated, who meets aggression with clarity rather than collapse. He didn’t absorb the intimidation. He didn’t collapse into appeasement. He didn’t play the childhood role you had to play.

Instead, he responded with the simple, straightforward logic of a healthy adult: “Are you going to hit me?”
“Come hit me then.”-

That’s not escalation — it’s calling out the bluff of a bully.

It’s the verbal equivalent of standing upright instead of curling into a ball. It’s just a man saying: ‘If you’re going to threaten me, then do it. I’m not afraid.’

It’s the only sane response to an aggressor.

Anita

Good Tues late evening, Nea

I was going to reread through your posts on this thread, and I may do so later when I have the use of the computer. For now, using my phone, I’ll develop my thoughts as I type.

First, your father owes your husband a heart- felt, sincere apology for having called him names, verbally abusing him, charging at him, and talking behind his back to other family members (triangulating, trying to turn others against your husband and isolate him).

He owes him an apology, amends and change of behavior.

Second, it doesn’t make sense to me that in the future, when you and your husband are back to your own home, that your husband will visit your father’s home (whether he says hello or not)- not for as long as your father didn’t sincerely and thoroughly apologize.

It doesn’t make sense that a victim of verbal abuse and physical intimidation will visit the home of the perpetrator following no (sincere, heart-felt) apology.

I just remembered that you shared that your father said (paraphrased), that family is a place were abuse is acceptable.

Well, no, it isn’t. At least, it shouldn’t be.

About your father’s financial “generosity”- I think that all of it should be considered partial compensation (amends) for the domestic violence he has put you through growing up.. and still.

When a child grows up with an abusive parent, the child often creates a fantasy image of the parent- one who’s loving underneath, caring, good.. generous.. because it lessens the anxiety involved in seeing the parent just as he or she is.

I’ll continue at the computer next.

Anita

* edit (1st post this eve): … grace and flexibility are treated as weaknesses to be used, not appreciated or reciprocated.

Good Monday evening 🙂 Nea

You’re welcome.

It takes only a second or 2 to say “hi”, and 2-3 seconds to say “hello”, and very little energy to pronounce either word, less than a calorie 🤔.

But that’s not the issue. I imagine that your husband fears that if he says “hi”, your father will not say hi back, and instead will take that tiny greeting as the first step in a multiple- steps submission-humiliation process, and only when the process is completed-to your father’s satisfaction- your father will eventually reward him.

You wrote, “I just keep wondering whether there could be a little room for grace or flexibility”-

You wrote this in regard to your husband, not in regard to your father.

You’re not wondering if your father could show grace or flexibility, do you?

In a power-over pattern of behavior, grace and flexibility are treated as weaknesses to be used, reciprocate. appreciated or reciprocated.

“Their relationship was good before all of this.”-

I imagine it looked good from the outside, and it felt genuine on the part of your husband (who lost his parents young), but for someone with your father’s history and pattern of behavior (as you described at length in now 11 pages), it was likely performative rather than genuine.

Meaning he felt good about how the relationship made him look (like a good, caring and generous father-in- law), not that he felt genuinely connected and close to your husband.

I’d like to add to this reply a bit later.

🌿 Anita