“Ooh, Your Husband Will Be So Mad”

You should see the other twelve guys though

Bleeding from a cut on the bridge of my nose, forehead visibly bruised, sporting my first black eye, anyone could see I’d been hit in the face a couple of times.

I sat down on the mat with my classmates, who had already taken their turn through the ordeal in the other room. Since this was a special workshop, we had a few members of the community who don’t train at the school. One of these women turned to me.

“Ooh, your husband will be so mad!”

It took me a moment to figure out what she meant. Oh, he’s going to be mad because I just got a black eye? Why?

Seriously, it didn’t compute. I had to shift a few mental gears to figure out where she was coming from. Oh, okay, I think I get it. He’ll be mad because he wasn’t comfortable with me taking physical risks and now my face is damaged. Maybe you think he’ll be mad because the school should have protected me more? Or because I didn’t listen to him when he tried to tell me what to do? Not sure, but I think I understand now.

“Oh, no,” I told her, “on the contrary. He loves it. He’s going to be so excited!” I explained that my husband loves fighter chicks, that if I ever became a ring competitor he would probably quit his job so he could follow me to my matches and help me train. In point of fact, he was the one who signed me up for the class, because he found out there was an open spot before I did.

I try to imagine a husband who doesn’t like the fact that I study self-defense.

Then I realize that I should be imagining a man who is angry, a man whose anger dictates what I do or don’t do.

Okay, yeah. I did do that. I thought pretty hard before getting married for the second time, but I also thought pretty hard back in my single days. I explain that I used to have a talk with guys I would date. It went like this:

“If you ever lay a hand on me in violence, I will press charges and tell your mom and your boss. Just saying.”

This is blowing the mind of my young classmate, who in her twenties and from her cultural background may never have been told that you get to choose what you tolerate. You get to lay down the law in your life. You get to accept and reject at will. You determine what treatment you will and will not allow.

Here’s the thing about my husband. He has spent his life doing impact sports, including football, ice hockey, boxing, karate, and armored combat. He is trained to fight with guns, knives, daggers, and swords, not to mention mass weapons or siege engines. He’s twice my size and he knows how to sharpen a chainsaw.

If I were ever afraid of him, I would have changed my identity and moved to Australia. The only chance I have against someone like him is if I have an axe, or a cannon.

Why would I marry someone who scares me?

Why would I share a bed with someone if I had to fear his moods, if I felt intimidated by his anger?

If I thought his anger would be directed at me?

Me? His wife, his friend, his ally?

I married this man because I wanted him on my zombie apocalypse squad. Not because I was worried he’d do things to me if he ever threw a tantrum about something.

I don’t do coercive control. I can’t stand being told what to do. I started making it clear twenty years ago that anyone who wanted to date me would have to be cool with my boundaries.

I would explain that I had a pathologically jealous boyfriend when I was nineteen, who always thought I was lying and cheating when I got together with one or another of my many male relatives. I needed to make it clear that I talk to my brothers for hours on the phone, that I have a vast and close extended family, but also that I sometimes have dinner or trade five-page emails with my exes. I travel alone and I do what I want pretty much 99% of the time. A jealous man should never try to be involved with someone like me.

I spend a lot of my time on the challenge path, doing things deliberately because they intimidate me so I can quit being scared. I have jumped over open flame, hiked in bear country, crawled under barbed wire, climbed a rope, waded through mud, and, yeah, gotten hit in the face a few times.

I’m not going to let a smack in the mouth slow me down. Got that?

I do this training because I’m a distance runner and I like to run at night. My response to challenge and limits is to dig in my heels and double down.

I also do this training as a mercy to my poor husband, because he worries. Even when I take the dog, he worries when I run at night. (Not enough to train with me, *wink*). I asked him how he felt about my decision to study Krav Maga. He said, “relieved.” No hesitation. That was when I found out how much it tormented him to leave me alone at night when he travels on business.

We do well to understand the weight of responsibility that a traditionally acculturated male feels to protect and defend his dependents. It’s hard on a man. That doesn’t mean he gets to circumscribe my territory or dictate where I do or don’t go. It doesn’t mean he’s allowed to control my time, my friendships, or my activities. When I step up as an equal partner, ready to take responsibility for my own physical safety, I shoulder some of the load and allow him to walk free.

I went home to my husband after the special workshop, the one where I got a black eye. It looked like someone hit me in the face with a clothes iron. Bruises on every limb. He greeted me with a bag of ice, a smoothie, and a thousand calories of hot food. He looked me over.

“I got a little marked up,” I said.

“I’m proud of you,” he said. “I’m so glad you took that class.”