# The leaver, the martyr



## wilderness (Jan 9, 2013)

Has anyone else noticed how contract breakers (aka 'leavers') always claim to be undergoing some horrible torture by staying married? Common complaints:

"I'm dying inside."
"I feel like I can't breathe."
"...dead marriage."

And then of course there is the abuse card. It's the trump card and it gets played when all else fails. I'm not referring to legitimate victims of abuse, I'm talking about the whole "he ignored me 17 years ago" type complaints. I find it sickening that people resort to such transparent BS to justify breaking up families.

That is all.


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## northernlights (Sep 23, 2012)

Has it ever occurred to you that these people might really have been treated like **** for the past 17 years? Have you never known anyone in an abusive relationship? Maybe my friends are especially unlucky, but I know many. And the ones whose husbands have knocked teeth out will tell you that the emotional abuse was even worse.


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## wilderness (Jan 9, 2013)

northernlights said:


> Has it ever occurred to you that these people might really have been treated like **** for the past 17 years? Have you never known anyone in an abusive relationship? Maybe my friends are especially unlucky, but I know many. And the ones whose husbands have knocked teeth out will tell you that the emotional abuse was even worse.


No, it hasn't. Every leaver says the same thing. Most leavers are female, and in my experience the vast percentage of abusers are female, so it doesn't add up.


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## northernlights (Sep 23, 2012)

wilderness said:


> No, it hasn't. Every leaver says the same thing. Most leavers are female, and in my experience the vast percentage of abusers are female, so it doesn't add up.



Are you just going by what you read on TAM? Look at the domestic violence stats. It's overwhelmingly male on female. Maybe you're experiencing confirmation bias?


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## Wazza (Jul 23, 2012)

I guess you have never been in that position. I have. It hurts Wilderness. I am glad for you that you have not needed to endure it.

I have twice considered leaving my wife. The first was directly after her affair. I stayed for the kids. 

The second was when the kids were older. The marriage was poor, and I reached the point where I felt it either had to improve or end. And I had been trying to improve it for years.

I kept trying, but at the same time told my wife I was considering divorce. It seems I needed to make that threat to get her attention, and once made, I would have carried it through if necessary. But fortunately we turned things around.

But turning it around is something I could not do alone.


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## somethingelse (Jun 20, 2012)

People that want to leave a marriage want to leave for a good reason or reasons. Don't make the mistake of discrediting your spouse if he or she is saying that it's time for them to leave, or they're unhappy. Because odds are, it is the truth. There's some sort of hurt or despair happening. Whether it's an obvious truth, or a hidden truth.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

northernlights said:


> Are you just going by what you read on TAM? Look at the domestic violence stats. It's overwhelmingly male on female. Maybe you're experiencing confirmation bias?


No, he is experiencing denial. Check out his posts in other threads. If the OP is female, whatever her problem in the marriage, he accuses her of exaggerating and outright lying and then accuses HER of being abusive toward her husband, being a walk away wife, and being a contract breaker. He can see no further than his own pitiful situation.


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## Mistyfied (Sep 27, 2013)

Often people don't leave until the situation has become intolerable. They have often gone through a long process of trying to resolve things or agonized over what they could do to make things better before they take that step. I don't think anyone really wants their marriage to end. We all want the dream we signed up for when we married when things were better. Someone feels how they feel.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

None of us marry thinking one day we will have to divorce. How we arrive at divorce may be different but I think we are all sad when we get there.


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## Prodigal (Feb 5, 2011)

wilderness said:


> Has anyone else noticed how contract breakers (aka 'leavers') always claim to be undergoing some horrible torture by staying married? Common complaints:
> 
> "I'm dying inside."
> "I feel like I can't breathe."
> "...dead marriage."


So what's your point? I said all this. I was/am married to a hardcore alcoholic. I WAS dying inside. I couldn't breathe. The marriage was beyond dead ... the corpse was rotting in the ground.

Yeah, the torture was horrible. But it was horrible because I chose to stay. 

When I took responsibility for my own decisions and quit b!tching about the drunk, I left.

And I no longer have to resort to such dramatic statements as "I'm dying inside." Why? Because I made a choice to walk away from a no-win situation and start living ... FOR MYSELF.

JMO. Take what you want and leave the rest.


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## northernlights (Sep 23, 2012)

Anon Pink said:


> No, he is experiencing denial. Check out his posts in other threads. If the OP is female, whatever her problem in the marriage, he accuses her of exaggerating and outright lying and then accuses HER of being abusive toward her husband, being a walk away wife, and being a contract breaker. He can see no further than his own pitiful situation.


Oh, I should have guessed. That's not an uncommon place to be in around here I'm afraid.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

I was the leaver and don't consider myself a martyr. I was tired of trying to make it work with someone who did not appear to give two craps about our marriage, refused to go to counselling and would ignore me/give me the silent treatment for days/weeks on end. I was exhausted.

You speak of "contract breakers" but a lot of times the person who gets left did a lot to break contracts.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Mistyfied said:


> Often people don't leave until the situation has become intolerable. They have often gone through a long process of trying to resolve things or agonized over what they could do to make things better before they take that step. I don't think anyone really wants their marriage to end. We all want the dream we signed up for when we married when things were better. Someone feels how they feel.


:iagree:


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## trey69 (Dec 29, 2010)

When I left my ex wife, and filed for separation/divorce I didn't see myself as a martyr, I saw myself as someone who probably hung on to long trying to salvage something that apparently only I wanted to try and salvage. I wasn't martyr like, but if anything I was glad it was over.

My MIL comes across as a martyr, not because she left but because she stayed, in a unhealthy, unloving situation, and shes now 77 yrs old. I see her as a sad individual who has wasted her life with someone who doesn't care/love her. But thats just me.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

Trey69, wilderness hasn't attacked you because you are a man. He only attacked women who want to leave their marriage.

...well not anymore since he got banned shortly after starting this thread for his appallingly inappropriate remarks on another thread. I do hope he gets some help, honestly I do.


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## trey69 (Dec 29, 2010)

Anon Pink said:


> Trey69, wilderness hasn't attacked you because you are a man. He only attacked women who want to leave their marriage.
> 
> ...well not anymore since he got banned shortly after starting this thread for his appallingly inappropriate remarks on another thread. I do hope he gets some help, honestly I do.


I know, I'm just stating what I feel about the original question in the thread. I'm sorry he feels its just about women, anyone can be a martyr.


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## chillymorn (Aug 11, 2010)

I believe both genders are equally at fault doing this.

some justified and some only justified in their own minds.


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## Thebes (Apr 10, 2013)

A lot of people walk out after years of marriage because they finally realized things are never going to improve and they want something better. Sometimes too much happens to ever get past it.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Anon Pink said:


> Trey69, wilderness hasn't attacked you because you are a man. He only attacked women who want to leave their marriage.
> 
> ...well not anymore *since he got banned *shortly after starting this thread fo*r his appallingly inappropriate remarks *on another thread. I do hope he gets some help, honestly I do.


Ooh! What did he say?


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## wilderness (Jan 9, 2013)

Jellybeans said:


> Ooh! What did he say?


I told a woman that it is not abusive to try to budget the family finances. I stand by the comment.


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## struggle (May 13, 2013)

Both my X's were leavers, and men. 

First one's excuse was that he was not happy and didn't know why. He cheated and left. 

Second one was that I wasn't giving him enough, and he wasn't happy (because I finally started standing up for my self just a little bit), and he couldn't handle it. He left.

Both classic narcissists in their own ways. Both martyrs in their own mind. I'm a normal, professional woman with an education. I've always provided financially and emotionally in my relationships. I have no vices (no alcohol/drugs), I'm not on medication, no kids by choice, I have a good solid family background and I want one for myself, and I am not abusive physically or emotionally. I'm a giver and I marry takers.

In my experience, men are leavers too. So I would have to say it's equal on both sides.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

wilderness said:


> I told a woman that it is not abusive to try to budget the family finances. I stand by the comment.


No you didn't wilderness! I was part of that thread and your posts were argumentative and repetitive. At no time did you even bother to understand her or what was happening in her marriage. You did what you always do. When a woman posts about unhappiness you go on your rant about honoring the marriage contract. When a man posts about his marriage you go on a rant about the wife should honor her marriage contract.


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## Machiavelli (Feb 25, 2012)

northernlights said:


> Are you just going by what you read on TAM? *Look at the domestic violence stats. It's overwhelmingly male on female.* Maybe you're experiencing confirmation bias?


Maybe you should read this: The popular stereotype of a domestic abuser is a man who habitually hurts his female partner. Yet research by Archer and sociologist Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire calls this scenario into question. Surprisingly, their analyses demonstrate that men and women exhibit roughly equal rates of violence within relationships; some studies hint that women’s rates of physical aggression are slightly higher.


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## wilderness (Jan 9, 2013)

Anon Pink said:


> No you didn't wilderness! I was part of that thread and your posts were argumentative and repetitive. At no time did you even bother to understand her or what was happening in her marriage. You did what you always do. When a woman posts about unhappiness you go on your rant about honoring the marriage contract. When a man posts about his marriage you go on a rant about the wife should honor her marriage contract.


Yes, I did. The poster in question claimed that her husband was abusing her by not giving her more money. I called it like I see it…it is not abuse to refuse to give your wife more money. But it is abuse to falsely accuse a man of abuse. I still see it the same way, for the record. And I do not appreciate being reported to the mods by you for making what seems to me to be a common sense post.

I also would like to say that men as well as women should honor their marriage contract.


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## Blonde (Jan 7, 2013)

Machiavelli said:


> Maybe you should read this: The popular stereotype of a domestic abuser is a man who habitually hurts his female partner. Yet research by Archer and sociologist Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire calls this scenario into question. Surprisingly, their analyses demonstrate that men and women exhibit roughly equal rates of violence within relationships; some studies hint that women’s rates of physical aggression are slightly higher.


However, if you read Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men - Lundy Bancroft - Google Books and The Marriage Clinic by John Gottman, you will find (as Gottman puts it):



> One statistic which has been minimized or avoided: In 71% of all violent fights, the woman engages in the first physically violent act…
> 
> *Despite the statistic, it is only men who use violence to systematically terrorize, control, and subdue their wives. Battering is not simply the use of violence, but its use in service of control, intimidation, and domination*.


Bancroft's work with abusers confirms this. They find their wife getting physical annoying and they feel disrespected by it but they DO NOT fear for their lives as the women do. They also tend to use it to claim victim status and deny responsibility for their own abuses.


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## wilderness (Jan 9, 2013)

Blonde said:


> However, if you read Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men - Lundy Bancroft - Google Books and The Marriage Clinic by John Gottman, you will find (as Gottman puts it):
> 
> 
> 
> Bancroft's work with abusers confirms this. They find their wife getting physical annoying and they feel disrespected by it but they DO NOT fear for their lives as the women do. They also tend to use it to claim victim status and deny responsibility for their own abuses.


I think logic and common sense should put an end to this debate. The following are facts, in my opinion:

1. Men do not report physical violence against themselves at nearly the rate as women do.
2. Police do not arrest female perpetrators of violence at nearly the rate they arrest men.
3. DAs do not prosecute violent female offenders at nearly the rate they prosecute men.
4. Judges and juries do not convict violent female offenders at nearly the rate they prosecute men.

In present day society, women are a protected class.


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## Blonde (Jan 7, 2013)

Men are not killed by DV at nearly the rate that women are

Myth # 14 “There are just as many abusive women as abusive men. Abused men are invisible because they are ashamed to tell”
-Lundy Bancroft [source document]


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## Blonde (Jan 7, 2013)

wilderness said:


> I think logic and common sense should put an end to this debate.


Yep, logic and common sense.

My 130 lb mom was beat routinely by my 220lb alcoholic dad. 

Logic and common sense= she was afraid of him and he was not afraid of her. I was afraid of him too with very good reason, logic, and common sense.


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## Machiavelli (Feb 25, 2012)

Blonde said:


> Men are not killed by DV at nearly the rate that women are
> 
> Myth # 14 “There are just as many abusive women as abusive men. Abused men are invisible because they are ashamed to tell”
> -Lundy Bancroft [source document]


Your propaganda tome is from 2002, the _Scientific American_ article and the research it cites are at least eight years more up to date.


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## Machiavelli (Feb 25, 2012)

Blonde said:


> Yep, logic and common sense.
> 
> My 130 lb mom was beat routinely by my 220lb alcoholic dad.
> 
> Logic and common sense= she was afraid of him and he was not afraid of her. I was afraid of him too with very good reason, logic, and common sense.


And that's why y'all left him. Reasonable, logical, sensible.


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## Blonde (Jan 7, 2013)

Machiavelli said:


> And that's why y'all left him. Reasonable, logical, sensible.


I left because I went to college. 

My mom *did not* leave him and did not report him for his abuse. Ultimately my 12 yos called the police on him when he beat the 14 yos with a broomstick. 

He was your 16 commandment poster boy MACH, a serial adulterer and he dumped mom for a 22 year old (when his oldest child was 20).


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## ReformedHubby (Jan 9, 2013)

You really never know whats going on in someones marriage. One of my wife's friends was ostracized because she divorced her husband. She said the reason she left him was because he didn't make her feel "special" anymore. She pretty much lost all of her friends because we all thought it was a stupid reason to get divorced, especially since she wouldn't clarify why she felt that way.

As it turned out we all ended up feeling really bad for treating her that way. Her ex-husband realized what was happening to her and he confided in me and a few other men that he stopped having sex with her. That was the reason for the divorce. He initially made things worse because up until that point he insisted that she was just being selfish. He admitted to being too embarrassed to talk about it before. He came clean because he wanted us to tell our wives so that the friendships could be salvaged.

She was actually trying to protect his reputation which was honorable. What she meant by I don't feel "special" was, he isn't screwing me anymore. But she couldn't say that.


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## Blonde (Jan 7, 2013)

Machiavelli said:


> Your propaganda tome is from 2002, the _Scientific American_ article and the research it cites are at least eight years more up to date.


 Here are the 2013 statistics

Victims of Domestic Violence. Women, 85%. Men, 15%.Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics

"On average, 3 females and 1 male are murdered by their partner each day"

Sorry, just don't buy what you sell Mach. IMO its two faced how you preach all macho and then turn around and want to claim men are such poor innocent victims.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

ReformedHubby said:


> You really never know whats going on in someones marriage.


:iagree:


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

wilderness said:


> Yes, I did. The poster in question claimed that her husband was abusing her by not giving her more money. I called it like I see it…it is not abuse to refuse to give your wife more money. But it is abuse to falsely accuse a man of abuse. I still see it the same way, for the record. And I do not appreciate being reported to the mods by you for making what seems to me to be a common sense post.
> 
> I also would like to say that men as well as women should honor their marriage contract.


I'm not going to reopen the posts in question, particularly since they were offensive enough for the mods to delete them. 

Clearly, wilderness, the mods banned YOU because of YOUR behavior. I simply brought it to their attention...and will continue to do so in the unhappy circumstance that out paths cross in other threads.


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## wilderness (Jan 9, 2013)

Anon Pink said:


> I'm not going to reopen the posts in question, particularly since they were offensive enough for the mods to delete them.
> 
> Clearly, wilderness, the mods banned YOU because of YOUR behavior. I simply brought it to their attention...and will continue to do so in the unhappy circumstance that out paths cross in other threads.


I don't see it that way. I feel that the mods banned me because of your behavior. That is the explanation that makes the most sense to me as I do not believe that I did anything that broke the rules.


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## clipclop2 (Aug 16, 2013)

Murder is a show stopper, for sure.

But what is the actual measure of acceptable domestic violence?

Men are stronger. It is harder for them NOT to do damage when things get heated.

Can we apply some sort of factor so we are comparing apples to apples?

Of course not. You have to expect that numbers are unable to tell the tale. And people don't always tell the truth.

Probably the only right solution is zero tolerance from both sides, and early on in a marriage.

In dating, one and done.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

wilderness said:


> I don't see it that way. I feel that the mods banned me because of your behavior. That is the explanation that makes the most sense to me as I do not believe that I did anything that broke the rules.


I hadn't joined that thread until after you had made SEVERAL posts and none of my posts addressed yours so I'm not sure how you reach that conclusion.

I can see why your wife left you and I can see why she had to get a restraining order against you. You have serious problems wilderness. I sincerely hope you get help and your life gets better.


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## wilderness (Jan 9, 2013)

Anon Pink said:


> I hadn't joined that thread until after you had made SEVERAL posts and none of my posts addressed yours so I'm not sure how you reach that conclusion.
> 
> I can see why your wife left you and I can see why she had to get a restraining order against you. You have serious problems wilderness. I sincerely hope you get help and your life gets better.


I drew that conclusion for 2 reasons:

1. You admitted in another thread that you reported me to the mods for what I posted.
2. Your prior behavior towards me suggests that you pulled out all the stops with the mods in order to have me banned. You have even gone so far to blatantly call me names in prior threads (to be fair, you did delete a particularly incendiary name calling post towards me previously).

As to my xwife, I would like you specifically what you see that could possibly justify her filing a false restraining order against me and lying to the court and the judge. Are false accusations ever justified in your eyes?


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## married tech (Jan 18, 2014)

> Are you just going by what you read on TAM? Look at the domestic violence stats. It's overwhelmingly male on female. Maybe you're experiencing confirmation bias?


Once again I am going to take a different stance here. 

I know of a number of woman who have been in abusive relationships and to be honest they really rather like to provoke it. 

One was a former GF of mine and I can honestly see why the guys before me would want to beat her. She pushed and pushed and pushed until I felt like just maybe taking a baseball bat to her was the only way to get her to shut up. I didn't but I can see how a guy of lesser self control could have easily reached that point.  

Another GF I had loved to go no about "hell hath no fury like woman scorned" and by all means possible she did her damnedest to push justification to let her wrath out regardless of true reason or otherwise. 

They may not represent the majority of women but I do feel they represent a large enough percentage to validate the theory that some woman really honestly want to be in abusive relationships.


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## Blondilocks (Jul 4, 2013)

wilderness said:


> I don't see it that way. I feel that the mods banned me because of your behavior. That is the explanation that makes the most sense to me as I do not believe that I did anything that broke the rules.


The mods don't ban one poster because of another's behavior. If you got banned, it's all on you.

Sorry to say, but your mentality is the typical abuser's mentality - 'you made me do it'; 'it's not my fault'; 'if only you wouldn't make me so mad'. 

Own your stuff. It's the hallmark of adulthood.


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## wilderness (Jan 9, 2013)

Blondilocks said:


> The mods don't ban one poster because of another's behavior. If you got banned, it's all on you.
> 
> Sorry to say, but your mentality is the typical abuser's mentality - 'you made me do it'; 'it's not my fault'; 'if only you wouldn't make me so mad'.
> 
> Own your stuff. It's the hallmark of adulthood.


I have NEVER said, in my entire life, that anyone made me do anything. I fully own what I wrote. I would happily quote it, right here, if it weren't already deleted by the mods. I maintain that I did not break the rules in_ any way_. As such, I take 0 responsibility for being banned. If I did not break the rules, it is not my responsibility for being banned. I would also like to say that if anyone should have been banned, it's anon pink, who _blatantly_ violated the forum rules by calling me names.


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## Phenix70 (May 6, 2012)

trey69 said:


> When I left my ex wife, and filed for separation/divorce I didn't see myself as a martyr, I saw myself as someone who probably hung on to long trying to salvage something that apparently only I wanted to try and salvage. I wasn't martyr like, but if anything I was glad it was over.
> 
> *My MIL comes across as a martyr, not because she left but because she stayed, in a unhealthy, unloving situation, and shes now 77 yrs old. I see her as a sad individual who has wasted her life with someone who doesn't care/love her. But thats just me*.


That to me is the epitome of a martyr when it comes to marriage. They stay because of their own personal reasons, while playing up the "woe is me" aspect of their lives. I think that for them, it's all they know, that leaving is what is unbearable, they would rather stay miserable instead because it's familiar.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

married tech said:


> I know of a number of woman who have been in abusive relationships and to be honest they really rather like to provoke it.
> 
> One was a former GF of mine and I can honestly see why the guys before me would want to beat her. She pushed and pushed and pushed until I felt like just maybe taking a baseball bat to her was the only way to get her to shut up. I didn't but I can see how a guy of lesser self control could have easily reached that point.


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## clipclop2 (Aug 16, 2013)

I can see why a guy would want to smack me around, too.


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