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Night Rage
How quirky behavior in my marriage became terrifying
Recently I wrote about how I finally realized the controlling behavior of my husband was abuse, and how long it took me to realize this. We often normalize things that if others could see would be immediately called out as red flags and unacceptable treatment. No one really knows what goes on in a marriage or family, and we all put on masks to show society what we want to show.
Abuse is often creeping, insidious, and begins just a half-step to the side of normal. The first sign is not a person punching their spouse. It’s the everyday normalization of control and small acts of intimidation that eventually lead to violence. In my case it started with my ex talking in his sleep.
You can read about how I first realized I was in a controlling abusive marriage here:
My ex husband and I met as teenagers and even back then he had quirky sleep issues. He would mumble and twitch, flail his arms, talk, and sometimes shout in his sleep. This intensified during times when he was stressed and got little sleep — in undergrad and grad school, for example, and then his sleep issues would minimize during the summers or when there was little stress in his life. He settled on a career where he was often working odd hours, and that exacerbated his sleeping issues.
Abuse often begins as behavior only a half-step to the side of normal
At first, I shrugged off the odd nighttime behavior. I mean we all act differently when we get exhausted, right? And he was working in a state of exhaustion much of the time. When he was extremely tired, he would lose control of his emotions, laughing hysterically at something he said, or something on TV. When this happened we would joke around and make up ridiculous sayings that brought him to hysterical laughing tears. It was fun and silly, until I started realizing the exhaustion led to challenging nights. He would flail around, talking in his sleep about work, reaching out for nonexistent items. Sometimes…
