once_a_red Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Alright, I do not know whether what I just did was right or wrong, or whether I should have done it in the first place. Background story - A girl I was in an LDR with left me for my best buddy in college 10 months ago. This guy and me lived in the same dorm, with rooms next to each other. So over the past 10 months, I had to endure seeing him daily going about with his life. And it would sometimes make my blood boil. I would feel its unfair that someone who has caused me so much pain was himself so happy. Fast forward yesterday. Yesterday, after one of those really crazy moments of anger, I decided to do something about it. I went up to his room, hit him in the leg with a hockey stick, and threw loads of punches at him. He refused to retaliate the entire time (Out of cowardice or shock? Why?). I did not hurt him much though. (No blood. No need even for first aid). But then later in the evening, he went ahead and complained to the university administration about my actions. And rightfully, I am having to face the consequences for my actions. A disciplinary committee the same evening found me guilty and imposed a small fine upon me. But the guy I beat up has been given a chance to complain to a higher authority over here, which would certainly mean even uglier punishments for me. I do not know whether he is going to complain or not, and the fact that he has the power to wreck my entire life due to my own stupidity is driving me mad. I do not know why I did what I did. I suppose it was because I wanted to regain control the situation. And I wanted to make a statement to myself. I wanted to show myself that you do not steal my girlfriend without me doing anything about it. I feel seriously screwed up though. I am scared for my career, and am not really sure whether I did the right thing here. I have apologized to the guy in question ("I'm sorry", I said, and it was humiliating apologizing to someone who's wronged me so badly in the past.) I dont know why I'm posting. I guess I just want a perspective on the entire situation. Could you please tell me if/where I was wrong? Link to comment
Isha Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 How can you not know that using violence against someone is wrong? Regardless of the fact he had no obvious injuries, you still went to him to cause harm. Your behaviour was totally inappropriate regardless of the fact that your ex left you for him nearly a year ago. In my opinion, you deserve whatever consequence that comes your way. Link to comment
liquer Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Your behaviour is unacceptable and you should be thrown out of the University. Sorry, but a small fine is ridiculous, you need help mate and you don't deserve to be in that community. Link to comment
BeStrongBeHappy Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 There will be many, many times in your life when someone else wins or gets something you want for yourself. That is the way life works. You can't always have what you want, and you need to learn to live your life without having to resort to violence to try to make yourself feel in control. Whether you think it or not, you DO need counseling and may very well be required to attend mandatory anger management training if a higher authority decides to prosecute this. If you are lucky your only penalty will be counseling, but if you go thru life with this attitude, you will eventually end up in jail. Remember first that you didn't own 'your' girl. She is a free agent to come and go with whomever she pleases. Women are not 'stolen' they choose to leave. So regardless of how your breakup came about, she made a choice and it was not you. I'm sorry, that happens to everyone, and you need to accept that it was her choice, not this other guy's or yours, since she 'owns' herself. You need to fully accept responsbility for your own bad behavior, and others need to accept responsibility for theirs. You are not judge and jury and do not have the right to mete out physical attacks every time you think someone else wronged you. So please take some time to recognize that you need to make some serious changes here and accept that you don't own a woman, even if you think you do., and you have no right whatsoever to beat up any man who a woman chooses for herself simply because you want her. Link to comment
once_a_red Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 I cannot justify myself. But I really have to request you not to be so judgmental. This is the first time I have done something remotely like this. I have never raised a hand against an individual all my life. And I live in a community where violence is not uncommon. Everyone I have talked to here have said what I did would have been understandable had I done it immediately after the BU. But doing it 10 months down the line was wrong. I do respect your right to say violence is wrong. It would really be helpful if you would help me understand why. I realize I cannot undo what I have done. But I do wish to know why is what I did wrong? Only so that I can stop myself from behaving like this in the future. Link to comment
karvala Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Could you please tell me if/where I was wrong? Wow, you're asking for it. You beat a guy who wasn't even defending himself with a hockey stick and a flurry of punches, for doing nothing other than ten months ago having a relationship with a girl who was with you before that, and you're seriously asking if you did anything wrong?! Do you think in even the smallest part that what you did was okay, that you're entitled to be violent to someone simply because he is happy and you're not? Of course it was wrong. VERY wrong. And your situation, inside you as well as the external problems you've created, won't get better until you come to terms with the fact that he is entitled to be with this girl, she is entitled to be with him, and although it hurts, they didn't do it to hurt you. You have to get past it, let go of the anger, and then, finally, you'll be able to apologise genuinely for what you've done and start to move past it. Link to comment
once_a_red Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 Karva, I didnot beat him up because he was not defending himself. I went there expecting a fair fight. He never gave me one. Regardless, I do regret not coming here to ENA before I committed the act. I think I think I did what I did because of peer-pressure. A lot of my friends would keep taunting me about what happened and how I was a real * * * * * for not having done anything about it. I suppose 10 months of goading got into me. I think I do realize at some level I was wrong, very wrong. 10 months I spent trying to tell myself repeatedly that violence is not the solution. Ultimately, I suppose I lost the capability to reason. I should have come here before I did what I did. You folks would have knocked some sense into me. BeStrongBeHappy- Thanks a lot for responding. You have replied to some of my earlier threads as well, and I really appreciate your advice. Its not about the girl though. I am way over the BU. And I do not resent their right to be happy. I do not like the situation, and I know I cannot change it. I did what I did, because I began to feel that this was the only way to "save face". Link to comment
1MoreChance Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 "A girl I was in an LDR with left me for my best buddy in college 10 months ago... I wanted to make a statement to myself. I wanted to show myself that you do not steal my girlfriend without me doing anything about it..." sorry you are in so much pain... but she chose to leave you, right? how is beating him up gonna make you feel any better? Is it a GUY thing? you say he stole her, is that a guy way of looking at it, like she is a thing? like it's a territorial / possessive / sexual jealousy thing or something? just genuinelly trying to get a guy's perspective here... Link to comment
BeStrongBeHappy Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 >>It would really be helpful if you would help me understand why. But i did tell you why it is wrong. You don't own your ex-girlfriend, and hence have no right to say other man 'stole' her and deserves a beatdown. She left you for him, her choice and you don't own her. Even if you married her, you don't own her. You have a right to be upset if someone leaves you, but you don't have the right to treat the guy who is her new boyfriend like he deserves a beating. That is like getting fired from a job, then you decide 10 months later to beat up the guy who took the job after you because it was 'your' job and you are angry you lost it. They can decide to give the job to anyone they want, even another guy at the same company who outcompeted you and they decided to give the job to and hence let you go. That is basically what happened to you, your ex-girlfriend fired you from the job of boyfriend. Your task then is to find a new job, not beat up the guy who took your job. And in the same way, a correct response to getting dumped is to heal your wounds and go find a new girlfriend, not wait almost a year and pummel your ex's new boyfriend. Life is full of losses and changes, but it is also full of happiness and gains. So you need to learn how to lose gracefully, and pursue things that are winners (like a new girlfriend) rather than chase after lost causes (like your ex). Link to comment
once_a_red Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 1MoreChance bang on. its a guy thing here. my ego cannot wrap itself around the fact that he simply beat me to something. and thereforee to satiate my ego, i behaved the way cavemen behave to prove a point. I am not proud of what i did. i know im screwed up. Link to comment
Gripper Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Sounded a bit like what happened to me when I was at university but in a way different. A girl dumped me for for best friend. I wasn't bothered at all to be honest as lets just say there was no chemistry and I had my sights set elsewhere. My best friend though cared about this girl a great deal and I could sense some tension with him from then on.At the time I was too stupid to realise what was going on but I was told this later by someone else that he didn't like she had picked me first. This girl being a total cow used that all the time to get at him and sometimes she would say things to me to get at him innocent things like shall we going shopping together . One night she called me in tears and they had broken up yet again and she said he hit her. I went round there and it turned out he hadn''t but I stayed with her till her friends came back In the morning I was in the kitchen he came up behind me hit me from behind and then battered me, I needed hospital treatment . Turn out later she told him she had slept with me which was a lie. The funny thing was I was a part-time Policeman at the time so it was my friends that arrested him. He eventually got kicked out of UNI and he was training to be a doctor and had to go to court and now has a criminal record. Kind of lost a lot of trust in women and in some ways I blame her more than him. But mate it was ten months since she dumped you for this guy.After just being told this I can understand especially being a man. But you really need to sort yourself out or you might find yourself like my ex best friend , it's not normal really to wait all this time.You don't have to forgive but you must try to forget and move on.If you can't I suggest you find a way so you don't come into contact with these people. Link to comment
once_a_red Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 the job analogy should be tweaked a bit to reflect my situation - my ex-girlfriend = my boss. my ex-bestfriend = a junior employee i really trust and hence help in every way to get close to my boss. now this employee stabs me in the back, convinces my boss to fire me, and give him my job. Everything is perfectly fair till now. Now what if this guy, feeling guilty about what he did, tells my boss to just hide from me the fact that he's decided to fire me till i decide to leave the job myself. is that right? the girl cheats on me for a month, with my best friend, a guy who i deeply trust and expect to be the last person in the world to cause my BU. And it gets worse. I obviously am heartbroken. I know its very difficult to live with the guy now. So I request him to move out. He refuses, says he had every right to do what he did, he is not in slightest sorry, and will not move out. Till yesterday, I had not received even a "sorry" from his side. And i had to see him daily. I am not saying that violence is justifiable. But is it understandable? Link to comment
liquer Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Well, who am I to judge as this is what happened to me recently : ask cause recently I was out at a party and acting like a jerk with somebody else there, whom I didn't know. We both saw a woman who'd fallen asleep and we decided it would be a laugh to shave off her eyebrows. As we going to do this a guy came in and caught us and stopped us from doing it and we both turned on him and got all abusive and aggressive and the other guy pushed him and I tripped him up. He fell over and banged his head and I thought this was hilarious. So, when he got up I rushed him and he hit me on the jaw and I went out like a light. The other guy went for him to (I later found this out), swung at him missed and got hit two or three times and he went out to. I know that we were in the wrong, but as I don't know the guy that knocked us both out, wondered that if I ever saw him again I should just look him in the eye, apologise with my head held high and walk off? Link to comment
once_a_red Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 Gripper. The situation like your ex-best friend's is the one I would like to prevent. That is why I am here. I need to understand what I did was wrong. So that I am never violent again. And there is no better place in the world for rational advice when you need it. Link to comment
liquer Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 I think you were out of order to even go round there expecting a fair fight, you have nothing to fight him for and he does not need to prove himself this way. You will be extremely lucky to keep your place at University and I seriously doubt it's the best place for you. You attacked a man with a weapon, you hid behind that and did not have the deceny, if that is the word, to fight fair. Link to comment
KG Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Red, Is there counseling at your school? I think anger management needs to be addressed. There are some latent issues you must come to terms with. Link to comment
once_a_red Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 liquer. You think I deserve my life wrecked for one indiscretion? There are people in this world who never admit they are wrong. I not only admit it, I am willing to do whatever it takes to learn from my mistakes. Link to comment
once_a_red Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 KG. No chance of that. I live and study in India. The word counseling is foreign to us. Update - By foreign I mean its hard to find good counselors outside the major cities. Link to comment
once_a_red Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 and liquer. I didnot fight fair because he didnot. He wrecked my relationship when "working from the inside." I will be fair to people who are fair to me. Link to comment
hers Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 He didn't wreck your relationship. What he did was wrong b/c he betrayed you, but as others have pointed out, the girl in question is the only one who couldve wrecked it by going w/ him. You say you're completely over the break up. Why then would you beat him up 10 months later? Seems to me that if you were over it as you say you are, seeing him would make you wince a little but hardly set you off. The ego thing, I don't think that's relevent to say in this story. Things happen in life that cause us embarrassment & shame & our egos are quite bruised. But we can't make up for our bruised egos w/ violence. Why? B/c now all you're feeling is a sense of guilt & regret for doing what you did, & you will face possibly hefty consequences & a chance of this being found out by a future employer. That's why violence is wrong. B/c it could affect your future. Back in august, I punched my ex in his face. He treated me like dirt, told me I wasn't worth apologizing to, & pretty much told me to eff off. I felt extremely angry & battered. We'd been broken up 8 months at this point by the way. Yet I still hit him. I can't say I feel guilty for doing what I did. I'm sure one day I will but now, 6 months later, I still don't. But if he'd pressed charges or came back at me & defended himself, I'm sure my feelings would be different. However, even though I don't feel guilty, I realize violence was still wrong on my part b/c I couldve faced legal & physical consequences if he'd reacted like that guy did & reported me. Then I'd be screwed. That 2-minute fight will weigh on your future possibly for years. That's why you don't solve it w/ violence. B/c you screw only yourself for having too much pride. Link to comment
BeStrongBeHappy Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Your anger is understandable, the violence is not. What does the violence get you? It doesn't get him in trouble, it gets you in trouble. And it doesn't change anything does it? He's still her boyfriend, and she is probably outraged and now feels justified in leaving you, as in 'see, i knew all along something was not right with him, the guy's a loose cannon and not in control, and it just confirms i was right to leave him.' And now you've got a violent episode on your record, and everyone who knows you is probably thinking, 'do i really want him as a friend if he behaves this way when he gets mad, just out of the blue attacks someone?' So no, the violence is not understandable because there is nothing good that it does for you or anyone else. so you punched him up, now what? it didn't change anything but cause complications for you. You need to look at this as a lesson learned, that violence is a waste of energy and causes more trouble than any momentary sense of revenge you get from it. If you have injured him, bruised an internal organ, you could have been out a ton of money in a lawsuit, and ended up in jail. So recognize that there are reasons people handle loss and anger with ways other than violence, and the violence just breeds bad consequences for yourself. Link to comment
hers Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 You can't make someone responsible for their actions. They have do do that for themselves. He didn't react violently even to defend himself. He probably knows that being violent wouldve caused him more grief in the future than it woudlve served in the 2 minutes you were pounding on him. For that, I commend him for thinking clearly, despite not taking responsibility for betraying a friend. But you can't make him feel sorry for what he did. That's not your call. Link to comment
once_a_red Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 The only reason I am feeling sorry is because of how it reflects upon me. I still think the guy deserved it. He did not deserve it from me though. I could have done better than that. As for what the girl thinks, I would not have done what I did had i cared about what she thinks. that is why i say i am over her. The entire episode was not about teaching someone a lesson. It was about telling myself that I do not take crap like that and deal with it quietly. But it was not worth it. Instead of gaining a sense of control, all I did was give someone who has hurt me in the past another chance to have a huge impact on my life. Living on the mercy of someone I despise is not a pleasant experience. hersmudders, either that. or he is a coward - that of the highest order. I will call him a coward, but then I am bound to be biased after what i have been through. Link to comment
hers Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 But violence, whether you think someone deserved it or not, is still affecting your future. You said it yourself in your last post--hes still having an impact on you. It solved nothing whatsoever. You've answered your own question. Link to comment
hockeyboy Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 Your behaviour is unacceptable and you should be thrown out of the University. Sorry, but a small fine is ridiculous, you need help mate and you don't deserve to be in that community. While I don't condone his actions, I think this is quite severe. He may need help (anger management etc) but being expelled is not going to help that. OP, it appears you put yourself in a bad situation (obviously). Hopefully at the minimum, you'll have learned a good lesson from all of this and use that going forward. Link to comment
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