I have a very emotionally abusive alcoholic stepfather. I try my hardest not to deal with him at all.

I am the only one of all my siblings that will hit him back though if he starts shit.

When I was in grade school, beginning at about the fourth or fifth grade, I was pretty mean myself. Now, I regret it very much, but there's nothing that can be done about it now. I only physically fought with someone if they hit me first, but there was one particular incident I regret most of all. I'd tell the story here, but I don't want any of you to hate me. Actually, there are two or three incidents I'm totally ashamed of, but I can understand why I was the way I was.

I remember in fifth grade, which was the year I was at my worst behavior, I came to school with a few cuts, some that were painful being on my fingers. I very clearly recall telling the teacher that I wished my parents were dead. Rather than be alarmed at why I would say such a thing and try to help, she simply told me if something actually happened to them, I wouldn't feel that way, which was true, but still. What I said to her, if I were a teacher, would be seen as a red flag. She was a horrible teacher, and not just because of that.

Although there were a couple of years when I was an absolute terrorist, there were more times when I went to school ashamed to be seen. My mother, who was severely depressed from all the abuse my dad inflicted on her, went through a period of time when she must have been unable to do anything around the house, which meant I went to school in unmatched, too small, or unclean. Looking back, I guess the unclean clothes weren't all that noticeable besides maybe being wrinkled, but I wanted to crawl under something and hide when she sent me to school that way. It wasn't that we were poor, she just was too depressed to care, I guess.

OKAY, I'm getting carried away with this. I'll be quiet now.

my first husband was verbally abusive, i punched him in the face... then he accused me of being physically abusive. Eh, whatever... since then i've just learned to walk away. :)

yeah i know about abuse.

to answer the question: how do you deal with them?

you answered it already. you walk away. you get away. you stop being a victim and you get the hell out of there.

I chop them to bits and throw them in the garbage disposal.

Both my father, an alcoholic and my 1st husband were abusive on every level.I am scared forever from those experiences.I dont know how to expresshow I feel,I dont know how to ask for my needs to be met and I dont trust.Im working on this stuff in therapy but I find it painful and disturbing.Somedays I think I will never heal or cope with all of it.

My ex-husband was abusive to me but not to our 2 daughters I hasten to add. With them growing up I had to have contact with him. I refused to argue with him which made him crazy, used the broken record technique (message me if you want to learn this, it's great for dealing with difficult people) Now the girls are adult I have no contact with him except for graduations etc but again I don't speak to him first and if we do talk I keep the conversation very superficial. We have managed to put the two girls through college with each of us paying half and we haven't had one arguement over this.

This is a good read: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_abusive_men_treat_submissive_wives