people have this stereotypical idea in their head of what abusive relationships are like that consists of a crazed drunkard husband who's completely insane and yells all the time and a pitiful little wilted flower of a wife who cries all day, when a lot of the time it looks the opposite. the man is calm and collected because he gets to take out all his anger on his wife in private and he has has his wife cooking and cleaning for him so he's totally relaxed. meanwhile the wife is run ragged from doing everything for her husband and children, and is distressed from being terrorized by him, so yeah she's short with people, she snaps at her children a little too often, she's stressed. and when he's slightly inconvenienced, the man throws a tantrum and pretends he's the victim, because he's such a better parent than her, and she's actually the crazy one who needs to just calm down (accept his abuse with no reaction and keep the peace). and people see this and think, "look at this totally calm and rational man, he never yells at his kids, meanwhile his wife is crazy and yelling at her kids and husband all the time." yeah of course she's the one who's crazy! she's being driven crazy 24/7! and the husband says, "yes, see, SHE'S the problem," and everyone believes him. so sickening