I guarantee that picture tops whatever picture you tore up thinking that your world would end if anyone saw it. That’s actually the better of my two mugshots. Apparently they take your mugshot when they process you at the police station and then again when you are turned over to the jail. The first mugshot..which I will not be displaying…was even worse, if you can imagine…since I had been crying the ugly cry for like 5 hours.
Two important facts before anything. 1. Dustin and I love each other and are absolutely committed to each other and our marriage. 2. We will NEVER EVER get a divorce. With that said, here’s what happened.
We’ve been married for 5 1/2 years now. We are best friends, enjoy each other’s company and have a lot of fun living out life together. However, we fight stupid. We’re really immature, emotional and unfair when it comes to arguing. It’s not that we don’t have the tools. We’ve been going to marriage counseling since the first year of our marriage. We meet regularly with our life group from church where we share our struggles and get prayer. We have tried really hard to put into practice what we’ve learned about communication. Despite our efforts, about every 3 months we get in a big blow out, yelling match. It seems like no matter how hard we try, it always ends with yelling and things said that cause damage to our marriage.
The day I was arrested, we had been bickering back and forth since I woke up that morning. In all honesty the bickering was my fault. I woke up mad at the world and was planning on staying that way. Dustin kept following me around the house ” l love you Mary, please don’t do this today, just let it go, we can have a nice day”. For 3 hours he kept trying to talk it out. I kept telling him to leave me alone and just let me be. He couldn’t/wouldn’t. Every room I went in to he was right there behind me trying to work things out. All I wanted was to be left alone with my crappy attitude. All he wanted was restoration and a friend. The harder he tried to work things out, the harder I pushed him away with my words. Eventually I got fed up with him. I just started yelling for him to leave me alone. Again, he wanted restoration. I was mad and felt backed into a corner. I just wanted to do something to get him to leave me alone since my words weren’t working. So, in all my vast maturity I threw a sippy cup at him. (Evidently they have more uses then we thought). His response in all of his maturity was to call the cops.
Neither one of us were aware of the laws in Arizona regarding domestic violence. Evidently, if there is a perpetrator and a victim someone HAS to be arrested. Period. When the cops came they took each side of the story. I admitted I threw the heinous sippy cup at him. He said he was hit by the sippy cup. Since our stories were the same they arrested me, charged me with assault and took me to jail.
Jail really sucks by the way. In case you haven’t heard of Sheriff Joe..he doesn’t run the comfiest of jails. (Heard of tent city?) He actually runs the cheapest, most uncomfortable jails in the nation. I do agree with that btw…it just sucks when you are experiencing it first hand…for a freaking sippy cup.
What now? I recently had a preliminary trial hearing where, after Dustin wrote a letter to the court explaining the situation and how he was just as much to blame as I was, they decreased the normal $5,000 anger management class to $100 and ordered me to pay a fine to the domestic violence fund of $35 dollars. As long as I attend the class, don’t get arrested for anything stupid in the meantime, and show up to my hearing in Sept. they will take it off my record.
My hearts record is a different situation entirely and I’ll talk about that in my next post.
Now, young padawans, the lesson for today is there is no mercy in Arizona for “sippy cup slingin’ mamma’s”. If you feel the need to hurl one, make sure you aren’t in Sherriff Joe’s jurisdiction.
*mumble…just a bunch of overgrown urban cowboys out here.
5 Comments
Well, it you’re going to get arrested for something…at least it wasn’t something terrible…I guess…I mean, I can’t believe you can get arrested for that!
Oh wow. Though I had to resist the urge to chuckle at the thought of a sippy cup being considered an assault weapon, my heart goes out to you. This is exactly the kind of thing I would get arrested for doing. Whenever my husband and I get in a tiff, he has to “fix” things. It’s always the same. He yells, I yell, things get nasty, he apologizes, I sulk, he wont let it go as long as I’m upset and follows me everywhere pleading with me. Sometimes I explode and lash out. Usually with profanity, though he’s backed me into a corner where I’ve pushed/hit or thrown things in order to get away from him. Then he claims he wasn’t doing anything wrong and only had the purist of intentions.
Both my husband and I have had counseling. Both our counselors have told us how important it is to back off when one person needs his/her space. Following someone around and forcing the issue is harassment, plain and simple. Refusing to respect someone’s clear request to leave them alone can be perceived as very threatening and aggressive, even if no malice is expressed or intended.
Hopefully your husband will attend the anger management class with you?
Mary, I have a similar story to yours. Fortunately, I never got arrested. Unfortunately, I did much worse things to my husband than throw a sippy cup. It’s a long story (much longer than you’d like to read on your comments), but I think I’ll write it out soon on my blog. I’m kind of scared because my husband’s family doesn’t know about what went on and they read my blog. We tried counseling, tried prayer, tried separating, nothing worked until I got true freedom from Jesus. For me, I had major anger issues rooted in rejection and abandonment (from my dad) and until those things were healed, nothing really changed. The counseling helps you deal with and cope with the arguments, but never really removes them. I’m happy to say that 2.5 years later we haven’t had any arguments like that at all and it hasn’t even come up. The feelings haven’t even come up. So, I just wanted to give you hope!
Mary, my goodness. It’s quite a story to tell–maybe someday you can laugh at it?
But I can’t blame you. I’d have done the same thing. My husband and I both deal with anger and frustration in very different ways. And usually not at the same time, either. One of us is angry and withdraws, the other becomes aggressive and pushy. It’s hard to take that step back and breathe.
I’ve thrown much worse things than a sippy cup. Since our boy was born, we’ve not fought like that, we wage our wars silently now. I’m not sure which is more productive.
But what a scary, scary thing to have to go through. You and Dustin love one another very much, and it is a very normal thing for spouses and partners to argue.
My cousin was arrested a few months ago for throwing an alarm clock at her husband. He sort of set her up though, went on and on at her secretly videotaping it, until she finally got mad enough to lash out. Glad yours wasn’t like that!