He Got Physical | How To Move Forward After Physical Abuse | Marriage Q&A | Ep425

Cass Morrow, Author of Disrupting Divorce: The NEW Man. Saving Struggling, Sexless, and Toxic Marriages.

Kathryn Morrow, Author of Behind The White Picket Fence.

How To Move Forward After Physical Abuse?

When a man gets physical, it’s serious. The first priority is safety — and then truth, accountability, and real change.

In this Q&A episode (Ep425), Courtney shares a first-ever physical incident (pushing/dragging), a police call, and a court-imposed no-contact order. Cass breaks down a distinction most people never hear: characterological violence (pattern-based, predatory, controlling) vs. situational violence (escalation inside a volatile conflict). The path forward depends on which one you’re dealing with.

What we cover:

• What to do after a first physical incident (and what NOT to do)
• Situational vs. characterological abuse — how to tell the difference
• Why “anger management” alone doesn’t fix this (identity work does)
• How shame keeps people stuck in the same cycle
• What repair can look like after the no-contact order lifts (if it’s safe)
• How both partners take responsibility for their side without excusing violence

If you are in danger: contact local emergency services or a domestic violence hotline in your country. Do not use a podcast episode as a safety plan.

🔗 Explore more resources and our story: https://www.morrowmarriage.com/

Join Cass Morrow and Kathryn Morrow, the resilient couple behind Morrow Marriage. Together, we share our unscripted, raw, and against-the-grain journey of saving our marriage from the depths of Hell. We battle narcissism, emotional abuse, reactive abuse, and physical and sexual assault, offering lessons, actionable steps, and real-life examples to inspire couples worldwide.

Our journey is a testament to overcoming adversity, with challenges including Cass’ restraining order, seven separations, and two divorce lawyers. If we can survive and thrive in toxic, abusive, and sexless marriages, what’s your excuse?

Both books are searchable on Amazon and often purchased together:

Disrupting Divorce: The NEW Man by Cass Morrow: https://a.co/d/31vm4bV 

Behind The White Picket Fence by Kathryn Morrow: https://a.co/d/f0diMvp

Discover our story, challenge societal norms, and help disrupt the 78% divorce rate. Subscribe, comment, and share if you find value as we strive to save marriages.

What to Watch Next:

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MorrowMarriage.com | Disrupting Divorce With The “New” Marriage

Cass and Kathryn came back from the depths of hell to save their marriage and keep their family together.  Battling narcissism, abuse, reactive abuse, emotional, physical and sexual assault. Listen as they share their lessons, actionable steps and real life examples from even the worst of their story. 

Unscripted, real, raw and against the grain from society’s example of marriage - currently leading to the demise of nearly 78% of all marriages today.

Inspiring couples around the world...

If they can save their marriage from toxicity, abuse and a sexless marriage - not only survive it all... but THRIVE... what’s your excuse?

Join Cass & Kathryn as they flip divorce statistics and fulfill their purpose in life.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay. Courtney, hi. Can you can you please, Courtney, before you get going, can you just list off the question first?

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Um I guess my question is uh I don't I'm not really sure how to move forward after we kind of bumped into this physical situation.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Physical with you, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

And and how serious are we talking about?

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Um uh it could have been a a hell of a lot worse. I'm very grateful it wasn't. Um he he pushed me over a couple times and he he dragged me by my hood, but then he kind of left me on the floor and walked away. But he's never done that before.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah, I was gonna say though in the song Violet Saint Physical, I talk about all the different ways we don't know what we're capable of. Right? And the night that Catherine called the police, when I think back, I'm like, I I don't even know what I was capable of. I know that what I was doing was worse than ever and longer and harder. Yeah. So um I could I completely resonate. Let me let's what's that?

SPEAKER_02 1:08

I did call the police, and right now I like we we have a no contact, they did an automatic no contact, so I can't even talk to him right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Um well let's let Catherine jump in here, okay?

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Did you just say you guys went no contact? Is that what I heard? The police officers imposed a no contact order.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Okay, that's gonna happen with us as well. Did you call the police? I yeah, I did.

unknown 1:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Um, can you tell me so you want to know how to move forward with this physical assault happening? Was that your main question?

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Um, I mean not about logistical things, but more so like on its rough. Relational.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yes. Okay. So what I want to know is what was happening during this assault. So there's two different types of domestic violence. Have you heard me talk about them before?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Yes, I actually kind of binge you guys a bit, and I saw you talking about like the characterological versus um situational. Situational. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

So I'm assuming because you said it's situational. So if he's never done this before and this isn't characteristic of his behavior, then it was probably situational. Now, what I would like to know, and this is some people are gonna hate me for saying this, but what what did you do to push him over the edge? If he doesn't normally act like this, something happened in the interaction between the two of you. I'm not blaming you for what he did because he should have kept his hands to his fucking self. Okay. But what was happening for him to do that? He got that level. Like when my husband, when I had to call the the police on my husband, I know full well what I was doing. I wasn't in complete control at the time. I wasn't trying to get my ass kicked, and he didn't, thankfully, kick my ass. But he could have because we were pushing back on each other. We just had a different level of that type of violence, and he got physical and I didn't, but I could have. So what was going on?

SPEAKER_02 2:55

It was kind of it was kind of that because like historically, my husband is an alcoholic, and there have been times when I've been abstinent. Like, I won't drink because I'm like, I'm not gonna drink, you can drink, and I'm not an alcoholic, but this particular evening I was drinking with him, and actually everything was fine, but something just kind of set him off when we were listening to music. He was starting to get a little pissy with me. I unplugged his music. He called the cops for that earlier in the night. The cops came, they were like, just to separate, and then we went sat down for dinner. I was poking his poking.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Hold up. You unplugged his music. Tell me what really happened.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

I I unplugged his music.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

What happened around that situation? It wasn't well like that's all you did. You just literally so no fighting, no name calling, no nothing.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

And you just went over and went leading up to that, no, like Yeah, but but why'd you call the police then? I don't really know. I know it sounds like that's not what happened. I'm I'm telling you, like there was like a glance, like we kind of looked at each other, and I was like, all right, I'm unplugging this. Tell me about the glance.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

See that that's probably contempt. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

So it was it was probably something like that.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

So let's talk, let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

I mean, I let's talk about it. Because what I'm hearing is that you guys, there was something going on. He was playing his music. Was it too loud? What was pissing you off? You went over and passive aggressive, actually, we call that more aggressive aggressive, unplugged his music. You guys had a sassy look between the two of you, and then you guys got into a fight and he called the police, or what did that look like?

SPEAKER_02 4:50

No, there was no fight. He unplugged the music and called the police. But before that, like, yes, that's what I was trying to say. Before I was drunk, and we were dancing around, dancing with each other, singing music to with each other, and I guess at some point something shifted with our energy. There was no like particular thing that happened. And I'm saying that genuinely, like, I don't recall a particular thing. That you know, yeah, I'm gonna say that you know that something triggers.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

When we think of any fight, any fight, Courtney, we have to think about we think of any fight, Courtney, we have to start being more hyper-aware of everything. I'll give you an example. A song like mine coming on could trigger somebody, one of my songs, right? Okay, and so if we become more hyper-aware, more in tune, again, this is part of connection. We can be more preventative, more proactive, if that makes sense. Okay, go on then. So please leave, they say separate, and then when does it go bad?

SPEAKER_02 5:46

So from that, and I I will say, like, he he can be very reactive to music, he's very connected to music, and this is also why I try I typically choose not to drink because I don't really remember, but I know there was no name calling, there was no actual fighting that happened. But after that happened, we sat, we were eating dinner, and again, I'm a little blurry on what initiated this, but I did say something kind of nasty to him, passive aggressive to him regarding his substance use. And then it was like he like flew up and then he started pushing me, and that's when that happened.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

So you said something to him, you don't know exactly what you said, and he started pushing you.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

I said I was like, How would you like it if I was telling everyone about you using or having your problems again, or what you go and do in the shed. And he lost it.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

I'll let Catherine speak to you on this, but I want to say this that he's not justified in pushing you over. What we're and we're not trying to we're not trying to um alleviate that at all, okay, or downplay it or undermine it. But what we're trying to do is we always take the approach of what could we do differently, like ourselves. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Or what did I do rather?

SPEAKER_00 7:05

I'm not proud of what I did at all. And what what I just want before Catherine goes further with you, I want to just explain the why behind your man right now. Okay. So for whatever reason he drinks to cope, to get away, to escape, it's part of who he is right now. Okay, it's attached to itself or to his identity. He doesn't know who he is. And you guys have problems and a disconnect. And so that's fucking up with his identity because he's dependent on you. For example, if you're not intimate, okay, he's he doesn't feel like much of a man. And then when you make him feel guilty or ashamed, like what if I told the world about how much you drink or your substance abuse, or maybe that means drugs too, you know, now he's worried about what people think of him, and it's coming from the person that's supposed to love and respect him the most, and he already doesn't feel that. So I'm not just again I'm not justifying his behavior. But thank you, Deborah. But but what I'm saying is if you can understand him more, then you would be more careful and guarded of his heart, which is what Catherine would teach a lot.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Yeah, I actually I actually don't think him pushing you over is any worse than you threatening him. I I don't think that you don't have to decide what hurts people. I don't think that either one of those is worse. And that's why, you know, I've said multiple times when we were going through our abuse, I just wished he would have hit me. Because the words were they hurt so badly. The body language hurts so badly. And so for me, you guys are both victims here. Yeah, you know what? Men get the bad rap because men are more powerful than we are, and when they snap, sometimes they get physical. That doesn't mean that your butt your husband's not a bad man. Yes, he did a bad thing, but so did you. Both of you are acted bad in that in that circumstance. You were disregulated, right? Dysregulation, alcohol, all those things, but neither one of you is an actual bad person. How do you move forward? Well, you move forward with repair. So right now you can't communicate because there's a government imposed or legally imposed restriction, right? So how do you move forward? I would say you need to repair it when you have the opportunity, because I'm sure he you everyone in the world is gonna say that he should apologize to you. Well, that's probably true. But you should apologize to him. I don't care what he did, I can't control him. I can only, if you're I'm the one that's on the phone with you, you're on the phone with me. So I can tell you you need to go repair that. You said some stupid shit that was really hurtful, hurtful enough for your husband to do something that he's never done before.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

To a man, to a man, and again, we're not downplaying what he did, but to a man who has no idea who he is and it's feeling so disconnected and so lost. I really truly believe the more you watch Content LC, that people don't know who they are. There's too much dependence on their spouse and their feelings. And and when you don't know who you are and your self-worth is attacked by the one that you're supposed to love, keep in mind this was after a fun little afternoon of music, which he already loves. Right? So he's blindsided. Not that he shouldn't be more aware of details and such as well. But when Catherine talks about repair, you gotta learn about the woman that you want to be. You know, when she, you know, there's a song coming out tonight called Catherine, it's a tribute to her, and she didn't love me by giving in. We didn't get where we are because she gave in to my abuse. She didn't enable it, she stood in her strength, but she loved me in a way that I couldn't deny because it felt better. In essence, I still didn't know who I was yet, but it was the catalyst, she was the catalyst that supercharged my growth because she she treated me in a way that I mean I did not deserve the respect that I was getting from her. The the when she stopped shutting down and started engaging, I didn't get I didn't deserve the compliments I was getting, the praise that I was getting. And it caused me to soften. Because I didn't know. See, I believe men don't know how to receive love in this day and age. And so therefore we we're not consistent with giving love. And when it starts to go bad in the relationship, we end up getting explosive like you experienced. Do you see?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

And that's that's it's one of the reasons why I do really I refrain from drinking because I know we can be so volatile with each other when we drink, and I can get really reactive. But when that's not the case, I do compliment him and I tell him he's such a hard worker and he's such a talented man. And and I Yes, but it's undermined.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Yeah, but it's undermined the moment you I mean you're c you're criticizing him for drinking when you are drinking. Do you see how stupid that sounds?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Well, I didn't criticize the drinking, I brought up the drug stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Oh, okay, well, that's fair. But anyways, guilt and shame positive can never come from negative. Guilt and shame will never create the life that you want. And you have to be consistent, you know. So you're pretty, you're you're pretty much diving into everything. Binge more, go learn. And you become the same person through in in and out, through everything. Wherever you go, whoever you talk to, this is how you treat people. And then he can't deny it's real. And then as for trusting that he's not gonna blow up, you can't. He's gonna have to do some work with that, just like I did. And court mandated anger management isn't gonna cut it. He needs to do some work on himself and his identity because he's probably living in a lot of guilt from pushing you over. Love him more, love him harder, soften that that fucker. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

All right, we'll look forward to hearing more from you and more of your story as you progress and reach out. Um, Instagram is so much easier than TikTok. There's so many messages on TikTok. Okay. Um, and if you want, I can connect you with Catherine if you want to go deeper. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Thanks, Courtney. I appreciate you, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Got it.