He made a joke about beating me up.

My husband and I were talking the other day. I can’t even remember what it was about, but nothing that important. And he said, “Hannah, don’t make me beat you up.”

Now I know it was meant to be a joke. But I have a history of sexual assault, which he knows about. In the moment I told him “that’s not funny, it’s not ok to make jokes about that.” He didn’t respond.

Fast forward two days later, it’s eating me up. I can’t stop thinking about it. Although, he’s not a violent person to me, it really hurt me and bothered me on a deep level. He’s been aggressive with objects when mad but that’s it.

So I told him this. (We’ve been together 8 years and he’s never been physically violent towards me).

He’s called me names and made fun of my physical appearance quite a lot to the point I feel very self conscious of my features, but I could also be taking that personally.

He said he’s sorry I feel that way.

He said he’ll try to not say it again. Later on that changed to I will never say that again. (Thank goodness)

He’s surprised I feel so “devastated.”

He started comparing and asked if I would respond the same to other people and started to ask scenarios like my (girl) friend saying it to her boyfriend or one of my girlfriends to me.

And I explained it wouldn’t feel okay but I also said what matters is that it hurt me and you’re my partner who did it. AND you’re a man to his wife joking about that.

I know he was in some ways trying to understand it but also it can seem like minimizing to say I wouldn’t react this heavily to a friend saying this.

I just feel dismissed. I feel like he doesn’t care or understand. It’s like he’s “trying” to understand but it just sounds like excuses. He then asked if there’s anything he does. So I told him I get bothered by his misogynistic jokes, but that this one felt like it bothered me and hurt more.

But now idk if I’m overreacting at this point cuz he feels like it’s not a big deal.