Dear Prudence,
Before I met and married my current wonderful husband, I was with a violently abusive man whom I married at 21 and finally found the courage to divorce at 25. My husband is the only person who knows I’m still in therapy for PTSD. He is very close to his brother “Will.” They are both gentle and somewhat awkward, but unlike my husband, Will had never had a serious relationship before he got with “Ronda.” We’re both very happy for him. But my husband naturally wants to continue hanging out with Will multiple times a week, and Will and Ronda are now a package deal. Ronda is very loud, over-the-top, and outspoken, which would not be so bad, except Every. Single. Time. anyone mentions an everyday annoyance, or tells a story in which someone can be seen as behaving badly, Ronda goes “BOOOOSH!” or “KA-POWWW!” and slams a fist into her palm or punches some nearby object, with the obvious implication that the person in question needs a punch.
I find this triggering: Not only the physical motions and sounds, but the expressed and unchallenged idea that anyone deserves to be physically hit for annoying or holding an opinion the hitter disagrees with. But if I try to hint that that’s going a bit far, she brushes me off, saying “I’m just kidding” and acting like I’m being a stick-in-the-mud. I’m reluctant to talk to her about my abuse and PTSD, because Ronda is not only the type of person who’d demand why I didn’t just hit back (um, because I’d be dead), but the type to broadcast it to the world. Is there any alternative to trying to get my husband to hang out less with Will, or finding errands I have to go do by myself every time the three of them get together?
— Hold the Punch, Please