The unsealed divorce records between Rep. Keith Ellison and his ex-wife Kim Ellison include charges of domestic abuse. But not what people might’ve been expecting.

According to reports Wednesday in the Washington Post and the Minnesota Star-Tribune, Mr. Ellison says in an affidavit that his wife repeatedly hit him throughout their 25-year marriage.

“It was very humiliating to admit that I was a domestic abuse victim,” Mr. Ellison says in the records of the 2012 divorce and subsequent domestic litigation.

The file, which was unsealed Wednesday in response to lawsuits from the Star-Tribune and Alpha News, contains no domestic-abuse allegations by Mrs. Ellison.

Those suits were filed after Karen Monahan, Mr. Ellison’s ex-girlfriend, accused him of physical abuse, claims denied by the congressman, who also is deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee and now running for Minnesota attorney general.

The domestic-abuse claim was made in a February 2015 affidavit in which Mr. Ellison opposes motions from his ex-wife for more spousal maintenance.

“Keith Ellison reported that his ex-wife ‘has hit me too many times to mention.’ He said he reported the abuse during a 2009 counseling session during which Kim Ellison told a therapist that she hit him and not their children ‘because he can take it,’ according to the affidavit,” the Star-Tribune wrote.

The Ellisons opposed the unsealing of their records, citing family privacy and noting that they have mutually agreed to seal them. However, under Minnesota law, divorce records are presumed public and outside parties can object to their being sealed if there is a public interest.

In a statement Wednesday, Mrs. Ellison said the file’s unsealing “should be the end of the allegations against Keith” and that she was “ashamed that a judge has allowed an alt-right website that is openly working to defeat Keith” and the Star-Tribune to “exploit and stigmatize my illness for their own ends.”

In his statement Wednesday, Mr. Ellison described the marriage as “storybook” until his wife began suffering multiple sclerosis and “major depression.”

“I understand perhaps better than most that as a public official, my personal life falls under higher scrutiny than others. But to pry into the details of a sealed divorce file that the court previously ordered closed, on the eve of an election, is shameful and outrageous,” he said.

The Ellisons had asked the state Court of Appeals on Monday to put off unsealing the divorce file until they could redact “confidential information,” but the court declined.