Betta spawning questions

I'm trying to spawn my bettas . . .

Today I introduced the female to the male, first in a little cup floating in the tank. She seemed to dig him; she became agitated and displayed incredible barring; she was moving like she was trying to get at him. Meanwhile, the male is furiously building his bubble nest, alternating building with swimming around her and sort of undulating his hindquarters . . . so I let her into the tank and he goes back to building the nest, she swims right over to him, underneath the nest, looking like she's ready to go . . .

And that's where I think it went wrong, because when the male finally responded to her, he was brutal. And I know that that's how it happens with bettas, but he had her cowering in a corner in a bunch of plants, gasping for breath. And it didn't look like she was about to give up any eggs. He was trying to entice her, it looks, because he was kind of nipping at her pelvic area, but she was dead still, I actually thought she was dead for a minute, but then she took a breath. In the course of the chases, the nest was completely destroyed. They were together in the tank for about a half hour, but then I scooped her out because I didn't want to leave them unsupervised while I came up to write this . . .

So, to make a long story short (too late), I don't know what went wrong, if indeed anything did go wrong at all. Should I put the female back in the tank? Is that level of brutality (made me cringe) normal? The female looks like she's swollen with eggs, but I haven't done anything extraordinary to get her that way. I've been feeding everybody brine shrimps, frozen mysis, and their regular Betta Min to try and condition them . . . both fish can see each other, but they haven't been in the same tank until today. Spawning tank is a 10 gallon with about 7 gallons of water in it, pH around 7.0, temp 82 degrees, no filter, with a whole mess of floating plants, some real, some fake. 20% daily water changes (trying to keep damage to nest at a minimum, but inevitably male has to rebuild), cracks in hood, holes for filter, etc. have been Saran wrapped for max humidity.

Keep in mind this is my first attempt to try and get anything to spawn, ever, with the exception of guppies . . .

Thanks for the reply.

I'm going to switch the male and the female and try again in a few days. I just looked her over, and aside from a split caudal fin, she seems OK. She's already getting feisty again, so I'm not worried. But I've got a new question: Can I put a fungus preventative in the spawning tank when the eggs are finally laid? I'm thinking some methylene blue as a prophylactic for the eggs.

Another question: I read that intense lighting can harm the eggs. I switched my fluorescent fixture for an old incandescent, one with two small light bulbs. That's not too much, is it?

Thanks for all the hints; I do have a bunch of floating plants in the tank, even though most of them are plastic. I switched the female and the male --I've been too cheap to buy a five dollar divider (mostly because I know I have one stashed somewhere and I just can't find it) but I think I might cave. She looks brand new, it's really weird; her caudal fin looks like it's already halfway fused together again. I didn't realize she could heal that quickly. Today I was feeding her frozen shrimp with tweezers, and I was dangling them maybe three quarters of an inch out of the water, and she was jumping for them. Pretty cool. Anyhow, she looks fabulous, and very full of eggs. I think Monday might be the big day, because I work all day tomorrow and I want to be around to supervise them during the Big Event.
I can't believe I've never tried this before. It's really fun.