Have I been abused?

I was agreeing with you until you wrote you hit him .
There is no reason for one adult to ever hit another .
This is called domestic violence .
Yes his words are vile , but you continued a relationship with an alcoholic . Did you expect it to be perfect ?
Block him , ignore him , and learn from this , you are picking the wrong men to be in your life . Learn from it .

Sounds like your as bad as each other as your sat here blaming his behaviour for your abuse and violence

No but you did just admit to domestic violence from yourself so we'll done you

It just sounds as if you’re better off without each other. And while you might have reacted “out of character”, what would it take to make you do the same again? Because you need to address that reaction. What HE did/ said is irrelevant now, as you are not together. But what happens next time someone says something awful about your son?

I would have left him after what he called your son but there we go, you carried on the relationship for too long after that. You have left now though so I wouldn't even be questioning whether it was abuse or not. You were WRONG for each other so draw a line, fix yourself and your son, take some time to heal and move on.

I don’t really think there is enough here to say who abused who Or if it was abuse or a toxic relationship tbh. how long were you together? Did he always rant at you when he was drinking? Was this every night or regularly?
in terms of cleaning his house, how did that come about? Did he ask? Or did you offer?

That's not what gaslighting is. Gaslighting is making someone else question their own sanity or perception of reality. Its really irritating when people just use it to mean any form of lying or shitty behaviour.
I think you're reaching.
"so making it ops fault she hasn't bought fresh enough bread" - well factually it is her fault she hasn't bought fresh bread - who's fault is it otherwise. I mean, he should get his own fresh bread if he's that bothered, of course. He shouldn't be sending her snarky messages but are we calling that emotional abuse now? Bloody hell, wonder how many people sent their OH a snarky text recently because they used the last of the milk etc.
"Encouraging someone to take big steps in a relationship then making it all their responsibility (moving and then leaving it all to her to sort) " - she didn't say he pushed her into it, or even encouraged it. She might have done it of her own back. All the OP said was that she moved to be near him and it was hard work, he didn't help her out. This is not gaslighting. It's not abuse. It's just being a dickhead,.
'Verbally and emotionally abusing her consistently'- OP said he picks arguments when he's drunk. Irritating arsehole behaviour. Name calling is gross. But name calling in an argument? Again OP never said whether she called him names too (although admits hitting him round the head, so clearly there's some back and forth).
Just because a man is a twat, or a layabout doesn't mean he's an abuser. From OPs posts (which are all we have to go on) I see no real evidence of a power imbalance and bad behaviour on both sides. Which Is why I said toxic relationship.

And I highly doubt that if a bloke had written "my GF doesn't like my kid and called them names during a drunken argument so I cracked her round the head, have I been abused?", the reaction would be the same.

Well he was clearly a twat. And I’m sure you’re much better wo him.

I can’t say from you posted whether he was abusive or not tbh. Alcoholic yes. Obnoxious yes. Abusive? Can’t tell.

Ugh people are so annoying. ALL these people who haven’t been in an abusive relationship swanning in with their “shoulda woulda coulda” judgement. THIS is exactly why people don’t leave.

op, you didn’t give that much detail to know whether he is a habitual abuser or a drunken tosser. By that I mean some people are abusive when they’re drunk but if they quit alcohol you’d see no abusive behaviour from them whatsoever. Some people are abusive all the time, drunk or sober. If he’s the first but continues to drink, he is not going to change so you’re being abused. If he’s the latter, you’re being abused. So yes, he was an abusive.

If your post is honest, you’re not violent. And frankly fuck the guy he deserved a slap but you know it’s not actually ok or legal to hit someone so…ok good. Sorted.

Youre just feeling unjustly accused and it’s hard to brush that off because it’s like wtf? There’s someone out there in the world walking around with this narrative that you’re abusive. And they have ‘evidence’ because you DID act “abusively” (shouting, hitting, etc). But you know the truth and you know you’re better off so don’t spend one second more thinking about this. He’ll find someone else to latch onto soon enough.

As someone who's worked with countless survivors of domestic abuse I can categorically say this is not always the case. I've worked with lots of women who only ever experienced emotional and verbal abuse and gaslighting who were more severely impacted by the abuse than women who experienced physical violence. As a survivor myself I can honestly say that the gaslighting and emotional abuse I suffered was much, much worse than anything else and took me much longer to recover from.

Blaming someone else for your own behaviours and the consequences to those behaviours is gaslighting... so making it ops fault she hasn't bought fresh enough bread - gaslighting. Verbally and emotionally abusing her consistently and then spinning that around on her to make it her fault - gaslighting. Encouraging someone to take big steps in a relationship then making it all their responsibility (moving and then leaving it all to her to sort) and then blaming them for not doing those things properly alone- gaslighting.

Physical violence is much worse than name calling. You were abusive to him. Sounds like a whole toxic mess

@Lavender14 can't see how you can tell that from OPs post. He called her names in arguments, was useless round the house. He drinks and they get into arguments
She doesn't say anything about gaslighting.

My exdh has created a narrative for himself that he is abused! We still live together and he picked me up from work, I had been up since 5am and was tired after a full day of manual labour. It had rained a little and when I entered the house I put my foot not on the mat but on the laminate floor. He went on about it and I said well I'm the one who cleans the floor. He said oh that's why the cloakroom smells musty (I keep the mop and bucket in there), it's not but he then proceeded to tell me I hadn't squeezed all the water from the mop. Then he said I wouldn't make a mess of the floor at dd1's (it was one footprint) and I said no because she's not stupid and the mat is right next to the door. He then popped into the kitchen for a minute and I heard him calling me a b, f c* etc and returned saying I'd called him stupid. This confused me as I didn't think I had - remember long, tiring day at work - he then stormed out and hasn't spoken to me since. Sorry for the rant but it's so tiring sometimes.

This is all very odd. You took your child with you to live near a man who drinks every night, who is jealous of your child and who you think is lazy. You got so annoyed with him when he was drunk (before Christmas) that you hit him round the head (which you say is out of character for you) and you continued to be in a relationship with him? You were not living with him, I cannot understand why you stayed with him until now. I hope your child is safe and has not witnessed all this hideous drink fuelled behaviour.

Also just to highlight that domestic abuse is intentional and persistent.

Ops slap was neither intentioned nor did it happen persistently. Her exes behaviour to her was absolutely intentional and very persistent.

Did she act well - absolutely not, but are there other factors we need to take into consideration such as that her action was a one off reaction to ongoing persistent abuse - yes.

These comments show a lack of awareness around the impact of emotional abuse and gaslighting. The situation is clearly much more nuanced than how its being perceived by some people on here and what it needs to boil down to is the power dynamic. A toxic relationship is one where its equally unhealthy and the power dynamic is equal. An abusive relationship is one where the power dynamic is uneven (as is the case in this relationship) and in those cases individual instances of violence can occur from a victim. Similar to when women end up killing a partner after years of abuse. I wouldn't be labeling op as 'violent' after reading what she's written here and I certainly wouldn't be expecting other women to be gaslighting her either.

Were a man to have written this post I would be saying the exact same. The idea that all victims of abuse must always act accordingly and always take the high road actually is very harmful, stops genuine victims from receiving support, affects police response to domestic abuse and ultimately stops women from seeking help. Don't be part of that.

Just keep your standards high in future. You and your son are worth better than this man.

Physically lashing out because you can’t control your temper is being violent.

Imagine if it was the other way around and he put his hands on you because you’d said something nasty.

This.

His comment about your son was vile, but you don’t have the right to put your hands on someone because you’re angry.

You are both abusing each other. He's an alcoholic and you are violent.