Trigger warning - Can I please hear from people who witnessed DV as a child at home (if you’re comfortable to share)

Same 😥

Holding my Walkman headphones as hard as I possibly could against my head to drown out the shouting and banging, knowing full well that was my mum getting another battering off my stepdad.

Seeing your mum with broken bones, another black eye and covered in blood is something no child should have to deal with. He hurt me a couple of times too and my mum got a extra kicking for stopping him.

I lived in absolute terror from the age of 7 until I moved out at 17.

It left me feeling incredibly anxious, that knot in your chest and stomach becomes something easily triggered. I have massive trust issues and my self esteem was and still is in the toilet.

I wish to god my mum had left him before she did. It was an appalling way to grow up. I so wish I could go back and give child me a big cuddle 😥

My father was (probably still is!) a violent man, to both my mum and us children. My brother got lucky being born very shortly before their split.

I remember the flying items of furniture, mums broken arm in front of us, the 3am dashes to my grandmas, and the social services referral when it became us. Mum thought she was doing the right thing staying together for the kids, and I trust that as much as she was wrong - she was doing what she thought best.

I ended up in my own DV relationship between 18-21 years old. The combination of that, and my father, has affected me but probably not in the way I would expect.

I am very very difficult to frighten. I will put myself in front of 6 foot men on nights out, and tell them to fuck off. I will wade into fights between others and put myself in harms way. The last time a man (other than the 2 I’ve mentioned!) raised his hand to me, I dared him to get on with it.

My view is that very few men follow through with it, and the ones that do won’t be doing anything I’ve never experienced before.

So if anything? I’m perhaps not risk adverse enough, and have a quite cavalier attitude to any conflict that really I should probably be intimidated by.

I’m a 5ft2 woman who is not frightened of 6ft men, because I’ve already seen their worst.

Im in my 60s now and the domestic abuse I and my sisters endured has killed any relationship we should all have

If you have children, you need to get out ASAP, no matter how. Children had no say and its their lives that are totally fucked

Maybe things are a bit different now, now that DA isnt ignored , but in my day, DA wasnt actually a crime and children were coerced into keeping it quiet - not spoken about. Neighbours would hear and not say a word

I wouldn’t say a DV home as such but my parents had a very volatile relationship. Lots of drama. I have a very clear memory of my mum slapping my dad in the street and my dad slapping her right back. I can see it very clearly 30 years later. My life hasn’t been blighted in the way some posters here have described thankfully, but I still remember that incident. It does stay with you and I would hate for my dc to remember things like that from their childhood.

Leaving is the best thing you can ever do for your kids well done.

From about age 7 my parents got back together (no real memory of my dad before that) and I heard and saw DV most days. There were periods of time where it was quiet and things between then were ok which made it worse as I never knew what to expect.
My mum collected me from primary school often with a new black eye or bruise.
Id lie in bed screaming many nights as I heard him shout at her or beat her but then I got too scared to make noise and lay absolutely terrified- I’d have been less scared if it was happening to me.
My mum ran away several times leaving me with him, he was ‘ok’ with me but I was scared of him as I saw what he did to mum. He would try to track her down and drive round looking for her with me in the car trying to find her showing people a photo and going to friends/ family houses.
I felt completely abandoned.

She took me with her to go stay with family about 6 times and we moved our belongings too. Once we got a house (not sure how) when my sibling was born and we moved there. He would emotionally manipulate me into seeing him against my mums wishes I was so torn and confused.
with my mum we couldn’t afford much food or anything really but I was actually happier. I could rest knowing she was safe.
They got back together.
Then separated again about 6 months later and we had to move in with family- me my mum and 1 year old sibling all sharing a bed but it was better than being at home with him there.
They got back together and had another baby.
When that baby was about 1 my mum went out with friends and my dad didn’t like her having friends. She came back drunk. I woke up to him flinging her around the bathroom as she was vomiting. I was 15/ 16 now and it was the first time I’d seen him physical with her since before siblings were born. I went mad and intervened, I was bigger and needed to stop this for my siblings sake.

Thank god after that night they soon split for good- he went which had never happened before but I think a reality check came with me having to stop him hurting my mum. Of course he said ‘he’d chose to leave her as it was all her fault’ etc but she was free.
She struggled a bit at first adjusting but she then had the best years of her life.

I moved on soon after and I did resent my mum for not doing this sooner and making us stay with him when she knew he was damaging me- I told her about him locking me outside while I watched him get big kitchen knives from the stand saying he was going to kill her in the middle of the night. I’m crying as I type this as it’s as clear as anything in my mind and I still wonder how all she could say to me is ‘he wouldn’t go that far’. I was about 7/8 when he did that.

This was in the 80’s and if it was now I’d be removed and in care. Neighbours school family and friends didn’t help in anyway.

As an adult it has really messed me up.
weight issues
trust issues
drawn to abusive men
overdoses
self harm
to name a few!

I am ok now and function really well as a professional but have moments where I do struggle.

Bwlieve me leaving him is the best thing you can do- my mum didn’t and it fractured my relationship with her.

well done OP for getting safe
I hope you are getting some practical and emotional help IRL
are you in contact with a local DV service? they will be able to help with practical stuff like making sure your house is secure or think about if you need a non molestation order
if you can find it there's a really good course called You and me Mum
https://www.ndas.co/you-and-me-mum
it's offered in lots of places, I think it would help you answer your questions about how dv affects mums as well as children

@AnotherDayanotherNameChangeX this is so sad . That poor young man, and his poor mum.
❤️❤️

My mum witnessed it a lot as a kid, she is still a mess now. She didn't cut contact so the toxic relationships continued and we were exposed to that. She was always desperate for their approval but so resentful of her childhood.

Her relationship with my dad is and was a mess. She was a nightmare to live with, never got proper help and it bled into us kids too. I do not want that for my child.

There was also DV in my parents' relationship, I didn't see it but I know it happened. She'd tell me for one thing, sometimes she'd call the police or neighbours would and that was a whole other drama I got stuck in the middle of. The whole relationship was horrible when it blew up and still is.

I don't have healthy feelings towards either parent.

I then went on to an abusive relationship, as did my sibling, partly just to get out of the home and partly because our notions of normal and our self esteem were fucked. We have both needed counselling and suffered depression and substance issues.

I work in a related field OP and I do not say this to scare you but there are children being removed and the younger ones adopted due to DV. The generational cycle is very real and if the parents can't break it services need to.

Saw it, heard it and sensed it. The atmosphere and the actual violence and shouting. It was hideous. People should never stay for the kids. I’m in my fifties and still think about it sometimes.

Please, if you possibly can, leave this relationship for the sake of your DC. My father was abusive, physically and emotionally, and I spent all of my childhood from about the age of 7 living in terror of when he was going to beat my mother or me. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to his outbursts and we walked on eggshells the whole time. As a teenager I begged my mum to leave him, but they were different times and she had no means of supporting herself so she stayed and the abuse continued.
When I was 18 I started dating my future husband who was a truly gentle soul. My father’s behaviour changed and the physical abuse stopped. I believe it was because he was afraid that my boyfriend would retaliate and attack him on our behalf. I was supposed to go to university, but my father insinuated that once I was away from home and my boyfriend wasn’t at the house regularly there would be nothing to stop him continuing the abuse, so I cancelled my plans and stayed at home to protect my mum.
My mum could only truly enjoy life in the years after my father died. My childhood was hell because of that man and I really wish that mum had left him and we could live happily.
Please put your children’s happiness first.

i watched as my brothers were hit with a belt and/or fist, I witnessed a knife being pulled, drunken fights and psychological abuse formed the foundation of my family home. I witnessed my brothers being forced to touch private areas on an adults body. I was punched, kicked and slapped, I was groomed and raped. I was degraded and humiliated. I reported my CSA to the police but can’t go any further because I don’t have the strength to do this. I’m left forever broken with part of me always on guard and seeing things through a different lens. I feel integrally different to most people and I have a pathological need to people please. I get angry and cry and now as a mum, I feel so alone. My mum died when I was 2 and I have no contact with any of my family members as all of them were my abusers in some form of another. I feel cancerous and unworthy. I feel lost and confused. My body has paid the price with multiple chronic illnesses. It has buggered up my career prospects. But I am a fighter, I get back up and try again. I haven’t hardened because of what happened to me, instead I remain curious and compassionate to other people’s struggles - I have developed a type of radar for it. I can feel peoples energy and this serves me well in the job I’m doing. I will add, the trauma I experienced has had repercussions in my kids - it’s like their bodies were made for the world I grew up in. I belong to a local community/church group - and it gives me some sense of belonging. I have witnessed people do lovely things for others, I try and do the same. The anger I feel inside I try and channel into my work. I sit with the most vulnerable people who hold stories never spoken outside the room. I hold this space for them, offering them safety and hope.

Unusually, my mother domestically abused my father. I witnessed her throwing things at him, hitting him with objects, and shouting at him. She was also violent towards me, although not my sister. On one occasion she picked me up physically and threw me across the room so I hit my head off the corner of the fireplace. Unsurprisingly I've never had a good relationship with her as an adult. She was physically bigger than my dad and than me too.

Yes she knew we heard and saw things some happened in front of us.
One that sticks with me the most was the time he tried to drown her in the bath because she was pregnant with my sister. I called the police that time. I was petrified has I snook down stair to the phone I didn't know what he would have done if he caught me.
My neighbour would often call the police too. He'd be carted off in the police car or van and be back the next day.
My mum finally left him when I was 12 and life was much better but even then it wasn't the best because we was hiding from him. So still lived on egg shells for years after.

Witnessing this has affected my life massively . In the main I ended up feeling anxious around angry people and have had to leave situations inc jobs where people get angry or critical as I’m so trauma triggered and want to cry . I’ve also accepted this In relationships too as my mum always took him back . I have no time for my mum now as she put him before us children and should have left him ( she did for a year) . I’ve had years of therapy as a result and only now in my 50s have I healed

This is my relative Jamie,
this happened because his peice of shit dad murdered his mother while he was in the house, he couldn’t live with the torment
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19207891.jamie-mckitten-tributes-tragic-teen-rail-death/

this is Kelly (his mam’s) story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/7752750.stm

well done on leaving OP, keep being brave for your baby ❤️

I’m going to be completely straight with you on this. My parents had a very dysfunctional relationship. They would fight, including physical violence. These were horrible, horrible arguments that sometimes went on for days. My dad would rip the phone out the wall so we couldn’t call the police (this was before mobiles). It would get violent then eventually my dad would get physically kicked out or removed (by my sisters bf/ the police/ male relatives) or sometimes we managed to push him outside and barricade the door til he went away. We had to pull my dad off my mum when he was choking the life out of her. Watched her almost haemorrhage to death after he pushed her through a glass panelled door. He hit my older sister too. There is no way to explain the damage living with that has done to me and my sisters. I live with constant depression that’s treatment resistant and severe anxiety. I had a total breakdown at sixteen and ended up in a psychiatric unit. My younger sister has personality disorder.
Despite everything that has happened between them, my parents could never leave each other alone. We begged my mother not to let him back in the house but she did, again and again and again. After he’d broke bones in her hand, after he’d tried to crash the car with us all inside.
I’m going to be brutally honest now because you asked. I blame my mum just as much as my dad for fucking up my entire childhood and leaving me as an adult who can’t function properly because of trauma.
Every situation with dv is different. That is just my experience.
When I was quite young I realised my mum did have a choice and she chose that life for herself and for us.
Whatever light or life, innocence that little kids have.. I didn’t have it. It was dead inside me and it never ever grew because of the way we lived. I had no childhood and something inside me is always sad, always different and remote from everyone else, always waiting for something bad to happen even now.

I saw it and heard it. Felt it deep in my bones. Made me a people pleaser and lose myself. It’s a constant battle for me now and I’m old!!!.

And of course eventually I felt it physically myself too. and so did my siblings. He was not able ton”just” abuse our mother. His behaviour spilled over.

can you imagine sending your 11yo child to school after Christmas with a black ear? No. I can’t either. But that is what happened.

My siblings and I barely speak to our parents now.

As parents ourselves we cannot forgive my mother for not protecting us. For putting him first.

I try not to spend time with him at all. Even tho he is a sad old man these days.

a while ago he reminded me why…… He tried to rile up my then 4yo. Really triggered their fight or flight response. I watched it with my own eyes. He was doing just what he used to do with us. Trying to control the narrative and get a rise.
from a 4yo. How F-ing pathetic.

so. I avoid them. It’s for the best.

my siblings avoid them too.

so. Do not go back to that man. Protect your kids. Rebuild and maintain a good relationship with your kids. Have therapy. Work on yourself. Why do you feel you want to go back to him?! You must stay well away from such abuse and not get together with another man who can abuse you. and you must ensure your kids have the tools to grow away from him too.

be strong. Seek help

I didn’t really see it, but lying in bed and hearing shouting and slapping and crying from down stairs is the worse feeling. Kids do know and it affects them greatly.

My ex was a nasty piece of work, mostly verbal but occasionally would descend into violence. I fought back and usually came off worse. I stayed far longer than I should have done. It is a brave step to walk away but dont lose your resolve. Stand firm and protect your children. Good luck xxx

Haven’t seen or spoken to my dad in decades and I am also no contact with my mum. I resent her weakness for not leaving and the way she minimises things even to this day.

My rational brain understands why abused women stay but the child in you who experienced it doesn’t leave you. If you go back then you risk losing your children as adults when they have a choice to walk away from it all.

This weekend, my daughters heard my ex husband hit me and threaten to kill me.
Don't ever let your POS ex back in.

NC for this.

My parents argued a lot, and there was a lot of emotional manipulation by both my parents against each other through us.

But one time my dad was drunk and lost it in front of us and beat my mum and tried to stab her. Luckily it wasn’t a strong knife so the knife just bent but I remember him trying to stab her repeatedly whilst my siblings and I were screaming.

I don’t know if it was the years of my parents screaming at each other or that one event, but I know I can struggle to contain my anger. I get angry and frustrated quickly, and I worry that is now happening with my children. It took me years to learn about how a healthy relationship should be but I still lose it with DH every now and then.

My parents are still together and I am close to my mum but have a very superficial relationship with my dad, but I think that’s more to do with him never really being a dad and seeing his role solely as a provider. He’s now very different to how he used to be - quiet, timid, patient, etc.

I did bring up that incident a couple years ago with my mum and she denied it. Not sure if she blocked it out or she hoped by denying it I would think I imagined it but I didn’t discuss it any further as I figured it’s her trauma too.

I'm reading these posts and my heart breaks for each and every one of you. I am in a similar situation to OP and it's so hard to keep moving forward when they're playing nice, it would just feel so easy to go back and pretend it was a bad dream. But this thread has cemented it for me. This is why I left. So it didn't escalate further and so my baby has a safe place to grow up.
I'm so sorry for you all 💐

I had to watch my pos stepfather smash my mother’s head again the wall. I can still see the blood spatter up the walls. I called the police. Nothing was done. She stayed with him for a further 5 years and he did the same to me. It has affected me my whole life. I also ended up in an abusive relationship and social services became involved because I was like you. Thankfully I came to my senses but he was also an evil pos and I’m glad every day that I got him out of my life. Your kids WILL notice. They WILL suffer, and if you carry on seeing this man, you WILL damage them.