To not accept this was an accident

He neglected your toddler and it led to a serious accident. Left to him he wouldn't have got him seen to, which if the bone healed, could have led to serious consequences. At the least if another neglect incident took place and a xray was needed, SS alarm bells would ring, because of the untreated previous fracture. This is not giving a shit about other people. Unless he went to SN school and can't function. I have two children who couldn't go to mainstream school, have dyspraxia etc and they wouldn't behave like this. The excuses need to stop. If something happens to you, your toddler is in danger.

It doesn’t matter if it’s clumsy, and it’s not just that anyway- it’s truly careless letting his young child play somewhere that’s dangerous, and that’s not about clumsy. what kind of clumsy man doesn’t apologise sincerely when he’s hurt his own partner and his own young child anyway? Only the shit dad and shit partner type.

unintentional injury still needs apologies and sincere regret!! I think you should sit him down tell him he needs to be less fucking accidental and take some ownership because next time he hurts his dc you might accidentally run him over only unlike him you’re well aware that you’re responsible for accidental injury and you can still get a jail sentence for homicide when it’s an accident, so you are willling to go to marriage counselling with him to have him explain to the counsellor why he is neither regretful or apologetic for hurting you. Marriage counselling is needed here for you to not start hating him, and with good reason. You can’t stay in a relationship with a man you don’t trust either with your safety or your child’s, social services won’t care that ‘it was an accident’.

You say he didn’t do it on purpose, so by definition it was an accident if you define an accident as something unintentional or not deliberate (pretty much the usual definition). So YABU not to accept that.

If you’re asking if he should take more care, yes he should.
If you’re asking if it’s his fault, yes it is. An accident can be a person’s fault even if it’s not a deliberate action.
It’s also not okay that he doesn’t take responsibility for what happens.
YANBU there.

I’m another one wondering does he often hurt himself in these accidents? Some people are clumsier than others, less coordinated, lacking in spatial awareness. If that’s the case with him he needs to slow down and try and develop strategies to deal with it though. It’s not okay that people around him are frequently getting hurt, even if it’s not deliberate.

You’re right to be fuming and frustrated with him - he’s a liability and a risk to your kids and you! He needs to really take a look at his ways before he does something terrible. But it doesn’t sound deliberate, so I voted YABU given your question was about the deliberateness

You need to talk to him about this. Just because it was an accident doesn’t make it ok and his dismissive attitude suggests he won’t try on future.

It was either an accident or it was deliberate. Do you think he deliberately tried to harm you?

He sounds clumsy. Maybe he has a problem with spacial awareness.

I've slamed the boot on my own head before, it definitely can be an accident. Do you really believe it wasn't an accident? If it wasn't it is pretty significant physical abuse and you need to leave.

A friend of mines husband slammed the boot on her head. She got a really prolonged concussion that lasted for like a year and she couldn’t work etc.
She did believe it was a genuine accident but she just couldn’t accept it. They’ve divorced.
Honestly, we all understood it. Just so fucking careless.

A side note, really, but there was a thread on here a few days ago where the OP’s husband had been violent to her autistic son. Several posters there were positively desperate to diagnose the husband with neurodiversity. I pointed out how fascinating it is how quick people are to pathologise the bad behaviour/shortcomings of men (as opposed to women). Intriguing that it’s happened here, too. OP is the one who’s hurt, but the primary urge for some seems to be to diagnose her husband with dyspraxia. I’m not saying he doesn’t have it any more than I’m saying he does. I just think it’s interesting how quickly these threads take the off ramp to discussions about the welfare of the man involved.

I can be a bit clumsy, I've never shut a car boot on anyone though even though I'm partially sighted and can't actually see if anyone is standing there.

In my 44 years on this planet I have never been hit by a boot lid.

Why on earth are the posters on this thread constantly hitting themselves and other people with boot lids?

Seems ridiculous and careless to me. I bet you’re the same people who open your car doors into other cars too.

Make a complete list of all these incidents along with approximate dates over the years with who was hurt/involved and there will be a pattern. You need to report all these "incidents" to the police: He is a very dangerous individual. They are NOT accidents they are totally deliberate to see what he can get away with. Think of a human child hurting a bird, cat, dog or hamster deliberately - that is what he is doing. He has a personality defect. It is amusement to him although he appears apologetic.

But there’s also a different between accident and “reasonably foreseeable outcome”.

I might get into a car accident because I make a mistake while driving, but if I set off driving with my eyes closed it’s a reasonably foreseeable outcome that I’d crash into something. The end point is the same - an unintended car crash, but one garners much more sympathy than the other.

DH is prone to doing things that have an undesirable reasonably foreseeable outcome. He has to deal with the natural consequences and I might remind him
that his decisions caused it. Those consequences might include me being grumpy with him as he unintentionally hurt me, or him cleaning up something he dropped when carrying too much, or me not get involved in helping clean up if he is insisting in doing it in a way that will result in things getting dropped or broken.

For the most part we bumble along just fine, I remind him if he’s doing something with a reasonably foreseeable “bad” outcome, he knows saying sorry isn’t good enough if something isn’t truly an accident, it’s just a foreseeable outcome of careless behaviour.

Sorry this made me laugh!

Op I think if it were not an accident, there would be other pretty massive signs in your relationship. It would be a very violent thing to do on purpose.

I've got adhd and i'm the same 🙈🙈

I think it really was an accident but he needs to sort something as he cant go on being so careless, he needs to be taking care of his family xx

I think it's just carelessness. DH shut my hand in the kitchen drawer once. He just hadn't twigged that I was getting a fork out.

It's not. It's negligence.

Your definition of "accident" is simply incorrect. Every accident is theoretically avoidable by taking care, that's the whole point. If it's not an accident it's either deliberate or a natural disaster.

As you say, it was avoidable, but also, presumably,it wasn't on purpose ?

I split my own head open closing the boot on it 😬 not on purpose, but entirely avoidable!

I have dyspraxia and I hurt myself all the time but I’m overly cautious with my children because of it. Does he hurt himself a lot?

My eldest son and I are dyspraxic if anything it makes us MORE aware of others we overly back away from.the boot before closing it (for example) i regularly open the car into my face hit door frames and swear they move but put another person with me and im cautious very cautious! The other day I nearly shut my own hand in the boot (zero idea how) as I was making sure ds2 didnt get hit or run away

I don't hurt other people often because I know im a klutz and take steps to protect others from myself

The thing about situations like this is that the person doing the damage always seems to think that ‘sorry’ covers everything indefinitely. My partner is also clumsy and always used to just say ‘sorry’ and then the same thing would happen again a few days later. I always had to fix whatever he’d effed up, and I got sick of hearing ‘sorry’. I snapped one day and just said ‘no, you’re not sorry, because if you were sorry you’d be more careful’. He’s actually loads better since that day. I think some people are just oblivious and need telling straight.

I think it really depends on his reaction

when your son broke his arm how did he react?