Have you ever slapped your DH?

[MrsW0931]

and if you did, what was the reason and exaclty how did your boyfriend/husband react?

Because tbh i came here to see if my DH's reaction was normal or not - i admitted i was wrong so i dont expect to be called fucking pathetic. I wanted advice.

Actually I have some sympathy with your husband as I think when someone reacts with violence you can often retaliate by pushing without having the time to think. It can be totally knee jerk.

My father was violent towards me once and I pushed him so hard he nearly fell over. I also remember my mum slapping me round the face and again I pushed her across the room into a wall and then walked away.

Those things were done as an immediate reaction to the other person being aggressive to me.

In answer to your question no, I hVe never hit my partner and he has never hit me.

You want some advice? Get some help before you end up on bail having been charged with assault.

You hit him. It didn't hurt? Because of your height? You are so BU. He doesn't sound delightful and your relationship sounds disfunctional but you assaulted him.
I feel really sorry for the kids here.

i understand that, and it may have been that - a jerk reaction.

I dont know if it was normal or not, never having hit my husband. And never having spoken to anyone who admits that they have.

I cant imagine any man being best pleased though hth.

Advice?

Do your kids a favour and split up. The poor little buggers! trying to suss put if he's more in the wrong than you are? There are no words.. you were bang out of order for hitting him for something like that and if a man came on here saying his wife pushed him to it he would be slaughtered.

No OP, 90% of people are saying stuff you just don't want to hear.

This relationship is clearly abusive. Women can often be violent towards abusive men when pushed to the limit. It isn't acceptable but it has a context.
OP, neither of your behaviour was acceptable. However was his behaviour part of a pattern at all?

you know, iv come on here twice to ask for advice. and twice ive had people who cant see anything from someone elses view insult me in return.
I thought this forum was to help people - not insult them.

You mostly have all just assumed things about the argument without asking - 'you didnt apologise' etc and assumed my dh was defending himself when he wasnt as i slapped him and stepped back (and he said himself it didnt hurt). I wasnt continuing to hit him so he wasnt 'defending himself'. I also said i shouldnt have hit him, especially infront of the kids but it all was so heat of the moment it happened so quickly. What im trying to do now is going forward figure out a way for us to react differently and stop arguments ever escalating like this one did.
We do have a happy relationship, this has never happened before - we dont argue infront of the children - apart from the odd dissagreement we all have but nothing aggressive in anyway.

I may as well end this conversation as i dont want to be attacked by people who dont know the whole story and dont seem interested in knowing before judging. But thanks to those who have contributed some useful advice.

And don't get confused - we do have productive things to say but they don't happen to agree with what you want to hear. So it would be more reasonable to say that 90% of us don't agree that you are the victim here rather than 90% of us don't have anything productive to say.

I think it's pretty normal, as a knee jerk reaction, to lash out at someone after you've been hit in the face. I think you want everyone to feel sorry for you because you were pushed, but it was all of your own doing.

MrsW - there is never an excuse to hit anyone. I don't care that he was throwing your stuff out of the window, that did not physically hurt you did it? Yes he was out of order in doing that, but your children were stood there and you calmly slapped him in front of them. Not in self defence.

If you had been throwing his stuff out of the window, would that have justified him slapping you? Is that ok?

You can't have one rule for one and another rule for another.

I don't care how big he is and how skinny you are; that's a pathetic excuse. Is it ok then for your kids to hit out at you when you lose your patience with them? Because that's the message you are giving out here, that it's fine to hit someone as long as they are bigger than you.

It's not.

Your children do not deserve either of you.

I suggest you both see a counsellor because you both stepped over the line there and that memory will stay with your children now forever.

Have you heard yourself? You are downplaying physical violence and telling anyone who does not also see you as a victim, that we are not saying anything helpful?

'i do not intimidate him at all and my slap probably didnt even hurt one bit'.

'he obviously did something to cause me to hit him'

' i simply slapped him'.

'Jeez, its a slap to a bloke whos big and strong enough to protect himself against a 5ft4 9stone woman. if id have ran at him with a knife or a saucepan then fair enough'.

'a man slapping a woman is no where near the same as a woman slapping a man'

'So uv never slapped a man ever?' Er, No. But my ex used to slap me and he used most of the excuses that you are trotting out. His favourite was 'its just a slap'.

You are in control of the situation. I'd have left him till he finished looking in the wardrobe then asked him to put it all back. Do you really want your kids to grow up thinking its ok for women to hit men?

But your OP doesn't ask for advice on moving forward, reacting differently and stopping arguments escalating. You ask whether you have been stupid to accept his apology for pushing you.

Don't rewrite the thread retrospectively to support your conviction that we are being unreasonable!

he wasnt 'looking in the wardobe' he was shouting, swearing and throwing my things - breakable things - across the room into the landing. If he was just 'looking in the wardrobe' there wouldnt have been an issue.

I did it once. I won't go into detail because it would be boring for most other people.

He had done something incredibly stupid which had ongoing consequences for me, just because he was being an idiot-I know he didn't purposely MEAN to hurt me or cause such consequences (it was to do with work)!

But he didn't NOT do it on purpose either. I was so hurt and so angry with him for causing the situation for me , for behaving so stupidly!He admitted afterwards that it was a very stupid thing to do and that he understood totally why I was so angry and upset and hurt...We had a huge argument because I really for the first time ever thought that I would have to leave him over this incident if he could possibly be that stupid...and we'd had such a great relationship-I was more angry that he would chuck that away by just not thinking. And I slapped him during the argument. I was so shocked at myself that I fled the house and went to my friend's house. I came back hours later full of remorse and he said he was glad I slapped him I may have dwelled on this subject longer otherwise. We had a long talk during which we both apologised and agreed to work on our issues. Really no harm done-and I didn't HURT him , I didn't do it hard-but I accept this may be the exception rather than the rule. Generally I really do not think It's okay for people to physically hurt one another.

Maybe you'd be better off starting a new thread (maybe in Relationships) to ask for help and advice, if that's genuinely what you want.

If you approach it with a different tone and attitude from the one you're displaying here, you might find you get a different type of response.

I had a moment a few days ago where I just wanted to leave the room because I felt myself getting worked up and prefer to remove myself from the situation, I can't remember what we were talking about. But DH wouldn't let me go, he was physically stopping me from leaving the room by holding me in his arms (like an annoying cuddle when you just want space) and I confess for a split second I did feel like lashing out but I didn't and I'm very glad I didn't. That's a line I don't wish to ever cross.

MrsW can you not see that to slap your dh was inexcusable? He was not threatening you personally, he was not hitting you, he was not even touching you.

He lost his temper so you think that justifies you losing yours and hitting him?

In front of the kids?

From what you've said about it all happening so quickly, I think you have a bit of a problem controlling your temper. I can't see how this has only happened once. Both you and your husband have tempers that you seemingly cannot control, so I really do doubt that this is the only confrontation your children have seen.

It might be the first time you have hit him and the first time he's laid a hand on you (and he pushed you away, he actually had more control than you because he didn't hit back, he just pushed you away from him) but I suspect it may not be the last unless you do something now.

You both need to admit that you lost control.

When he started throwing your things out of the window you could have then turned around and led your children away because to be perfectly honest, my first thoughts would be; "oh my God, my kids are going to be scared." I would have then told him that I was calling the police. I wouldn't have done, but the threat of that might have made him stop.

I would then insist he go to counselling.

You lost any high ground when you slapped him.

Is this a memory you want etched into your children's minds? Because it has done. You should both be shocked by what you did and very ashamed. This should be the thing that propels you both to take action but you will only achieve that if you admit fault. You don't seem to want to admit fault, you seem insistent that he started it and you were justified. With that attitude you will not move forward and your relationship is doomed.

Until you face the fact you were well out of line and are not a victim in this you're going to get nowhere.

YOU crossed a line that shouldn't be crossed ..YOU should have walked away and dealt with the situation differently simply because your kids were present. YOU should have been an adult about things even if your bloke wasn't at that moment.

So no you shouldn't have hit him.. even if he was breaking things.. things can be replaced.. The picture burnt onto your kids brains now can't be removed. Stop bloody thinking of yourself.

the thing is men are expected to be able to control themselves where women are not.
what does that suggest? that men are somehow superior to women?

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt.

I think you are both sorry, and you genuinely want to move on from this.

1. Accept that you were both wrong. And you especially because you started the physical stuff.
2. Accept that there is no reason whatsoever for getting physical with a man except as self defence.
3. Dont be afraid to say sorry again once more if necessary.
4. Slapping is not acceptable. Nor is man handling[whatever the woman equivalent is].

I think that you both need to forgive each other, and hopefully you can both move on from here. With no more violence from either of you ever again.

This scenario reminds me if old movies where the woman was forever slapping the man and the man would hold her wrists whilst she was in a state of hysteria.

Perhaps we still have this notion that it's somehow acceptable, even romantic for a woman to slap a man and the man should stoically stand there and do nothing.

Unfortunately real life doesn't happen like that and in the heat of the moment it sounds like you both attacked each other and obviously that can't happen again. Volatile relationships are rarely happy ones in my experience.

"YOU should have been an adult about things even if your bloke wasn't at that moment." - gamerchick.

This sums it up for me.

What is more precious? Your things which can be replaced or your children's memories and fear, which can't?