This will be long so sorry for the novel, but it was important to include as much as possible.
I have a three year old toddler who has a habit of drawing on walls in the house. We tried putting the writing utensils up high, throwing them out, telling her no, time outs, spankings. Nothing works. She either finds one in my purse or our backpacks and hides it in her room, or she just doesn't listen at all when she is punished.
My husband and I are both in college full-time and so it is easy to not pay attention to her the entire time because we might both be studying, or he will have his headphones on listening to music, or I will be washing dishes. We have had this issue multiple times and I myself just don't understand why she doesn't get the picture yet that every time she draws on the walls she gets in trouble. She is undeniably defiant.
My husband has an anxiety disorder and is also very stubborn. His parents are in their late 50s and did all kinds of punishment from whipping to sticks to belts. He has anger issues as well and seriously needs anger management. I was spanked as well as a child with wooden spoons and belts. My parents never left bruises on me or made me bleed and I grew up to be really respectful. People tell me all the time how helpful I am and even compliment me on how I taught my daughter manners, saying "please" and "thank you". I have never been okay with him spanking my daughter and we have been in many arguments about it because I tell him we need to help each other by being consistent and punishing her the same way, but he is so stubborn he will not consider not spanking her and has the "my way or highway" attitude. He literally does not give a crap how I feel about punishing out child, and he tells me it is my fault she doesn't listen because I will not get on board with the spanking bandwagon. He says I cause the inconsistency.
I wouldn't have an issue with spanking if my husband wouldn't be so horrible about it. He literally tells me that to get kids to listen you have to instill fear into them or they will walk all over you. If she smacks the back of his head - even playfully - while he is playing games, he will smack the back of hers to tell her its not okay and he doesn't like it just like she doesn't like it. If he goes in for a spanking and she covers her butt with her hands, he will spank her hands until she moves them and then will spank her butt.
For the record, I AM NOT okay with this at all!
A lot of our marriage troubles coincide with our disagreements on punishment. I think his "put fear into them" attitude is ridiculous and only makes my daughter act out more. I have told him time and time again how I feel about it all and he never listens to me. I love my husband, but his lack of respect for my opinions and what he is "instilling" into my daughter has left me with thoughts of divorce. (We have many other issues that have brought me to these thoughts as well that I will not bring up for lack of space and because I don't think anyone wants to listen for that long. So it is not just the spanking bothering me. It is the fact that my husband seems to be getting progressively more abusive/angry.)
So the other day my daughter had spilled chocolate milk purposely on the floor and then proceeded to back talk my husband saying things like "no" and such. So he went in and spanked her butt three times. Once on the hands and then twice on her bare butt. I was angry as well because I had told her not to spill the milk and then she decided to just pour it right on the floor in front of me. I was in the middle of an online exam with a time limit so I didn't really focus on my husband spanking my daughter and I didn't get angry about it because the day was already high strung with her bad behavior. A short while after that my daughter snuck a permanent sharpie out of my backpack and went into her room and proceeded to draw all over her dresser. I was finishing up my exam and my husband was playing computer games so we did not know until she came out with sharpie on her skin.
My husband was so angry - I was too because of how many times we have told her not to write on things - and he stormed off into her room to spank her. I got up at this point because his anger was so strong I had an uneasiness in my stomach. He was trying to instill fear into her by shaking like he was angry and gritting his teeth. He grabbed her to spank her and she blocked him with her hands so he spanked her hands and then spanked her butt really hard three times. I'm not sure how hard he spanked her the first time because I was not watching, but this time I was and her butt was so red from top to bottom and he had caused two welts that bled a little. This was with his bare hands and her bare butt. She was crying so hard and didn't even want to be near him. I was furious when I saw her butt and told my husband he went too far.
He told me that hopefully the pain would be a reminder not to write on things again, and that if she didn't listen after that it would be my fault for acting angry about it in front of her. I then took her and coated her butt with butt cream because it was so red I was afraid she would blister or something. She couldn't even sit it hurt so much. My husband was furious with me for being angry with him and started shouting and causing a fight. I told him he underestimates his own strength and that he hit her harder than what he said. He then proceeded to spank himself in front of my daughter all the while acting completely angry and yelling "See! See! It doesn't hurt." (I am being completely serious here.) She of course started freaking out and crying and tried hiding in the couch because she thought he was going to spank her again. Her reaction terrified me.
He calmed down and proceeded to ignore me, and then I put her to bed after she fell asleep on me. When I came back out I was still angry and told him that if he left a mark I would be even more furious with him. He showed no signs that he felt sorry.
The next day I had work and during this time she had gotten into the chocolate syrup and got it all over her room. I was gone so I'm not sure what all happened with this incident, but he had taken my daughter to his moms. His mom told me he showed up crying because when he had changed her diaper he saw that her red butt from the night before had turned into bruises. She said he felt very sorry about it and had cried.
I didn't get to see her until the next day because I let her spend the night at her grandparents house so she wouldn't be around my husband since I had to work that following day.
When I did see her, the redness had gone away, but she had small bruises all over one of her butt cheeks. The other side showed the two welts that were healed. So after 24 hours she still had bruises, which means he hit her hard enough to cause more harm and damage.
When I discussed it with him, I told him we could no longer do spanking and that we needed to reevaluate our parenting. He told me that he was still going to do spanking, but not for awhile (?) and that he would just have to be more careful. He thinks this was a spanking gone wrong. I'm not sure what to think.
I am set to leave him, but my family member who I confided in wants me to report him so if it ever happens again there will be evidence. In my state, the law says that if I don't report it yet someone finds out about it my daughter would be taken away from me and my husband and I would go to jail.
This is my predicament.
I love my husband so much and he is going to school to become a doctor. His parenting and anger is horrible, but I still love him. I would never want anything bad to happen to him. If I did report him he would possibly get a misdemeanor (since this is the first incident of him going too far and causing marks) and then he wouldn't be able to become a doctor with a misdemeanor. I don't want to stay with him, but I have no idea what to do, how to end it with him, etc etc.
I want to leave the marriage with no consequences (such as having to report him to keep my child, him getting a misdemeanor and going to jail, him not getting to become a doctor). I keep thinking I can just give him an ultimatum. Either stop spanking all together and go to anger management, or if he says no then me being forced to report him, which I of course don't want to do. I feel like I am in a tug of war between law and the possibility of him doing it again between him feeling horrible about it and me not wanting to hurt his future.
This may seem stupid to you guys, but I do really love my husband. I am wanting to leave him because he does not care about my feelings, he has become more aggressive since we have been married, and there are certain things I cannot forgive him for - such as cheating on me on his bachelor night that I didn't know about until four years into our marriage. I just have no idea how to leave the marriage unscathed. I am afraid to bring it up with him because he has made me feel like I am the reason the marriage is falling apart, and I don't know what his reaction will be like. My family friend is telling me to report him as well, and I don't know if I can do that. I DO NOT want my child to be hurt again, but whose to say he will ever do it again?? I feel like I would be putting a label on him that he might not deserve. I don't want to cause unreasonable damage if it is entirely possible he will never do it again. I am having a lot of trouble separating my love for him with the cold hard truth. I am so emotionally impaired due to this marriage that I don't even know what the right answers are which is why I brought the subject here.
My parents are too emotionally invested to give me honest opinions. They both despise my husband for what he has done in the past. My family friend telling me to report him has been in a spousal abuse position before with her ex-husband. So I don't know if she would be too emotionally invested due to her own experiences. Her children were never hurt by her ex. I also don't know if I am just being too stupid and making excuses for my husband. I am afraid of the impending consequences.
I keep imagining I can have a court-free divorce with no complications and that his crying was legit and he will never hurt my daughter again.
Honest answers and someone to set out the cold hard truth for me would be great. I feel like I am about to destroy my life and the life of my husband and am unable to step forward due to my feelings. I believe leaving marks with spanking is abuse and I intend to leave my husband, but I am not sure how serious to take this situation or how to end my marriage.