To have immediately removed DS2 from my parents house and found an alternative place to live?

[Strawbroke]

Currently living with my parents as my house isn't ready. It has been hard going but okay up until today. Ongoing issues with my dad turning the wifi off at 8 or 9pm but we have adhered to his rules.So I don't dripfeed I'll give you the build up to us having to leave.

This morning DS2 (age 10) really kicked off as he was going to holiday club. He has huge anxiety generally but especially about transitions, so is difficult. He got dressed and undressed 3 times. Anger. Crying. In the kitchen getting breakfast he elbowed me. I immediately took his phone off him and told him he couldn't take it to holiday club. And put it away. Said he could have the phone back tonight if I got an apology. My mum witnessed this. I went to work. 3dcs went off to respective childcare. In the car DS2 was upset, said he was very sorry. We talked about anger and how unacceptable it was to elbow me and I said we would come up with a way to address him dealing with his emotions. I know my son and if you come on really strong (shouting, react in anger etc, he escalates as his anxiety means he can't regulate his emotions).

On our return after work/holiday club my dad was sat on his laptop. I got the DC's a snack,gave DS2 his phone to Snapchat his dad upstairs but ensured he wasn't going on it. My dad went upstairs and proceeded to scream in DS2's face that under his roof he doesn't hit women etc. I could hear DD (age 7) trying to frantically calm her Grandad down. I was about to go up, he came down and started shouting at me saying he wouldn't have DS2 hitting me under his roof. I calmly (but was upset by this point) tried to say I had dealt with his behaviour and it wasn't his place at which point he said I don't follow things that though as I had returned DS2 his phone. At that point I told the children to put in their shoes as I wanted to leave and calm the situation. This is when it got to crisis point. My dad started shouting that he wasn't happy that the DC's go to their dads. The DC's dad is a very violent man. One day it will bite me in the arse and he will be violent towards the DC's. At this point only DS2 was in the house, the other DC's were heading to the car. DS2 heard everything. The DCs do not know I left exH due to violence (he broke my ribs and jaw). I have protected them for 4 years fronthus as they are children and I have assessed the risk to the DC's (I'm a social worker) and he gad never harmed them at all. I want my DC's to have a relationship with their father. What he did to me was separate to that.

I am FURIOUS with my dad. DS2 is so quiet. I have found somewhere else to stay. AIBU to feel like my dad had no right whatsoever to say this in front of DS2? After all the drama I'm wobbling now I've calmed down. My parents will paint this as my fault. I'm just trying establish if they are right? Thanks. Sorry it's so long. Feel a mess!

Your Dad should not yell at your DS, full stop. It's good that you've made it clear that that was unacceptable.

It sounds like your Dad is projecting his dislike of (and perhaps fear for you) of your Ex onto DS2. The good thing is that you know that your DS2's reactions come from a place of anxiety and can work through his issues with him. Is there any way he might have known your Ex was violent towards you?

There might also be some aspect of your Dad being worried for your kids and not really wanting them to call their Dad. I'm not sure you can say with 100% certainty that they are fully safe with someone who is able to cause significant harm when angry/agitated.

You must understand that people are going to echo your original statement back at you. This is how MN works. You're right, everyone else is wrong.

But I am struggling to understand why your father is such an absolute shit. Maybe he has a point?

He broke your jaw. He broke your ribs. And you send your kids round to him.

Huge hugs and strong thoughts to you op.
the other side:
Your dad was very, very wrong. However he has brooded on this all day.
He knows his precious daughter has been badly abused. He sees the male child of the abuser copying the violence that his father showed.
He doesn’t want his grandchildren growing into abusers.
His protective instincts kick in. He does nothing at the time but over the day he broods. He feels as man of the house he should have acted at the time.
You all come home having sorted it out privately as is right.
He didn’t see the sorting, and doesn’t understand the child psychology that you do.
In his eyes he assumes nothing has been done to punish the assault on his daughter - and so it’s up to him to teach his grandson “man to man” as he was taught.
He probably thinks he was being kind because he didn’t thrash your son “as he deserves”. That is what happened in his day “and didn’t do him any harm “.
He doesn’t get that violent shouting and intimidation is bullying or understand the consequences of using “might is right “ as a discipline strategy.
In his eyes he is right. Possibly in your mums eyes too.
You know different . You want your children to learn differently.
They are your children, you know what is best. You should not be undermined and you are not a child.
You have a difficult job ahead and some hard decisions to make. Be kind to your self.
You have protected your self and your children from a persistent violent abuse. You can do it again in the face of this lesser(???) abuse.
You can heal the relationship with your dad if it’s right for you and either : he understands and totally respects you as an adult and accepts your rules; or you make clear to him that his methods are unacceptable, mend what can be rescued, protect the children with a restricted relationship and openly discuss his behaviour with the children explaining to them why you don’t agree with it.
Or just go NC with your parents.
Tough one.

I think you’re kidding yourself if you think your kids don’t know that your ex was violent.

My mum was convinced that I wasn’t aware of what was going on in the household if I wasn’t told it directly. All those secrets made me very anxious.

Sorry if you are actually a social worker you must surely know you are too close to the situation to be able to assess risk for your own children. Really? You might need to find your own accommodation with your children.

Riv yelling it not abuse. You seem to be tarring everyone with the same brush.

This is unbelievable. Are you serious? You're a trained social worker, you have older children and the abuse escalated to the point where your ex broke bones in your face - and you still consider that your children remained blissfully unaware of all this and are safe around their father? Holy fuck. I hope you never worked in, or return to, an area focusing on child protection with this shocking lack of awareness and denial. Please don't kid yourself that you're any different from any other DV victim who minimises the impact of the perpetrator's behaviour.

Your father might not have reacted well, but I think it was very likely to have been driven by fear, given the history of what your boys have been exposed to and what you remain in denial about.

What a fucking joke that you'd whisk your kids out of your father's house over this, and yet still believe that your children benefit from a relationship with their violent father.

I agree with Talltilly, she’s hit the nail on the head. I believe your dad is frightened your DS will turn out like his dad. Emotions took over and your dad dealt with it in the wrong way. However his heart was in the right place. It must be very upsetting for your parents that this has happened to you and their grandchildren. Like another pp said children aren’t silly and they obviously knew something was going on.

where have you moved to? thats going to be unsettling for the kids surely?

it wasnt the greatest reaction by your DF however im sure we can all remember a time where our parents/grandparents shouted at us. i got yelled at from the school janitor and the art teacher. wasnt right but my parents never moved me school.

it sounds like your DP is very unhappy with them seeing their violent father. is it supervised contact?

*DF not DP

It is a biggie and you did the right thing. Your Father was wrong to interfere in the dynamic between you and DS not knowing what had gone on and what the agreement was regarding the phone. He clearly has anger issues and is not above balling out a 10 yr old when he thinks you haven't done enough (criticising and undermining you in the process in front of the children).

I would go and speak to your parents on their own. You need to put them on the straight and narrow with regards to who is the parent and who gets to decide how to deal with things - they are entitled to their opinion but they are not entitled to scream it at children or reveal things to them that can harm them and frighten them. If they accept your terms then you can move back in and try again although to be honest not sure I would be giving them a second chance!

It is likely to have come from a place of being frustrated he hadn't been able to protect you and feeling like he needs to do something but it is not the right reaction. I have a friend dealing with exact same issue re her child and parents. They are projecting how they feel about father onto child and voicing that opinion. SHe has had to do the same and is now keeping them at arms length and they seem to be able to cope with that.

Your dad should not have yelled at you or your son. I do wonder what your mother told him, is she the type to stir things? Given his reaction which was over the top.

I too suspect he sees ds going the way of your ex, more so if ds idolizes his dad and thinks he does no wrong. It used to make ne angry to hear my friend's son idolize her father and be rude and nasty to her mother when her father was abusive though i never said to her kids so.

Please consider that they are growing up uninformed and their father could one day 'snap. As my friend's childs did, to her teen detriment. Have you spoken to you son who overheard? He does need the truth and to be able to ask you questions.

Yep, basically you are telling your kids that it's unacceptable for their Grandad to shout at them, but acceptable for their Dad to break their Mum's jaw. That's pretty fucked up.

Your verbally abusive father was way out of line. But then verbally abusive authoritarian males almost always are.
You need to reduce contact with your father, I think.
You were right to leave. Teaching your children to leave when confronted with abusive behavior is the right thing.
Do not go back.
Name the behavior, and if the parents try to justify it with the my roof asshattery then name that behavior as justifying abuse.

She was right to leave but the problem is when she leaves due to abusive from her father and goes to the man who abused her violently. It does not send a good message, to her own self or the child who knows.

The dc all need to know in an appropriate manner why youand their father are no longer together. Otherwise it leaves it down to your abusive ex to create his own rhetoric and it will not paint you in a good light. You think a violent man will be kind about the reason you left him to the children?

have you ever considered your ex wasn’t violent to your dc directly because you were there acting as a buffer, and protecting them from him? No way are dc safe from him when you allow contact. Where do you think your sons anxiety comes from?

Your father shouldn't of reacted in such a dramatic way but you are to soft on your son. He shouldn't of been given his phone back so soon after he deliberately elbowed you.

I’d bet you a pound to a pinch of pigshit he’s bloody terrified your son is going to turn out like his dad.

100% this.

He shouldn't have shouted at your DS like that, but I suspect he thinks you're unable to stand up for yourself after the abuse you suffered.

The children should (at some point) know their dad was violent. Not the way it happened, but perhaps when they were older.

Yanbu that it isn't your dads job to parent your kids, certainly not to discipline them. If he thinks you're not, he could have quietly and calmly spoken with you about it inc possibly telling you it upset him to see you hit by them.

I'll also say you're right he shouldn't be talking about their dad in earshot.

However, as a social worker I'm surprised you think the children are completely unaware of how your ex treated you. I hardly think you would've been able to conceal broken bones and bruising from them, plus they likely heard the abuse.

I'm the child of a violent man. I certainly heard, saw the marks and bruises, noticed the atmosphere change... My mum thought she'd hidden it from us too, until we got to late teens and started telling her what we'd witnessed. When we were younger we didn't feel confident in raising the subject.

I'd also expect you to recognise that as the victim, you're too close to the situation to be able to properly risk assess for the children in relation to this and contact with your ex. What do you think is likely to happen if I'm an anxious meltdown your son elbows his father?

Yanbu to consider staying elsewhere if staying with your parents is untenable, but I'm concerned you're in some level of denial regarding what your DC know, how they've been affected and how contact with their violent father should be managed.

Your ex beat you, breaking your ribs and jaw and now your father sees the man’s son assaulting you under his roof! Maybe your ex hit his mother when he was a child and maybe your son saw or knew you were getting beaten by his father.

If a man raised his hand to me I wouldn’t trust him around my children - your ex broke your ribs and jaw and you are allowing him unsupervised visits to the children!

I wonder if you’re making excuses for your son, ('he just elbowed me’) like you did his father when he started hitting you.

Your dad has sense, listen to him. Your son needs a decent man in his life and your dad appears to know right from wrong.

Op, what are you going to do about your son? The behavior you’ve described indicates things are far from right with him and either something has affected him in the past or he has some additional needs going on that you appear to to have missed unless you just didn’t mention them.

The mention of difficulty transitioning caught my eye in particular and I think things need to be investigated further.

Okay, to all focussing on the risk to DC's from EXH:

I have had professional help in assessing risk to my DC's. At the time of the assault my case went to MARAC and an initial assessment was done to look at the risk to children. It was deemed the children we're not at risk of harm, even at S17. I was told that the children have a right to a relationship with their father by CSC. EXH has never, and in 4 years since, physically touched the DC's and they were given support and the space to disclose through a domestic abuse support service. I had ongoing concerns about emotional abuse and what he was telling the children but they have never indicated to me or professional services that he talks about me at all to them. We communicate and he is not antagonistic. I would never return to him in this situation as a PP said. I don't know what else to say. Perhaps I am still being manipulated by exH but it feels like I was his target, not the DC's. I often worry that I minimise what happened to me. I was sexually assaulted repeatedly as a child and I worry that I have become slightly immune to the shock that others feel and underestimate the seriousness of what happened. I've tried to look at this from my DC's point of view. I was trying to protect them from adult things. The eldest knew a very scaled down version but DD was 3 and DS was 6 at the time and giving them the truth felt too daunting.

My parents (mainly my DF) are controlling and I had a difficult childhood. They were very loving but as children, we were always on shifting sands and my dad's temper had us tiptoeing around him and he did hit us and didn't supervise us that well. If I'm honest I do feel like they let me down re the sexual abuse when I was young and perhaps living with them again (I left home at 18) has brought unresolved things to the surface.

I am absolutely sure that taking the DC's out of the situation yesterday was the right thing to do. I don't think it is right to undermine my parenting or shout at a 10 year old. I actually felt really vulnerable and I had to get out of there. When I posted I was tired and emotional. I have more clarity now. Thanks for all your input.

And yes, I definitely need to ask for outside help for DS2's behaviour. I have thought about an assessment for ADHD but I actually think the trauma of the split has caused him to have really high anxiety. He is the one who has taken it the worse. He adores his dad and the way my dad told him yesterday about the violence has completely sent him into a tailspin. He had barely said a word since. He has had emotional support at school and from the domestic abuse service. I am going to take him to the GP. His behaviour is terrible, there's no sugar coating it.