To be annoyed at DH or am I overreacting?

[AmIReallyThatBad]

My DH picked up a plastic tealight, asked my DD7 why it was there and then threw it to her. It hit her and she shouted "owwwwww that hurt". He turned to her & said "you failed to catch it, it didn't hurt".
I am annoyed at him because I think he should not be the judge of whether something hurts her. Also, it's not her fault that she was hurt because she "failed to catch it".
Writing this seems ridiculous and I'm quite prepared to be told to get a grip. He thinks IABU as he thinks I'm too soft & he doesn't want to parent that way & doesn't want her exaggerating/making a fuss if something hurts. There's been a few things like this so I want to know if IABU.

I would be more than a little annoyed. Does he show any other bullying behaviour?

I get what you’re saying r.e. How can he know if it hurt or not.
But yeah, get a grip

Why don’t you throw something for him to catch and make sure it misses him and hit him right where it hurts. Then blame him for failing to catch and exaggerating that it hurts. Go on try it

He should have apologised and said he was sorry rather than try to shift the blame to her, when if anyone was at fault it was him. Not sure about the seriousness of the situation, need everything in context. Does he do this often?

He sounds like a bully but obviously this is scant inform. However in my experience whenever people accuse others of being soft it’s usually because they’re nasty bullies and don’t want to be challenged.

He's an abusive bully. A physical as well as emotional bully. Please protect your daughter from this piece of shit. If you don't you will be enabling him and colliding in her abuse. I don't understand as a mother why you're letting him get away with this. Your dd can't choose who she has in her life, but you can.

Yeah it's a minor incident but indicative of a nasty attitude of defensiveness and minimisation rather than acknowledging fault. I mean, does he not like her? I would have instinctively said 'oh sorry love, I didn't mean for it to hit you'. If she was still upset, a cuddle. Why be a dick? She will remember, maybe not this but shit like this.

But I think pp is overreacting

Because he didn’t instantly react in the best way possible in the situation, he’s an abusive bully?
He probably said it didn’t hurt subconsciously to ease his guilt and although he definitely should have said sorry, he obviously wouldn’t want to intentionally harm his daughter.
MN is nuts sometimes.

If this got told to me by a child at school investigation and referrals would be made. Not ok .

@tothappy, if your comment was aimed aimed at me, the op says there have been other incidents of this nature. I really don't think it's overrracting to call him a bully and say that op needs to protect her dd.

Thanks for answering everyone. Cripes,I wasn't expecting that reaction. No, he doesn't do stuff like this often but there have been occasional incidents which I don't feel comfortable with. I do have a tendency to over think stuff & worry about the long term effect of things we say or do on her so I wanted to have a bench mark on whether my reaction is normal or not.

Throw a snooker ball at him when he’s not expecting it, then ask him if it hurts. I’m with @Forgotmycoat on this one.

He should've said sorry. I'd be annoyed but not dwell on it unless it's a pattern of behaviour.

I'd possibly be tempted to take Wall's suggestion and bowl a fast ball to his nuts and tell him it doesn't hurt and he failed to catch it.

Mumsnet loves to label people as abusers or bullies. We can't actually tell here though.

You wouldn't expect a plastic tealight to hurt, they don't weigh anything. He could easily have thrown it messing around and been shocked when she reacted by saying it hurt. He could just have easily thrown it with force to intentionally hurt her. Who knows? Not any of us.

It would all depend how he'd addressed her in the first place, which assumption I'd make.
Smiling and sort of Micky taking in a "come on, you know you should have put this away" sense, or aggressively in a "fucks sake you always leave such a mess, sort it out" way. Not sure if I'm getting across what I mean here, but I think you would be able to tell if the throw was aggressive or just misjudged.
His response to her after was a bit crap either way, but if the rest seemed innocent I wouldn't read so much into it.

It depends on the context- did he pick up a tea light of hers and say hey Susan why’s this here? Gently toss it to her and when it tapped her knee she dove like a champions league striker saying owwwwww I’ll never dance again?

Or did he pick up a completely random tealight nothing to do with her, throw it at her with no warning with the arm of a Yankees pitcher and then kick up a fuss when she rubbed where it hit and muttered ow that hurt.

I can’t imagine a tealight could hurt too much but I suppose that’s what abusers could count on?

I can’t believe the reactions to this!

There’s a massive difference between a playful ‘oh come on, that didn’t hurt’ which I can imagine every single parent has said, and throwing something hard at a child to scare them, then getting angry when they cry. It sounds like this was the former.

A playful relationship, where you don’t tread on eggshells worrying about your kids reactions to everything, is really nice!

Thanks all for your replies. Food for thought indeed.

It was forgotmycoat but I don't disagree that he could be a bully and if he's unpleasant, it's up to op to protect her daughter.
I think its an overreaction to say, based on what we know, that he's an abuser.

And I agree with others that it could have been all playful - but the words op reported him using didn't sound good to me either. 'she failed to catch it'. Even if said with a smile I don't like that. Maybe because I cannot catch and spent much of my school days fielding objects in the face because people would smilingly throw them expecting me to just catch. Sometimes things hurt even if they're not heavy and it would be easy if he is humble to just say sorry. I don't like this 'you failed' victim blaming (albeit over a very minor incident)

This place is becoming ridiculous.

An abuseer on this one incident?

It's just as likely that the child was being dramatic. Ffs.

It's impossible for any if us to judge because we didn't see it. But - I would be pissed off if someone threw something at me, even if it didn't hurt. Unless we are playing a ball game, we don't throw stuff at each other. Even when we are playing a ball game, you have to check the other person is ready, not just chuck a ball in their face. Even my kids know that so I think your DH is a dick for saying she shouldn't complain, even if it was a genuine accident.

Yes sounds like bullying behaviour, power/control and not what I'd be happy with. There's absolutely no reason for throwing a tealight. It's not like he was throwing an apple she'd asked for.

I'd be massively pissed off if DH did that to me let alone to my 7 year old child. Is he always this much of a dick?

I do have a tendency to over think stuff

Based on? Being told you overreact?

My concern arises more from your description of his wider attitude. Why doesn't he want her making a "fuss" over pain? What does he count as "fuss" - any normal pain reaction at all, or full blown amateur dramatics?

I agree with Ican, seems a huge over reaction all round.