DH hit our 2 year old.

[Froghottub]

I’ve name changed for obvious reasons….

So as the title says really and I just don’t know what to do.

DH is having a particularly bad time at the moment following a bereavement and various other stressful things happening.

Today our 2 year old was having a generic tantrum over not getting his own way basically. DH was dealing with it and I was upstairs. I could hear DS getting upset and asking for me. After a couple of mins when he wasn’t calming down I could hear DH was getting cross and telling him off. DS was just getting more wound up at being told off so I went down to help.

As I walked into the room I saw my DH hit DS on the head. It was like a slap to the top of his head. I picked DS up and told DH to leave. An argument ensued but he eventually left the room.

I am absolutely against any form of physical punishment and it’s a very firm boundary for me and one we have never ever disagreed on before.

i have left with DS and I’m at family staying there for tonight at least.

whilst DH had said sorry to DS he’s also been argumentative, has blamed it on me, been gaslighting me and has even tried to blame DS for being ‘aggressive’. This incident was nothing beyond a typical toddler tantrum of which there are and have been many.

he admits it was wrong but isn’t taking responsibility or grasping that this is a huge thing for me.

My gut reaction is that our relationship is over, BUT, I know full well he legally has a legitimate defence that DS was being naughty and therefore he chastised him. Whilst I don’t agree with his actions I don’t suppose a court (civil or criminal) will do anything about it. If I leave him, he’ll still get contact or maybe even 50/50 with DS and then I’ll have no involvement or knowledge of how he’s treated or what’s happening whilst he’s there.

if I stay I’m condoning abusive behaviour and teaching my child that being assaulted is okay and I just can’t stomach that.

what on earth do I do for the best? Am I over reacting?

DS loves his dad and I know DH loves him. Of course I want them to have a good relationship but how can I trust someone who loses their temper and hits a child to keep the most precious thing in the world safe.

My head is spinning. Although it doesn’t change the situation at all a further consideration is that I’m 33 weeks pregnant .

I guess my AIBU is
YABU - you’re over reacting and need to calm down and resolve this
YANBU - This is too far

Leave him. Call Social Services and tell them you saw him hit your child.

I don't know why you think it was reasonable punishment, in reality or as defined by law. Legally you can't hit a two year old across the head. Who has told you that it's legal?
It really dangerous what he's done. He's shown that he hasn't accepted normal development, has a loss of control and hits in a place than can cause serious harm. He needs to leave and you should be back in the family home.

YANBU.

This would be a line for me. Your DS and next child will have MANY more tantrums. Your husband is an adult and should be able to control himself.

As for saying a 2 year old was being aggressive... not taking responsibility and blaming the child is almost as bad as doing it in the first place.

I'm willing to bet he isn't the perfect husband to you either in reality.

Social services won’t do anything. He will say that he was chastising them and he hasn’t injured him and it was lawful. Whilst I’m sure social services find it as abhorrent as I do they can’t do anything about it, it won’t stop him getting contact and then I’ll have to send him off for several days a week and sit at home worrying what’s going on.

the threshold to stop contact is so high this wouldn’t even register on the scale. I don’t know how to manage this.

Oh and I agree, it's never legal to hit a child on the head and you should call social services tomorrow.

I think I would have wanted to kill my husband if I saw him do that. I was never hit as a child, nor was my husband. Hitting is completely unacceptable in my world, and your child is a baby, FFS. Your husband hit a baby. It's reprehensible.

I would report him and ring ss. There is no excuse ever. If he is not accepting his actions were wrong and the blame is entirely on him for losing control then it will happen again.

Wow well done you for such a robust response, making it really clear how strongly you feel on this. I totally respect you for that.

Is this completely out the blue and out of character for DH? Is this likely to have happened before, you've just never seen it before?

I do not think you have over reacted by making it so crystal clear how strongly you feel, but I do think this is salvageable if you want it to be, and tomorrow when the dust has settled and some sensible conversations can be had, providing DH is prepared to accept his bad behaviour (including how he's been since the initial assualt) then you can probably navigate through it.

With regards to the lawful defence of lawful chastisement, with my experience as a child abuse investigator, we took assaults to the head much more seriously and would be more likely to proceed the investigation even with the defence raised than we would if it was a slap to the hand or leg (they all make me shudder mind you, but a hit to the head or the use of any object as a 'weapon' was always taken more gravely).

The piece of shit hit a toddler in the head. Social services would usually be interested in that.

I wont go into details as I don’t want to be identified but I have a professional knowledge of the law and it is legal, as long as it doesn’t leave an injury or more than transient pain. It’s fucking awful, but it’s not illegal (sadly). I’m not justifying or defending it but I’m being realistic about the outcome of reporting it.

if I leave this man then I’m going to end up sharing my son 50/50 with him and that feels worse than sharing a house with him whilst I can know what’s going on for atleast a good proportion of the time.

Also, if you hadn't walked in you would know. You aren't keeping your child safe by staying as this happened with you in that house.

Having it on record with social services WILL be extremely helpful when it comes to access decisions. If you don't report it tomorrow, there will be zero evidence it happened.

I think it's illegal in Wales now

Call social services. An interview with them should alter your DH’s perception. Ask them about access in the case of divorce.

@Froghottub OP where are you from? In Scotland it's very much illegal to hit a child & this would 100% be grounds for social work & police intervention.

As for saying a 2 year old was being aggressive... not taking responsibility and blaming the child is almost as bad as doing it in the first place.

This. I think most of us have screwed up as parents at times, maybe not as extreme as hitting, but I’ve certainly done a lot of things I regret, particularly when under times of extreme stress as your husband is now. However I’ve always immediately apologised to my child, recognised that I’ve fucked up, taken steps to improve my self regulation.

Also, if he was getting so stressed, why didn’t he switch out with you? Did he just not recognise it was happening? Whatever happens next, he really needs to work on his anger management.

I get that hitting him in the head escalates it but he’s saying DS was ‘head butting him’ and he doesn’t appear to have used excessive force from what I saw. Yes he slapped but it wouldn’t have been hard enough to injure.

it’s less about what he did and more about the fact I don’t want anything like that to ever happen to my child within the safety of our home / family. Of course I acknowledge that DS was behaving badly and it needed to be dealt with but at the end of the day he’s 2, he doesn’t have any control and usually we deal with it by just holding space and then we talk it through after.

this is out of character and out of the blue. I would be very surprised if anything like this happened before and I certainly have never suspected it. There’s been the odd time DH has got cross and either walked away and ignored DS or asked me to take over. Of course I can’t know but this is certainly not normal and not how we parent.

DH has never hurt or assaulted me or been violent in any way. He loses his temper during arguments and things can get a bit verbally heated but he usually walks away / goes out and returns calm and we talk.

DH refused to leave the house. It’s owned jointly. I have no more right to it than he does and I decided it was better to get away from the situation than start more arguments about who was staying / going.

I’m in England. It’s not illegal. There’s no ‘evidence’ other than my word against his that it happened. That applies today, tomorrow or next week.
DS does not have the vocabulary or understanding to describe what happened.

I don’t think DH would lie. I don’t think he thinks it’s right. I think he lost his temper when DS was having a tantrum but I know full well no court. Social worker or anyone else is going to support him having zero contact with his child over this.

Im not sure I’d want DS to lose his relationship with his dad which is generally loving and good over this, but I want to keep him safe and never in that situation again. I’m not sure there’s a resolution to this.

DH has never hurt or assaulted me or been violent in any way.

Ok. Then you say...

He loses his temper during arguments and things can get a bit verbally heated...

There it is. You clearly have different boundaries than I do. "Losing your temper" and being verbally abusive is just a different form of violence. It's a "tool" abusive people use to control their target. This is not a dynamic I would ever tolerate, and I've been married for over 25 years.

OP you know this wouldn’t cease contact.

I understand your reasons for thinking about remaining to parent together. Can you remain in this relationship. You know whether this is a “not the type of man but is under extreme stress” or a “always had potential for this” situation.

Yes, what he did was unacceptable.

Yes, I agree that from your description there's no case in law.

You don't seem convinced that you want to divorce and I understand why, so what you need to do now is take a step back. Give both you and your dh time to cool off as far as reacting to this incident goes.

The more you threaten divorce and call him an abusive parent, the more he will double down and refuse to see that he was wrong. The way to deal with this is not to immediately jump to (what he may see as an) extreme reaction.

Tomorrow, when you've both had some sleep (because it's too late, too hot and he's already too wound up, and youre probably both too tired now) you can discuss the incident rationally.

I don't believe SS will want to see a family break up over this and as you say, his behaviour wasn't severe enough to break the law (which even in the UK permits only a very narrow definition of physical chastisement).

If you're looking for another resolution to this apart from 1) ignore or 2) divorce then its this:

Talk calmly to each other. Take out the emotion in your response, you'll only cause an equally strong emotional reaction in him.

Explain both sides. Let him have the space to feel secure enough to admit what he did was wrong.

Ideally, he'll agree it should never happen again. A parenting course - for both of you - might be really helpful here.

He lost control because he lacked the tools to deal with the situation. If you're confident this was an aberration and he is a good man otherwise, then you can both learn from it instead.

You'll hopefully have a stronger marriage, be better parents and maintain / rediscover respect for each other as a result.

A hard line on physical punishment doesn't have to mean the end of everything.

Good luck

While I was reading your OP I was willing to be slightly more understanding given he's obviously grieving and possibly not his normal self but hitting him across the HEAD??! I was expecting a tap on the hand or nappied bottom.

Despite the numerous posts saying contact SS you are correct OP and if you separate it's very, very unlikely your DH would be denied contact.

As such I'm going to stick my neck out with a response that might not be popular.

If you want to control the narrative as it currently is you need to stay with your DH and not LTB - well not "right now".

That doesn't mean ignoring what's happened. Firstly I'd stay with relatives for as long as you are able. Not a few days, but weeks/months. Your DH can see your child but under your supervision.

He needs your (prolonged) physical absence to realise how serious this situation is.

In return he agrees to attend anger management and more general counselling/therapy. If he does not agree then you say you will start divorce proceedings.

If he does agree then he gives you full disclosure on his therapy/counselling progress and you jointly agree a reconciliation plan that has very clear red lines. Basically this is a one time only deal.

Can you both recover from this? I don't know, but I have seen it happen many times (with hard work from both parents) and seem more than equal failures.

What I can say is giving it go on the basis you might be successful is a far better outcome than one where you are sat at home every other weekend worrying about your child when they are with their father, knowing he's done nothing to address his issues.

OP, what will happen when your 2 year old has a tantrum (a normal developmental occurrence) and there is also a newborn in the situation?
What sort of reaction would their father have to each of the children if he can’t see why his behaviour is so concerning and wrong?
You cannot say it hasn’t happened before - you wouldn’t know it happened this time if you had not seen it yourself! If he thinks he hasn’t done the wrong thing, it may well have happened multiple times before, and it will probably happen again.
He needs to not only be held accountable, but also to learn appropriate parenting, anger and frustration management, and to undertake that he will never, ever raise a hand to your child/children in anger or physical punishment.
I don’t know the answer to what you need to do, except that you need to protect your DS and your baby when they are born…

"Im not sure I’d want DS to lose his relationship with his dad which is generally loving and good over this, but I want to keep him safe and never in that situation again. I’m not sure there’s a resolution to this"

Your son is at the age/ coming up to the age where he won't be able to keep a secret, he will blurt out every little thing. Make it clear to him that you want to know if he ever feels scared in the house, and he will.

If you want a resolution, it's communication with your husband. It sounds like this was out of character for him. Could he benefit from some counselling for whatever he's got going on in his life?

I agree with a previous poster, I think this is salvageable if you both want it to be.

Well done on your getting your DS and yourself out of there. And stay out. Or get him out.

His gaslighting/behaviour afterwards tells you that he knows it was wrong but he's trying to cover it up.

Have you asked him if he's ever done while you HAVEN'T been there?

This is over. Protect your son. Bollox to all the 'oh but if he attends anger management/therapy' stuff. Divorce him.

If he can lose his temper around a two-year old, what will happen as they get older?