I hit DH

[Bnxybee]

I slapped DH on the arm.

For context, my 3-year-old DS is a terrible sleeper. We usually put him to bed at around 8 or 9 but he’s often awake by midnight screaming hysterically and wanting to go downstairs. We’ve tried the “cry it out” method to no avail and we’re both sleep deprived.

I came back from work tonight and DS was
asleep. When I started to drift off around midnight, he woke up and started screaming. At this point, I was irrationally annoyed with DH who was gaming with his online mates. I’ve been up since just before 6 am but I stayed up with DS the night before last (I think. I’m actually getting my days mixed up). I asked DH to help me settle him and he seemed so pissed off I interrupted his precious game. DS was screaming that he wanted to go downstairs but DH wanted to let him cry it out. His crying became more and more hysterical whilst DH told me I’m the cause of his behaviour for giving into him at bed time. Truthfully, I just can’t let him cry it out, especially when he starts thrashing and hyperventilating like he’s going to be sick and sometimes even head butting (suspected ASD).

I swore at DH and told him to go to bed because I would stay up with DS. He didn’t move and without a thought I slapped his arm and told him to get out. He turned around and told me that if I ever hit him again he would break my fingers. I know I shouldn’t have slapped him but it honestly wasn’t hard at all. DH even said so but said there was malice there. Again, I know I’m making excuses for myself but he has (playfully) slapped my bum twice as hard when I’ve stood up next to him. Still, if he’d have done that to me tonight I’d be shocked and angry.

I'm just incredibly frustrated. He doesn’t really do anything with DS when he finishes work. It would be nice if he took him to the park for half hour or even kicked a ball around with him (he’s such a busy, active child). Yesterday, he shouted and swore at me in front of DS and my MIL who actually pulled him up on it and texted me
today to see if I was okay.

I want to create a sensory room for DS to see if it helps his sleep but DH isn’t interested so I have to pay for all of it. Despite being on less than half his salary.

I still hit him though.

it doesn’t sound like OP is attempting to coerce, control or intimidate her husband, would make me say this is not abuse.

Oh really? She said
I swore at DH and told him to go to bed because I would stay up with DS. He didn’t move and without a thought I slapped his arm and told him to get out.

Swearing at someone while telling them to go to bed is trying to control them. He was up, he hadn’t gone to bed yet. And when he didn’t immediately obey her order to go to bed, she slapped him and told him to get out. Swearing and slapping to get your way is physical intimidation in order to control your partner.

And yes yes men are stronger blah blah, but what also matters is willingness to use physical violence. Most men in relationships with abusive women will not hit back. They'll just take being hit because they know if they hit back even once, they’re the ones the police will arrest and take away in handcuffs.

The level of violence and unpleasantness won’t be helping your very young son’s mental health or anxiety issues. Poor thing. I’d be screaming and refusing to sleep too. Anyone would.

She slapped him on the arm but no one seems to notice that his idea of retaliation would have been to break her fingers. That's the difference. Hers is a slap leaving probably no mark, no fear (clearly from what he said) just a bit of surprise - and in return he would break her fingers. That's the difference.

But did he touch a hair on her head? No he did not, even though this wasn’t the first time she has slapped him. Has he ever hit her? No he has not. A verbal threat of reactive abuse if hit again is always on a lower scale when compared to actually being hit and is usually deployed to try and defend against being hit again.

Exactly. You said if he ever tried again you’d kill him. You said that purely to try and stop him from hitting you again. Not because you want to kill him or have any intention of killing him. It’s a threat who’s sole purpose is to try and stop the abusive partner from hitting you again.

You are under extreme pressure, snapped and did something wrong.

Everything your OH is doing is wrong - coercion, emotional abuse, no parenting to speak of, threats of serious physical violence, financial abuse, lack of support with your son's SEN. He's an awful, abusive, arsehole and your son will suffer further if you don't leave him.

it’s almost like people are so frightened of the fact that men might not be able to be held accountable for violence, that the only possible means of dealing with it socially is to ascribe all violence the absolutely same category and thus a woman driven to distraction who slapped her husband once on the arm while exhausted is “abusive” the same as a man who manipulates, controls, terrifies, and oppressed his wife, and has only hit her, once, not even that hard, but which she has directly understood as a threat “do that again and you’ll be in real trouble”.

they’re not the same. No amount of stupidity and unwillingness to engage with the context is convincing that “all violence is abuse”.

The number of people who don't seem to understand this is shocking tbh. Yes, women can be abusive towards their partners, it does happen, even towards their male partners (rarely physically abusive towards males, for obvious reasons). But we all know fine well who is abusing who in this particular situation.

@Bnxybee if you read one post and commit it to memory then it should be this.

Oh yes it’s the domineering abusive controlling man that is abusing his obviously oppressed and intimidated wife. That’s why when she swore at him, slapped him and told him to go to bed he……went to bed.

Come on. If he were the one in control, he would not have obeyed her. He’d have refused and hit back harder to show her he was the boss.

@Hiddenmnetter also completely agree with what you have written.

the fact that the OP knows what she did is wrong is not enough for all these people who have only come on to witter about her behaviour in exactly the way the real
abuser in their relationship wants them to do.

i bet any amount of money all the aspects of the “partner’s” behaviour - which all those virtue signalling posters know is also wrong and is behind the regrettable slap but won’t acknowledge it in this discussion - he would never admit to. He would minimise and explain them away. He would deflect.

Still better to keep admonishing someone who is isolated and dependant upon the sort of man who gets defended even when he an abject failure as a father and a controlling bully to the child’s mother.

no wonder women - and yes it IS mostly women - daren’t open up to what they’re enduring in real life when droves of who I suspect are women come on here and keep adding another layer to the hair shirt she’s already dressed herself in.

Stop making excuses. You hit your DH in anger. End of

Yes you shouldn't have hit him but he sounds really unkind. Does he actually offer anything in the relationship, do you love him?

Would you be as quick to make excuses for a man or are women judged on a different scale?

many many controlling abusive men never raise a finger or their voice. it is a key component of their wearing down and provoking their victim to fulfil their brief of “proving” she is in fact the abusive and crazy one.

The sort of narrative and scenarios you are describing indicate you know very little about the many nuances across the spectrum of less obvious but devastating abuse.

They always say that. If he can't be arsed taking him to the park for half an hour do you think he'll actually want to be arsed with 24/7 care?

You're sleep deprived and at the end of your tether.

My DS didn't sleep well and cried constantly it definitely pushed me over the edge for a few years.

Except it isn’t end of. Look at what else is going on and say that it’s the end of it. This is clearly a toxic relationship that needs to end. The op was absolute wrong to hit her husband. That doesn’t mean he is suddenly a saint. There are lots of worrying things going on on both sides. Thinking about what went on before and after might help the op to come to the conclusion that for the sake of her son, serious changes need to happen.

I suggest you leave him, find peace in a life without this waste of space, thst drives you to do things you wouldn't normally do. You'll get time to yourself amd to relax when he has his child for contact.

Exactly. A lot of people on here making excuses for abusive men and gaslighting a woman who has come here for help.

Oh yes it’s the domineering abusive controlling man that is abusing his obviously oppressed and intimidated wife. That’s why when she swore at him, slapped him and told him to go to bed he……went to bed.

Come on. If he were the one in control, he would not have obeyed her. He’d have refused and hit back harder to show her he was the boss.

It’s weird and concerning how many women are trying to victim blame here.
And we wonder why DV rates are so high.

Let’s hope that when a women is hit by her partner she doesn’t come on here and think it’s acceptable because she apparently drove him to it.

OP snapped because her child is not sleeping and she is stressed and has sleep deprivation - does that mean it’s ok for her to hit her child or would it be acceptable because they have also drove her to it?

If she said her DH just snapped for the same reasons and hit her would the same posters tell her it’s fine and it’s not his fault?

If you love someone you don’t physically attack them. End of.

Was it an attack? OP has addressed herself.

Stop clutching at straws here. The man probably went to bed because he sounds pretty useless anyway.

OP needs to get rid of him!

Parts of your post don’t even make sense to me in fact they seem to contradict each other.

you and everyone else piling in on someone who knows what she did was wrong but she also contextualised a relationship where the following occur

• Financial control


• lakc of equality and access to assets despite children being involved


• total lack of interest in parenting


• physically blocking the OP from tending to a hysterical or sick baby / child


• sinister threats of disproportionate retaliation to what she has admired was unacceptable lashing out


• lack of care and respect

Means this is clearly a situation where abuse and control is taking place.

With that in mind REGARDLESS of whether the OP was a man or a woman then there are dynamics present which mean it’s not “just” about deploying violence in this context.
it is also entirely possible to unpick that and provide non judgmental advice if you actually understand why and how this occurs in abusive relationships without condoning the fact OP smacked / slapped her partner.

Have a read up about fight or flight and reactive abuse. Thankfully there appears to be growing awareness of this so that people who lose it after months , years of being ground down and treated like shit, controlled, belittled, dismissed and literally held hostage because of children or financial abuse can get the help they need without wrongly being labelled as the abuser in a longitudinal context.

"You are under extreme pressure, snapped and did something wrong"

Right do next time a woman posts on here about being hit by her DH , we can excuse it as his being under extreme pressure and snapping?

Meh, I can't find an atom of sympathy for your useless jerk of a husband.

You are not an abuser. Leave him.

I'm not sure why my reading of this is so different. It seems like the husband complied with OP and went to see to their child.

They had a difference in opinion in how a difficult situation should be handled.
It seems like OP wanted to acquiesce, that she had done so in the past and it has led to having to deal with the same difficult behaviour.OP's husband suggested that they try something new.

OP was adamant that her opinion on how to rear their shared child superceded his to the point that she slapped him for having the temerity to have an opinion on how to raise his child.

She tell a whole story about how he suggested a solution for a problem they are having with their child and disregarded it off hand.Then she complains that he "doesn't do enough".

I can definitely see how the former set of habits would lead to the latter perception if the only valid he can parent is doing what OP tells him to.

@Whiskeypowers so you’re saying in some circumstances it’s ok for a man to hit a women if he feels she’s pushed him to do it?

I knew you’d write that
what I’m saying is abuse is abuse and men and women can be abusive

what distinguishes intentional abuse form reactive abuse is the critical factor
I happen to believe the OP is guilty of the latter the partner the former