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.

@SunnyD44
perhaps this explains it better

breakthesilencedv.org/reactive-abuse-what-it-is-and-why-abusers-rely-on-it/?cn-reloaded=1

If a man came on here talking about slapping someone in anger and then provided "context" or tried to justify it, or started talking about 'playful' bum slaps in the same context, he'd be absolutely crucified and rightly so.

It's only the inherent sexism of this place preventing that happening here.

@Whiskeypowers i get reactive abuse but that shouldn’t be a reason to defend someone hitting their partner.

Of course they are many scenarios where you could say someone is justified for hitting their partner eg self defence, to stop them hurting themselves or someone else etc but none of that happened in this situation.

What’s shocking is that posters have said his threat of violence is worse than her actual act of violence - which is awful.

The men who hit their partners always blame their partner and accuse them of driving them to it.

Of course OP is going to play the victim here and say he’s this and that.
If she is being abused then she should leave.
Just like if a man is apparently being abused then he should leave too instead of attacking his wife.

It’s not an excuse for violence as that’s the same excuse that men use all of the time and people like you saying it’s ok because they were driven to it, does not help the thousands of women who hear this everyday.

@Whiskeypowers
you and everyone else piling in on someone who knows what she did was wrong Yes we all know how charming and oh so sorry a partner who hits can be. How deeply ashamed they are and the promises they won’t do it again.

”But she also contextualised a relationship where the following occur:” Oh yes, the classic DARVO context which you have lapped up. “I slapped him…but it honestly wasn’t hard at all” and so on.

• Financial control - nope. A disagreement about creating a “sensory room” for a DC isn’t an example of financial control/abuse. OP has full control over her money that she earns. There’s no evidence she cannot buy necessities or that he is wilfully holding money back for necessities.

• lakc of equality and access to assets despite children being involved- that’s a stretch as well. The DH said he doesn’t agree with creating a “sensory room” for their child, that’s an unresolved disagreement on what should be a joint purchasing decision. Not getting her way (yet) isn’t evidence of lack of equality. In fact the DH not being able to decide for himself when to go to bed without getting sworn at and slapped, is evidence of lack of equality.

• total lack of interest in parenting- yes well abused partners do often get depressed, disconnect from family life and do escapist behaviours. Especially if they don’t want their child to see mummy smacking daddy.

• physically blocking the OP from tending to a hysterical or sick baby / child- Yes he should not have physically blocked her during a disagreement on CIO but standing in someone’s way is nonviolent disobedience, her reaction to this remember was to hit him, (which did teach him a lesson so to speak as he didn’t block her ever again but still he offended her this time by not immediately going to bed when sworn at and ordered to and so earned himself another slap).

• sinister threats of disproportionate retaliation to what she has admired was unacceptable lashing out lack of care and respect- Ok but slapping someone is a bit more than “lashing out” and no amount of “lack of care and respect” justifies slapping a person. (Nice bit of minimising DV with victim blaming there.) We have seen from a pp it is a common reactive defence mechanism after being hit for the victim to say an extreme verbal threat to try and get the abuser to not hit them again. And we know OP has hit her DH more than once.

There will probably NEVER be a situation described here in which a man is sleep deprived and doing absolutely everything while his useless female partner plays games and threatens to break his bones in response to a light slap on the arm. It ain't the fucking same and you know it.

@Whiskeypowers
Have a read up about fight or flight and reactive abuse.
God that is terribly insulting to say that @SunnyD44 who is a survivor of DV. She doesn’t need to “read up” on anything. She’s got the lived experience.

Not remotely insulting
i am also a survivor and someone explained it to me too

Interesting how we have gone from hit to slap to tap to a light tap.

What ever the minimising that going on its time to leave the relationship for the sake of everybody involved.

Yes, the fact it sounds so unlikely is exactly because it’s DARVO tissue paper cast over the situation to make the person doing the hitting look like a victim and the person being hit look like the abuser.

Note how she describes herself as sleep deprived and doing everything. How she plays down the second slap to hint that it’s not really abuse because she didn’t hit him hard.

Note how she describes him as useless (despite being the high earner) and obstructive. How he’s sworn at her- making it a big deal while mentioning the times she swears at him fleetingly. How he’s so horrible he’s gaming online at midnight (when the DC is asleep and she’s just home from work- but she’s conveniently glossed over that the DH will have cared for the DC while she was at work and done dinner and bed routine- doesn’t quite match the useless narrative so she’s just skipped over the gaps hoping you won’t notice them).

People minimising the husband’s behaviour would do well to avail themselves of the search function.

The op absolutely should not have hit him, especially since it gives him ammunition to use against her. There is much more to this than the op hitting the husband. Maybe posters could consider the whole situation here?

i don’t abuse my husband full stop. I don’t routinely insult his intelligence and make underhand remarks disguised as “banter” leaving him confused as to whether I’m being serious or whether he’s too sensitive. He does that shit to me though.

I sometimes mispronounce words or get them jumbled. I mispronounced the name of a town years ago and I’m still the butt of his jokes in front of family and friends. I had major brain fog in work the other day (probably from sleep deprivation) and told my mil that my colleagues must think I’m thick as two short planks. He retorted by telling her how I mispronounce stuff and laughing at me. He’s laughed about my lack of qualifications in front of his family. I mentioned I was going to take my (19 y/o) little brother to an empty car park and let him play around with the gears in my car, get used to the clutch, etc. He saw fit to shout and swear at me and tell his family how I can’t even park in our driveway without crashing into his car (i
barely touched it). His own mother told him he was behaving like his father who reportedly abused her for years. DS was crying at this point. His response was to block his mum on social media and call her a bitch.

I come home from work and he can’t even put his fucking crisp packets in the bin because apparently he has OCD. Tons of dirty dishes and he’s lying on the sofa watching YouTubers shoot people on Fortnite. Or he’s watching Pokémon for the 51748th time. He whinges about the food I cook but will shove 20 chicken nuggets in the air fryer for him and DS whilst moaning to his family that i make spaghetti bolognese every week (it’s the only food I can hide vegetables in).

He’s the main earner but has no money to take us out for the day. Didn’t stop him fucking off to
chester for three days (his mate’s wedding) and leaving me with a poorly ds. But he has “no money”.

But I can see how I’m a horrible person.

Yeah he sounds like a fucking treat.

There’s very poor understanding on here of reactive abuse even among survivors of domestic abuse. I generally find that if they didn’t do it themselves they don’t recognise it, and if they did the abuser uses it to shift blame onto the victim - maintaining that she’s the abuser or she’s unstable and needs help which makes - which makes them second guess themselves. Other than that posters in general often mistake ‘common couple violence’ for ‘coercive control’ type.

In this context the DH threatened to do far worse than OP’s slap and MIL’s reaction to his verbal abuse shows she’s concerned about his behaviour too.

Ideally it would be good if OP felt she could leave the relationship but that may take a while.

I hit ex DH once, DD was about 2 mths old and I'd been doing all night wakings and feeds as was BF. DD was a month premature and tiny when born, she was literally glued to me non stop feeding for the first few months.
I also had to take XH to work for 7am and collect him later as only one car.
It was the middle of the night and i was completely sleep deprived. He didn't threaten me back though

So if a man loses his temper and hits his wife that's OK too? 🙄

Stop trying to justify your actions OP.

If you had come on here saying you snapped and you can’t believe you’d hit someone you love and you feel awful etc then it would be slightly different but you have literally blamed him for pushing you to do it which is just wrong.

If he’s so terrible and treats you so poorly then how come you haven’t ended the relationship before it got to the violence stage?

I assume you’re going to end it now?

That’s exactly what reactive abuse is.

As a da survivor you’re asking why she didn’t leave - really?

I’ve worked with women who’ve been in abusive relationships for 20 years+, they will never leave.

Do violent men slap their partners on the arms without actually even hurting them? Nah.

I’ve worked with women who’ve been in abusive relationships for 20 years+, they will never leave.

This is because many women are afraid to leave.

OP is obviously not afraid of DH if she’s arguing with him, shouting and swearing at him, telling him when to go to bed and hitting him.

The whole ‘she’s a victim’ doesn’t match up with her actions here.

It’s not even relevant who is violent to who because we know physical abuse always escalates and considering there is a child in the middle of this and this relationship isn’t working then it needs to end.

The really sad thing about this is that for as long as people find any excuse to justify hitting another person DV and DA will continue.

its never as easy as just leaving
according to another poster you are a survivor of domestic abuse.
leaving my abuser was the hardest and most dangerous thing I ever did.
was it really just a case of leaving for you?

Reactive abuse isn’t being defended but it is not entirely indefensible and doesn’t normally exist as a prolonged course of deliberate planned behaviour designed to control and subjugate someone in a variety of ways possible. Realising your behaviour is wrong is more the preserve of the reactive abuser as opposed to the perpetrator which is why DAPP programmes have debatable long term success rates as that sort of behaviour in incredibly difficult to overcome. Unless they want to.

Some are afraid to leave, some love their partners, some are enmeshed/codependent/addicted, some this is all they know… many different reasons…

Just because OP doesn’t fit the idea of a typical victim doesn’t mean she’s not intimidated and worn down by DH’s verbal abuse.

Just because OP doesn’t fit the idea of a typical victim doesn’t mean she’s not intimidated and worn down by DH’s verbal abuse.

She’s not coming across all that intimidated…

None of us know what is going on in this relationship - whether it’s situational couple violence or intimate partner violence - we simply don’t know enough about the background to make that call.

The least you could do on a thread where an OP reaches out for support in her relationship is not gaslight her.

(I don’t actually agree with the use of the term gaslighting in this way - it means something very specific within the context of da - but it’s commonly used this way online).

@Bnxybee
Definitely sounds like someone you should leave.
Doesn't provide justification for physical violence. Noone is physically aggressive with a person because said person is behaving in the manner they want them to.
That's sort of the whole thing.