to leave DH after he encouraged our DC to kick me

[DearHorse]

Just that really.

My DC was kicking my DH. My DH was kicking back (playfully I guess). I got in the middle telling them both to stop and my DH then told my DC to kick me. My DC then started kicking me.

DC is only little (under 5).

Would I be unreasonable to leave him?

There is (obviously) a big backstory, but it is too long for a post. There has been other occasions where he has encouraged our DC to hit me.

You need to find the strength to leave. Your child will grow up aggressive and vicious, with no sense of what is right or wrong.
It is a form of child abuse.

About 15 years ago I was in the supermarket and a boy of about 6 was told he couldn't have something by his mother. He said 'You stupid woman' and no child of that age should be able to speak with such scorn and disgust. I can only imagine that he heard someone else speak to her like this and I still think of her face to this day - she looked so defeated. I hope I was wrong about her home life, and I hope I am wrong that your child is learning to treat you like that.

He called her horrible names, encourages the child to defy her, please reread her posts and reconsider your advice. She should not stay with a man who baits her swears at her, encourages the child to hit her, laughs at her, won’t let her speak her language to her child…

You are like a boiled frog, believing the man’s version- ‘I was just playing about’ instead of the woman ‘he keeps telling my child to hit me’.

Ok, so in your situation you have an innate understanding that the playing is, in fact, playful.

However, a woman posting over months who is concerned clearly has an innate understanding that her situation is not playful and is damaging.

My response was to her initial question ‘should I leave my husband because he told my son to kick me’ which I think is ridiculous. Obviously if he is continuing to do this then it’s more worrying, but OP has not made it clear that she has ever actually expressed this distress to her husband? That she finds it unacceptable and wants it to stop.

Do you know how to read all of her posts or are you still responding to the first one?

If she thinks that then she should obviously leave? She posted on here because she wasn’t sure - she was asking for advice. So clearly she didn’t have a clear feeling that this was wrong

She's made it very clear, you just didn't want to hear it.

Even in her first post, she says-
“There is (obviously) a big backstory, but it is too long for a post. There has been other occasions where he has encouraged our DC to hit me.”

You don't seem to have any understanding of how coercive control works to make the victim doubt themselves. Or you're wilfully blind, not sure.

Op, you know what your instincts tell you. The fact you speak to friends and post on here show you know this is not right.

I can totally relate to the feeling of being carefully undermined by your partner.

I think women with low self esteem cannot hold a boundary for themselves. Sometimes they will know it isn’t right but quickly question own judgement or almost start to re- write the scene so it had been their fault.

However, when you have a child it’s much easier to see what they deserve and hold boundaries for themselves.

I think it’s interesting that your instincts are jumping around your child being brought into the situation.

I left after many years of questioning and back and forth. Funnily enough, after I got away I knew my own mind clearly.

She has made it very clear that she feels this is wrong but that she lacks confidence in her own judgment and was trained not to make waves. Its comments like yours that are leading her to once again ignore her own feelings about her husband’s abuse of her by proxy. Please stop! Your advice is absolutely wrong.

@DearHorse do you want your child to be able to handle school and relationships well as he grows up?

Because at the moment his dad is teaching him that it’s ok to carry on ‘playing’ when someone asks you to stop, to joke and banter with someone who doesn’t find it funny.

He’s teaching your son to be a bully.

You need to protect your son , even if you can’t protect yourself.

And you know it’s an advantage to your boy to have your language too!

He is going to keep getting worse. My guess is that he would like to hit you but doesn't want to be judged by society (ie other men)

Hope the penny drops for you soon because the peace of being home without worrying about someone else's mood is priceless.

Him name calling you is absolutely disgusting. Shows that he doesnt see you as a person.

You may not be in danger now from your son but it won’t be long before he is big enough to really hurt you. And this is also a form of child abuse- make no mistake. Your husband is abusing you and also your son.

I worked with a child once who had been forced to abuse a sibling. It really, really messes these children up- your son loves you and wants to be kind, but he also wants to make daddy happy. Eventually he’ll be messed up and full of fear, anger, and deep distress. The child I knew had awful trauma and probably never get over what happened. Please don’t let that be your son.

www.rightsofwomen.org.uk free legal advice.
womens aid can also help you.

And the responses (here but also in person) who thought that I was overreacting,
that’s because you’re asking the wrong question though?

if you came on here and said dh regularly tells dc to kick and slap me, also he criticises me and calls me a twat, a bitch and stupid, and he won’t allow me to speak my native language, not a single person wouldve said you were overreacting. But you asked if based off this one incident which could be perceived in a number of different ways ranging from alarming to harmless, if you should leave dh. That’s why you got the responses you did. Not because anyone actually thinks you should be staying with this man.

Teaching a child to physically abuse anyone is wrong on so many levels. The fact that your dh sees it as funny just shows how little he thinks of you, ask yourself if you’d find it funny if anyone you love had been physically hurt? Who in their right mind finds someone being hurt funny. Plus it’s teaching your dc a very very dangerous way to act. Your son will think it’s fine to hit the female role model in his life? Is that how you’d like to see him act?

It's really good to hear everyone's perspectives, thank you for taking the time. Just wanted to clarify that my DC is our daughter and not our son (left it vague initially to reduce probability of anyone in real life recognising my story). Not to minimise the potential impact on her, but to explain why I was not worried about her (badly) hurting me in the future.

Posted twice

You think you have to encourage a DH not to kick people??? Is that a joke?!

OP he is weaponising DD and using the child as a tool to physically abuse you with. You're not overreacting.

If he had a genuine problem with hearing your native language, he'd have got together with someone who didn't speak that language, because he's going to be around your relatives at some point and hear it. The choice of words is also interesting. He said not to speak your native language in front of your child, which has got nothing to do with your partner's supposed misophonia (which is an inability to cope with eating noises, by the way, not a language issue). He's using it as a way to deny a part of your identity. It's part of the gradual process of stripping you down into nothing other than an automaton who does his bidding.

Look at the way he speaks to DD. Do this to mummy, do that to mummy. Like the kid is a robot.

This man isn't even recognising other people as really being people. In his eyes you have no wants, needs or rights. You're all just there as entertainment for him.

I can't understand people who stay with someone they want to leave, "for the sake of the children". It isn't in the children's best interests anyway. But more to the point how can you stay in a relationship with someone you dislike, have no respect for and who is making you unhappy, knowing you'll be expected to have sex with him?

DP sounds very immature.
I would have kicked him- out the door and back to his Mummy.
I would not allow my child to hit or kick.

You say he’s stopped encouraging your child to hit you. Has he also stopped calling you a twat and a bitch and stupid? I wouldn’t stay with someone who spoke to me like that.

He has mostly stopped. He is also more supportive now of me speaking my native language to our DC.