Need people's views on what just happened in my home

[Spiderwoman123]

6 year old ASD son. He is currently in process of EHCP application. He struggles socially, has no friends, has weird things about food

H has always said im too soft. Letting him have pudding when hes only eaten cucumber. That kind of thing. H gets v frustrated at DS not eating as H is the house chef really. H always been pretty resistant to adapting parenting but accepts diagnosis and is kind and loving but can also be v inflexible and quick to anger.H much prefers younger DS (none of same challenges). H can get pretty grumpy

Right. So dinner time. DS refusing to eat chicken as he says different to normal stuff. H getting wound up. Me trying to reduce tension. DS says "stop looking at me" as H staring at him. H looks mad. DS getting mad too. Tension rising and both sniping at each other. DS goes to slap H. Its pretty half hearted. DS used to hit a lot when meltdown and we have worked on it a lot together but it still happens. DS barely touches H. H says this is because he moved out the way.

H in response raises his hand to hit DS. I think. Stops himself and then picks up DS chair off the ground and tips it over so that DS falls onto hard kitchen floor. Not from some great height but he definitely picked up the chair and tipped it fully so DS (who was curled up on chair crying) onto floor. Pur kitchen has a fake concrete floor thing

DS bawling. H saying he didn't mean to but he wanted DS to leave room. H saying im overreacting and started blaming me for my shitty parenting!

Currently putting two v upset boys to bed. I think it's fucking horrendous. H thinks DS went to hit him and H was just getting him to leave the room

Pls tell me what to do

Very helpful. Maybe she dreamed it

I was going to ask does your DH have him when you are out

And do / would you trust him following your husband's behaviour to be alone with your child ?

It’s time to stop pussyfooting around your husband.

You think he has some form of autism, you tell him it’s time to get tested, now.

You can see he doesn’t cope with your son’s difficulties properly, you call it out and tell him things need to change and he needs to educate himself on why your son acts the way he does and how it should be handled.

Get him back to work full time and you go part time. If he can’t parent your child properly why is he the one working less?

Make it very clear to him that things will be changing and that in no uncertain terms is he to be violent towards any of you ever again or else you will be reporting him to the police and social services.

God no, i meant not leaving, calling the police, family, shouting at DH, sticking up for DS etc.

No way would i think slapping the DH is a good idea, hes shown himself to be violent towards someone who is far weaker already. Men like that are the sort to think nothing of punching (or worse)a grown woman if they can be deliberately violent towards a 6 year old small child 😔

He needs to do a course like you did or bugger off.

I feel like you just wrote down my life from four years ago. Same age son, same neurodivergence, same husband behaviours. Wasn’t acceptable to me. Things came to a head after a series of such incidents. I now have full custody, now-ex-husband saw the consequences and turned his life around as a result. Don’t put up with what isn’t ok. Your son needs you to be his advocate.

We are also a ND household and I strongly suggest giving up on "family mealtimes" at least for a while. Take the tension right down. Feed your son separately or feed the kids earlier as a pp suggested. If your DH is going to be so stressy about food then you could end up with a child with an ED on top of everything else.

We quite often let our autistic DD take her plate to another room.

Please go into school tomorrow morning and ask to speak to H/T, who in a Primary School is most likely to be the Safeguarding Lead. Tell her/him what happened this evening, including everything that Ds said to about his Dad later.
I promise you that they will have heard something similar before and will be sympathetic to your plight. They will know the best way for you to access supportive help for your family.
If your H engages with the support, that's great, if not, that will tell you what to do next.

There are also people who get off on the thought of a man being violent.

And people who also have similarly abusive awful partners/husbands and cant bear the thought of a woman not putting up with what they do.

i do think i am maybe too soft with them. sometimes they do run me ragged! H gets frustrated with me that I don't say no enough. We are definitely not parenting together. I just can't work out if it's fixable. I don't think H has in it him to listen enough to anyone.

when DS1 landed on the floor and H was stood up with the chair in his hands - i jumped up and went to scoop up DS1 as i was geniunely worried fo his safety and i was shouting "what the hell are you doing H" and DS1 was crying and saying "mummy go go go i want to leave i want to leave" and i turned to see DS2 (who is 4) with his hands over his ears and his eyes shut. it was all so horrible.

i do get things happen but H is refusing to acknowledge the seriousness of it.

I never said he would not punch her back, this is what I would have done, I would not care if he would beat me back, I would have had to have a go at him in this scenario, but as I said, this is probably illegal.

They will tell SS imo. I may get a lot of hate for this But can I suggest you take a step back & re evaluate the advice you’ve been given on here. We don’t know anything about your situation. We know nothing about your relationship, family dynamics, how autistic your son is (being a picky eater is common for his age, it cant automatically be blamed for his eating habits) we’re reacting to one incident which looks like it’s been a running issue for sometime. You’re listening to people telling you to go to the most extreme course of action when they know nothing. He may have just cracked & he may well have not realised your son wouldn’t just slide off the chair onto his feet. Has your son spoke of things prior to this, Is he distressed being left with his dad etc. all these things are important.

there are other options if you feel your h isn’t being abusive and is just struggling. You can give him an ultimatum and say you need to go to couples therapy. I’ll be honest I do think he is frustrated with you as much as he is DS. (I wouldn’t be happy cooking a meal for my kids to have my husband rewarding their not eating it.) you’re rightly angry at his reactions (I’ll reiterate that I find his actions unacceptable) but we’re all human.

all said and done you do need to do what’s best for your son. If he is in real danger then you must do what you have to do. Only you know what that is. Not some random anonymous person like me or others on this thread. Your decisions on this will either make or break your family

I find that reminding myself that when my child is giving me a hard time, it is because they are having a hard time. That helps me to reframe it in my head, and remember that it’s a sign that they need more support from me - not less. Would this way of thinking help your husband at all do you think? It is worrying that he won’t engage with parenting classes

@Spiderwoman123 please just take your son into school tomorrow and say you need to speak to the safeguarding lead or deputy. Say that it's urgent and you'll wait to see someone. Tell them everything including the lying and excuses your H gave afterwards. Your H is highly abusive and a risk to your son and to you. He knows he has massively overstepped and his response is to try and gaslight you. He knows exactly what he did. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to come along for the school run tomorrow. If he does, tell him you have a meeting with the SENCO or have to go to the office to look for some lost property. You must act. If you don't you are allowing your child to be at risk. He needs you to protect him. I'm sorry this is so difficult. If he's in any way aggressive or hostile tonight please call 999. His abuse is escalating rapidly.

I've reported this post

This sounds really bad OP.

It also sounds like he's still minimising. The question I'd want to ask him, now or tomorrow once he's fully calmed down is - are you ashamed enough to do something about this? Are you willing to work on your parenting and your emotional regulation? Will you do whatever is necessary to stop terrifying your very small children? Tell him you can't continue to be in a family where this keeps happening. If he understands he's going to lose you all if nothing changes, he might take some action.

You can straight away set a non-negotiable boundary that if he feels himself becoming angry and unregulated, he's the one who needs to leave the room. Make him promise you he will always do that, maybe now while he still feels guilty. And enforce it every time, tell him to get out immediately if you see him getting angry again. Anger is understandable, his behaviour around his very little kids is absolutely not ok.

The way he's not engaging with any support and blaming your parenting for the whole situation sounds like absolute bullshit and makes it seem not very hopeful that he'll be capable of stepping up and solving this. The thing to drum into him when he tries to justify himself by explaining how annoying everything was, is to agree, yes it's annoying when he won't eat, but your reaction to him is absolutely horrible, it's behaviour you're choosing, and it's the biggest problem we have.

My DH struggled with anger when our kids were little, I think small kids misbehaving brought up all sorts of unresolved shit from his own childhood. He was never any kind of violent but the shouting was scary. We talked and argued about it a lot and he got better gradually, and now he always leaves the room when he feels anger building. But I will always carry guilt from not putting a stop to it sooner and more effectively. You can't redo the years when they're little, and their core beliefs about safety and love are being built now based on what happens to them at home.

Sorry, I usually RTFT but I have not and I'm exhausted from parenting two ND kids so I need to go bed.

Just wanted to agree with this 👆

If you don't know, you don't know. Parenting ND kids is like taking an A level exam for a subject you've never studied, every day, and if you fail, society will hold you personally responsible for its downfall.

Get support, talk to your husband when he's regulated. Look up PDA strategies for dinner. Also, Philippa Perry has a book on why stuff from how we were parented flares up in our lives as a parent.

We get "the chicken looks different" here too and it is very frustrating. Your husband shouldn't have done that and I bet he seriously regrets it on the inside. I would expect him to apologise to DS and try very hard to do better next time. Why is he so resistant to suggestions he has ASD when his son does?

Actually possibly the productive answer. She’s right, people assuming his a bastard & not knowing any other details other than this one badly handled issue which has been a long running complaint of his. Telling her to go to the most extreme cause of action isn’t good advice.

This was shocking, but it was an incident not an accident

How is this at all relevant?

Why?

Jesus Christ just leave him.

Your poor son is going to be so damaged growing up with this man as a father, more so than he is already. He is also not safe in your husband's care if your husband's response to a fucking 6 year old not liking food he cooked is to fling him out of his chair like it's some sort of wrestling match.

If my DH did that to my DC I would have fucking throttled him, and had him arrested too.

I agree your husband is probably ASD too and that is where your son gets it from, but undiagnosed parents with ASD are often not safe to look after children. Take it from me who had an ASD father who despite loving put us in so many dangerous situations where I would end up being injured and would also hit/lash out/throw stuff at us when he was having meltdowns. My DM used to say it was like parenting 3 kids. She didn't leave him though and both me and my DB have had therapy due to the trauma we have suffered from having a volatile and immature undiagnosed ASD father. He also has never accepted that there is anything wrong with him even though most of his side of the family have been diagnosed with it and he is textbook ASD too.

This post honestly gave me horrible flashbacks to my own childhood where according to my dad everything was always someone else's fault and when he was in the wrong it was like trying to reason with a teenager and not a 50 year old man.

Don't make the mistake my DM did and stay with this man all through your DS's childhood then eventually leaving him when they are 28 years old (me) like my DM did. It would have been so much better for everyone if she had left him the very first time he smacked me and my DB for "making a mess" even though we were just children (he couldn't handle any sort of mess at all and that would lead to many meltdowns).

these responses are reflective of my confused brain! half of my brain is saying i need to step up and do something and this is really bad. and half is saying that SS being in our lives for 8 months is going to destroy us as a family and be v upseting. i agree that H feels ashamed inside. he's saying nasty shit to me because he doesn't know what to do with himself.

if i go to the school - i think that will be the end of our marriage. and i have to accept what that means for the kids/ honestly - for me - our marriage could fall apart tomorrow and i'd be fine but that is NOT the case for our kids. it would be v v difficult for DS1 - arguabley much much worse than what he is experiencing now.