I've just done something very shameful :(

[PGTips83]

Hi wise mums. This evening my DH and I got into a huge fight (which started with me asking for help and then escalated into the "I do more than you" war) and at some point what he was saying filled me with such rage that I hit him. I've never been a violent person in any relationship or in any way whatsoever and I'm really shocked and ashamed. Well, the one other solo incident was when I was pregnant and we were arguing, I threw a book at him (we were sitting next to each other and it landed in his lap) and I was mortified that I could do anything like that (it was a small paperback, just to be clear, not a massive heavyweight! But still, that's not the point). We both later put it down to pregnancy hormones.

Our LO is now six months and I've just returned to work, but I don't think it's right for me to just excuse this away. I feel like I don't know who I am after this evening! I'm a small woman so I didn't actually hurt him, but I feel that's beside the point. He called me a monster and I definitely feel like I am right now He called me out on it, saying I was abusing him and lumped the book incident with this one, saying I'm violent towards him, as if it were a repetitive occurrence. I was horrified with myself.

The strange thing is I don't feel like I've got postnatal depression. Yes, I've had ups and downs, as we all have, but this evening was more like an all-out rage.

Has anyone else experienced this? Do I need help? I tried to console myself but I sound like some horrible abuser making excuses for their horrible behaviour. What's happened to me?!

Sorry part of what I was writing in the middle got deleted somehow :|

What I meant to say was, I’m sure that you’re right that there are women who act abusive because of being victims themselves, and I’m sure that the amount of men that applies to is much less than the amount of women. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t abusive women.

In my area you can self refer for anger management courses. Google and see if there is something where you are.

selfconfesseduggaddict

I agree. It doesn’t sit well and it makes me uncomfortable that violence from women is excused. Forget statistics or whatever, looking at the individual people if this man has been hit twice by his partner and not retaliated physically and yet he’s still apparently probably he abusive one. It’s not right and it just increases the stigma around DV for both the victims and the perpetrators.

FWIW I have always been confused around the “I’m a small woman so I can’t hurt him” thing. Just because as a man my dp could hit me many times harder than I could hit him, it hardly means that my hitting him wouldn’t hurt, upset, and humiliate him. Why on Earth is it justifiable? In any circumstance except self defence?

finding excuses for women to be violent

I'm saying that the reasons for women being violent are different to the reasons why men are violent.

(Outliers excepted.)

Ofgs, any violence in a relationship is unacceptable, of course it is, but the whole thinking that a woman hitting a man is equivalent as a man hitting a women is ridiculous. When a woman hits a man worst case is he has a sore arm, possible bruise, when a man hits a woman best case she has a sore arm, bruise, worse case she ends up dead. Men batter their women to death weekly in the uk, women very very rarely batter their husbands to death. None of it is right but there is no comparison. It's physically impossible.

Since op has come here, and assuming she's being open and honest, has admitted HITTING her dh for the first time and is feeling awful about it. She is obviously under immense pressure, post birth and all the shit that go's with day to day living and working and her dh clearly isn't giving her the help she needs. She could possibly be suffering from pnd, sometimes it's not clear to see that you are depressed and it can manifest its presence in unacceptable behaviours. Op doesn't
know for sure she's not affected, and since she's not said she regularly hits her dh, I think it might be fair to cut her some slack and advise visiting her gp for a medical analysis. Advising her to leave her dp is ridiculous and unhelpful.

Op you have acknowledged what you did was wrong and you feel remorse and ashamed. Visit your gp for mental health advice and a possible solo counselling referral to find out why you feel so frustrated and angry with your dh. It's not the end of the world according to pp.

What matters isn't the label any of us gives the behaviour, it's what you are going to do about it OP.

Clearly something's going very wrong and you (both) need to understand what is behind it so you can address it. You sound as if you have recognised and taken responsibility for your actions, but you need to take the extra steps to ensure it never happens again. Get some expert help as a priority.

Oh I have known some properly violent women they are just as violent for the same reasons men are, I am not trying to say the op is like that but I don't thiink we should minimise violent women. The op has recognised she has been out of character and launched a book then hit her husband in the space of a few months there there's and excusing behaviour is not going to help or enable the Op

I don’t think anyone has advised leaving? I don’t think it’s ridiculous to tell her that her behaviour is wrong, a pattern is emerging and that she needs to seek help if she is a decent partner and for herself.

You don’t have to excuse female violence to acknowledge that male violence is worse and more prevalent. It’s not tit for tat especially in the lives of individuals affected.

what he was saying filled me with such rage

Can you tell us more about this?

It's not worst case he gets a sore arm at all

My ex never hit me hard enough to put me in hospital or kill me

He did abuse me often enough that my child needs psychological help, that I nearly lost my child and I nearly killed myself. I used to wish he would hit me hard enough that someone would believe me and help us

Yet despite several years of daily physical and emotional abuse... I never once hit him and unless it was to stop him killing me I don't think I could defend it

But I am not justifying her violence, I am simply pointing out to pp that male d violence and female d violence don't compare on any scale, no matter how you dress it up.
This is not tit for tat? Op did not hit her dh because men hit women 100 times more then women hit men. She's made a mistake and acknowledged it and since she knows it's wrong I'm saying cut her some slack.

If this is the only problem, you can fix this. Years ago, a couple of years into our relationship I was arguing with DP. I became SO frustrated that he wasn’t listening and couldn’t see that his thought process wasn’t rational (ironic ) that I lashed out and slapped him on the arm.

It was a huge wake up call for me. I’d been exposed to a lot of violence as a child and it was my way of expressing emotions that I couldn’t express verbally. It sounds like an excuse, but it’s fact - even as a teen my response to frustration was violence and this was never criticized or corrected. I didn’t get any formal help but the shock of having done it meant that in years and years I’ve never come close to doing it again, and I can handle my anger better.

DH hasn’t forgotten it, and still brings it up occasionally (not in a nasty way). So it didn’t hurt him physically, but has affected him and this is something that I feel hugely guilty about and is the primary driver in making me 100% sure I’m not going to do it again.

So don’t cut yourself slack, it’s an awful thing to have done. But you can decide never to do it again. You can fix your way of responding to feelings of anger and frustration and it’ll stand you in good stead even if there are other fundamental issues in your relationship. Self-referring to anger management is a good idea for yourself, but you need to consider as a separate issue whether the relationship is working.

But if op came on and said my dh threw a paperback at me but he was very sorry but he hit me tonight but again he is very sorry what would we say ? I get men are abusive towards their partners much more than women I am not saying we have to diminsh male violence however there is something wrong in this relationship where this woman is violent towards her husband

Me and my partner have this argument a lot we can be really mean to each other sometimes and pull up everything that's ever happened which is completely ridiculous and childish but I would never ever hit him and he would never ever hit me. You say you're sorry? Of course you are! All abusers are sorry after they've done it and you're now attempting to save face and prove you're not a monster. You've attacked him twice. That is domestic abuse. Regardless of the reason it happened and how sorry you are. You didn't learn the first time and you're putting it down to hormones. You need serious help and your partner and baby need protecting. Seek help immediately from a professional before you do something else

itsnotthesame I didn’t say the op was acting tit for tat, I’m saying what YOU said sounded tit for tat. “Men hit way more women than women do men” - in this scenario, so what? He’s not hitting her.

What’s your justification for saying it’s not the same no matter how you dress it up? In terms of the victims what difference does it make to them and why should they feel lesser because their abuser is female? Women can be aggressive and violent to other women, children and men. Why is it not valid and what is the need to compare it to Male violence in the first place?

selfconfesseduggaddict and forthloveofscience speak sense.

**There are 2 separate issues.

You abusing him physically.

Him abusing you emotionally*

This is absolutely right. Although MN does like to paint this as a black and white issue. It's not.

Abuse is about power and control. When men physically abuse women, they do so from position of power and control.

When women are physically violent towards men, it is usually (and I know there are rare exceptions) in response to being controlled and emotionally abused*

OnWeekends is right. I snapped and hit my husband after a decade of emotional abuse. He had got me right where he wanted
me, completely financially dependent on him and completely socially isolated. Then listening to him going on about how he is a great husband, and I just need to stop being so miserable and be nice to him. I just broke and hit him several times (he's huge and I'm tiny). I'm not proud of it but mainly because of my loss of control.

I am concerned about your DH using this to portray you as a monster - worried that is a red flag. Do you often feel provoked by what he says?

An earlier post suggested that the DH is emotionally abusing the OP. I don't see anything in the OPs post to suggest this, bit of a leap to be making. I can argue with my DH and what he's saying might make me absolutely furious. It doesn't mean he's pushing my buttons or emotionally abusing me. It's also not an excuse to lash out. What kind of example does that set for your child?

I think the difference between an abuser and someone who made a mistake in anger is what happens next.

I agree with this. OP, you obviously got enraged to the point you behaved in a way that appalls you. I think you should seek counselling for yourself to see what triggers your anger and what is going on.

Having a baby can trigger all sorts of issues in a marriage. It is like a bomb going off and things can get very rocky. There can be immense resentment if you feel that your partner is not pulling his weight or helping. Way beyond the "for god's sake do the washing up" that you'd have felt before the baby - it is more a visceral rage at being left holding the baby when you expected support and help - I think it can be related to a deep fear of being the only adult responsible for this tiny helpless baby.

Get some help. It may be that your husband also needs to talk to someone about his issues.

Yes Clara, but we don't know if its emotional abuse or not. Lots of people in emotionally abusive or coercive relationships don't realise it.
It's a slow drip destruction of your sense of what is normal in a relationship.

It might not be, just raising the question.

I want to know how people have decided that the DH is emotionally abusive from the OP?? There is nothing at all in there that suggests that as far as I can see.

I'm fact, it is just as possible that the Op is Infact emotionally abusive towards him as him towards her from that post. How do any of you know the context of the argument, who started/escalated it, whether any request for help was actually reasonable or whether it was actually part of an abusive cycle?

Hi op,
We all make mistakes and because you’ve done something twice doesn’t mean your set to keep on doing it. It sounds like you were so angry you lost control.

1. do the work with yourself to understand why you’re so angry. I’ve felt very angry in the past and it was to stop myself feeling other emotions such as fear, sadness, despair etc It was sacary to stop being angry and start making changes.
2. get help from outside (gp, charity etc) about coping mechanisms for situations which trigger your anger- don’t just tell yourself you won’t do it again, get some tools and support
3. if your relationship allows it talk to your partner about what happened, apologise and ask his advice

Good luck, based on what you’ve said I don’t think you’re a monster

@Stormwhale Tue 13-Nov-18 22:32:47
I think the difference between an abuser and someone who made a mistake in anger is what happens next. An abuser won't make any real attempt to change, and so the behaviour will be repeated. Someone who has made a mistake and is determined it will never happen again would seek help and work on strategies to manage their anger.

I think you have crossed a line and need to take it as a clear sign something isn't right. Go to the gp and ask for help with anger management. Also look at your life and work out what does and doesn't make you happy and what causes you stress. If you can work on irradicating as much stress as possible, that should help.

What bullshit. Would you tell a woman that had been hit to wait and see if it happens again? Wait & see how he conducts himself after?

It’s a really important question to ask Japanesenoname.

Lots of women don’t realise they’re in a coercively controlling relationship until something like this puts a lens on it.

Maybe OP’s relationship is fine and she needs to sort her anger out. Or maybe he DH is manipulating her to a point where she no longer recognises herself.

op how would you feel like if he turned around and hit you tomorrow ?

and at some point what he was saying filled me with such rage that I hit him

So what did he say? That's important.

How do you generally feel in the relationship? Happy? Supporterd? loved?

Does he do his fair share? Or are you carrying loads of resentment towards him because you've been doing more than your fair share for years?