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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

If you hit your OH then YES you are as much an abuser as he would be if he hit you.

755 replies

QueenGigantaurofMnet · 23/01/2011 21:34

I have just seen someone on another forum discussing how she couldn't possibly have been an abuser. she has only hit her husband twice (although the second time she hit him twice as she enjoyed the fear and shock in his face) in the 15 years of their marriage.

the rest of the forumn are telling her that it was ok. they are both "headstrong"

other are saying things like "i wish i could hit my oh"

It makes me feel sick.

Violance on a relationship is wrong. It is called Domestic violance, not man hitting wife violance.

if you have hit your partner then you ARE an abuser and you SHOULD be looking at ways to deal with your anger.

Im sorry but i am actually quite angry about this

OP posts:
McHobbes · 23/01/2011 23:01

Xmasparty - dh and I - we've had fifteen years of ups and downs. The downs have included confrontations, rows, upset, miscommunication and anger by turns. We are a normal couple, going through the normal stresses and strains of family life.

That's 15 years in which we HAVE found other ways to deal with it.

You are focusing on single incident within those 15 years. Come off it!

ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo · 23/01/2011 23:01

my children can harrangue me all day and i ache for it to stop. i count the minutes til bed time, i have to leave the room for 30 seconds headspace. i can be pulling my hair out. but it would never occur to me to physically hurt them to make it stop.

and no you didn't wait for it to be over. you pulled his hair.

JustForThisOne · 23/01/2011 23:02

first of all just wanted to say I did not read all the pages and did not realise this thread has turned nasty, sorry I feel my post was misplaced in this context

Boo// i find very interesting your reading of the events, honestly. It could have well been the case.
But it was not. Somehow I was not that upset, I had got it wrong about what had happened which he explained and I knew he was telling the truth, it was very obvious to mee in fact, but I still carried on with this big scene. I think we were both a bit superficial a bit young a bit stupid and a bit over dramatic... but trust me it was not an abuse.

I agree with the post by Gina... because many years later I got to know what real violence was. And yes I do find it a bit offensive to put the silly " act of violence " of my story on the same level of dv

TheDevilAndTheDeepBlueSea · 23/01/2011 23:02

She ran. Like I knew she would.

I have no problem with anyone debating anything, no matter how ferociously. But I cannot abide cowardice. She didn't confront McHobbes on the other forum, and when McHobbes arrived here, suddenly QGOM is deregging because everyone here is so simply ghastly Hmm

ClareVoyant · 23/01/2011 23:02

before you do, val, did you see that i immediately clarified the point i made to you, literally the post afterwards? you sound like you were in a hideous situation there, i was not saying at all that you were the abuser, rather that he was.

topknob · 23/01/2011 23:03

ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo

NO fucking words.

ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo · 23/01/2011 23:04

if you weren't that upset, why the hell were you punching him?

ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo · 23/01/2011 23:04

thank god for that topknob.

RamonaFlowers · 23/01/2011 23:04

Ah ha ha ha ha ha Iloveit.

You are comparing your kids whining with the emotional abuse of a partner or spouse?

Your emotional sophistication and intelligence is quite astounding

ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo · 23/01/2011 23:06

i am comparing it with the level of frustration i have felt both while being bombarded with verbal abuse and how i feel when my kids are being relentless. i am not comparing the causes of the frustration.

ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo · 23/01/2011 23:07

"Your emotional sophistication and intelligence is quite astounding"

and EA does tend to skew your emotional sophistication a bit. funny that, it being emotional abuse and all! Hmm

Clunge · 23/01/2011 23:07

Oh how I'd love to sit in your ivory towers. Is there a pretty view?

RamonaFlowers · 23/01/2011 23:08

Ok boo, ok.

Your post seemed to suggest you were a saint for not thumping your DC's when they were whining, the same way Topknot should have been a saint by NOT thumping her DH when he was EAing her.

If that's not what you meant by your post, then it has not come across as you intended.

(do you love me now?)

ReclaimingMyInnerPeachy · 23/01/2011 23:08

Gig YANBU

In any way at all.

Is tehre actually anything else to say?

BopPop · 23/01/2011 23:08

Iloveit

Please go away now, you havent got a clue

BaroqueAroundTheClock · 23/01/2011 23:08

I agree with the OP.

I used to lash out/throw stuff occasionally - years ago in my marriage. It was DV, pure and simple, didn't matter that it was "only" during really really bad arguments that I did it, when I was at the end of my tether. It was wrong, and it was DV.

McHobbes · 23/01/2011 23:09

Anyhoo - interesting though my infamy has been, I'm going swimming first thing tomorrow so must bathe and shave.

Night x

ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo · 23/01/2011 23:09

explain bop. and er no, i dont think i will go away.

giraffesCantDirtyDance · 23/01/2011 23:10

to be honest clare I havent read whole thread, the title and me skim reading it just struck a cord and I just had to get that all out in a cathertic way. wanted to share me experience of it. It really is absolutely classic classic abuser, and victim relationship in my parents life, just with sexes reversed.

Tortington · 23/01/2011 23:11

not read the thread cos...we i can't be fucked - but it strikes me ( see what i did there!) that peope are talking about the action of hitting or physical hurt when this isn't the issue. the issue is about power and the abuse of power and this abuse can invole physical violence.

so there may be a situation where a husband pulls his wifes hair or visa versa and this was completely unacceptable, unprecidented and not repeated. not part of a pattern and not part of longer sustained emotional or physical abuse. no shift of power within a relationship occured.

one woman/man may think that trust has been broken, that this was an act of physical abuse which is unacceptable and that his/her personal bounderies have been beached and that a relationship is irrepairable becuase of this one incident.

another man/woman may think that this incident did indeed break trust, was indeed a singular act of physical abuse and indeed unacceptable and continue to work within a relationship where there is no shift of power or long term fear.

ClareVoyant · 23/01/2011 23:14

agree completely, custy.

it sounds absolutely hideous, giraffes, and must be devastating for you to watch. i hope you get to support him in a useful way.

ReclaimingMyInnerPeachy · 23/01/2011 23:17

'Oh how I'd love to sit in your ivory towers. Is there a pretty view?

yes.

fit2drop · 23/01/2011 23:24

runs in throws verbal spanner

agree or disagree

I don't care

my mantra

If you try to abuse me mentally, I'm out the door; If you try to abuse me physically, then YOU will be THROWN out the WINDOW

simples

Any battered woman with legs who refuses to walk out the door gets no tears from me."

and yes I have been in a D/V relationship

and yes I had children (4 under 6 yrs old)

However Hobbes description of events in her life can not be classed as DV .

and to argue differently with varying degrees of how you have been in a bad abusive relationship and to say that what hobbes is saying is awful when those that defend their case with their own particular nasty story wearing their painful history's like a shining beacon ... wrong..so bloody wrong.

It is you who have tried to belittle Hobbes who are stigmatising your own cause by making Hobbes story representative of the real and true horrors of DV

penelopestitsdropped · 23/01/2011 23:34

I am stunned that this needs debating.

Whether you want to call it abuse or not, It is wrong.

And the OP did state "as much an abuser as he would be if he hit you."

Though given some of the accounts on here from those who are shouting loudest that it is not abusive, it is no wonder they think so skewed given their exampls of loving respectful relationships Hmm

ClareVoyant · 23/01/2011 23:48

well, you see that last insult is a bit of a hostage to fortune there, i think, penelope.

if i were to become very personal, in fact, i could point out the posters on this thread who are taking a very hard line who have posted about their unhappiness in their relationships. I could say that i have seen them talk of their partners treating them (imo) abominably.

i might, as an impartial observer, think that they were with terrible men, but because actually i appreciate that these things ebb and flow in relationships, that beyond the basic love, our feelings about our partners are not written in stone. sometimes they are shits (actually my dh is never a shit [smug] Wink) and sometimes we love them fit to burst.

however, because they are well-known faces around here we GET that they are letting off steam, so we think no more of it.

which it sounds like mchobbes was doing, albeit in a more physical manner. (and one that she is not proud of).