please help, violent twat husband in late pregnancy

[yummytummy]

hi, would really appreciate any help and advice. basically was having a row last night over something trivial or so i thought. i left it a while then went back to try and talk to "d"h but he was still too stressed and kept telling me to go away. i probably should have left it but just wanted it resolved as i can never sleep well on an argument. anyway he just kept on at me being really nasty and refused to calm down.

i was really upset and didnt know what to do so phoned his dad to try and get him to talk to him and calm down. passed the phone to husband who must have fobbed off dad with some excuse that i was emotional and hysterical.

then he came down and really started laying into me how dare i phone his parents stupid bitch etc etc thicko etc. at each cuss he was pushing me until i fell onto sofa. am 34 wks pg and it was awful as i could tell he was trying to hit me in places not in the stomach. anyway i was crying and yelling stop and then he finally went up.

he must have gone to sleep then but then left early this morning and has just come home but has completely blanked me and started ds bath and bedtime routine as i think hes too ashamed to look at me and confront what he has done.

tbh its killed all my feeling for him and just dont want to be in relationship anymore. however cant do anything as yet. am booked in for elcs in 4 weeks so obviously will be physically a bit weak for a while.

i guess just wanted to tell someone as in rl everyone thinks he is wonderful and no-one would believe me or be on my side.

just dont know where to go from here cant stop crying so worried about baby.

please help.

I was also hit whilst pregnant, it took me another year to pluck up the balls to kick him out - I wish so very much that I had done it sooner.

You WILL cope if you do it now. The vast majority of your energy is currently being expended in being frightened of your violent husband.

And as for men finding pregnant women scary???

Indeed, what oculd be more frightening than someone who loves you becoming less graceful and more vulnerable by the day - how scary she has become, eh?

Yummytummy he has not apologised and I do keep reminding him gently that he is not the victim here. He was bought up in a house where it was acceptable to treat women like this. I however categorically was not!

We are not back to normal at all but that is more about him than me to be honest and I have given up caring. I am very relieved that the police have taken domestic violence so seriously as it makes me feel strong. It felt odd seeing my dh being led away by two police officers for questioning but I had to remind myself that he bought it upon himself.

Apart from one of my sisters, my family don't know this side of my dh. My mum sadly passed away last year and my father would be distraught if he knew. As for my siblings I think they would totally lose their rag with him should they find out.

Yes it is very hard to come to terms with something like this. But you and I are NOT at fault here. My dh agrees that no matter how much a man is provoked raising his hand is never an acceptable response. At the very least he ought to walk away.

My other children thankfully did not witmess any of the trauma as they were all asleep when he hit me and when the police turned up (11.30pm!)

My dh needs some form of anger management. I asked the support services to suggest this to him as he may listen to them more readily than he listens to me.

I don't rule out leaving him but know I would struggle with the childcare as he does at least 50% of it with me and adores his kids.

hi thanks so much for all the replies.

itsallaboutiand me you are so right its never acceptable, just dont know what makes them lose control like that. luckily my ds was also asleep at the time.

just like you i am worried about doing childcare alone as he does a lot of it too. and even then its still hard work.

will he be at the birth with you? i am stressing now that this incident has cast a huge shadow on what should be such an exciting and happy time. i just hope things are a bit calmer by then but its still so harrd. it helps so much to talk to someone in a similar position.

I just wanted to add that I really don't care if he is angry with me about calling the police. He should have thought about that before he raised his hand to me. I just know that I now will not remain silent about this. While it is not nice for other people to know, I believe it is less not nice for him than me. He cares very passionately about the outside world's view of him.

Only you can decide what action to take. I was shell shocked the very first time it happened and was scared that he could be like that. I felt as though I was to blame in some way for possibly provoking him. For a long time I felt I had to tread carefully incase he lost his rag again. The second time was the day before my niece sadly died, I had no enregy left to do anything then.

The third time, I told his Mum and warned him that another episode would involve the police so I knew that I had to carry out what I had said. If he does do it again not only will I call the police but I will get my family involved, possibly to help remove him from this house.

I refuse to live my life in fear of someone who is little more than a bully. I am sure he would not take on a man twice his height so why does he think it is ok to become violent with me when I don't have half his strength.

Really good story from a woman who left a domestically violent relationship, and the effect it had on her son.

Itsallaboutiandme, I'm really sorry for your situation, but I feel you are labouring under some misapprehensions, and not giving the best advice.

1. If I had a penny for every time a woman in a DV relationship says here that "the kids didn't see/know anything", I'd be a rich woman. As a child who lived in a DV household I'm here to tell you that is simply not true. I bet my mum thought just what you do, but the truth is that I'd hear the violence and cower in my bedroom terrified but frozen with fear, but I'd pretend not to know about it for her sake. Bet your kids did that too, and even if you're right there are other ways of witnessing abuse

2. DV doesn't spring from nowhere, it is often the final stage in a campaign of abuse. You are most likely already in an abusive relationship in other ways, the children will be witnessing this, and being damaged by it too.

3. Counselling, anger management etc has been proven not to work for abusers. Often, it only makes them more effective at abusing. Please do not send him to anger management for the sake of your own safety.

excellent advice dizi

Dizietsma you may or may not be right. I know that if my children had heard anything they would have questioned me and bought it up somehow.

My husband is not emotionally abusive in any way. He has been brought up in a house where he had control over the women and was a bit shell shocked when he married me because I am so very different from his mum and sisters.

You cannot categorise all cases as being the same.

But this post is not about me nor am I asking for advice. It is about Yummytummy.

Oh, and for both of you, you really need to check out- Why Does He Do That, pretty much every woman I've encountered on this forum who has been in a DV relationship and read this book sings its praises to the rafters.

You don't know that they will have asked you anything, if they witnessed it they will have been so upset and confused, and I'm presuming you just pretended everything was normal, so what could they do? It would have been the much easier route for them emotionally. It turns your world upside down and inside out when your parents do such awful things to each other. Children love their parents so much, to witness such violence between them splits them down the middle and terrible unhealthy coping mechanisms like denial are all to common.

I'm afraid control is the central point of all abuse. That he was brought up to believe he has some right to it is not an excuse for violence, or his behaviour.

Fantastic advice dizietsma

Thank you for posting about your own experience

I just hope that by sharing my experience I can reach some women and help them understand the effect DV has on their kids, maybe spare some kids what I had to live through and the psychological damage I struggle with to this day.

ditto that dizie,still affected 25 yrs later and ds's too.

My brother and I used to play with Action Man and Sindy. Action Man would shout at Sindy to do something, Sindy would yell that she wasn't going to be talked to like that, and they'd have a huge fight. In order to get her legs/arms/head back, Sindy would have to apologise.

Neither my brother nor I have enjoyed a 'normal' relationship yet.

Oh Grace xx

Thanks, Mouseface :) I was trying to show that kids do 'tell', if you know how to hear them. 99% of the adults in our lives chose to see what was OK and ignore the 'tells'. They could have got us some help instead; we would have grown up differently.

But thank god for the 1%, eh.

I remember my baby ds led silently in his cot after ex had just broken in and given me a hiding-this was long after id left too-it absolutely DOES affect the children even if they arent directly witnessing it.Me and mt ds's have anger problems.
grace just wanted to say im very sorry for you and brother.I hope its not all bad for you xxxx

Hmm, itsall - would your children mention it to you if they saw you, for instance, making breakfast? Or driving the car? Or kissing your husband, or hugging him? Because they will take your relationship as being as normal and mundane as all those things - there's no reason they would notice anything as being out of place, if it's all they've ever known.

sorry but children do see and hear..

my dad was a violent man who physically abused both myself and my mum..They split when I was 6 but as a teen I went to live with him where he stepped up his abuse..

as a small child I would hear the shouting downstairs,night after night..I was frightened of him too..his favourite phrase was "Im going to thrash the living daylights out of you"

my mum told me recently that on one occasion he went to thump her and actually put his hand through the door

sadly she went from one abusive relationship to another..this one there is no violence, just control..my mum has no life and isnt even allowed to babysit my children without asking permission from my step dad.

I was 9 months pregnant when dh went ballistic over something quite trivial. He did not hit me, he had just "yanked" my arm, shouted and yelled. He smashed up the living room instead. I was really scared. I was covering on the staircase, sobbing, thankful that our 3 year old was asleep upstairs. Little did I know that he was scared in his bed, listening to all this, and that he was hiding up on the landing, watching the police take his father away. He still talks about this. Though I am not sure he remembers everything. I have not asked him.

Dh spent a day in a cell. Being pounded upon by a policeman throughout the day. The police man rang me regularly throughout the day, to chat to me, check up on me, and to update me about his conversations with my dh.

It honestly was the best thing I have ever done. He had always had a bit of a temper, but not ever done anything like that before. He realized just how much he was standing to lose. He was very meek when he got home. I told him in no uncertain terms that if he ever did this again I would call the police, again. He knows it is not an empty threat. He has more to lose than me.

Since then, every time he feels stressed, feels that he is about to erupt, he goes for a run, or to the gym, as he has realized it has nothing to do with me, and I should not have to suffer his moods/stresses. They are for him to deal with. And he does. This was 5 years ago, and I can honestly say we have a happy and solid marriage.

OP, your husband needs to learn to manage his anger and not take it out on you. It is not impossible to do so, but he has to ensure that he never as much as frighten you again. You should not live in fear of this repeating.

Next time it happens, dial 999 and get some help.