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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

I need urgent advice

51 replies

heavenlylily · 24/12/2011 00:10

Ok, i'm in bed. Tonight my husband hit me in the cheek (not too hard) and kicked me in the leg, hard enough for me to still feel it now. It will leave a bruise. He's not done this before but has been verbally aggressive towards me frequently, including shouting at me in front of the kids. Tonight's show was because we were having friends around and the house was a bit untidy. He said he was stressed.
He's got 4 anger management books in his beside table. He knows he has a problem. He's apologised for tonight. We still had our friends round as if nothing has happened. It's effing Christmas, I need to be there for the kids ( 2 and 4). I don't want this to continue. What do I do????? Please help. In tears now, know he will come up soon saying sorry, know he doesn't want to be like this but don't know how to handle this now.

OP posts:
Liluri · 24/12/2011 00:50

heavenlylily, you have to show your husband that you will not tolerate ANY kind of physical abuse.

Ever.

Please contact the police and make sure a record is made of this assault.

If you don't make it clear to your husband that you will not be complicit in keeping his behaviour a secret (and you have already spent the evening acting as if everything is OK in front of your friends Sad) then it will happen again.

You don't need to panic, but you do need to take action to protect yourself and your children.

Self help books are no use to your husband at this point - he is paying lip service to controlling his anger, and you deserve better than that.

BertieBotts · 24/12/2011 00:50

No, no counselling. Any decent counsellor won't see you as a couple anyway once there has been abusive behaviour, because counselling can act as a vehicle for abusers to up their game, they lie in the sessions and then turn it all on you later on. Sorry :(

If he has any therapy he must do it himself, alone, and off his own back. If you have to persuade him into it then there's a (rather likely) danger he will agree to it when he's in his apologetic, would do anything phase, and then after one or two sessions will decide that either it's pointless/rubbish and they don't understand him/he will refuse to open up and then be proud that they can't "figure him out". Or he will insist he is miraculously cured within a suspiciously short number of sessions and that he doesn't need it any more. And then with either of these he will hold it up forever, "I went to counselling, it didn't work/I'm fixed now, what more do you want me to do" etc, leaving you feeling unreasonable and unable to come up with a decent answer which isn't going to provoke another verbal or physical attack.

GypsyMoth · 24/12/2011 00:51

You say you wouldn't let him hit your kids. I wonder, how would you stop him?

He started off verbally, he has upped it now a step. I have been there, many of us here have. You split, he has the kids unsupervised for access

However, if you are savvy now, you will call police, get it logged, and then have some PROOF to show he can't have those kids unsupervised.

No police= no control

Original poster
heavenlylily · 24/12/2011 00:51

Am in spare room now, not that he's noticed or is likely to notice. Thanks for all your advice and support. I'm going to call my parents in the morning and get over to them. He won't l

OP posts:
GypsyMoth · 24/12/2011 00:52

Counselling? Thor what? You can't change him

Original poster
heavenlylily · 24/12/2011 00:53

Sorry so knackered not texting right. Meant to say he won't like it but I feel mOre prepared now. Thanks again.

OP posts:
BertieBotts · 24/12/2011 00:54

Are you on a computer? (Not a phone?) If so, look at this and click on the "Look Inside" preview. After the foreword and the preface, on the first page of the actual content of the book is a checklist about whether you are in a verbally abusive relationship.

www.amazon.co.uk/Verbally-Abusive-Relationship-Recognize-Respond/dp/1558505822

BertieBotts · 24/12/2011 00:55

Good plan :) What are you planning to do when you get there?

Winkly · 24/12/2011 00:58

He hit you in the cheek - "not too hard". For goodness sake - how hard
is too hard?!?! You NEED to report this criminal, you need out of this dangerous situation.

Counselling will not help. His bloody books didn't help! And as Bertie says, no halfway decent counsellor will touch an abusee and abuser together with a barge pole.

Evaluate. Report. Leave.

HoHoHoudini · 24/12/2011 00:59

His not asking you if you are OK is a classic I'm afraid.

he's normalising this already. Brushing it under the carpet.

my love, whether he eventually hits the DC or not, them just being in a house where there is even emotional/verbal abuse is categorised as them being directly abused. This man has HIT YOU and KICKED YOU.

You MUST make a stand. you need to gather all your strength and go to the Drs, get it logged and you need to file a report. If I were you I'd move to the spare room too.

Original poster
heavenlylily · 24/12/2011 00:59

I am going to log this with the police. I know it's the right thing to do for my children. You're right, how would I stop him if he was angry enough to go for them?? you've all been so supportive, thanks for all your advice.

OP posts:
BertieBotts · 24/12/2011 01:02

Good luck, Lily. I'm glad that you have decided to make this step. Don't forget to take pictures, even if you don't use them - for your own records if nothing else.

This is another excellent book: The Verbally Abusive Man, Can He Change?

catherinea1971 · 24/12/2011 01:05

I'm pleased that you are going to log this, hope that you are doing so now.
When you say he hasn't got physical with you before, has he shoved you, prevented you leaving the room, raised his fists to you before in the past?

ScarlettIsWalking · 24/12/2011 01:10

It sounds like he will get worse. All the anger management is a bit pointless if he is directing violence at you who he sees as vulnerable and not random drivers or men on the street. You are the focus of his rage, it's personal.

That sit down dinner must have been agony for you. Don't live like this and teach your children this is the norm. You deserve better.

SolidGoldStockingFilla · 24/12/2011 01:12

Good luck in getting away from this shitbag. Remember it's his fault that he's not having a nice family Christmas. HE CHOSE to hit you. He doesn't hit his work colleagues, or kick them. He doesn't punch shop assistants or people in the street. He thinks he's entitled to beat you, and and he also thinks he's entitled to hit DC, because as far as he's concerned you and DC are not people, you're appendages/objects that he owns and can do what he likes with. If there were, ever, to be any chance of repairing this relationship the least you should ask for would be for him to leave the family home, take an anger management/domestic violence perpetrator course and stay away for at least a year. But he won't do that. They never do.

Original poster
heavenlylily · 24/12/2011 01:20

God I know its not the norm, I feel like a terrible mum for letting it get yo this point. He has not hit before but had shoved and been very in my face shouting, literally millimetres away. He's also thrown things at me. It sound so awful now when writing it out, I suppose I've always thought it wouldn't come to this. he has always had an excuse: I'm too laid back, too indecisive, in truth I've become much more uptight and impatient than I ever used to be and I can see its him thats made me this way. I'm v v tired now. Going to try and get some sleep so please don't think I'm rude if don't reply. I really do appreciate all your support, have not felt so cared for in a long time. I'll let you all know how I get on . X

OP posts:
ChippingInLovesChristmasLights · 24/12/2011 01:28

I hope you do log this with the police tomorrow - I know it's a busy day, but you need to do it. I also hope that you do go to your parent as well. It's sad that a few posts on here make you feel more cared about than you have in a long time (I mean it's good - but it's sad too) - go to your parents, let them be there for you x

HoHoHoudini · 24/12/2011 01:32

Sweetheart, you are NOT a terrible mum.
You are a woman who is trying to navigate a swamp.

Please read Lundy Bancroft's book 'Why Does He Do That?' It'll really help you see that this is actually NOTHING to do with you.

catherinea1971 · 24/12/2011 01:32

Don't feel like a bad mum, it's normal to try and forget and explain away these behaviours because you don't want them to be true do you?
Logging this with the police and going to your mum's is a good idea, you can make it out to be a treat to the little ones. x

SolidGoldStockingFilla · 24/12/2011 01:38

Look, shitty men often escalate at Christmas. Because they are aware of the belief that 'abuse happens at Xmas (because men are ever so stressed because their wives are doing a double load of domestic work and emotional servicing and funnily enough are often less interested in letting their husbands have sex on them)'. Shitty abusive men love the idea that their abusive behaviour is somehow natural and normal BUT IT IS NOT.

catherinea1971 · 24/12/2011 08:45

How are you feeling this morning Heaven?

joblot · 24/12/2011 09:37

Just want to add my virtual support to you, his behaviour is absolutely not your fault.

Good luck with it, and please talk to someone you trust in real life if you can.

neuroticmumof3 · 24/12/2011 17:13

Hope you're ok OP. You should throw away his anger management books. He doesn't have a problem with anger management. He has a problem with being a controlling and abusive twunt. And forget couple counselling, it's not appropriate with an abuser. He's highly unlikely to change, domestic abuse tends to escalate rather than reduce and now he's broken the boundary by physically assaulting you it's likely to happen again. Don't listen to his excuses about stress, or it being your fault. He is responsible for what he did and any consequences. If you get an opportunity ring Women's Aid and see if there are any local domestic abuse services that can support you.

ItsMeAndMyPuppyNow · 24/12/2011 17:29

If you "will do anything to protect the kids" then please prepare your exit plan. Even if they are not being called names or struck, they are already being deeply harmed by watching your interactions and learning from them.

Police and Women's Aid should be your first ports of call today. Be strong and be safe.

foolonthehill · 24/12/2011 20:17

I put up with it for 14 years nearly, eventually he did it to the kids tooo. Don't stay for the children, don't stay because he has never done it before, don't stay because it is Christmas. Go, Go, Go. If he wants to change he can go to a perpetrators course and change without you there, he won't bother if you don't stand up for yourself.

STAY SAFE op

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