"Daddy dropped me on the floor"

[gladiolus]

I have been having some problems with my dh - we're going to relationship counselling after he admitted he needed help. He can be verbally abusive and manipulative, twisting my words to mean something other. I can give as good as I get in return, but I would rather not have to, KWIM?

I've been on the verge of leaving him so many times, but this takes the biscuit.

My youngest dd is 4.5 and when I met my dh she was not quite 1, so she thinks of him as her daddy. She can be very willful and is testing her boundaries at the moment.

Last night she was being an absolute PITA, refusing to put her colouring pencils away at bedtime and basically having a tantrum. After we had given her repeated chances and warnings, my dh finally picked her up bodily and carried her upstairs, saying she was going to bed with no story and no song as punishment for her behaviour.

So far, no problem, she really was being a little madam and I had smacked her bottom. I know some people don't agree with smacking, but that's another discussion.

Anyway, when they got upstairs to her bedroom I heard a big thump and a cry from her. I am familiar with my dd's cries, this one was her "You hurt me cry" but her "I fell over and hurt myself" cry, which is totally different. I hear the "you hurt me" cry when I smack her bottom and when I accidentally pull her hair when I'm brushing it (she has very long curly hair and it gets knotty easily - I do try not to pull but now and again it happens).

The point is, this one was definitely the "you hurt me" cry, it had that undertone of accusatory aggrievedness in it.

My first thought was, "OMG, he's dropped her on the floor," as that is exactly what it sounded like. Then he started yelling at her to get undressed. She still needs a it of help getting undressed so I went upstairs to help her as it wasn't fair for him to yell at her to do something she can't do.

So, we got her to bed and she went quite docilely, no protests at all.

After, I asked him plainly what the noise was I had heard and he said she had thrown herself to the floor after he'd put her down.

But this morning when I was getting her ready for school, I didn't put words in her mouth at all, I simply asked her, "Last night, when Daddy took you upstairs, what happened?"

And she instantly replied, "Daddy dropped me on the floor."

I know sometimes children can be aggravating and she really was at her worst last night, but this is really too much, isn't it?

I haven't spoken to him yet. I took her to nursery this morning and went for a run and he's still in bed.

Verbal is as bad as physical. Sorry.

I was actually asking bumbleymummy .

I agree with your posts youarehere.

Those are in abusive relationships are also more likely to project their own experiences onto others.

The OP has said that they not argue in front of the children so they are not exposed to the verbal abuse (which they are currently dealing with anyway). She has accepted that last night didn't go well (as has her DH) and I don't think anyone can ever claim to have never lost their temper with their children and messed up how they should (and normally) deal with a situation.

I'm not saying that the OP is completely blameless or that the DH should win father of the year for last night's performance but some of you just seem to love dragging at every little thing, pulling apart their relationship and twisting everything based on one incident that the OP recognised herself as not being dealt with well.

I am not getting into a debate about verbal vs physical abuse. I just want to point out that the verbal abuse is not directed at the child and the fact that he was/can be verbally abusive does not automatically mean that he is/ would be physically abusive towards the 4yo. They are having counselling for the verbal abuse and only the OP can make the decision about whether that is working and whether she wants to continue with the relationship.

A child that lives in a house where domestic abuse is taking place is deemed as being directly abused themselves.

They are absorbing AS much harmful poisonous abuse as the victim is, even if they are in the next room or asleep.

Not arguing in front of the kids makes no difference to what they suffer, verbal abuse will NEVER heal.

Actually PHYSICAL violence is easier to recover from, bruises heal all by themselves, the scars of emotional violence doesn't.

OP has said he's manipulative, verbally insults her, shouts both at her and the kids, and that the DD is scared. that's enough, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that there is an unhealthy and abusive dynamic going on here.

scars of emotional violence don't

Yes, smacking is a form of physical abuse (imo - I know there are those who disagree).

I think the OP had retreated from the smack, calmed herself and had tried to restore the situation to a semblance of control and predictability though (through using the simmer down step) at the time the OP carried the DD off.

It seems to me that the very fact that the OP uses the simmer down step says that smacking is not her go-to method and that she was getting the situation back to relative calm. It seems to me also that the DH should have respected that, and that is the point where the incident stopped being purely about the DD and how to handle her, and started being about the broader relationship.

However, I infer from the OP's knowledge of various different cries of her DD's that smacking is sometimes carried out here (as well as hair-related hurting of the DD - look up curly girl method of hair taming, OP) and I think the remark of a pp that this in a way gives the DH the green light to contribute his own physical force was spot on.

I also think that when there is one individual who is in competition with another for authority over the children, children will tend to tune out whoever seems to be the quieter and least likely to go ballistic. In this case, the DH comes across as harsh and inclined to be the one who holds the firmest line in the sand. It would be hard for children growing up in such an environment not to be affected by that. The person with the strongest ambition to rule by fear will eventually get his way in a home; in order to compete at all, the other adult is often faced with the perceived necessity to 'raise her game' (perhaps by more shouting, more smacking than she ever thought she would do, less inclination to brush hair gently, less inclination to catch the children being good) or risk being ignored by the children. Everyone is eventually affected by the controlling individual.

"some of you just seem to love dragging at every little thing, pulling apart their relationship and twisting everything based on one incident that the OP recognised herself as not being dealt with well."

I have not seen anyone doing that.

I have seen many posters coming to the same conclusion though because they recognise the markers of abuse.

I actually disagree with you HH because I think it very much depends on the circumstances and the extent of the verbal/physical abuse. People who have been killed by their partner hardly 'heal' do they.

OP, I hope you get the help you need. Unfortunately I don't necessarily think that will come from MNers on the relationship board. There are too many people dealing with their own problems here who like to project them on to others. Good luck with you counselling and whatever you decide to do. I hope bedtime went better for you tonight.

Bumblemummy, verbal abuse doesn't have to be directed at the child to affect him or her, just as physical abuse doesn't have to be inflicted on everyone in order to affect everyone.

Oh my goodness, some of you are just beyond ridiculous with all the conclusions that you jump to! Aka, I suggest you read back over your own posts and have a little think about projection.

Personally I would disagree one is not always worse than the other both leave emotional scars that last forever. As a dv survivor, i can attest the physical and emotional are as bad as eachother. Physical abuse leaves physical and emotional scars. Are we saying as the child is subject to ea the pa doesn't matter? Because in your opinion ea is worse? Its a bad situation when one type of abuse is ok to be ignored because the child is suffering a worse abuse. I am not saying the child should be removed from the home. I am saying to all the people that think the op should kick her dh out right now to save the children are ignoring the fact that the op is just as guilty. People are inventing 'facts' to support the fact that the dH is definitely physically abusing the child when there is no proof.
surely if one parent should be removed both should or both parents should be given the opportunity and support to change. Which they have started doing. I think the op needs to work on the smacking issue though as well as the dh working on the his issues.

I'm aware of that math, the OP herself said that they would obviously pick up on atmosphere but verbally abusive to mother (which he admits and is getting counselling for) does not translate to physically abusive to the child - a jump which some of you just seem too eager to make.

Are you saying if it doesn't kill you then it can't be all that bad? Or that a child is capable of perceiving extenuating circumstances?

No, math, I'm not saying that but I'm not surprised that you would read and translate it that way give what other crap interpretations have come out on this thread.

Yet the OP herself who is "on the ground" so to speak suspected that his abuse of her child was physical, that he had made the jump from verbal to physical that is why she started the thread. From what the OP posted I don't think it's a particularly illogical conclusion.

There is no jump involved here. What the OP has described is a situation where she herself has become caught up in an escalating physical response to the DD, which troubles her, and an incident where her instinct told her this man had committed a violent act in anger.

There is a huge leap in your own perceptions, from 'this man has been verbally abusive to the point where a woman with two small children wanted to strike out on her own in the world' to 'he wouldn't physically abuse a child' despite the fact that a situation was changed completely by his brusque physical intervention, and that the OP came upon a scene where her child was being treated harshly and humiliated by him.

Math that is clearly not what she said. Its not even nearly what she said.

Yes dears

Thank you, youarehere.

If the abusive H is removed the OP will be in a better place to parent. He IS abusive, the family ARE suffering.

H is not getting counselling for DV, THEY are doing joint counselling which is contraindicated where abuse is present in the relationship.

Joint counselling will destroy her, not help her.

Meanwhile his abuse will continue, his techniques will be refined and the children are exposed to it day in and day out.

Verbal abuse is so destructive because it's invisible, The victim doesn't see the harm it does, so it goes unchecked and seeps into their psyche for years, decades even, it chips away at the very soul, crippling the victim. It cripples and destroys everyone it comes into contact with. Children grow up believing what their mothers are told/believe.

No, physical violence is not acceptable, ever but how many threads do we see on here, how many of us have said "but it's not that bad, he's never hit me, or he doesn't hit me much/any more." He's a great dad.

Well whoop de do - this guy is NOT a great father, AND now he's apparently physically dropped a small child, an under 5 on the floor, on purpose. ADD this to what the OP has said about how he treats HER....

There is no other option than to call it a day for her sake and that of her children. She may not be ready now, but tbh, when your child is dropped on the floor, what else is there to wait for? If she chooses to fall for this BS now, the realisation when it comes that her instincts were right and her baby was hurt even for a second, it will cut her heart to ribbons.

I think the point that the OP was concerned enough about the potential implications of this incident to post, means that there probably is genuinely something for her to be worried about.

OP, I'd really urge you to get individual counselling- speaking from experience, joint counselling was useless, and any progress I made was achieved through the help and support provided by a really good counsellor.

I wish you the best of luck. You really don't owe it to anyone to try and repair a broken relationship with a verbally abusive man. Rather, you owe it to your dc's to raise them in a calm, safe and healthy environment.

OP clearly smacking a child is violent, it's not a different issue it's extremely relevant to this situation.