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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

"Daddy dropped me on the floor"

441 replies

gladiolus · 22/05/2012 10:19

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.

OP posts:
bumbleymummy · 22/05/2012 21:19

Happyhissy - generalising much?

Also, "he's apparently physically dropped a small child, an under 5 on the floor, on purpose."
we don't know that at all.

akaemmafrost · 22/05/2012 21:21

And we don't know it WASN'T bumbleymummy you are doing exactly the same as everyone else on this thread, only with an opposite viewpoint!

Sheesh, pot, kettle and black.

youarehere · 22/05/2012 21:21

Hissy you know th op will be a better parent? Is that a fact? No its not is it
either both parents should be removed or both helped and supported. You are making assumptions. If a man said he smacked his child because his wife wound him would be pulled to bits and rightly so. It seems as its a woman is not abuse to smack a child, its the pressure the womans husband putting on here. Can you not see the hypocrisy. The op should control herself. She has taken responsibility and now needs to work on it. Also you can not tell from the posts he has physically abused her. The op doesn't know so how can any of us know.

bumbleymummy · 22/05/2012 21:23

It's less likely that he didn't than he did aka. Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty?

bumbleymummy · 22/05/2012 21:23

More likely that he didn't than he did *

akaemmafrost · 22/05/2012 21:28

Um why is it less likely?

The op suspected he did.

The op says he is verbally abusive and manipulative.

The dd said Daddy hurt her.

The oldest dd does not like him.

He admits his behaviours can be abusive.

He will not praise his kids

The op has considered leaving him quite a few times because of his abusive behaviours

The op has to fight to not "let" him take control when he tries to which apparently he seems to. He certainly took control of the situation with HER dd didn't he?

Anything I missed? That is all information provided by the OP.

bumbleymummy · 22/05/2012 21:51

None of it = he threw his 4 yo daughter down,

He is no history of physical abuse towards the OP or her daughters and it hadn't occured to the OP that she may have wriggled out of his grip (which sounds like what happened from the DHs description). The DD has no bruises or marks to suggest that she fell from a height. You're making quite a strong allegation based on very little actual evidence so it pretty much boils down to jumping to conclusions.

bumbleymummy · 22/05/2012 21:52

You've also twisted and stretched things a bit for your own agenda there but hey ho! It's only someone's life you're talking about here.

akaemmafrost · 22/05/2012 21:56

Twisted and stretched? Bollocks.

I have written it all as it appears in the thread apart from the last point.

akaemmafrost · 22/05/2012 22:00

What is my agenda btw? You seem adamant that I have one.

mathanxiety · 22/05/2012 22:01

Why is it less likely that he didn't, given what the OP has told us about him?

If there is no history to make the OP believe the H threw or dropped the DD on purpose, then why was that the first thing she suspected? Why did it not occur to her until a few posts on this thread that she might have wriggled and somehow got loose from his grip?

bumbleymummy · 22/05/2012 22:10

Aka, I don't know if you have an agenda but you just seem unhealthily obsessed with finding flaws in someone else's relationship and accusing someone of maliciously hurting a child based on very limited information. The OP is obviously satisfied that her child was not intentionally hurt or in danger otherwise she would have left but you still keep banging on about it. It's hardly helpful.

Math, the op said there was no history of physical violence.

ibuyjaffacakesnow · 22/05/2012 22:11

Yes it's someone's life. That's why some of us are so concerned over the markers of abuse.

What the OP decides to do does not hinge on whether the dh did or did not drop the dd on purpose. If he definately did, it would make the decision easier. If he didn't, it doesn't mean everything is ok then.

The OP has thought of leaving before, so it's not as if strangers on the internet have put the idea that he is abusive into her head.

youarehere · 22/05/2012 22:12

Math has a point. Although I don't think that makes it more likely he has done this. I think it points to the ops feelings toward the dh. She clearly doesn't trust him, his judgment, or his explanations. Given what the op has said I understand that. However that is the ops perception of her dh, not proof. The op may be right and he has but equally given the past she may be reading more into than is there.

akaemmafrost · 22/05/2012 22:12

Actually I am bored to tears with this. I don't seek to convince you to perceive this situation as I do unlike you I am only responding to your accusations of agenda pushing and projection and getting some weird enjoyment out of the op's situation.

I find your fanatical defence and total unwillingness to acknowledge the possibility, given the information provided by the OP, that the H could well have deliberately thrown his daughter down quite disturbing actually.

bumbleymummy · 22/05/2012 22:14

It doesn't mean everything is ok (they are having counselling) . People seem to want to convince her that he did do it intentionally though - maybe to force her to leave? Who knows! I'm pretty sure none of their 'evidence' for a physical assault against a child would stand up in court though.

bumbleymummy · 22/05/2012 22:16

Well I find your blinkered idea that he MUST have deliberately thrown his daughter down based on pretty much zero evidence very disturbing too.

bumbleymummy · 22/05/2012 22:18

I agree youarehere, the suspicion obviously suggests trust issues and it's up to the OP what to do with that.

akaemmafrost · 22/05/2012 22:26

Wow, really? I couldn't tell Wink.

I think the OP shouldn't smack her kids. I think her DH is abusive. I think there is a real possibility, given the info provided by the OP that he physically hurt her child.

That is all really.

ImperialBlether · 22/05/2012 22:36

Let's take whether he dropped her or she wriggled and fell out of the equation.

Your eldest child doesn't like him. Why would you have married a man who was disliked by your child, who was going to have to live with him?

You know he's verbally abusive and manipulative. Did you not worry about your children living with a man who is like that?

I don't like this man. He's a bully and he uses his size and his weight and your fear of him to control your child.

Not all marriages are worth saving. If you left him, I guarantee you would feel so light and unencumbered, you would feel as though you were on holiday. Oh and your children would be happy. Can you imagine how happy they would be if you said you were going to leave him?

BurningBridges · 22/05/2012 23:51

I'm confused, why does bumbleymummy keep saying the OP said there was "no history of physical violence"? I thought earlier in the thread the OP said a couple of times that husband had hit her?

ImperialBlether · 22/05/2012 23:55

I've done a search on 'hit' and couldn't find anything that the OP said about being hit.

cestlavielife · 22/05/2012 23:58

Your older dd does not like him?
He displays unpleasant behaviours.

You only staying in order to see if counselling works? And if it doesn't ?
How will you measure that ?
You have been with him only three years right ?
Not v long...

Could you separate live apart and do the counselling thing . But preferably some individual counselling .

And if he isn't even doing the counselling "homework" then you ain't gonna get anywhere....

The time of bedtime - well why was he getting so irate when it was only a few minutes after usual going up stairs time ? And not yet her going to sleep time ? Makes no sense.

NannyPlumIsMyMum · 23/05/2012 00:06

Small children regardless of their behaviour at bedtime , IMO , should always end the day on a positive note.

I don't agree with taking away a bedtime routine as punishment.

And you consider that she may have been dropped but you didn't check for bruises?

Do you think your expectations of her are a little high ?
She is punished for not tidying up when she is probably very tired.
Do you always tidy up before you go to bed?
And then in being punished she is denied the comfort of a bedtime routine.

Children need to know that at the end of every day , regardless of what has happened, that you love them unconditionally.

Whatnamethistime · 23/05/2012 00:10

I have read the OP and this last page, a person who smacks their child enough that she recognises her "you hurt me cry", has issues of her own, sounds like she needs to look at her own behaviour.

I am not anti smacking, but my 4 year old, doesnt have a "you hurt me" cry, because no-one deliberately hurts him.