So it's not all in my head then:( (long)

[MerlotforOne]

Can't quite believe I'm writing this, but need to get it written down before I minimise it again.
This morning, DH and I both a bit tired, DS (3) acting up a bit. DH offered to take DS and dog for a walk so I could get some peace. DS was being difficult about getting his coat on and DH was acting as though his temper was getting strained. He muttered 'I don't work hard all week to come home to this!' And then pinned DS on the stone floor and wrestled him into his coat. DS was sobbing and I wanted to comfort him, bu DH snarled t me to go upstairs and let him get on with it. I would normally retreat at this point so as not to provoke him, but today I decided not to and stood m ground.

He asked me again to go and I said if he was upset he should take the dog out and clear his head, and leave DS with me. He said 'you really don't want to push me just now' and I asked why he was threatening me? He walked over and shoved me really hard through the doorway into the next room and onto the floor. DS saw this and ran over to me. We both somehow ended up upstairs and DH followed us up and stood there saying I was over-reacting as it was only a shove had provoked him so i deserved the shove.

I was crying and DS was upset and brought me his muslin and dummy . I refused to let DH touch me and he told me again I was overreacting and denied the comment about me deserving it, said I had made that up. He then took DS and went for the walk. I haven't been able to send being in the same room all day, but daren't leave in case he gets really angry and does something worse.

He has only physically assaulted me once before, 8 years ago on holiday, and was so drunk at that time that he passed out and claimed no memory of it. He can be grumpy and I feel I walk on eggshells and that I have to justify myself a lot. Since the incident 8 years ago, I've always backed down before he lost his temper, and fooled myself that he'd changed, but I discovered mumsnet 6m ago and have been reading a lot on this board and feeling increasingly uneasy that quite a lot f it applied to me.

He is not at all financially controlling, but was very jealous and quite controlling of my social life (back when I had one) and can be quite argumentative after a drink (not that he drinks much these days). He can also be loving and affectionate and we have long periods of time where everything seems fine, but I've been excusing his behaviour for a very long time and now there are really no excuses left.

Don't know what to do really. Thoroughly miserable and very confused.

Flatbread..

Math,

Don't know why you are being so aggressive. You can agree to disagree without being disagreeable, you know.

I think women walk on eggshells for multiple reasons. It could be a simple dislike of any unpleasantness or a tense atmosphere to actually fearing for their lives. To shout DV and tell OP to fear for her life is just too extreme a response in this case, IMO.

OP, glad that you are finding some strength through all this. I would think that for the marriage to really work, he would need to show you he is willing to change. And him talking openly to others and taking a lowers status work role, IMO, is an indication that he is doing more than just talk, at this point.

BUT he will slip, and if you are judging him and hostile about it, not sure how that will be beneficial to anyone. You have to be willing to stand up and tell him to shape up, but in a supportive way, iyswim. And that might be really hard if you ( and rightly so) bear a lot of anger and resentment for his past behaviour.

I think you probably have a good understanding of the person he is, and in a cold non-emotional way, if you are willing to live with the best he can be, warts and all, then it is probably worth giving it a second chance. He is simply not going to become a new person, just hopefully better at dealing with his personality.

Merlot, if you skip forward in the Lundy book, to the bit where it asks, can he be 'cured', you'll see that any support or understanding of him, any accompaniment of his process will be seen by him as proof that he was right to have acted as he did.

People like him have to lose it all, or truly see what IS at stake for them for it to make any dent on their status quo.

You need to tell him that you hope he can work it out, for himself, but that it's his journey and you can't be a part of it. You must detach ideally completely and leave him to it.

Only when he's better, and that'll take YEARS to evaluate will you consider allowing him close access to you.

You've lived on eggshells for 8yrs on the strength of ONE violent episode, the fear of it worked as far as he was concerned, until you stood up for your DS and then he had to remind you again :(

My concern is that he's scared you for almost a decade, if you go back to him, there will be a fear inside, that will sit there. I can't see how it couldn't be, and in a way you'll forever be wondering if you're managing things to keep him placated.

For now, for you, the most helpful stance to take is that it's over. So that you can free yourself from the past, strengthen yourself, heal, learn, grow. THEN see where you are.

You can always change your mind, but next time you'll have more background info, more knowledge, and you'll be more wary, more demanding, and more confident.

You know what the stakes are now.

Flat,

I also believe that the OP is an intelligent, well educated person and will make her own mind up over time and with reflection.

I do take issue with the formulaic approach on this board as if all bad relationships can be defined in a single way and they follow immutable (almost physical) laws and as if Lundy is the sole meaningful textbook on the subject, almost the Isaac Newton of abusive relationships. I hope and suspect that the OP will read Lundy with a scientifically critical eye and maybe read more than just one book on the subject (strangely, the only one ever recommended on this board, despite the fact there must be 100s).

There are clearly relationships which are as simple as one person being the guilty "abuser" and the other being the innocent "victim". There are many others which follow a far more complex (but still toxic) dynamic. My parents stayed together in a toxic relationship for over 20 years "for the sake of the children" and, until recently, I thought my father was basically an abuser and my mother the victim. However, when I look back and review it, although my father was physically abusive towards my mother 3-4 times over that 20 years (always when inebriated), my mother was certainly in no way frightened of him and verbally pressed all his buttons by rubbishing him and diminishing all his achievements in front of my brother and me. I just cannot see her purely in the role of victim and him purely as an abuser (although it is still shaded that way in my mind, just more like 70/30 than 100/0). It was a toxic relationship dynamic where both parties clearly got something out of it (though don't ask me what).

Equally, although it may generally be the case that DV escalates, there are clearly cases where it does not. Again, although people will claim otherwise, I am in no way excusing DV. I saw my mother the morning after he threatened her or put his handsaround her neck (he never hit her). Even 30-40 years later, I will never forget her face or her going out to buy a scarf to conceal the bruising (that was the time that ended the relationship). That does not mean I cannot see nuance or that relationships are not a dynamic between two people, and not merely one person being perfect and the other abusive. They are really not Newtonian and they really don't follow a script; they are each sui generis and should be judged on that basis. Ditto DV. I do not believe reductio ad absurdum arguments which equate one shove (or even a shouty argument) to repeated hospitalisations. And if this makes me a "DV apologist", so be it.

The OP needs to make up her own mind using her own knowledge (and, as a doctor, she is clearly well equipped) and feelings, not be shouted down by the hysterical majority nor need to apologise to this board if she eventually decides to work towards a better relationship and family dynamic together with her husband.

You've lived on eggshells for 8yrs on the strength of ONE violent episode, the fear of it worked as far as he was concerned, until you stood up for your DS and then he had to remind you again

What Hissy says here is spot on. The one time you stand up to him and his reaction is to push you over. If you continue to live together and stick up for yourself behaviour like this is your future.

I remember the day my now ex came to join me after we'd come home, he'd been away 8m.

In that time I'd recognised that I'd got agoraphobia and anxiety as a result of my experiences with him, I found MN and I was starting to realise that I did have a right to an opinion, that there were problems with the way things were in our relationship.

The day he came home he started trying to regain control, but snippets of MN played in my head, I knew it wasn't right, I stopped backing down.

Yes, it caused immense difficulty, no violence, but I calmly stated my position and as so much of the abusive fog had lifted, he in effect had lost control of me. I refused to give that up, and I maintained what the glorious nest of vipers had taught me.

I knew on that day 1, that we weren't going to last. Took just over a year for him to leave. It was the hardest thing I ever did, to let him go, but every second he's not here is a second that I grow, I love, laugh and heal.

My life now is better than it has ever been at any point in my life. I'm rediscovering normal life, normal people, kind people, it's so amazing.

You only need a bit of breathing space to see what's what. Please give youself that. The rest will just happen from there on in.

Hello Merlot

I was sorry to read your thread. Fwiw, think you did absolutely the right thing in moving out to have some thinking space and hope you take your time in deciding what to do next.

What happened the other day - and I believe you - sounds like an eruption after a prolonged period of seismic activity. It's not just you and DH is it, there's also DS to consider.

I don't have any pearls of wisdom to offer but good luck and take care.

Hi Merlot - I'm late to this thread. I absolutely think you did the right thing by moving out, and would very much agree with all those who've said you need a decent, sustained break from him while you clear your head and figure out what's best for your DS and you.

Good luck.

Larry - society always has, and continues, to condition women to seek relationships, feel as if they've failed of they don't have a relationship, and to stay and work at relationships that are failing.

Mumsnet is one of the very, very few place that says, 'you know what? Actually, you don't have to stay if you and your children are miserable. It's OK to leave. In fact, often it's best. If you don't want to be here in this situation, you don't have to be'.

This opens a lot of people's eyes.

It's great that you're able to come on here and be a virual loan voice in support of the OP's husband, but in actual fact, society supports the status quo, so it's only in the context of this forum (and others like it, I suppose) that you're the dissenter.

The stance that many Mumsnetters push - that you don't necessarily have to put up with shit relationships that make you miserable - is a minority one, so I wouldn't worry too much that the OP is being unduly influenced.

Again, Merlot - I hope you're getting the support you need, both from here and in real life.

exactly - in the grander scale larry is just the ever present normative voice saying put up, shut up, stop making a fuss, it was your fault, you shouldn't have got in his face, it's normal, you're exaggerating etc etc.

can honestly say i have NEVER had to physically restrain and shove clothes onto my child! wtaf? would you be ok with that being a strategy at nursery? school? in hospital?

there is no comparison, however you pretend, between calmly talking to your child whilst firmly putting their clothes on sat on your lap and pinning a child to the floor whilst shouting angrily about not having to come home to 'this' and forcing them into a coat whilst they are afraid and crying. why pretend that? it baffles me.

please don't minimise it OP - you remember what happened - your instincts responded rightly. please give yourself some time and space.

and if someone full of rage and on the brink of starting to physically assault people was telling me to put my coat on and go out for a walk with him i'd bloody well resist too! fair play to your ds and his normal, emotionally intelligent response - do not allow that to get drummed out of him.

oh and i'd look again at the title you chose for this thread and why.

*Larry - society always has, and continues, to condition women to seek relationships, feel as if they've failed of they don't have a relationship, and to stay and work at relationships that are failing.

Mumsnet is one of the very, very few place that says, 'you know what? Actually, you don't have to stay if you and your children are miserable. It's OK to leave. In fact, often it's best. If you don't want to be here in this situation, you don't have to be'.*

Damn right.

Larry, I disagree with much of what you've said. Yes I'm sure we've all had to force reluctant toddlers into clothes, but there's a world of difference between the parent like you and me who does this calmly, compassionately, and mindfully of the child's welfare, and the parent who 'loses it' and frightens the child because they're not in control of their own emotions.

Regarding the breathtakingly arrogant post of Mon 07-Jan-13 09:36:23:

Larry, why don't you take your battle against the hysterical women of MN to MNHQ and ask that Relationships be taken off the site. That way you won't have to see women sharing experiences and empowering each other to name abuse and see it for what it is.

It may come as a surprise to you that women don't need things explained to them the way you tend to explain them (sui generis? I'd lol if it wasn't so pathetic). But here is the gist of this post -- nobody needs you to mansplain domestic violence. Women can do that for ourselves.

Additionally, and since you seem to have this particular bee in your bonnet -- nobody has ever said that domestic abuse is a case of one person being perfect and the other being abusive. Domestic violence is about one person feeling entitled to hit the other or abuse the other in some other way. The victim doesn't need to be 'perfect' for abuse to qualify as abuse, any more than a rape victim needs to be a virgin in order for penetration without consent to be rape. Nobody is perfect. No relationship is perfect. All relationships are different. However, abuse always involves the belief that one person is entitled to abuse.

Right, now that everyone has done their personal critique of me in the third person....

Somerset,

"It's great that you're able to come on here and be a virual loan voice in support of the OP's husband, but in actual fact, society supports the status quo, so it's only in the context of this forum (and others like it, I suppose) that you're the dissenter"

I am not in any sense the husband's "supporter". Like you, I just don't know the full story. I support his right to parent independently without interference, which, given many other threads about fathers unwilling to do their fair share of parenting, seems reasonable enough. Only the OP and her husband know whether his putting on of the coat was done with aggression or was merely his way of making his toddler wear appropriate clothing. I don't think that lying fully clothed on a stone floor is abusive in itself...my two toddlers do it all the time on a purely voluntary basis.

All I have done is asked questions of the OP in order that she can make up her own mind. I think from her own posts that she will reach the right decision and, as far as anyone on an anonymous internet board can "support" anyone, I will support her in whatever decision she makes.

Swallowed,

"can honestly say i have NEVER had to physically restrain and shove clothes onto my child! wtaf? would you be ok with that being a strategy at nursery? school? in hospital?"

The confusion of a parent/child relationship with a carer/child relationship is one of the problems of today's society. Am I also expected to have posters on my walls showing my own children's key stage developments and what I am doing to help achieve them, my child protection policy, my discipline policy etc etc. A parent/child relationship is, thankfully, a unique one. Not many teachers/nurses will get up at 4AM to comfort a child who has had a nightmare or cuddle him in bed (that would probably get them sacked). As I said before, children need real and not ideal parents. I am not sure that the MN model of perpetually kind, calm, never flustered parents (if ever achievable) would actually be good for a child.

"and if someone full of rage and on the brink of starting to physically assault people was telling me to put my coat on and go out for a walk with him i'd bloody well resist too! fair play to your ds and his normal, emotionally intelligent response - do not allow that to get drummed out of him. "

Was it also an emotionally intelligent response from my 3.5 year old when he cried hysterically for 5 minutes when I forgot his Spiderman suit on an outing? He certainly thought that was abusive! Are we to use the lens of a toddler's ephemeral feelings to judge an adult's behaviour?

Math,

"Regarding the breathtakingly arrogant post of Mon 07-Jan-13 09:36:23:"

Pots and kettles come to mind....

Generally,

If as many say on this board, MN is merely providing a balancing voice to the normal societal bias, I think that anyone posting should be entitled to know that. Some people are too embarrassed to discuss sensitive issues in RL and thus this board becomes their only input. I am always surprised that so few are interested in gaining insight into peoples relationships by asking follow up open questions such as "how do you feel", "what do you really want" etc and prefer to go straight to a judgment which is almost always stated as some form of abuse.

Larry, excellent post. Totally agree with you.

blah blah blah larry

OP - i was thinking of you whilst reading something else this morning and wanted to say that i really, really think you need some positive time. we get ground down by these atmospheres and situations and negativity. just please have some good, positive time. surround yourself with people who love you and treat you well and make you happy in yourself. do things you love doing that you haven't done for ages. take advantage of being at your parents by having time to yourself to do stuff just for you. see old friends. go out, enjoy yourself and get time as 'you' rather than mummy, wife, doctor etc.

have time where you can forget about all of this and just be! see yourself as recovering and needing to be good and gentle to yourself. recharge your batteries.

maybe put off thinking and decisions until you've had a good long soak in some positivity and reminders of who you are.

take care of yourself.

Annnnnnyway... Best to ignore the sole, lonely and deluded fly in the ointment and get back to what's really important; Making sure the OP's not scared off her own thread by someone who frequently has his/her little axe to grind against those who really don't need it.

Please peeps, don't feed it?

Swallowed, that was very rude.

Frankly, some of the posts towards Larry border on bullying and I would suggest you take a good hard look at yourselves.

It is ok to disagree. It is not ok to be dismissive and rude to another poster.

How are you today, Merlot?

Oh god the shove was bad wnough and then reading about the controlling side of your relationship was really sad, get out now.

could you like go to your parents and tell, just go now, anywhere!.

Merlot

Is there any reason why he can't move out now and you and DS move back home?

I think it would be much better for you and DS to be at home, getting into your routines and settled. Your parents have been great, but there's surely no need for you and DS to be the ones uprooted.

H can go and stay with his wonderful parents or one of his friends.

I came home last night. H has gone to stay at his mum's for the time being. My parents have been fantastic and still said I could stay as long as I needed, but I could tell they were both exhausted (in their 60's and both have health problems).

Finding it harder than I anticipated to be back in the house. H being very gentle and solicitous and desperate to change and make amends. He is saying and doing all the right things. I am both furious and numb, if that makes any sense? I feel emotionally detached from him and, frankly, quite annoyed by his current trying too hard.

Friends and family, including my parents, keep saying ' well yes, it was really awful how he was treating you, but look how hard he's trying', so I feel under a lot of pressure to give him another chance. I've quoted Lundy at him, told him that after 'the shove', all bets are off and IF I choose to give him more of my time, that's entirely my choice. I've also told him that he could be the perfect husband from now on in and I still might never get over this.

" am both furious and numb, if that makes any sense?"

Makes perfect sense to me. After my initial split with exH (his instigation) we got back together briefly. Although I was initially happy and he seemed prepared to 'work on the relationship' within a week or two, having had the chance to look long and hard at the man with fresh eyes, I decided he was not worth it and we split for good. I despised him, in fact.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if you reach the same sort of conclusion. Ignore 'pressure'. This is your life, not theirs.

Merlot I am glad you are back home.
I can understand how H 'being good' is annoying; it's not being adult about it is it? He's behaving like a naughty child who doesnt really understand the seriousness of what has happened and just wants everything back as it was. Which is never going to happen, is it?

You are entitled to better support from 'friends and family'. More along the lines of 'you do whatever is best for you'.
The thing is, other people want it all to go back as it was, also, not just H.
It's easier for them, if you dont shake up the status quo. Everybody can go on with their relationships to both you and H unchanged.
Unfortunately, this is when you will find out a lot about your friends and family also. You will discover who are truely the people who back you up, unconditionally.
It's easy for me to say, at the other end of a screen, but dont take the pressure to have him back, They dont have to live with him.

You are being fabulously strong. Dont underestimate that.