DH aggressive with DD

[aprilrain]

There have been 3 physical incidents:

1. About 2 years ago (she was 2yo) she was going through a biting phase. She bit his chest and he pulled her off by her hair. Caused pain and upset.

2. Last year (just turned 4) she was jumping around him in bed while he was trying to lie in. He told her to stop. She carried on. He smacked her on her back, without warning, because he was "tired and irritable".

3. Last night, getting ready for bed, she was wiggling her bum at him (4yo humour) and he was getting annoyed because she wiggled it in his face. He pushed her away (looked more like a throw to me but I didn't see properly), she went flying onto the bed, landing on our 10 month old baby, hurting both of them. (Baby has a small bruise today).

I had serious words with him after each incident. He feels very bad about no3 and did apologise to DD. But as for 1 and 2 he still to this day defends his actions. He seems to think that a "short sharp shock" is a necessary part of parenting. I couldn't disagree more. I'm not a perfect parent and I do lose my temper but I believe in calm parenting.

In his everyday interactions with her, he is often shouty, sarcastic and dismissive of her feelings. He has (out of her earshot) described her to me as "a little bitch" and "a knobhead". He has said he doesn't like her. He doesn't really play with her or do activities - if he's in charge (rare) he puts the tv on and gets on with his own stuff. We only do family stuff if instigated by me.

He can also be very kind, loving and a lot of fun - jokes, silliness, tickles etc.

I'm really worried about the impact his aggressiveness will be having on DD. And I'm worried that he's going to be the same with DD2 once she's past the baby stage.

Basically, I think he's a rubbish parent. But he won't listen to me. And I seem to be constantly criticising him, which he puts up with but takes no notice of. He says his parents were like this and it's done him no harm.

Am I being too controlling? Or are my concerns valid?

This is horrible to read. Your poor children. You need to do something woman, by doing nothing you are just enabling him to ABUSE your daughter. Can you see that? Defend your children please.

LittleBo - are you seriously saying the OP should stay with her abusive husband because he might get unsupervised acces?

Hello, this is the future calling. Your daughter's abusive partners would like to thank her father for training her up to be the perfct victim and you for teaching her how to minimise and accept being treated as an annoyance and receptacle for a man's neative feelings.

The fact that he would never treat you this way because you'd stand up to him but will treat her like this because she is a tiny, powerless child who sees him as one half of her whole world is not a good thing, you know. It's absolutely sickening, far worse than him hitting you but not hitting her, in fact (not that that would ever be okay, obviously). He is choosing to target someone vulnerable and in thrall to him; how low does a person have to sink to even think of that as an option?

As for saying that it did him no harm to have been parented like that, well, the mind boggles, it really fucking does. I adore the bones of my DH, I cannot imagine even being aprt from him for a month, but if he was like this with our child and told me he hated him, he would be out of the door for good quicker than it took to choose what to have for breakfast, to use Hecate's analogy. At the very least, he needs to be out of the home and having extensive counselling. It is just not normal to openly talk to your partner about how you hate your child and call them vile names, never mind the actual abuse directed at her. The whole atmosphere for her and for DD2, evenif she is too young to make any sense of it, must be chokingly toxic and damaging. To let him stay and have things as they are makes you collusive in his abuse. You are not a bad mother on your own, but by not acting, you become his fellow abuser. You cannot put your feelings and history above your Dc's needs.

In that case it's all very depressing and unless there is a drastic change in circumstances it's seems inevitable that there will be a re occurence and even escalation - alcohol added to the mix wont help. The OP has a choice but I feel very sorry for the DDs as even if they avoid injury during one of these outbursts emotionally they will be harmed and it all seems very bleak. Not doubting for a minute that they are much loved by the OP and hopefully she will do her best by them to keep them safe physically and mentally.

Write down your ultimatum, leave it a day and look at it again, sleep on it to see if you want to change anything in it and put down all your points. Give him the chance to be the loving parent he can be that you say he has been. He needs to know what you are thinking and what you are planning to do. have your plans worked out; where you might go if he does anything again. Bear in mind that stuff happens and don't overreact at the slightest thing, but if something dangerous happens you are in charge.

He did not say those things within her hearing. He was letting off steam to me. I was utterly shocked however. But that makes it worse, if possible. Because he didn't say it in the heat of the moment, he said it on reflection afterwards using terrible terminology. To describe his little girl.

Add to this the drinking and the fact he's only just holding on to a job he's talking of quitting after being unemployed and i can't think of any positives. I don't know what kind of childhood he had and how his parents communicated with him and each other but i would think not very well, by the sounds of things.

I'm sorry. Hope you can find good advice and help to break away.

I worked in SS for 4 years and this is child abuse, which seems to be escalating. If your child goes to school and one day they notice bruises on her and it continues.

SS or the police will not sit and listen to you about how you thought it could be dealt with etc you will be held just as accountable. Then there is the possibility that your children will be removed from you as well and you will have to go through months if not years of assessment and court cases before you are allowed your children back again.

Personally he would have been out of that house the moment the first incident took place.

You need to seriously come to the realisation that you are living with a timebomb who has no hesitation in hurting your children or any remorse.

I think some of you are being unecessarily unkind.

April is fully aware her husband's behaviour is unacceptable and searching for ways of dealing with it.

April, I have been where you are, i posted here in november 2005 about how my then husband had kicked my 7 year old son for some trivial misdemeanour. I had a very similar response to you, including from atilla, i wasn't ready to hear it or act on it. I think I thought he would SEE this was not ok - and mend his ways. He sadly did not and the next time he threw my 4 year old threw a dooor calling him 'fucking evil'. I did leave him over that one, and reported him to the police - but stupidly took him back 6 months later. He promised he had changed. Sadly he had not because deep down, he didn't think he had done ANYTHING WRONG. I finally kicked him out for more abusive behaviour in August 2010 and the kids and I have not looked back. He has supervised access at present as his temper is still uncertain.

I agree with you you don't have to leave tonight; but please think about what you can do, and what your boundaries are. Think about what he feels about YOU ? Can you influence him enough to make him understand what he is doing is WRONG ? Can you make him understand that talking this about his own daughter is really BAD for her self esteem ?

Take care of yourself and your kids - in the end you may need to act for the kids _ including involving te police. They were amazingly kind and helpful to me and believed every word I said. The fact that i HAD that contemporaneous police report about his child abuse * because that is what it was - and is for you too Im afraid) was also very very useful...

The SS will not 'take the kids away from you' - thats bullshit, unless you refused to protect your children AFTER they became involved.

Keep posting April. Its easy to be scared away by all the sactimoneous LTB brigade.. I understand its not that easy when is you whole LIFE we are talking about. But if he cannot change, you will find your respect and love for him will be compromised, and in the end it will bean easy decision to leave, Would he understand if you told him that ?

When my youngest son was 2, I left him with his dad while I went shopping. When I came home I was told by DS1 that while the dad was crashed out on the sofa ds2 had raided the cupboard and taken a bag of flour into the garden and was playing with it. When his dad discovered this he went and smacked him so hard that an hour and a half later he still had the hand print on his leg.

There had been other incidences with DS1 but nothing I knew about until recently. He had also been emotionally abusing me.

At this point I started looking into leaving him.

I also told him that if he ever did it again I would call the police myself.

Now DS2 is 7 and hasn't seen his dad since he was 3 and DS1 told me some stuff that his step dad did to him.

It's a very easy decision to make. I am the only one who can protect my kids from arseholes.

I have been single for 4 years, with a minor blip at the beginning of last year. I am also in the process of doing the freedom programme because I seem to attract arseholes and there is no way I want to put my kids in that situation again.

Sanctimonious?..

Just to sweep away a couple of assumptions - I do stick up for my DD. I defend her all the time. She knows this. I am not complicit. I have a go at DH all the bloody time for how he treats DD. She sees me sticking up for her.

Another one - these threads are like chinese whispers - he didn't say he hated her. He said he didn't like her. And he didn't say it to her. He said it to me out of her earshot. Not that this makes it right.

Unsurprisingly, he has been a calm and loving parent today. No hint of aggressiveness. He's trying to convince me there isn't a problem. There bloody is.

April, your children need your protection NOW. There should be no hesitation. I am social worker, and I have had to remove children from abusive homes..homes where one parent stood by and did nothing to stop the other parent's abuse. I disliked having to be the one to make that decision, but by law we must defend those who cannot defend themselves. Doing nothing is making a choice..

But he doesn't like her, does he? My DS is 4 and it breaks my heart to think of anyone calling him a knobhead. Least of all his parents. His parents think he's unremittingly wonderful, which is as it should be.

My DS bit my shoulder once. I flew my hand back to get him off and scratched his face with my nail, whilst whacking him into the wall. No harm done, it was an accidental reflex, but I still, 2 years later, feel guilty if I think about it. Your H's attitude is chilling

I think that is what makes it so difficult though - the nice times, the cuddles and days of being a loving parent. But I also think children remember the "stand out" incidents and odd hurtful remarks (and sometimes we don;t know when they are listening).

I'm not flaming you. I think you are in an awful situation and I feel for you.

Have you thought about the practicalities of a life without him? Sometimes it helps crystallise the situation in your mind, if you know what your options are and how you could go about things. That way you can make your decisions from a clearer perspective rather than being clouded by worry about how you will manage.

His reaction to the bruise on the baby disturbs me. Some people actually never feel guilty because they cannot take responsibility for their actions. My mother is one of these people and I was 30 when I finally said "enough" and meant it. And it was watching the way her behaviour had begun to affect my children, and how I knew it would progress, that clinched it for me in the end. How will your OH cope with older, stroppier, more infuriating behaviour as your girls get older?

Get him out of your house!!!
One very small loss of temper is one thing!, but this man has hurt your child THREE times and has even hurt your other child in the process last time.

I would be packing his suitcase and leading him to the door.

Your children need protecting TONIGHT, do not leave this any longer and especially DO NOT leave him alone with ANY of your dc EVER.

A grown man pulling a 2yo by her-not normal and 2 is little more than a baby

A grown man smacking a child on the BACK is not normal and barbaric.

A grown man THROWING a child could kill them...

Please op your children are at risk, either ship dh out or leave with the children.

This man isn't worth it

"I have a go at DH all the bloody time for how he treats DD".

So your DD also hears you shout at her Dad and thus becomes even more confused by both her parents behaviours (and private war) to each other. Is this really how you want her to see how relationships are conducted?. Nothing changes and the underlying problems in your relationship remain all too apparant. You both remain stuck on the merry go around.

She does not understand an awful lot about relationships at 4 but she is certainly learning from the two of you as to how relationships are conducted. On a wider level look at the damaging stuff your Hs parents taught him; he is simply continuing the awful parenting he received. Your DD is now the second generation on the receiving end.

Sticking up for her is simply not enough. He still lashes out by telling you out of her earshot that he thinks she is a little bitch and a knobhead. How does being told that make you as her mother feel inside?.

How low is your self esteem now and how low will your DDs self esteem have to become?.

All of those instances are criminal acts by the way. If that helps.

Look at the bruise on your baby's head.

This is the thing with abusers OP. They are not nasty or aggressive all the time, if he was, then it is easier to justify in your mind to leave. When they are nice, and they can be, for long periods, it can lull you into a false sense of security.
Talk to him, ask him if he is willing to address his behaviour and go on an anger management course.
I also work in CP, and your situation reads as one I recognise from cases I've worked on. It doesn't matter if you give him shit with words, its your actions that matter.

' telling you out of her earshot that he thinks she is a little bitch and a knobhead. How does being told that make you as her mother feel inside?'

Utterly devastated and outraged.

April, how long do you think it will take for him to make sure she hears him? At what age do you think he'll feel the urge to blurt it out in retaliation for some perceived slight?

Do you think your daughter seeing/hearing you sticking up for her makes what her father does okay?

No I don't think it makes it ok. I was addressing an earlier post.

And if I thought it was ok and I could handle it, I wouldn't be posting.

You really, really don't get it at all do you OP?

A 4 year old should not, ever have to witness her DM 'defending her, having a go at her DF for how he treats her and sticking up for her.' Her DF should love, cherish and treat her with respect and kindness at the very least. But he doesn't and all your defending and sticking up for her won't change that or make her forget that her DF treated her like shite. And you are complicit in letting that continue whether you like it or not.

My earliest memories are from when I was 3. I can remember lots of things from when I was 4 very clearly and your DD might too. Maybe you should go and read the 'Stately Homes' threads and take note as to how many women have nothing to do with their DMs anymore because they didn't remove them from abusive fathers.