I don't want to rip my family apart but I have to. He slapped our DD's face.

[FlatsInDagenham]

I will try to keep the story short. Last night DH slapped our 5yo DD's face because she was being obstinate, arguing and refusing to listen to him. Not hard enough to hurt much, but still, a slap on the face.

He has form for this kind of thing.

I have told him I want to separate.

He is devastated. I am devastated. When DD finds out, she will be devastated too. Our 2yo DD might not notice much but she loves her dad.

So that's 4 devastated people who want to be together but I am forcing us apart.

But I just cannot accept his treatment of our DD. If he had shown any regret or questioned his own actions at all, I might have been able to help him through it. But he stands by his actions "110%". Just like he stood by his actions the other times. I can't stand by him and let it happen again. I can't co-parent with a man who thinks that a 5yo can be "manipulative", has in the past described her as a "little bitch" and thinks it's ok to slap her face.

He's not a bad person (yes I know how that sounds but it's true). But sometimes he gets it so unbelievably wrong - parenting, I mean. He also has alcohol issues (though I must stress that he hadn't been drinking when this happened) that have plagued our marriage for more years than I care to remember. Many times I thought I'd end our relationship over the alcohol. But in the end it's something else that's tipped me over the edge. He slapped our DD's face. For arguing back. I can't come back from that.

Oh God, please tell me I haven't over reacted (he thinks I have). Please tell me if you think I'm splitting up our precious family unnecessarily.

toprotecttheinnocent
Your story is heart breaking, those poor girls. All I can say is your amazing to give them the strength, love and support they need.

"She is learning to justify domestic violence. How long before she starts saying "but I deserved it", "but it was my fault"."

You are completely cheapening and misrepresenting what real domestic violence is, this is not it. In fact, the majority of UK families, in poll after poll, believe that parents should be able to smack their children.

"Exactly. 5 year olds get it wrong. I'm a grown woman and I still get it wrong sometimes. So by the same token should I get a slap across the face?"

How about your partner rips your family apart if you get it wrong, even if "wrong" is not illegal and most British families support it (ie smacking)?

This thread is just a litany of completely hysterical over-reaction by the small group of fervent anti-smacking and "leave the bastard" posters, who have no great interest in the OP or her family's best outcome, but instead have their own agendas to push.

Lazyjaney you haven't answered the question. If I 'get it wrong', do I by the same token deserve a slap across the face?
Or is it different for me because I'm an adult?
It's universally seen as wrong to slap your partner, a grown adult, but it's accepted that children should be slapped as punishment. In what way does that make any sense?
Unreal.

But he stands by his actions "110%". Just like he stood by his actions the other times. I can't stand by him and let it happen again. I can't co-parent with a man who thinks that a 5yo can be "manipulative", has in the past described her as a "little bitch" and thinks it's ok to slap her face.

He didn't and hasn't ever hit her hard. However he is not in control - he once threw her onto the bed in anger - she landed on the baby and they bashed heads. Both had a small bruise. He also once, when older DD was 2 and bit his chest, pulled her hair to get her off him, which must have hurt and certainly distressed her.

Lazyjaney - the above quotes from the OP do not describe a parent smacking his children. It describe someone who is out of control, pushing them, slapping their faces, bumping their heads, pulling their hair.

It is not hysteria to name this out of control behaviour domestic violence.

It's insane that some people think hitting someone is an acceptable way of behaving.

Do that to an adult, you'll be visited by the police.

Do it to a child and, it's somehow OK?? And to your own flesh and blood????? Really??!!

Get a fucking grip. Weirdos.

"This thread is just a litany of completely hysterical over-reaction by the small group of fervent anti-smacking and "leave the bastard" posters, who have no great interest in the OP or her family's best outcome, but instead have their own agendas to push."

And your agenda is what, exactly? Are you serious? Fine, you go ahead and hit your kids. Good luck with that. Good luck to them, frankly.

The laissez-faire attitudes of some pro-hitting parents on this thread is staggering. If in future someone is cross with you and wallops you, don't dare complain. Suck it up, yeah?

What is the point of you, LazeyJaney ?

The only time you appear (like a bad smell) on MN is to 1) tell us how shit MN'ers are 2) try to shame women into staying in relationships that are patently bad for them

I don't see any support, empathy or even humanity in any of your posts. I suspect you are simply a bot activated by a klaxon going off whenever a vulnerable woman posts on Mumsnet. It's really quite sickening.

Lazeyaney does it all the time. I haven't seen one "normal" chatty psot from it. No other interaction except to target vulnerable women and reinforce the pressures on them to eat shit, put up with damaging relationships, overlook the physical abuse of their own children, please men at any cost

it doesn't belong on a parenting website and the sooner it disappears the better

So how any times does an individual in an adult relationship have to be slapped/tapped on the face before it's considered domestic violence lazyjaney?

And do you know how many domestically violent relationships start with "minor misdemeanours".

What surveys have you been reading by the way. I've just googled smacking surveys uk and an interested survey evaluation from Barnados came up called Help At Hand.

Read it, it's an education, and you need one lazyjaney.

IMO OP is best off talking to professional helpers and people who know her and her situation, not randoms on the Internet with fixed agendas.

well that much may be true. Hopefully the OP will ignore the rest of that posters own fixed agenda.

Your failing your daughter massively if my oh ever done any of the things your oh has done to your daughter to our kids he would be gone and only allowed supervised access.
You don't want to throw away a 22 year relationship where will this abuse end???
I feel sorry for your dd's and if I knew you's I'd report the both of you's to social services because your allowing his abuse.
You need to seriously get a grip who's more important to you your dd's or your oh??
And if he hasn't left now he never will and he'll keep on abusing your daughter/s

OP, if you want this put in perspective I'll give you my experience. SS wanted me to stop contact with my X after he assaulted me (not the DCs). At that point, like many women, I made the mistake of thinking his parenting skills were separate to his relationship skills and fought for him to maintain contact, adamant that he wouldn't hurt our DC. SS reluctantly agreed to this.

FF a couple of years and I was beginning to have some concerns about his parenting. No slaps or name-calling but discipline that was IMO heavy handed. I called him on it and we had a row but he toned it down. FF a little bit more and when our DS was being particularly trying one day - as children tend to - he kicked his father and his father retaliated. Not hard. Not enough to leave a mark. But hard enough to hurt and hard enough for DS to register that his father had hurt him with deliberate intent.

I stopped unsupervised contact from that day on. When I informed SS they supported me all the way and didn't action a case because they were happy with my ability to handle it. However, they made it very clear that nothing less than supervised contact would be acceptable.

X now has no contact with the DC and hasn't for some time. Which is his choice but one I am actually very happy about.

If you told SS about what has happened, including the background incidents, I think you'd find yourself encouraged to leave with phrases such as "failure to protect" being bandied about if you don't. If you took it to court as the first instance of involving the authorities, you might find very differently since to me it seems that CAFCASS don't take allegations of abuse very seriously if they are mentioned for the first time during contact arrangements, though they take them much more so if there is a logged history prior to that point. You might want to bear that in mind.

PVfor some strange reason the woman hating rhetoric is tolerated here. I think Janey must be Justine's embarassing brother os something

You have to protect your children Flats. I know you are in a very difficult situation.

How can he be a decent father if he stands by '110%' slapping his 5 year old across the face? How can he even be a decent person?? And thinking of her as a 'little bitch'. Jeez.

It would be very difficult to change the mindset of someone like this. Sorry to say, but he can't be the person you thought you knew and loved. And you know it will only get worse as the girls get older.

FID, what are your thoughts today ? Where is your husband now ?

I have a somewhat similar experience to Dahlen, although not in the UK or with SS.

There is no proven abuse of exH to DS, except that he physically attacked me in front of DS.

However, the Court issued a decision that contact was to be requested and approved by me. Essentially leaving me to decide where, when and how contact would take place. I had submitted the case to court and had asked for supervised contact, having shown that I was in favour of and actually encouraged contact.

Hello Flats.

I am in the fall out following this situation. My ExP admitted to CAFCASS that he had slapped our 4yr old DS across the face once, apparently in 'self-defence'. It was about the only thing of real seriousness he actually admitted, amidst a welter of denials, minimisations and outright lies regarding everything else he did.

On taking me to court, it took 3 court dates and 9 months for him to be allowed 5 sessions of extremely supervised contact, where he is monitored for the courts.

Anyone trying to say that slapping a young child across the face comes under the remit of 'slapping is legal', rather than the utterly unacceptable domestic violence that it is, would be in for a massive shock if ever they try to justify it to SS or CAFCASS.

And yes, despite this being one of the very first signs there was a problem, I should have reported it then, and left. There is only one way the story goes if he feels it was justified, and it's no fairy tale.

(it took him 4 hours to cry and show remorse, and I believed it. He's just trying to put you all back in his box, it's NOT real)

From someone who was EXACTLY where you are two years ago, REPORT IT and get him out. There is no happy ending now.

"This thread is just a litany of completely hysterical over-reaction by the small group of fervent anti-smacking and "leave the bastard" posters, who have no great interest in the OP or her family's best outcome, but instead have their own agendas to push."

I'm not fervently anti-smacking and don't have an 'agenda' of any sort. I don't smack my DC because I don't think it's particularly effective, but I was smacked on occasion as a child and I don't think it did me any harm whatsoever. I was not, however, smacked across the face by a father who believed I was "manipulative" or "a little bitch". And if my dad had ever slapped me across the face he would have been absolutely mortified at his loss of control and incredibly, incredibly apologetic. If you really can't see how wrong that is, Janey then I have enormous sympathy for you and - perhaps more pertinently - for your children.

Get out fast OP. Your DDs don't deserve this, and neither do you.

I should imagine the op has retreated from this thread and lost a source of support. She stated she was making her dh leave the family home. She is trying to reduce the trauma of the situation for her children by allowing him time to find sonewhere to go. This is better imo than major drama of forcing him to leave immediately and risking escalating. Hopefully she has contacted ss who can help them move forward. But this isnt good enough for some people. Its not just words on a screen this is peoples lives and sometimes the ideal situation isnt always immediately possible.

I have come from an abusive relationship and understand how difficult and confusing it is at this moment for the OP. I am not of the school that she should necessarily LTB for good, but he does need to move out (probably) to give them space to process what has happened. It is possible for the family to move on from this and be stronger, but he must admit fault and ask forgiveness and, more crucially, needs to address the issues that he has that are causing him to think it is ok to hit defenceless small children.

I think I would be insisting that he sought help for anger management and parenting and that if, after 6months, he could demonstrate that he had changed his ways, we could start to look at how we could rebuild the family. Small steps.

I do think there is a middle ground between Anyfucker and Janey, but it will take work and commitment from him, and, most importantly an admission of guilt to begin with.

(Disclaimer: I have not read the whole thread, so sorry if I have missed anything important)

I just can't get over a father chucking a child on to a bed, so hard that its head smacks against another's and causes marks on both.

Fucking hell. Makes me sick.

This is not about hysteria or anti-men blah-de-blah bollocks, and no one here wants to see a family split. This is about violence against the most innocent of people. Missing the point in this thread is spectacularly dangerous.