Bad fight and I think I crossed the line

[chickieno1]

Had a very stupid argument with dh this evening. At the dinner table ridiculous about chicken! He got on his high horse about wanting to make his point and I said forget about it and he said he had to make his point. I then got up and took my plate with me and said if he really felt he couldn't leave it then I was going to finish my dinner elsewhere. He then said it was very ignorant of me to leave when he had cooked the dinner etc. I went to the kitchen and he was still going on and then said you can fuck off! Now I don't think we swear at each other and I saw red. I came back into the dining area and said what did you say and he said fuck off again. He was sitting at the table and I pushed him so hard both him and the chair fell over :(. The 9 month old baby was in the high chair next to him and the almost four year old was sitting on the sofa watching something before bath time. Dh got up went upstairs and either slammed a door really hard or hit a wall

We haven't spoken or looked at each other since. I feel really bad and don't know what to say or do :(

germ I don't feel.sad, if I get called a name I walk away, it's far better than exhausting my energy on a screaming match for all to hear, when tempers get heated and you end up saying things you don't mean, or worse deciding to assault someone.

And if you do attack someone, I'm sorry it's your own fault, everyone has the right condemned themselves. I kicked my ex and pushed my.thumb in to his eye when he climbed on top of me assaulting me, I didn't get called up on it in court. It was self defence, a right everyone has. So next time you shove someone think twice about how they may defend themselves.

fifi I've called the other half a wanker, a cunt, an annoying knob jockey and told him to piss off one or twice. He has never shoved me to the floor in a fit of rage he just pulls a face and walks off, knowing I'll apologise for my fowl and inappropriate behaviour the same way he has done on the two or three occasions he has named called.

I will not stand in a room and worsen a situation that is childish to begin with, it's name calling, plenty of six year olds do it, it's just as you get older the insults are a bit more cutting. Seperate, calm down, think about the situation, regroup, talk about it, issue apologise and move on.

This is madness, some of you still think it's not a big issue to push and shove your spouses
No, no-one thinks it is OK, but some people see it as an isolated incident that is not worth breaking up a family over and isn't necessarily the start of a violent relationship. It can be dealt with and the relationship improved. The calls for her to leave are completely over the top.

I've been called a fucking cunt under his breath in a tiff, I didn't shove him to the floor! I tell him to go to the gym and run it off, I leave him to it, I don't rise to it, I activly diffuse the situation as a rational adult should.
You don't rise to verbal abuse so you don't get further abuse? I see the thinking behind that but do you never address the name calling later? This rational adult may well defuse the situation at the time, but would certainly not tolerate being called a fucking cunt! I don't care how much stress he is under!!

Rest assured only on MN do people never call their partner a name in frustration
I have never called my husband a name in anything other than jest. I would be devastated if he called me a name in an argument. We have had some rows before, but they have never crossed that line of nasty name calling or telling each other to fuck off. Name calling is abusive.

I never said it wasn't addressed, it's just not screamed about in the moment. I'll wait till both of us are calm and we can talk about it like adults.

Im so happy you haven't had a name calling match, we have, but it didn't result in physical violence. It resulted in a adult conversation and apologies.

Yes, this was an isolated incident, but the red flag here was her attitude afterwards. She didn't immediately apologised or even followed him to apologise and she wasn't talking to him. She posted here thinking that maybe she had crossed the line.
It screams that he felt justified and entitled to assault him.
That's what worries me.

Name calling is so pretty bad, particularly as a pattern and we can and should have our own boundaries in that respect. But that would be to walk away from a relationship where our partner has so little respect that he or she insults us. Not to assault them.

Ups
She felt justified
Is also bad

Her attitude after was to come online and talk about what she had done.

She sounded very remorseful.

I have no idea why lweji, that you get the impression that her attitude after it happened is a red flag. She didn't immediately follow him to apologise? perhaps she was letting him calm down because she knew he needed space and time. Sometimes apologising straight away isn't the best thing to do and waiting until things have calmed down a bit to talk and apologise is the best route to take.

I see nothing in her posts that say she felt justified for her actions. Most people who are abusive and don't think it is bad don't come to an online forum to tell people what happened do they?

Her posts quite clearly show how remorseful she feels.

To compare..... Murdered by my boyfriend, he was pretty remorseful the first time wasn't he? Let's not say it's nothing just because she says she's sorry. It was still abusive in action.

I'm not saying she's going to batter him to death with an ironing board but there's a first time for everyone and I doubt they were too impressed with themselves at the time.

Yes I am comparing this to an extreme story. This is just to highlight that it can stop here as it normally would, or it can escalate depending on how OP chooses to handle herself in future.

Is there a pattern? Has this happened before, by either party? Was there an isolated assault, or is there one side of the couple who feels entitled to more power and control than the other?

My dad would beat my mum up and then cry, telling her how sorry he was. Of course he wasn't really sorry as he did it again and again and again.

I just think that if the op wasn't genuinely remorseful she wouldn't come on MN's to post about it.

My dad certainly wouldn't tell anyone what he did or show remorse to anyone else.

I do think that if the OP wasn't remorseful she wouldn't come on here to talk about it.

Being sorry isn't always good enough, even if you are genuinely sorry, but her remorse coupled with it being the first incident makes me feel that they might be able to work through this and the hysterical replies telling her to hand herself in are a bit silly.

If she was to do it again then maybe they would have a point, but for a one off incident that she feels remorseful about I think the best action is for her to talk it though and maybe get some help.

I am in no way suggesting that just because someone is remorseful that it lessens their abusive behaviour; it doesn't, but if you look at the whole picture I am not seeing an abusive women who needs to leave her home and her children.

I'm not saying that being remorseful would be enough. Abusers can be remorseful, at least in appearance.
It depends on what type of remorseful it is. If it is about how their behaviour can impact on themselves, it's not good news. If it's about how responsible they actually feel and how they can avoid that behaviour in future, then it's better.
It's not clear how responsible the OP really felt about what she did. She felt bad, but I didn't get the message that she was taking full responsibility for the choice she made in pushing him, particularly with the children present and the baby near him.

I do hope she has, in the mean time, and my first posts were exactly about that.

"but if you look at the whole picture I am not seeing an abusive women who needs to leave her home and her children."

We don't have the whole picture though do we. We have one incident that the OP has posted.

The OP has shown remorse, (many abusers do), she has tried to justify what she has done. She may (and I hope she does) think about what she has done and take full responsibility for it.

But my main concern is the volume of posters that have tried to justify it for her and have tried to minimize what she has done.

I agree boney A sizeable chunk of posters have tried blaming OPs husband for her actions too. You just wouldn't see that the other way round.

Hopefully it's just a flash in an otherwise happy relationship and they can move on.

I don't think anyone has minimised it. I sincerely hope my posts didn't come across that way. I don't think many people, if anyone, minimised it but simply pointing out the craziness of some of the advice given to the op. Especially when it seemed that some posters just wanted to prove that they would advise a woman to do the same as a man and didn't actually think any further than that or give her any practical tailored advice.

And no, we don't have the full picture but taking the op's post at face value then I am not seeing someone who needs to hand herself in and remove herself from her children. That was my only issue with some of the responses. Yes, she assaulted him but I don't feel this level of assault and what seems was a one off incident warranted some of the advice. And I might have said exactly the same if a man posted the exact same thread.

We don't have enough information, which is one of the reasons why I find some of the posts telling the op to hand herself in and only allow herself to have supervised visits with her children are hysterical.

It doesn't look like the op is coming back anyway. I think we could possibly have got more of the story and would have been better able to advise her more appropriately if people didn't jump on the ' dv is dv no matter the gender' bandwagon. Of course dv is the same for both men and women but some of the advice which was based on so little was really quite hysterical and not at all practical if she is the main carer for her children, and we have no idea if that is what the husband would want her to do. I am pretty sure if I ever pushed my husband he wouldn't want me to do anything so drastic as some of the advice suggested. I think he would much prefer we get to the bottom of it and get some help before separating the family for a one off incident.

Well people blaming her husband is wrong, for sure. I read this last night and can't remember all of the posts.