Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

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

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

H headbutted ds......advice please

571 replies

thelineiswhere · 09/09/2014 16:55

H (definitely not 'd'h) had been drinking bottled beers at home on Sunday afternoon.

He then decided to go to the supermarket as he often does on a Sunday afternoon to buy more bottled beers and some food items for his own personal consumption. (Money is not the issue here, so the shopping thing is a red herring but bear with me).

He was gone for several hours and I suspect he went to the pub for a couple of hours as when he came back he smelt of beer.

I was giving the kids some tea at this point and he dumped his shopping in the kitchen and hung round the table in the dining area adjacent to the kitchen winding the kids up ended up annoying ds in some way and ds told him to go away. H can be very annoying under the influence as he pushes the kids until they snap, I usually walk away but the kids were at the table eating. Anyway he wouldn't go away and was leaning in to them invading their personal space so to speak and ds pushed him away but it was like a hit on h's chest rather than a push and with that h had him pinned up against the wall with a chair and said "d you know what I do to people that hit me..... I headbutt them" and proceeded to bash his head against ds's which bashed back against the wall. Younger child was yelling at h to get off ds and leave him alone.

Ds was shocked and we all kind of yelled at h to stop. He started to tell me it was my fault and if I didn't start to... but never finished his sentence.

I reassured the kids later that h was very wrong to do this and checked ds wasn't injured.

h didn't speak to any of us for the rest of the evening as kids went to bed after a bath/shower.

Has he crossed a line here ? Things have been bad between us, he barely speaks to me at all but I assumed he'd snap out of it eventually like he always does.

OP posts:
ThatBloodyWoman · 10/09/2014 07:58

Another in full support of what Front has said.

Living with a man like that changes the way you think.

Whocansay · 10/09/2014 07:59

OP, by doing nothing you are telling your son that you condone this. You do realise that?

It is you job to safeguard your children. Do it.

ImATotJeSuisUneTot · 10/09/2014 08:00

I hope to god, your children have a loving, attentive teacher or TA who picks up on this.

I hope your child tells them you stood by and let it happen.

I hope they report you, to the police and social services.

I hope they take your children far away from you and your scary lack of priorities.

And I hope it gets splashed all of the papers so your 'professional' careers are well and truly fucked.

That might, perhaps, be justice for your poor son.

CarryOn90 · 10/09/2014 08:07

"I've never considered the kids physically at risk before although h is always rough in his horseplay with them which can end in tears"

I am utterly, utterly speechless.

Also I've seen that before on here - posters urging the OP to protect her kids, and the OP saying something like "but what about his career." It's disgusting.

SlicedAndDiced · 10/09/2014 08:11

I think it's daft to presume that everyone who isn't cheering the op on has no experience in things like this.

I know how living with a man like that warps your mind. I stayed for years, it makes you feel worthless, ashamed.

But if anyone, anyone touched or emotional abused my daughter there would have been hell to pay. And sod all security or money questions.

To stand there and watch as a grown man seriously assaults your child, to do nothing but minimise it after the event, to tell your children it's normal and they come last on the list of priorities....well that isn't a victim of do, that is an enabler.

As a victim of dv myself I find it offensive that it is being used as an excuse to defend an enabler of child abuse. They are two very different things.

CurtWild · 10/09/2014 08:20

What sliced said. I also know how living with someone like that changes your view of 'the norm', I'm 6 months on from packing up my 3 small DC and leaving with practically nothing. No DV but appalling behaviour/abuse towards me. He never laid a finger on our DC but they started witnessing his vile behaviour and that alone was enough to make me leave.

OP has stated she knows her H's behaviour is wrong and she tells her DC it's wrong. If witnessing your 12 year old getting headbutted isn't enough to call the police and get her kids away from this man, I honestly wonder what it will take.

ThatBloodyWoman · 10/09/2014 08:29

It won't take people on an internet forum telling her what an awful person and some of the terrible things she's been called.
Remember who the real perpetrator of this is.

SlicedAndDiced · 10/09/2014 08:31

From what I've read the perpetrators of this are op and her husband.

Her husband for doing it, op for standing by and doing nothing to stop it either during or in the days after. Even when he is out of the house for two weeks.

SugarMiceInTheRain · 10/09/2014 08:46

This has played on my mind all night. All similar cases I know of, the parent standing by letting abuse happen has also been found guilty and faced a sentence too. That'd blow both your professional careers out of the water. I just find it unfathomable that a mother can let her husband bully and hurt children like that, and put financial security first. It just beggars belief, and I feel so sad for your children. Who is going to put them first if you don't? Until you report your husband and start protecting your children, my sympathy for you is somewhat limited.

CurtWild · 10/09/2014 08:51

Well said, sliced.

ThatBloodyWoman · 10/09/2014 08:52

Whatever happened to trying to empower other women to stand up and make the right choices?
The op needs strength, and knowledge - a real sense of the processes that will happen so she doesn't feel like she's entering a cataclysmic cycle of loss of control and the loss of any security she perceives they has, and even possibly the loss of her children.

harverina · 10/09/2014 08:54

OP, your post and update is really worrying. A child has been assaulted by an adult. The fact that you are even asking if he has crossed the line raises serious alarm bells for me.

By accepting what your H did and taking no action to put distance between your children and their violent father, your parenting capacity will undoubtedly be questioned at some point. And rightly so.

It is unfair of you to expect your son to keep this a secret.

If he makes a disclosure about his homelife, and I hope he does, the police and social work services will want to know what you have done to port your children. They are experienced enough to understand that women who live in abusive and controlling relationships do not always find it easy to leave, but it will not be acceptable that you have made a conscious decision to stay until your in a better position financially. Who cares if your H's job will be on the line if SS are involved. That is the least of your worries. It sounds like your son has escaped without serious injuries this time, assuming that he has been at school as normal this week. Next time he may not be so "lucky".

Your children won't thank you for being well off financially.

SlicedAndDiced · 10/09/2014 08:58

What so everyone should be patting op on the back? There there dear it's ok he is abusing your children and you are joining in, you leave and make your kids safe when YOU are good and ready.

I've said it before but victim of dv and enabler of child abuse, not the same thing.

You keep supporting an enabler of abuse, see how much good it does the children. The op won't listen to anyone on here anyway, she hasn't even read the thread! Just read her second post for gods sake.

She may not read this. And this thread will not help those children. But I'll be damned if I'm going to join in telling op ' it's ok, this is not your fault or in any way your responsibility to something because you must be a victim of dv'

FlossyMoo · 10/09/2014 09:05

I hate this thread but have to say I agree with what Slice has said. There is NEVER EVER any excuse for minimizing child abuse and allowing it to continue when as an adult you can stop it by making a phone call.

This posters DH is now working away so there is no immediate danger of retribution. She is choosing to put her children's safety at the bottom of her priorities, there is no excuse for that.

EarthWindFire · 10/09/2014 09:06

Whatever happened to trying to empower other women to stand up and make the right choices?

That doesn't mean blindly agreeing with the choices they make or the action they refuse to make.

FlossyMoo · 10/09/2014 09:11

I also think that the OP needs to be more fearful of the authorities than she is of her financial situation or her DH.
She needs to know that many women have received prison sentences for failing to protect their child from an abusive partner. Maybe knowing that will prompt her to act now and protect her children.

ThatBloodyWoman · 10/09/2014 09:11

I'll not change my stance on this.
Name calling has sent the op running for the hills.
She broke her cover tentatively on here, and has got exactly what she's scared of.

I'm not engaging any more on this subject.

FlossyMoo · 10/09/2014 09:14

No she hasn't Earth. The OP has zero interest in this thread. She didn't even bother to read the replies. Her OP is not written in a tentative manner at all.
Also it appears what she is most scared of is lack of income.

FlossyMoo · 10/09/2014 09:14

Sorry not earth that was for That Bloody. Blush

SlicedAndDiced · 10/09/2014 09:14

Funny that.

Op was so busy in her life she didn't even read the responses. She admitted it.

So not entirely sure how you think the name calling sent her anywhere.

CurtWild · 10/09/2014 09:28

ThatBloodyWoman OP hasn't scurried away, she updated saying she was too busy to read the thread. So why on earth start a thread in the first place if you have no intention of reading it?!

hankyspanky · 10/09/2014 09:36

I find it hard to digest the fact that any Mother would stand by and watch her child be physically abused by anyone.

CurtWild · 10/09/2014 09:36

Oh and nowhere does OP say she is a victim of DV, or that she's afraid of her H. Her fear seems to be of losing income and career stature.

Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost · 10/09/2014 09:36

O.P I hope you've definately decided to LTB. I am genuinely concerned for you children's safety.
Excuse my language but fuck money. Fuck your job. Okay you'll struggle, but you'll get by people do not saying it'll be easy. If you stay with this thing I guarantee you one day I don't know when or where but one day your d.s will look you square in the eyes and will want answers and you can't blame him.

QuintessentiallyQS · 10/09/2014 10:49

Op says further down that she walks away and leave him to it, when he gets started on the kids, and this time he headbutted a child. So no, she is not a victim. Her kids are.