H headbutted ds......advice please

[thelineiswhere]

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.

Seriously. MNHQ.
You are being very quiet about this thread.
It makes me quite uneasy.

The OP has acknowledged that this marriage is over, she's got her reasons for not walking out right now and we don't know what they are.
I presume that because H is away such a lot of the time, the OP has previously thought she could keep a lid on her abusive H's behaviour.

I haven't interpreted what she said as meaning she usually walks away and leaves her children exposed to the violence, I took it that she walks away when abuse is aimed at her. I'm also imagining that up to now her aim has been to start afresh making the best possible life that she can for the DCs.

However, all of that said, OP yes, a serious line has now been crossed.
You've asked for advice and mine would be that you must prioritise your DCs' welfare and physical safety and of course, your own.
They need this far more than they need material things.
They need you to step up and protect them and also to address the suffering your DS is bearing through school.

Please don't think that by being busy with activities and by having sufficient income for material things this in any way negates or compensates for what is happening to your children and to you.
As others have already said, if you fail to act swiftly, then you may well find that matters are taken out of your hands and the repercussions are much wider reaching than you may think.

These are the things that will stay with your DCs for life, both for your relationship with them and for their own future emotional wellbeing. You absolutely must take serious steps to protect them now. Your children need you to step up to the mark.

She is more worried about their careers. Yes she may have been brain washed but it doesnt read that way does it.

Im sure in this sotuation many women might be scared to leave, scared for themselves and their dc and what the h might do if they left.

But this doesnt seem to be the reason for this op.

I would add that I totally accept that the OP is also a victim in this situation. I have no doubt she has been through a lot of shit. But none of that changes the fact that she has failed to report a violent physical assault against a child - her own child - that she witnessed.

The former - no matter how tragic - can never condone or justify the latter.

I was shocked, but not angry with the original post by the author. I was however, shocked and angry when it transpired - through her own admission - that she had done absolutely nothing to report the incident, press charges, or protect her child since it happened, and was more concerned about social services impacting on careers. That is inexcusable.

Slicedanddiced Supporting the enabler/perpetrator does NOT imply necessarily leaving the children there. Taking the children away is absolutely the right response in many many cases. That does not mean that both the enabler and the perpetrator don't need support and a thorough examination of what happened, both for their potential benefit but most importantly for the assessment and management of future risk.Take another example: with a violent and dangerous criminal (a group I also work with), you would not leave them in society, you would put them in prison or hospital to protect others from them. But that does not imply you don't then work to understand why they did what they did, and to change the future risk through whatever support/treatment/help is appropriate.

Surely though that implies that everyone who commits a heinous act does it because of an understandable reason?

I'm sorry I can't buy that. I have known some awful people. My ex was in a lovely family, well off, never been mistreated in his life. But he still beat me black and blue. Some people do bad things things, because they want to.

This is a bit derailing anyway.

On this thread none of us are in a position to do fuck all about this situation. I stand by my original posts. If this thread had been a list of 'support' for op, especially after her admissions in the second post from her....well my faith in humanity would have dipped somewhat.

By "support", in this case, I meant providing words and attitudes which would make it more likely that she will do something about this dangerous situation rather than remain paralysed. I did not mean support in the sense of condoning, justifying etc.

And yes, every piece of behaviour of whatever kind has a reason, but that does not mean it is always discernible or understandable (or indeed "exusable"). I am not a determinist, by the way, I do believe in free will, but still know that all behaviour has a reason. (again, very importantly, reason, not excuse)

Well in this case that support is pointless.

Even if she had been flooded with it in this post op wouldn't know about it. She says herself, she is simply too busy to read posts on her own thread...about her son being abused while she watched.

The perpetrator has a reason I'm sure. I think the mistake is thinking that a normal person would be able to ever comprehend it. My ex went to workshops and therapy. He used to laugh about it, he could get off scot free if he just said what he knew they wanted to hear, did a few exercises. Then just carried on as he always did after it was over.

Maybe I have personal bias towards thinking the lets understand the criminal route works at all.

Well we don't know if the OP has come back or not. And if not, why not. So we don't know yet if any of this discussion has impacted on her. I am sure most people here hope that her silence is because she is either thinking about what has been said or is actually busy doing something about it. Maybe we will never know. And maybe this discussion has had a positive impact somehow.

Trying to analyse and comprehend certain types of violent behaviour, and the risk of it occurring again, is in essence what I do for a living, so I have to believe there is some benefit in it, if not always for the individual than for society as a whole (even if it is only to assess that the risk is too high to allow the person to, for example, live in society, or have contact with their children, and that this is not going to change).

In this case it is a potentially extremely high risk situation, and needs proper assessment, which can only occur if the OP, for whatever reason, reports what has happened. The support I was referring to, at this stage, would be to encourage her to do this. Later other types of support might be appropriate, depending on what the reasons for the risk arising in the first place were.

OP, if you're still reading, my ex grew up in an environment with an alcoholic, abusive father. His father's violence escalated to the point where he once tried to kill him (ex was 14 at the time).
His mother (for many reasons including religion) minimised the abuse, didn't involve the authorities and let the father continue to live in the home with his often terrified children.
The father died, but my ex's relationship with his mother - and women generally, is seriously damaged. He thinks he's fine now but he's not. And he is contemptuous of women generally because his main female role model - his mother, let him down so badly.

Please report what happened to the police.

I understand that theDude, I really do.

But my personal experience, as much as it's worth, screams otherwise. I grew up on a very rough council estate, surrounded by criminals. Some of my family were, friends of the family were etc.

All the counselling, therapy, group sessions or indeed any of the support offered were all laughed at. Obviously not while they were having it, but once they left that room it went out of the window. It usually got them off something or lessened the penalty they would otherwise get.

Not one of them changed. My ex didn't either. My mum still lives on that estate, not only didn't they change but their children followed suit too.

Anyway back to the op. We can't really be sure of anything on mn,we never can. All we have is the word of the op. And that word is that she won't bother reading this thread, she's already got it all figured out.

Oh yes and one of my nc brothers friends was declared unfit to live with his children. He used to beat her and sometime them too. But that wasn't really a problem, as he never 'officially' lived with his family anyway.

I still wonder what happened to those poor kids, they moved away. I would have reported if I had been an adult at the time listening to those conversations

Oh dear op, I wonder if you knew how your second post came across?

Well I think that by posting for advice, the OP made a positive step towards helping her children and herself to get out of this horrible situation. You are all missing that point. The sad reality is that there were probably thousands of children assaulted at home on Sunday, most of which would have gone unreported. At least this OP had realized that this is not an acceptable situation and is working towards making it better.

"I personally find it very troubling than MNHQ is condoning the actions of a person who has systematically failed to report violent, physical abuse of a child (through consistent reminders of the 'talk guidelines' to posters). I don't know if a few people have crossed the line with particularly nasty wording of their criticisms, but I honestly had expected more from the moderators here."

kaykayblue - that is unfair. MNHQ are not condoning anything. What are you talking about? There are not responsible for what the OP and her husband have done and they are deleting any posts that break guidelines. There are no moderators on here. It is up to us to report anything that needs dealing with to MNHQ and they make the call. They don't sit and read - moderate - all the thousands of posts made each day.

Gingercat that is right. The OP has been pilloried by some for posting here, but at least in her case there is a chink of light into rational thought, evidenced by the very fact that she thought to post. There are hundreds and thousands of other families where abuse is going on and no-one is doing anything at all about it, not even tentatively come onto an internet forum to mention it, because it just seems like normal life to them.

ihatethecold - you need to report your post if you want MNHQ to see it. As I said, they don't sit reading threads all day and they are currently busy with the live web chat debate.

You are all missing that point.

No I don't think we are.

thedudesmummy..so better to come onto a forum and ask for advice than do nothing? Posters keep saying things along the lines of OP not knowing what's normal or acceptable anymore. I'll repeat again, that OP already knows her H's behaviour is wrong as she admits she tells her children it's wrong. I wonder if her DC ever ask why she doesn't do something about it and protect them.

Yes, it is better to have at least thought about the issue and asked for advice than to have done nothing at all. Of course it is not enough and of course, as I said in my very first post on this thread, she needs to report this now and ensure her children are safe, but it is a step on from doing (and thinking) nothing at all about it.

Here's an example of something similar: In substance misuse work we distinguish between different stages of progress that people make. The first stage is called "pre-contemplative", in other words the person has not even started to think that there is a problem. The next stage is where you realise there is a problem, but you have not yet done anything about it. Of course that is not solving anything yet, and the problem and all the dangers associated with it remain there at this stage, but it is a stage forward from the pre-contemplative, and potentially leads to further stages of actually taking some action.

In this case the OP is not pre-contemplative, if she was she would not have given the issue any thought and would certainly not have asked for advice. So yes, she is further down the road than many. And we can only hope she continues on the path.

Dudes I agree.
Your posts are so much more eloquent than mine!

I think the think is that not all experiences of violence within the home are the same.

The op was clear that she is in a situation she cannot go into.

I cannot second guess what that is, neither can anyone else.

I don't know what goes on behind closed doors -but I do know that she needs to feel secure that the situation she is taking her children into when she reports this is better than the one she's in.

I'd for one like to see a lot more practical advice, and a lot less condemnation.

Sorry 'I think the thing is' ...not 'think' is...

Let's hope OP gets a fucking move on through those stages of "contemplating" the abuse of her children before somebody gets (more) hurt or dead.

No offence to the people trying to "understand" but the children need OUT and then we can all have a go at "understanding" after that fact.

They do need out, but they likely won't get out unless
a) one of the children themselves reports, or
b) the op reports.

The op is the one we hope we can convince here, and I think its more helpful to support her to come to the decision as quickly as possible,than slate her for not having done it already.