So my DP hit me tonight ...

[coolbeans]

... And ain't that a kick in the head. Or the hip, which is where he punched me.

Sorry; gallows humour.

I do not even know why I am posting. It is the shock I think.

Our youngest was having a toddler meltdown and DP was busy complaining about how I was handling it. In a temper, I said: "You know so much, you should take him!", and thrust said child at him. He didn't catch him and ds fell. My partner punched me. Really hard. And then snarled at me that I should stay away or it would get worse.

we have been together 15 yrs.

I had an horrible childhood. It was all gymkhanas and public school on the outside and beatings and abuse behind closed doors. I had years of counselling and my therapist said one of my problems was that my thresholds were too high.

But being hit. that is one of my lines. I had years of it. I am not going there again. I have worked in DV. I know the script. If I don't walk away now, the likelihood is that it will happen again.

He hurt me. It fucking hurts. I don't understand how ths is my life. He is acting as though it is all of my own doing. Not a word of apology. The fucker.

Sorry for typos and incoherence - too much wine has been drunk to numb how unutterably awful this is,

Altinkum, and others, is not only worried about the children witnessing DV, but also about the actions of the OP herself towards them.

This whole thread is a bit off but...

If you look.at it
Toddler is having tantrum
Op is dealing with toddler
Dh is not helping and is criticising
Op loses temper which is not ideal
But dh does not step in to help
Instead dh refuses to take toddler.
Then dh hits the OP.

now many posters have interprted this as dh being annoyed about dc being hurt.
if I am concerned about my dc I go to them. I deal with dc first.

So I am suggesting an alternative interpretation, that dh hit op because he was annoyed that she tried to make him deal with dc and he cba. He can dress this up however he likes afterwards but bottom line if you are concerned for your dc you don't punch their mother.

And the whole well he had a right to be annoyed argument goes right along with saying to a sv survivor he shouldn't have hit you, what did you do to provoke him?

and possibly op has not left straight away because the dcs are now in bed. Probably put to bed pn autopilot.. And as the situation has calmed down for now time being, it does not make sense to cause them more distress.

but the pne thing I can agree with almost all pps about is that this whole situation is far from ideal for the dcs, the stress, the frayed tempers, witnessing their df hitting their mum and shouting at her and threatening her their df not comforting them when they fall. All not good.

so op. Your line has been crossed. Please make plans to get yourself and your kids out of that situation. If there is anything mn can do to help and support you in that then I hope you will ask and that you will get the support you need. But mostly I think you need WA, the police and RL support.

good luck.

*dv survivor

This thread makes sorry reading now. The poor OP.

For the record - there is NEVER a good reason for violence in the home. There are no excuses no matter which partner is violent, no matter how drunk or sober they are, no matter what the stress of the situation is. It is NOT acceptable. Ever.
What happens next in that relationship though should be up to the parties concerned to work out, with support as needed. Nobody has the right to stand on the sidelines of somebody's relationship and pronounce what they should do and what is or isn't a dealbreaker. It's not about us.

I think a lot of the posters on this thread need to seriously reflect on their posting here tonight. In their eagerness to say what they think, they seem to forget there is a highly vulnerable person reading their responses. Do you think the OP needs your reflections on her drinking, her actions with her child, her posting style and completeness? Do you think she needed to be told a dozen times that she must leave, that her relationship of 15 years is finished, that she needs the police, rehousing?

If she wants to end this relationship then that will be a process not an event. There is no quick solution. My guess though is that she won't look here for support after the way she has been treated on this thread. A bad night's work Mumsnet.

Oh and Altinkum - do shut up.

I live in hope that you might.

Thanks altikum but I will qualify that by saying the OPs dh should have gone to his dc first
I am assuming the OP couldn't because he had just punched her and he couldn't because he was too busy punching his dw to give a toss about his dc.

I was absolutely not having a dig at the OP.
And i also wholly concur with posters saying she needs to deal with this in her own time as it is a process. And I am sure she knows better than any of us this is not ideal for her dcs.
I hope on her own time is relatively quickly for her sake and dcs but she needs support above all to make this possible.

What sticks out to me is that the DP got up and pursued the OP in order to hit her! I think it was definitely not a reaction out of concern for the child, it was an attempt to dominate and control her.

Altinkum what is blatantly obvious is your prime concern is most of all being RIGHT! I don't think you actually give a flying fuck about the OP. Or her children. If you did you'd back the fuck off, instead of hounding her off her own thread, and arguing the toss with the many, many posters who indicated that it would be far better to just shut the fuck up.

Badly done. Really badly done.

coolbeans I am so sorry. I hope you get the help you need in real life. Sometimes when faced with a really tough decision or in need of advice it is helpful to think how you would advise a friend who was in your shoes.

Sometimes we would be wiser with our friends and kinder to them than with ourselves.

Please do not be embarrassed that your older child witnessed your husband hit you, it is not your fault. Please do talk about it with your son and make sure he has a chance to say how he felt, rather than to suppress his feelings about it etc (which some children may want to do).

I am not sure you are reading any more, but if you are I just wanted to say how sorry I am. Whenever this happens to friends in real life, (not often but occasionally) I always suggest they speak to women's aid.

www.womensaid.org.uk/

Women's Aid, PO Box 3245, Bristol, BS2 2EH
T: 0117 944 4411
E: [email protected]
Helpline: [email protected]

Hope you can get to speak to a professional, who will, I am sure give you really good advice and assistance.

When I said your son I meant the older child who witnessed your husband punch you.

Gosh OP, my dd had terrible temper tantrums and fortunately I was a single mother because her father was violent and I didn't have the father sitting in judgment of me, let alone certain eejits on mumsnet.

The important thing is how do you avoid this situation from escalating?

What a fucking horrible thread

Can none of you picture how you might 'thrust' a child down onto a sofa next to an adult and expect the adult to 'catch' the child, ie grab hold or put an arm out, and if the adult doesn't, the child might slip off or fall over? I can picture it perfectly. And let's not forget, the father then left the so vulnerable child, either on the sofa alone and able to fall again, or crying and in pain, assuming this 'fall/not a fall' caused him pain, and walked over to the OP to punch her?

Coolbeans I'm very sorry this has happened. In the cool light of day you may want to come back to this thread or start a new one? Try not to be chased off by this clusterfuck of a 'support' thread to a victim of DV....

Well done for helping the op alt....oh wait.... You have very nicely derailed the thread from being a source of support for the op, which is what she needs, to being a thread that attacks her & focuses solely on what happened to her ds & not her. The child was/is OK. The op isn't that drunk as she is perfectly coherent in all her posts. She has lived with abuse & can't believe that she is living with it again.

I am pretty sure she doesn't need to be reminded time after fucking time that she was (at worse) careless with her son. But on & on you go, even after people have pointed these things out to you, you keep twisting the ops words & not offering one single piece of advice, or one word of support that hasn't been drowned out by your ranting.

You didn't deserve the punch, but I bet it was instinct kicking in. If anyone hurt my Child id do the same

I don't get this "I'd do the same" mentality! If my dh thrust dd at me & she fell/got hurt, my first instinct would NOT be to follow him out of the room & punch him, it would be to comfort my distressed child.

The fact that he followed indicates to me that the child was not hurt, and if he was hurt, the dh is a bigger dick for ignoring this & having the "instinct" that hitting his wife was better than comforting his son.

Seriously, why would your first move be to hurt & then threaten your partner & not make sure your dc was OK?

Also again, if this WAS me, I would probably shout at my dh 'what the fuck are you doing, you hurt her, you fucking wanker" etc (yes, probably in front of said child, but I am not of the school that swearing hurts or damages children irreparably) I would not have punched him, because I don't have violent tendencies.

Altinkum what is blatantly obvious is your prime concern is most of all being RIGHT! I don't think you actually give a flying fuck about the OP. Or her children. If you did you'd back the fuck off, instead of hounding her off her own thread, and arguing the toss with the many, many posters who indicated that it would be far better to just shut the fuck up. Badly done. Really badly done.

Well said, feck!

I agree completely different. In fact let's go back a step further. As the parent not involved in placating a tantruming child, I wouldn't have been standing at the sidelines criticising the other parent and generally being a bit goady. We all know what a tantruming child is like and how difficult it can be to manage. Why would anyone start down the route of criticising the parent dealing with it? He's not exactly sounding like Mr Supportive at that point.

OP. I hope you are OK. I think you need to think about other aspects of your relationship because deliberative violence like that doesn't generally happen in a vacuum. You said he was complaining about how you were handling the situation. Does he do that a lot? Is he generally supportive with the children and with you? Is he verbally or emotionally abusive at all? Does he have a temper? You don't have to come back to me with replies btw these are just to think about.

Perhaps it would be best to stop arguing?