I just slapped DH

[harveybristol]

I'm so ashamed.
A long tiring day and the inlaws visit this evening. MIL is true to form, rude, doesnt even look at the lovely gifts we bought her. Without going in to too much detail, the family are very close and I began to feel my usual inferiority around them all. Left out, disregarded, not listened to.

I decided to go out for a breath of fresh air feeling downhearted, came home to see they had left, DH asked what my problem was. I told him honestly, he tells me it's all in my head as usual and then I suddenly slapped him and walked off.

I've shocked him and myself, I've never done anything like this before. I'm massively frustrated at DH not being able to just accept and acknowledge my feelings, have been for a while but never expected I'd do anything like this. What shall I do?

DH hasn't said a word and has gone to the spare room for the night. I feel like I've ruined Christmas. I was looking forward to a lovely relaxing evening with DH once they left. I'm lying here in tears :(

Not a lone voice.

The responses on this thread are NUTS. She has said she is sorry, remorseful and horrified and she has asked for help.

Response: ah you say you're sorry but you'll do it again. You're just minimising.

No that's not what had been said suggest you read the thread properly. Ok not a lone voice but certainly in the minority.

She has said she is sorry, remorseful and horrified and she has asked for help.

My ex SIL did too. Didn't stop her repeatedly doing it again however.

I think female domestic violence against men does not get the level of support it should.

I suspect a lot of men don't report because the stigma attached to being hit or abused by a woman.

I am sorry to read about your brother I hope he found a way out.

Yes he did ty Darth and has custody of their children.

Oh ffs, listen to yourselves! You are making NO SENSE.

If she says she's sorry, you say she'll do it again. What is she supposed to do then, disappear? Not be?

She starts the op with 'I am so ashamed'. She says she doesn't know what to do, it is clear she is horrified and is asking for help.

Why won't you give it to her? There has been ZERO compassion or kindness towards her, just one after another poster piling in to beat her.

If you had read the thread properly Darth you would have read my post way back and would not have concluded lost is a lone voice

If she says she's sorry, you say she'll do it again.

Where has it been said she WILL do it again? All I have said is just because someone is remorseful doesn't stop them doing it again.

What is she supposed to do then, disappear? Not be?

Don't be so daft and melodramatic

Oh ffs, listen to yourselves! You are making NO SENSE.

Maybe you listen to yourself!

A little heartless posting that straight after Bubbles post

Then do please come up with some constructive suggestions of what she can do bubbles. Instead of braying that saying sorry doesn't mean she won't do it again.

My 'constructive' advise would be leave your DH and DC until you have your temper under control at least.

Get help.

Stop blaming others for your issues.

Also give your DH the option to end your relationship if he wants to.

No, she'd gone long before that actually.

No so. Her last past was around 7 hours before the issue was first raised, and the intervening period was night time.

I think Bubbles advice is good advice.

Bubbles I'm glad to read that your brother found a way out and that the children are safe.

Safe from the monster woman who ought to be burned at the stake. With op.

Bubbles you are spot on with that advice. If the op is at the point where she knows she has a problem then she should step back from the situation and concentrate on getting herself straight. That would help her address all the issues she has raised in her threads over the past few months. There is a common thread and pattern of behaviour running through all of them that makes me feel she hasn't got to the self awareness stage where she can really start to heal, namely: rage and aggression.

Putting her latest thread into context shows a different picture than this being a one off for which she is sorry for.

No one is suggesting she should be tied to the stake. Melodramatic rhetoric doesn't help.

Springy what a truly unpleasant post. For someone who is so incensed about the lack of alleged compassion shown on this thread you might want to practice what you so radically preach.

Safe from the monster woman

Yes safe from the women that knocked him unconscious in front of his children. Broke bones in his body.

I'm off this thread now.

Seriously grow up. Or at least think before you type.

Springy are you trying to be a twat or does it come naturally? Your last comment was very unnecessary.

Springydaffs

Do you stick up for male perpetrators of abuse with this much fervour?

karanka I doubt she does. The belief that it's a woman hitting a man so its OK is awful.
bubbles gave some excellent advice. OP does need to step away and address her issues (not her DHs) and people need to stop minimising. That helps nobody.

Darth, according to police stats men are more likely, not less, to report violence. They are also more likely, not less, to push for prosecution. Women tend to shut up and put up for a lot longer.

As for stats all you can rely on is a comparison between police statistics and the British Crime Survey. There is absolutely no way of knowing how accurate the BCS is. Indeed the BCS figures are generally higher than the polices' own stats which suggests that people aren't being honest when completing the BCS or that many crimes are going unreported.

There is absolutely no way of knowing the extent to which unreported domestic crimes remains unreported/reported. That's the point.

I hope you are right that men do report but I suspect the figures are flawed as invariably a lot of domestic violence crimes remain unreported.

Incidentally you don't mention whether the figures relate to domestic violence against men or just violent crime. Not that I think the stats would be compelling in the event.

Domestic violence darth, not just violent crime. None of the women I know who have been abused have ever reported, even though the abuse has been repeated over and over. The one man I know who reported was himself violent but he reported the one time his partner snapped.

Dv figures are going up and the police are struggling to cope which is bloody worrying.

Right. Let's look at what she actually said, shall we?

I'm so ashamed.

A long tiring day and the inlaws visit this evening. MIL is true to form, rude, doesnt even look at the lovely gifts we bought her. Without going in to too much detail, the family are very close and I began to feel my usual inferiority around them all. Left out, disregarded, not listened to.

I decided to go out for a breath of fresh air feeling downhearted this, to me, reads like 'I went off in a sulk because they were all having a nice time together and I felt jealous' came home to see they had left, DH asked what my problem was. I told him honestly, he tells me it's all in my head as usual and then I suddenly slapped him and walked off.

I've shocked him and myself, I've never done anything like this before.

Good. So she understands the gravity of what she did and she sounds genuinely remorseful. But then: I'm massively frustrated at DH not being able to just accept and acknowledge my feelings have been for a while but never expected I'd do anything like this. What shall I do?

she attempts to justify it, by turning the blame for her loss of control onto him, because he doesn't understand how she feels.

DH hasn't said a word and has gone to the spare room for the night. I feel like I've ruined Christmas. I was looking forward to a lovely relaxing evening with DH once they left. I'm lying here in tears.

So she resents the PILS monopolising her DP and pushing her out, as she sees it, and she can't wait to have him all to herself again. She really expects that she can walk out in the middle of their visit (which was only for a couple of hours in the early evening anyway by the sounds of things) and stay out until they have left, for no good reason other than that they are annoying her by being close and not paying enough attention to her. And then she expects to be able to walk back in and for her partner to cuddle up and relax like nothing's just happened. And then when he has the audacity to ask what her problem is she slaps him.

There is an alarming lack of awareness there IMHO, and zero regard for how she's just embarrassed her DH in front of his parents and put him in a really awkward situation, left trying to explain her behaviour. It's all just ME ME ME, woe is ME listen to how I FEEL.

DH and I have talked and he has been very forgiving, telling me that he's aware of how frustrating he can be and that provided it doesn't happen again, this one off incident can be forgotten.

Aah, good. It would appear that her DP is giving her a get out of jail free card and allowing the OP to absolve herself of some of the blame for hitting him, by acknowledging that he can be can be very frustrating to argue with. So that's alright then.

-Not sure I feel too comfortable with the outcome. Surely there are issues to address here. Nothing like this has ever happened in our relationship before and we are very loving most of the time. I understand that I need to take full responsibility and I do, I'm mortified. It was a split second reaction to pent up frustration and I should have had better control. I don't thinking forgetting it is the answer._

All good here. I don't think the OP is someone who is likely to turn into a serial husband beater, nor did I ever say that. It's quite likely she will never do this again and it was a one-off loss of control. It happens. I'm more concerned with why she has so many issues with so many people in the first place.

This is not an excuse, more of a background to what happened today. But the frustration I feel in response to DH's lack of regard for how I feel around PILS has reached optimum levels lately. I've no idea how to knock the door down to get him to hear me. I don't want to go into masses of detail but they have genuinely caused problems for us for a number of years, to the point I now struggle hugely in their company which causes the inferiority etc. DH is a stubborn man who fails to see anything he doesn't want to see.

No. He hears you and he sees it. He is just worn down by your insistence that his mother is the problem. He thinks that the main issue here is your jealousy and your feelings of insecurity, inferiority and persecution. Because that is how you are generally, not just with his mother.

Look, I don't know you, or her, but I am getting strong vibes from all of your previous posts that your DP has a point. You never say what she does that is so wrong, just how she makes you feel. You always say you don't want to go into detail, but I suspect you would be happy to go into detail if only you could put your finger on it about what it is she does that makes you feel so shit about yourself. The fact that you can't says much more about you than it does about her. And it isn't just her, is it? It's anyone who takes your DPs attention away from you.

I never want to behave that way again, but I know that foremost, I need to address the frustration. I am already in therapy dealing with some childhood issues so can address the frustration issue there.

Good, so carry on with the therapy, work on understanding why you feel this way and try not to take your frustrations out on your DP.

You seem utterly unable to read what is actually said without wild, unjustifiable and rather malicious extrapolating.

You clearly have a one size fits all lens through which you look at everything a poster in this situation might say. You clearly deeply dislike her and consider her feelings as not just irrelevant to the abuse (note I did not say justifying it) but invalid and indicative of a thoroughly nasty, unattractive person. You have no basis for some of your more unpleasant speculations and some of your earlier (in my view, unfounded) comments about the OP were simply spiteful. You did not give her any encouragement for actions or feelings that you now acknowledge were positive on her part; instead you focused on the negative and, like the majority of other posters, probably left her feeling as if she could do nothing right from this point onwards.

I can only conclude that you and others behave in this heartless fashion because of your own personal issues in relation to abuse. It makes sense that turning to a group of women who have in all probability (going by other posts on this board) suffered at the hands of abusive exes is a poor strategy for a woman who wants help to avoid abusing (and somewhere to process perfectly valid feelings of emotional pain and anger of her own).

You should remember that EVERYONE has a valid perspective and valid emotions, including the person who lashes out. It is how they handle those feelings that is unacceptable and unjustifiable. Denying ANYONE the opportunity to be heard and to have valid emotions will prevent them processing their feelings. In practical terms they will be more likely to lash out again. Consequently if you really cared about the OP's dh you would not have dismissed what she is feeling.

It's never helpful to despise and never helpful to be condemnatory when there are behaviors and thoughts that could have been encouraged.

Interesting to note that now have privileged access to the DH's mind and that he seems to be such a suffering saint while she is utterly unbearable. It's as if you're looking for a reading of everything in this couple's life that will justify this vilification. Also interesting that if someone else had said 'it's great that she's remorseful' there would have been a chorus of 'that doesn't matter, lots of abusers are remorseful'. Why are you allowed to say it, then?

You don't seem to have any understanding of how people change. Ramping up the criticism, withholding recognition of the positive, and encouraging self loathing don't work. But I suspect that you are not half as interested in this poster changing as you are in having the satisfaction of using her as a whipping boy for past abuses of your own.