I just hit DP

[Icklepickle101]

I feel awful.

DP had been prodding me and poking me all through dinner, he found it funny, I didn't and after telling him and telling him to stop I hit him in the face. At the dinner table. In front of my parents. Now I've stormed off and am sat feeling sorry for myself and like a horrible horrible person and he's just told me if I ever hit him like it again he will hit me back

What the fuck have I done.

We have never ever ever been violent towards each other and he is honestly an amazing man. I just don't know what to do or how to make things right.

Glad he apologised as well in the end. Hope you can work through it. Some time to yourselves would probably help i think you are right. xxxx

"When is no not supposed to mean no?"

When it's just a muck about game at the kitchen table.

BTW, I play fight with DS all the time. If any of us wants to stop at any time, the other stops it.
I used to practice a martial art. All we had to do was say stop or tap twice. The other person would immediately stop.
Even doms and subs have safe words that mean no.
Because that's what normal and considerate people do. Unlike twats who continue.

No Lweji I won't. It isn't even close to the same as rape.

I agree with Lweji in many ways.
That jabbing was a version in microcosm to my mind, as general bullying can be. People are allowed to say 'No' to low grade abuse too. The Op just said 'No' more forcefully than she might have.

On another thread people have been posting a video called 'Have a Cup of Tea'. Here it is for anyone who didn't see it:

The principle is the same even if the constant prodding was not damaging in the same terrible way as rape. The prodding and final jab was a sort of 'power play' over the OPs body boundaries to my mind.

Even if a more calm assertive 'No' in some form would have been better than a physical one, it really does seem to have been a protective reflex 'fight' response to her husband insistently molesting her. I also think that sitting and eating might potentially make a person feel cornered - like an animal.

Please do not compare her jabbing the man's stomach to the man jabbing hers as though that would have been the same. That would not have been the equivalent.
Rather, compare his jab in the stomach to her prodding and goading him, not stopping when asked, then jabbing him hard in the balls; and compare her slap - shocking and stinging no doubt - to his: if he had slapped her in response, that slap might possibly have knocked her sideways or bruised her face.

Her reactive reflexes would be particularly intense so shortly after having a baby. I agree with FusionConfusion that that can happen.
I don't think she needs medication even if it would have been better had she got up and walked away. She has apologised and reversed the blame on to herself anyway it seems.

I wonder why her husband was doing that? It almost seems as though her husband had been a jealous toddler of hers trying to get her attention because she was too busy with her parents at the dinner. Had he been a child rather than her husband, I am sure she would have got up long before and tried to give the toddler the attention he was trying to elicit in a measured, gentle way.

So I do not think her child is in danger from her. If on the other hand she does find she goes on to react with hair-trigger anger to her baby, then that would be different. Then she might be best looking for help.

I'm also glad you got to your GP have some medication

I feel so frustrated by this. Does she really really need it? Perhaps she truly does, but having read this excellent study I feel these 'medications' are the modern equivalent of lobotomies randomly thrown at every problem - especially at women's natural reactions.

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But it wasn't a natural reaction.
It was totally out of character for OP.
Not something she would do in a million years normally.
She is probably suffering PND and has been for some months.
That does not just go away.
It's like any depression.
It's an imbalance in the brain.
And often, medication can get the balance back in check.
So why wouldn't you want medication to get yourself back?

'It's an imbalance in the brain'.

It is more often a reaction to events, or a physiological state brought about by other factors that will not be addressed by the anti-depressants.
Often AD do nothing much except numb someone. They do nothing to get to the causes of depression. The CBT may help though, so that is good.

It is natural to be reactive if someone has just had a baby, is tired, stressed, has hormones from child birth, possibly too little sleep, possibly not enough to eat or drink if she is breast feeding.

She lashed out under duress to an adult behaving extraordinarily badly.
Post natal depression is very serious but she does not seem to have this.

Anyway, OP it is very nice your husband understands why you hit him you have made it up together, and you are going to have CBT as counselling might be very helpful in general.

We've moved WAY on from that Navy

Yes, we've reached the unanimous conclusion that the person the OP punched is an abuser because he is a man.

No, the person punching the OP was behaving abusively by prodding her in a way which caused her pain even after she asked him to stop several because proddinng someone repeatedly even after they've asked you to stop is abusive behaviour for an adult of normal cognition.

A women doing the same would be abusive. As would an older child.

we've reached the unanimous conclusion
NO WE DIDN'T!!!
RTFT.

It's concluded that both were in the wrong, the OP a bit more so!
How is that anything like what you've said?

Glad you have managed to make up with your partner op..
You said at the beginning you were in the wrong and you apologised to him and now he has apologised for his part.
If I was tickling my DH and he said stop but I didn't realise how serious he was/didn't pick up on the tone of voice and just wanted to be playful with him and he hit me out of the blue (from my perspective) I would be deeply hurt even if on reflection I should have stopped when he said stop. It doesn't make your husband a bully or you unsafe around your child it just sounds like you have blown and that indeed you do need some help / support. I'm glad your are getting some from your gp and family and hope you enjoy your time away with your partner.

I don't know, if a man were trying to rape me, I would say it would be perfectly acceptable to hit the bastard. If a man kept poking me incessantly when I'd asked him to stop on several occasions, I would say it was acceptable to slap his hand out of the way and shout at him to leave me alone and stop being a twat, fgs... Hitting him in the face was clearly OTT, but I'm afraid I still have exceptionally little sympathy with anyone who thinks poking you hard in the stomach is playful or funny.

NavyandWhite
It's not ok to hit anyone whatever your sex

The OPs husband was hitting her - poke and jab version.
Here it is in black and white:
He was messing around, jabbing me in the ribs and thigh, just a childish game, I kept asking him to stop and he didn't, then I said please stop poking me again and he did it quite hard right in my stomach and I just flipped and hit him and then apologised and am sat in our room.

The OPs husband thought it was OK to repeatedly poke the OP, and then jab her in her belly, when she is a new mother, while she was sitting at a table trying to eat even after she asked him not to several times.

Perhaps you would like to describe in your own words Navy what on earth it was her husband thought he was doing? Why it was he didn't stop when she repeatedly asked him not to? And, why you think that was fine?

DP stayed on the sofa and came in this morning to give me and DS a cuddle. He apologised for antagonising me, said he didn't realise he was hurting me and was just messing around. Lesson learned, stop means stop.

Did you apologise for slapping him in the face also?

Oh god not again.

Although to be fair, the OP and her partner are barely into their 20s and he lived at home with his own mother before this, so his behaviour in that context comes across to me more as extremely immature and thoughtless than mean. Glad he sounds like he's learnt his lesson and the OP recognised the unacceptability of hers.

Apparently he's now on par with a rapist.

(Her behaviour, that is)