he just hit me

[purplemonsta15]

Hi ive been with my partner for over 4 years now, and 9 months ago we had our first child.
We've had our ups and downs with myself struggling with PTSD and weve finally got back to normal. We've even agreed that we'd like to contemplate another child.
But im scared.
I do struggle a bit with looking after the baby we already have, and my pregnancy and birth wasnt straight forward either. It hasnt been easy for any of us.
We just had a major arguement about him helping more, which resulted in him punching my forearm. Hes threatened violence before, but never actually did it. I was shocked, upset, angry. He didnt even appologise and atm still hasnt. My arms bruising and a bit swollen. Can damage be caused by a bruised muscle? What do i do? I cant throw years of us and also my babys childhood down the drain. I dont know what to do

OP, no one is going to tell you how you can fix it because you can't fix your partner being abusive. Thinking that you can or should is typical for women who have been abused, but it just leads to suffering for you and a bad childhood for your baby. You need to put that child first and leave for their safety. Your partner has been violent and abusive and only he can fix that. If he wants to fix it he can start working on himself much better after you leave.

You cannot fix him, he hasn't even admitted it was wrong.
Yes, he may have had a hard life. Does that mean you have to soak up all his frustration & anger punches ? Your feeling sorry for him is such a red flag I feel like I could scream.
THIS is why battered wives die: He is not that bad, I answered back, he is lovely sometimes, he's had a bad day, he had a difficult childhood, theres's been a bereavement. His child adores him....
You must log with this your GP, at the very least. You must ring WA, or number above, & talk it through with a professional.
Maybe a police officer coming round to tell him its not on will make him think about his actions.
Because as it is hasn't said sorry. Is he still gas lighting & sulking?

The problem you have here is that you desperately want this to be a one off, a moment of madness that he will regret and never do again. It could be, right? Wrong.

He has shown no remorse whatsoever and that is very worrying because it shows that he isnt sorry that he hit you. We can extrapolate from that that he thinks its ok to hit you because you asked him to do something that he didnt want to do. So the next time you want him to help he hits you again, or you dont ask him because you are frightened.

If you take the path of least resistance and dont ask him for anything that you know he does not want to give, then on the surface you have "fixed" it. He isnt hitting you anymore after all! Except that you are destroying yourself to do it. You are walking on eggshells, you are struggling every single day. Your child will soon learn to not ask Daddy for anything, to not make Daddy angry, to hide away parts of his personality in case Daddy gets cross and starts shouting and hitting.

Thats what you are signing yourself and your child up for if you want to stay with this man. You may be happy to do that for you, but its downright cruel to do it to your child. You may be interested to know that Social Services take a very dim view of parents who do not remove their children from abusive home lives.

He is a pig, disgusting way to behave and to not even apologise - Jesus, are you actually going to wait until he maims you?

It's less than 5 years so that's not a long time and look what has happened. If you do nothing you are effectively saying it's ok to mark you, humiliate you and expose your child to DV.

You don't want to leave him

Where would you draw the line?

If he does it again? Once more? Twice more? If he draws blood? Hits you in the face? Uses a weapon? Breaks a bone?

Don't let it get to 'hits our child'.

How to fix it? You need to contact the police and domestic abuse services so he can be charged and ordered to go on a perpetrator programme and hope he is one of the small % of people who are truly able to realise that what they did was wrong, address the reasons why and learn never to do it again.

Or skip the police and da services and ask him to enrol himself on one. I don't see that ending well tbh.

The thing is that a lot of people here tried to address the problems, to try and find the right combination of words in the right order that would make them see. Very few managed it... I recall one woman who said that she was only hit once and it never happened again. The odds are not in your favour.

For yourself you should look up the freedom programme and try to attend a group in person but do the online course if that's not possible.

I wish you luck op

Did he punch you hard? You say you have bruising and swelling.

That sounds like he punched you hard.

How has he reacted? You say you want to fix this....the first step is to see a whole helluva lot of remorse from him. If he's not remorseful and full of shame, I would find it very hard to advise you to move forward.

BTW, you are only going to hear Leave the Bastard on this thread.

He may have hard childhood, that's not an excuse, justification, reason or anything like.

And if you stay you are signing YOUR child up for just a childhood just as awful or worse.

You need to put some distance between yourself and him - can you stay with a friend or a family member, or can he?

There's no excuse for what he did at all - there's nothing you can do to "fix" this, any fixing needs to come from his side

You can't fix this lovely, it's broken now. Sorry

A PP made a good point.

Has he assaulted anyone else? Hit his boss, the woman at the checkout in Tesco, his best friend? No? If he was having such a hard time that he is lashing out then surely everyone is a target, but they're not are they? Its just you, and it will always be just you, at least until your child says the wrong thing at the wrong time and gets it too.

I am so sorry you are in this situation.
It is not your fault, and it is not something you can fix.
Your partner is abusive. He needs to accept he has a problem, and then get help with this.
If he doesn't accept he has a problem he will never change and things will escalate.
You need to get yourself and your child out of danger, and you are in danger, regardless of how you might want to minimise his behaviour.
If he is serious about addressing and changing his violent abusive behaviour then he can do it without you being there.
If six months down the line he is actively getting help then you can possibly reconsider getting back together.
Generally abusers either refuse to accept there is a problem, or pay lip service to getting help but actually never do.
Currently your priority are you and the baby. Please get advice from Women's Aid .You and your child deserve better.

You haven't broken the family. He has. You cbsnn cannot fix it on your own. But you can fix yourself and y u child by getting away from this man.

Whatever positive things he adds to your life has been deleted by this. I hope you will back to this thread.

Op everyone suffers most people don't batter their partners.

He's done it once he will do it again.

OP, you want to stay and that is your choice but when it escalates you risk losing your baby. Get out and get help.

OP - you want to stay with this violent bully. That's your choice. I bet you 'luuurve him' so much.

BUT he WILL do it again - because there are no consequences for him. Why wouldn't he? What respect does he have for you? What love does he have for you?

He is violent. A wife-beater. He might be having a bad time of it, right now, but that is NOT the reason. The reason is that he is a THUG!

Seriously, 4 years is nothing. In four years your child will be walking into school, and could be telling teachers and parents that mummy has been hit again by daddy, because daddy didn't like the way she looked at him, or because the rent is due, or he's got a headache....

At the VERY least, chuck him out for now. Get some space, give him consequences, get DV advice from Womens Aid or the Police. At least do that; you don't need to act on it if you don't want to.

Sorry to hear this. Take a breath and get your ducks in a row first.

Do NOT have another child with him. That could be a method of tying you down completely.

Get your documents, passports etc. to a safe place. Get your running away money put away safely too.

Maybe you think it's early days and you are over reacting. Maybe that's true for you, you may not see the reality of a partner's violence and CONTROL.

But a whole family was wiped out in Ireland last week. By the father.

No warning, no nothing. They are all dead now.

Just saying. If in doubt, get out.

Having a hard life/abusive childhood etc. is one of the classic lines abusers use all the time to get their partner to put up with it and give them more chances. It's listed in Lundy Bancroft's "Why does he do that" book, and I've heard real life examples of it being used as well.

Lundy Bancroft points out, correctly, in the book that if someone has been a victim of abuse/had a hard or bad childhood etc. - why would they want someone else to feel the same way that they did. Why would they want to do that to someone else. And why wouldn't absolutely everyone who's been abused act like that .. they don't.

It's the ultimate "feel sorry for me", "take my excuses", "give me more chances", "you'll be treating me badly and abandoning me too if you leave" manipulation. If you'd really had a hard life, why would you want someone you supposedly care about to have one too.

Bereavement - so does everyone who is bereaved hit their partners too? My theory is that ppl who are capable or hitting their partner might do, and those who don't, don't. I'm sure there are a hundred mumsnetters on here who could confirm their partner never it them during/because of a bereavement.

At the very least he needs to admit to what he did, agree there are no excuses, take responsibility for it, agree to counselling/a programme, do it and not repeat anything similar.
I worry that other posters are right in saying he did it because he feels entitled to - in the same vein as apparently thinking he's entitled to throw all the work with the baby onto you.
Do you know anything about his past relationships or could you find out - I wonder if he has been violent before.

Sorry - realised I gave the impression that Lundy Bancroft's book did not refer to real life example; it doesn't name people, of course, but it is based on real life examples as he wrote it after working as a domestic violence counsellor (attempting to counsel people found guilty of domestic violence) for years.

OP - I'm so sorry, I know these replies aren't what you want to hear, but a line has definitely been crossed. How can you respect a man who hits you - quite apart from the safety issue? His background, etc are no excuse I'm afraid, if he can do it once, he can do it again and you can't lead your life like this.

Please call the helplines suggested above. Do you have anywhere you can go today?

You are not responsible for throwing anything away. He is.

You are responsible for keeping your child safe.

If he hits you why wouldn't he hit/shake her?

Leave sweetheart. I'm so sorry.
Leave.

Try to imagine yourself outside the scenario, OP.

Is this the first time you have ever been scared of him? No.

Is this the first time he has threatened you with violence? No.

Is he remorseful? No. (Many abusers are remorseful and are still abusers, but to be unapologetic having hit your wife and mother of your children?)

Is he going through a difficult time? Yes. But will this be the last or only time this is the case? No.

Why did he threaten and then hurt you? Because you needed his help and for him to change something about the way he prefers to do things. Will this happen again? Yes, unless you are too afraid of him to ask in the future.

Does this sound like a one-off to you? Is there any such thing as a one-off?

If you were advising you, you would be saying what PP have said, wouldn't you?

I would add that I am in the lucky position of being unable to imagine my partner raising his voice or hand to me. He has never given me a moment's concern in twelve years. If someone told me he had hit them, I wouldn't believe it. If he hit me, I probably wouldn't need to LTB because I think I would drop dead from shock.

This is the level of violence and intimidation that is acceptable in a relationship. None.