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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

Is this a dealbreaker?

202 replies

Changemyname21 · 07/04/2017 20:52

Been with my bf a year. We are very much in love.

This last two months two things have happened. We had both had way too much to drink. I did wind him up both times.

First time, big argument, he chucked me on the chair and had his hands on my throat while yelling.

Second time. Kept pushing me over in an argument. No hitting. I kept getting up to be pushed to the floor again. But the final push I hit furniture and hurt myself. Needed stitches.

He is the most gentle man usually. Both times a lot of drink was involved. I was arguing back.

I know what I would think if it was a friend.

OP posts:
GotToGetMyFingerOut · 07/04/2017 23:49

I'm actually just going to tell you what happened to my mum. She got with her partner 13 years ago. He was sooooo lovely when sober apparently. But when he drank he'd lash out.

Funnily enough she always said shed caused it. She goaded him apparently. She wouldn't just back down apparently. She kept answering him back cause she is strong and independent apparently.

She had her ribs broken. Coccyx, broken, nose broken, dog toy stuffed down her throat till she choked, clothes ripped off her , hair ripped out so much that one night I walked into their house and their was a thick coating (luckily she has loadsss of hairShock) about two cm high covering the whole lounge floor, she's been chased on holiday and jumped over the back wall of the villa and ran into the woods in Spain to hide....the whole night. Also the same somewhere else and hid in the garage, her lips have been so swollen she can't talk, they have been burst open, she's been covered in cuts, im pretty sure he's also raped her. He's been arrested and kept in cells and charged with dv as police wouldn't drop it despite her begging them too. Procurator fiscal said he wasn't allowed near her. She wrote asking them to lift it. He broke the neck of a bird that landed in the garden in front of my sister and baby nieces.

iv been square goed and pushed after defending my 12 year old sister from him whilst eight months pregnant with my eldest child. Been spat on for absolutely no reason at all when pregnant with my third child. This time my husband came who I have never seen lift a finger to anyone in his whole life and knocked fuck out him, however whilst he came in the house he picked up a knife to go for my dh. Things stopped physically after that, years and years of abuse.

Now she still stays with him as he doesn't lift a finger but still very much abuses her financially and emotionally. She still claims she is strong and in control Hmm please don't fall into the same trap. It will year your children apart as they will work it out. It's also destroyed mine and my children's relationship with my mum. She chose him over us everytime we helped her get away from him and begged her not to take him back.

GotToGetMyFingerOut · 07/04/2017 23:51

*tear

Naicehamshop · 07/04/2017 23:53

What a total nightmare, Finger. Flowers

Hope you are still here op - still reading all the posts and taking it all in.

Notthebossofnetflicks · 08/04/2017 00:06

Get out. Stay out.

RunRabbitRunRabbit · 08/04/2017 00:09

In life you have to set rules of behaviour for yourself and live by them even when it is hard.

You have a rule. Here's what you wrote: I have never been in a violent relationship before. I always said I would leave at any sign of one.

Actually that's not exactly what you wrote. You wrote... I have never been in a violent relationship before. I always said I would leave at any sign of one. But he said...

There's your problem. But he said...

memyselfandaye · 08/04/2017 00:38

Fucking hell Gottoget You must be at the end of your rope.

WishIhadaGEG · 08/04/2017 00:38

Yes OP. The deal is broken.

Get out and get your life back. You are worth more than this.

GotToGetMyFingerOut · 08/04/2017 00:44

memyself I have had to take a step back for my own sanity and safeguarding of my children. They have never been around it and I won't compromise that.

memyselfandaye · 08/04/2017 08:33

Good for you GotToGet Flowers

nachogazpacho · 08/04/2017 09:27

Having been in a similar situation I think you are doing well asking MN for advice at this stage. It took me at least a year after my relationship ended to ask MN if I'd been abused. Up until that point I thought they were rows that had got out of hand.

What I see now with hindsight is that he was never going to stop. Also I learnt that violence isn't always a punch. Infact the threat without actual contact us abuse too.

Like you I'm no wall flower and he always said I was argumentative. Also, the first time he hurt me physically he cried. It wasn't until the third time he stopped worrying about any show of guilt.

Also, like you most of it was pushing and grabbing of the arms. But he also threw things at me, occasionally k kicked out or pushed furniture into me. Eventually he had his hands around my throat.

Also like you violence didn't scare me like you would imagine it would, instead it just really hurt me emotionally because I believed deep down I had caused it and deserved it. I asked him to leave when he threatened to kill me and our child in our beds. It was only the threat against my child that made me finish it.

What I thought each time was that he would not do it again because I would try not to piss him off,as I wrongly believed I was causing it. Wrong.

Men who get physical do it for one reason only. To make you back down and bend to their will. It is a tactic of control.

I wonder what you argue about. I think these rows are part of the abuse. Maybe he wants to get his way, the verbal bashing doesn't work, he then ups the anti and pushed you around to get his way. This is him and it won't stop. Now he has humiliated you by showing you he could kill you if he do wanted he has tested your limit. If you carry on with him now he has learnt that even this is not enough for you to tell him to leave and he will most certainly do it again.

Basically, his brain is wired differently and he'll use whatever tactic he can to control you. Be it a row or a push or holding your throat.

You have only one option to get your esteem back on track. You need to finish it with him. It's a very dangerous time so please tell your family what you can and perhaps stay with someone for a while.

Remember he must be totally responsible for his own actions and that none of this had been caused by you.

nachogazpacho · 08/04/2017 09:32

Just to add the drink is not the cause either. He quite possibly drinks because he has emotional problems which is why he needs to control you in his mind.

Therapy often fails for them too because actually they see nothing wrong with what they do whilst also knowing society says it's wrong. So they say the right things but act very differently

TFPsa · 08/04/2017 09:44

This reply has been deleted

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PurpleDaisies · 08/04/2017 09:46

doesn't sound like the very most dreadful 'violence' ever

Is this a seriously unfunny joke? Biscuit

HeavenlyEyes · 08/04/2017 09:48

TFP - are you on glue?

TFPsa · 08/04/2017 09:50

@purple - it's not nice of course but, honestly, if as per my post there was a single incident, that didn't involve striking, in ten years then in the case of an otherwise good relationship then yes it might be worth trying to salvage, I do believe that. But OP isn't in that ballpark, it's much more frequent, hence best to call it a day as I already said.

SaorAlbaGuBrath · 08/04/2017 09:50

TFPsa and what level would it have to get to for you to class it as "dreadful". I've been with DP 6 years, we have kids and own a home together and if he ever, ever (he wouldn't, he abhors men who abuse women) even raised his hand to me once I'd leave. Because I spent years getting battered by XH, telling myself it was my fault, he'd change, I must have made him do it.....which was all wrong. It was him.

nachogazpacho · 08/04/2017 09:51

The feeling of shame is part of it and he'll feed that by saying you are argumentative. Or if you push back in defence he'll say you are physically abusive. He may well try and play the ' you're mad' card or that you are difficult to live with. It's all part of his control tactics and also convincing himself it's OK to treat you this way. He may well already be telling others that you are controlling so that you are isolated and can't tell them the truth as he has got in there first.

My ex financially abused me in the sense that he refused to pay the rent etc. It started with him saying he hadn't been paid and the rows started when I found out that wasn't true. He also got funny when I asked him to stay in rather than go up the pub again or if I texted him in the early hours to find out where he was. I he many sleepless nights when he came home drunk and urinated or puked everywhere. My life was a shambles and this was what we would row about. The physical stuff was his way of shutting me up so he could carry on with the rest of it. Which is why I think you need to look at the whole picture of rowing and see it as his way of getting his way when he is possibly being unkind in another way

CreatingADream · 08/04/2017 09:51

TFP I am assuming by not nice you actually meant to say "fucking bullshit".

Please go and read those links on strangulation that were shared.

Naicehamshop · 08/04/2017 09:56

TFP - the only level of violence that's acceptable in a relationship is none. NONE.

TFPsa · 08/04/2017 09:57

@saor I tried to be clear, I meant "dreadful" as in happens more than once or involves hitting. Sounds like your situation easily qualified on both counts, sorry to hear it.

nachogazpacho · 08/04/2017 10:04

That's the problem.... So many think abuse needs to involve hitting. A man can do a lot of damage pushing you into things, throwing things at you, shaking you, swinging you around etc. The abuser themselves can give you a wound that needs stitches but say 'i never hit her though' and sadly others seem to think that's OK. Also, we aren't all little Mo from eadtenders huddled in balls when we are attacked, which confuses people into thinking it's part of a row. It isn't.

AnyFucker · 08/04/2017 10:07

You are spouting dv apology, TFP, and it is really fucking dangerous

nachogazpacho · 08/04/2017 10:07

A man can do a lot of damage without hitting. A push, using furniture, throwing stuff at you can all cause serious damage. And we're not all little Mo cowering in the corner which confuses people into thinking we were fighting rather than being attacked. OP if you speak to women's aid they will tell u you pushing is physical abuse. It does not always or sometimes ever involve a hit.

PurpleDaisies · 08/04/2017 10:15

I tried to be clear, I meant "dreadful" as in happens more than once or involves hitting.

So someone pushes the other and they're hurt but because it wasn't hitting that's ok? Hmm

If my dh could behave like that towards me it would totally change the way I thought of him and there's no way I'd be staying with him.

CalmItKermitt · 08/04/2017 10:19

Frankly I highly doubt you'll leave him so to be practical - make sure your will is up to date and maybe think about telling a trusted person what's been going on so that if the worst happens he can't pass it off as a one off accident.