Is this abuse

[Upset00]

Hi all

So something happened today and I can't decide if it's physical abuse or not. So I was playing with dh tickling him and he was playing a game on his phone. We was outside as it was a lovely day. Dh wouldn't get off his phone so I went to tickle him with the bottle lid of my bottle and he's wacked my arm (aggressively) that's bent back and got caught the wall. This has completely stunned me. In front of my kids too. He didn't say sorry and dint think he'd done anything wrong. I barely said two words on way home, I'm thinking is this the start of it. Physical Abuse that is or am I over reacting?.

People in healthy relationships don't wonder if one action might be physical abuse, so I'd say the fact that you're asking the question indicates that there were serious issues before this even happened.

What's your relationship usually like? Does he listen to you, respect you? Do you deal with conflict well, as a couple?

Sounds like you were deliberately winding him up because you felt he was ignoring you and he swatted your arm away from him. I hardly think you can run crying abuse when you are sat there trying to get a rise from him. Next time you are irritated you don't have his full attention, you could say so instead of reverting to childish tactics.

Perhaps he shouldn't have been so forceful, but why would you "tickle" him? I fucking hate tickling, I believe most people do, and it would make me immediately angry if someone tickled me.

If anyone tickles me I am not in control of my limb movements, it's vile and I just want it to stop.

Don't be an idiot.
Apologise for interrupting him.

This

Is there a reason you can't communicate your feelings.

Phew, thought I was gonna get 🔥. DP tickles me for attention, when I tell him no, he has to do it again like a child testing boundaries. Same conversation every time, no means no! Overally, a good egg, but if he gets a dead arm at some point then he bought it on himself 😂 (joking... mostly)

It's hard to say because I'm really struggling to understand what actually happened.

How do you tickle someone with a bottle lid? How did your arm get caught in the wall?

If you tickled me on my phone, and i wasn't in the mood, I'd probably do the same. It depends on what you mean by "aggressively" and whether he showed any remorse if he actually hurt you.

I'd suggest apologising to him, but equally, it's morally right that he should be apologising to you if that happened.

Better yet, speak to each other about boundaries. Ie, if he doesn't want you to do something, use his words not his body.

How is your relationship otherwise? Do you feel loved, supported,respected? Are you?

I don't think this constitutes physical abuse if he is otherwise not abusive in any other way..

You sound very childish in how you went about getting his attention and he was probably overly forceful in his reaction...

I'd have kicked you in the face accidentally if this was me.. I utterly hate being tickled. Some people find it violating.

Perhaps this is one of those threads where - not having got desired responses - OP will now post with a massive backstory/drip feed about how awful said DP is?

I think it depends how the relationship is. My partner of 18 years is great and not in anyway abusive. So if he did a gut reaction of swatting me away wouldn't think it was abusive. But if your husband is a twat normally thnlen it could be.

I don't know what you mean tickling him with your bottle top...

Also some people really hate being tickled so it could be very annoying for him.

Basically we need more info op.

If a grown adult thinks tickling me is a good idea then damn right I'm shoving thier arm away hard.

Ps. It's not abuse.

Yeah I'd push you away if you were trying to tickle me too.

I think this is a bit dangerous to say, as OP might be in an abusive relationship. The individual action might not be abusive (and it's almost impossible to tell, from OP's description), but individual actions often don't appear abusive, until we see them in context. We've been given no context.

You’re using very hyperbolic words for his actions whilst downplaying yours. So you repeatedly tickled him and poked him with a bottle lid until he got pissed off and batted your arm away which unfortunately caught the wall next to it. No, it’s not abuse. You sound annoying af though. My oh had a habit of swiping his finger up my bare feet while they were up on the recliner which tickled me, I cannot stand being tickled. He stopped when I lost my temper and booted him in the leg. I consider him lucky as I was aiming for his balls. No one over 5 likes being tickled, it’s childish and annoying. If you want to count all unwanted touching as abuse then you were abusing him too.

This. Actually can’t believe the man’s had to resort to (mildly) physically defending himself to stop her from physically tormenting him, and she’s asking ‘is this the start of abuse’ ffs. Grow up and use your words instead of tickling and poking like kids in a playgroup. If he had pigtails no doubt you’d have pulled them too 🙄

No, it's not abuse. You were being a total pain and physically 'abusing' him.

If my DH 'ticked me with a bottle lid' I wouldn't be impressed, I won't lie.

how do you tickle someone with a bottle lid? that sounds highly unpleasant, is that physical abuse? was it an immediate reaction or did you just kept bothering him?

tickling is only fun when both parties are into it, otherwise it's at best unpleasant and at worst - painful

Tickling is something that most humans cannot control their reaction to, and so takes away the bodily autonomy of the person that it is happening to, unless agreements have been made around consent, when it is okay, how to know when to stop if there is a time that it is okay.

There is PDA profile autism, where any loss of autonomy can make you immediately violent, or immediately dissociated, or immediately suicidal, without any capability to control that reaction, going all the way into dorsal vagal collapse and/or catatonia.

Tickling is often the first physical or sexual abuse that children experience, and can be highly triggering, again, possibly causing dorsal vagal collapse for people who had tickling that was legitimately used as torture, or that progressed to sexual assault.

There are many reasons why someone would not want to be tickled, and like with anything that removes someone’s bodily autonomy, doing so without someone’s consent is assault. Most people cannot control their physical reactions to tickling, and so when you assault them by tickling without consent, you have to be ready to receive whatever happens next, when the person can’t control that.

You assaulted him, and he defended himself. Tickling without consent is abuse.