Is this domestic abuse?

[JustSloth]

Hi

I've been with my husband for 17 years. Looking back there were incidents of physical violence but my confidence was so low I just accepted it. I was just glad somebody wanted to be with me. Pathetic I know. The incidents were;

Pulling me out of bed and dragging me across the floor leaving bruises.
Pushing me up against wall with hands around throat then pushing me and throwing a glass
Getting angry at me because KFC forgot to give us salt so I wanted to go back and get some so he put his foot down and sped of in the car , I didn't have my belt on and my door was still open so I could have fallen out. I was pregnant .
Hitting me on arm and telling me he would kill me and bury me in garden
Roughly grabbing me

There has been no physical violence for about 8 years. I did try and leave but he would always go back to being really nice.

Anyway we went on to have 4 kids. One of them has global development delay and my husband has never had patience. I have always thought he is too strict , he thinks I'm too soft. Our son is now 14 and has big meltdowns where he shouts, swears ,throws things. I can calm him down tho so it doesn't escalate. But his dad doesn't have the patience and will shout back , swear back , call him nasty names, threaten to hit him etc. This makes my son worse and he will get more angry and punch holes in the wall, breaks things etc.

Weve both done a parenting course and my husband did try the strategies for a few weeks but couldn't maintain it.

Last year I told him to leave but he got angry because our son came in the room as we were talking and refused to leave. Husband threatened to punch him in the mouth. I told him he can't talk to him like that and he would have to go tomorrow if he was going to be abusive. He then called me a bitch and said I was nasty for leaving him at Christmas.

I went to bed and he stayed downstairs and drank bottle of whiskey and bottle of wine. He came upstairs and called me vile names, deliberately farted on me and then kicked my legs away when I tried to get out of bed. The next morning he phoned his mum and she was nasty to me too, telling me I'm mad ( I have bipolar) , Im a bad mum , I'm lazy etc. Husband agreed and said I should be sectioned. I was so upset 😭. He went to his mum's for few days but came home apologising and being nice again and said he had been drunk etc that he wouldn't normally have acted like that.

I have asked him to leave since Christmas but he refuses and I'm stuck in the cycle. The other week he had an argument with our son again and told him he was going to rip his head off, etc.

We have a family support worker from Early Help who is aware of all this and has put husband on waiting list for more parenting courses.

Do I wait for him to do these courses in the hope he will change? Or do I get out now anyway ? He won't leave, and is mostly nice to me , no violence etc though he does slam doors, swears, shouts and has punched a hole in the wall. I am overwhelmed and stuck . Is this domestic abuse or poor anger management? He has stood by me through thick and thin and had lots of good times too .

Yes it is abuse and domestic violence.

I would contact women's Aid to talk about it. The current person you have doesn't seem to understand domestic violence otherwise they wouldn't be suggesting parenting classes.

This is a very well written book about men and domestic violence it's called why does he do that and it's by Lundy Bancroft.

archive.org/download/LundyWhyDoesHeDoThat/Lundy_Why-does-he-do-that.pdf

He's not 'standing by you' though, is he: would you consider yourself to have stood by your son if you'd done to him the things your husband has done to you? You seem to think he's a hero for still being around you: have a think about why. It'll be to do with the fact that your father commanded your respect whilst making you feel like shit for existing. You are copying the way you were parented, as we all do. Your son will copy the way he is being parented. You are not powerless, except to your own feelings of submission and guilt. Drop these, and you would have had the police onto your husband long ago. He is a violent abusive man. Whether that classes as poor anger management is neither here nor there.

Yes he is nice to you sometimes, because that's how it works. If he wasn't you'd be long gone. He is nice to you sometimes as a tactic to keep you there.

Engage with the services you're involved with fully, be honest, and take the help you are offered. There is support out there, but ultimately it has to be you that makes the decision that this isn't how you want to live, and you need to protect your children. They can help but they won't do it for you.

This doesn't need a parenting course, that is false hope and procrastination. It needs you to stop protecting him, be honest when you're asked questions and want to get out of there, for your children's sake if not your own.

PLEASE contact Women's Aid as soon as possible! They can arrange for you to stay at a refuge for a while and give you time to make plans to leave if he's refusing to leave himself. Just make sure you get yourself and your children out safely. Do you have any family or friends you can speak to/confide in/stay with?
Social services are RUBBISH if they closed a case because there was no evidence of physical violence. I thought we'd moved past this by now!

You say your case of DV is 'mild' - being pushed up against a wall with his hands to your throat is definitely not mild. I left my ex over a year ago purely because of emotional abuse and coercive control. No form of abuse is 'mild' in my opinion, they're all as bad as each other.
He's NOT going to change. It is very confusing when they're being 'nice' to you ('nice' meaning they're acting like an actual human being) and you start doubting yourself. Before you know it though, the mask is off and he's back to being the abusive s**t he always has been and always will be. I stayed in WA refuge for 2 weeks a couple of years ago then returned to my abuser because he said he would change etc...a couple of weeks after I returned, the control came back and he felt like I "owed him" because he made these changes for me (no changes were made really).

I've rambled on though. Please get some women's aid support OP - they are amazing and played a huge part in my domestic abuse survival.

You allow him to treat your child like that? Bad parenting

no amount of courses is going to help this abusive cunt
leave

Have you heard of the abuse cycle/wheel of abuse? Abusive people use the nice to nasty to nice tactic to confuse the hell out of their victims. It's clearly been working perfectly on you: you feel guilty if you even think about standing up to him or expressing your own feelings, you're not sure if being pinned to a wall by your throat is violence... what he's doing to your mind and judgement is awful. You absolutely know that one person holding another by their throat is abusive, and yet he's even got you doubting something as extreme as that. If you Google 'abuse cycle' and go to images, you'll find your home life there. Sorry I can't post a direct link. More sorry that you're being put through this.

This is all pretty severe domestic abuse. I'm very sorry you are going through these horrific experiences.

There is no such thing as a course that will improve a violent, angry abuser. It's become a fashionable thing for abusive people (especially men) to say they need to "get help" or that they are "getting help", and for institutions to claim they support this, but the truth is that they are generally irredeemable. It is their victims who need help to get away from them, that's all.

In any case, an abuser's redemption is not their victim's job or business. One key step in showing improvement would be for them to acknowledge the harm they are causing and step back from their victims while they are working on themselves, funny how they never do that. You really don't need to stick around to see how your husband does in his parenting courses. He will do badly, as always.

@JustSloth No one type of abuse is more or less serious than another type of abuse. In my women's group, the women who had been subjected to both physical and psychological abuse said that their preference (I know, it is awful) was for physical. They said that they knew the beating would eventually end and then they would get a few days peace. The psychological abuse was worse for them as it was persistent and there was no respite. Of course, all abuse is wrong and we should have zero tolerance.

I do hope you resolve this. I can tell you that living without an abusive partner is a much happier and calmer way to live. My life now, seven years on, is so much better in every way.

For more clarification, the physical abuse was before my children were born except for two incidences when they were babies and in a different room, so they have not witnessed violence against me.

My son has mild learning disabilities and gets very frustrated easily. For example doing homework, cooking etc. During lockdown and home schooling he would have meltdowns because he found his work hard and would shout , swear, throw things. This is what my husband is reacting to. He doesn't do it other times, that's why I wondered if it was more anger management and feeling fearful, rather than deliberately being abusive?

When I say standing by me I mean with my mental health really. I have bipolar and been very ill before getting on the right meds. He stood by me when most people would have left. He visited me in hospital every day. He has been my rock at times I can't deny that

I hope you find the strength to leave. You and poor children deserve more. Please give them a better life. You can do this 💪

Oh please stop making excuses and asking for advice. My son has SEN if my other half treated his son the way he treats his my foot would be up his arse and he’d be out the door. I feel sorry for your son he’s being failed child probably gets into a as state fearing that monster.

you are an enabler

I’ve done more for strangers

jimmg Saville visited hospitals doesn’t mean he was a ‘rock’

@JustSloth
Actually I think that your H's reaction in your last post makes it worse and far more damaging. Look at it this way: who has less control over themselves? A boy with SEN who is frustrated & too young to self regulate or the adult who reacts in a violent way to a child's frustration and who is in the position of power?

Looking after kids is frustrating but losing it at a child over what is relatively minor thing - no, that should never happen and any decent, caring adult should be able to self regulate their reactions. This also indicates that your H can self regulate when HE wants to and he is in fact choosing not to in order to instil a sense of fear in your little boy.

I'm not making excuses, I was trying to give a clear picture. I'm not enabling, I have reached out to services myself. I just needed to hear from others who may hate good advice or can relate etc. I don't need to be belittled. I feel bad enough as it but I'm doing all I can

I just want you to see him for what he really is an abusive pig. Bet he wouldn’t treat a man like this no of course not just his wife and disabled son

leave

Things will not get better he will play on your mental health to his advantage any grown man who phones his mum to get her involved is a piece of shit LTB.

You do not depend on him, I can guarantee you are the default parent and he just muddles along. Your life would be much easier without him. I promise, please get help for your own sake and your children's sake.

He is not a nice man and no courses will change him. Good luck 💐

He is a piece of shit OP. Please find a way to get out of this marriage.

counselling doesn’t work on abusers. He threatens your son. Get your son away from this abusive monster of a man. Who cares if he’s nice sometimes?! Abusers are abusers. Nice men don’t EVER do these things

your son deserves better than being forced to be around someone who threatens and shouts at him and physically abused his mother.

@JustSloth
Honestly I do have some sympathy with you OP but abusers do not change. The only thing that they get better at is how to hurt their victims better. Ok, H hasn't actually assaulted you in awhile but why is that? It's not because he's seen the error of his ways or seen the light of remorse/regret - it's because his actions trained you into behaviour that he deemed acceptable to him. You walk on egg shells, you quieten the children, your support his issues to the point of capitulation and that is still abuse. He may not be using his fists any more but it is still abuse.

This exactly.
What a despicable person.
May he rot in a special place in hell!! Stay safe OP x

It's really not okay to speak to someone who's been through years of abuse like that and who is riddled with self doubt.

When I first posted about being in an abusive relationship, and I really wasn't sure it was abuse, a poster just like you came along and said how selfish I was being, putting my own needs above the needs of my children. I was so scared I'd got it all wrong and that I would be taking my children away from their dad for no good reason. This is also what my abuser said to me every day once I was finally ready to leave him. It really doesn't help.

It's normal when you've been through years of abuse, not to know which way is up.

He is abusing you and your children, it will just continue. I hope you manage to get sorted op.

This. I'm afraid I'm taking them away for something that could possibly be solved if he gets help. He has agreed to get help.

I've been doing a domestic abuse course with my local charity and it explains how difficult is to leave. There are so many reasons and it's judgemental scold a woman for not leaving.

Thank you for understanding xx