single violent incident

[maybeitwillbeok]

has anyone's dp been violent towards them once, been shocked by it and it never happened again?

Or if it happens once is it the start of an escalation and always definitely time to get out?

Have namechanged but my dh is unhappy with his life and we argue. He has behaved a bit threatening in the past when angry, twice thrown something soft at me. But the other day he grabbed me round the throat in front of our terrified dd (18mo) then wouldn't let me leave the house with her. When I tried to get out he dragged me back inside and it took quite a long time for things to calm down. He didn't hit me. But he did insist it was my fault for getting him so angry

Now things have cooled down and he is taking it quite seriously, finding out on the net about anger management etc. Is it possible that he can get it under control and it will not happen again?

maybeitwillbeok, what do you honestly think? You say you are not scared, why is that? Was his behaviour not really that bad? Did he grab you round the throat in a not very threatening way? How did he stop you leaving the house? How did you feel when dd was terrified?

What does your gut tell you about your dh and his capacity to change?

thank you husbandbeater - that was honest

dittany and cargirl- i'm not really frightened about the prospect of this happening again. physically he is not much bigger than me and i have many years martial arts training, so its not like I was fearing for my life or anything. I am also financially independent (to a point) although our standard of living would drop considerably if I left him. If I left, he would be in severe financial difficulty.

I feel sorry for him mostly. I love him and I don't want to ruin his life. But i'm not prepared for my dd to grow up with memories of her dad abusing her mum. i am in a quandary.

If he continues to blame you then that is different to. My dh admitted what he did was wrong, however he did say "I really don't know what to do to make you realise how far you've gone with hurting me with what you say" (I was very depressed and lashing out verbally a lot of the time)

So I think in the cold light of day you have an opportunity to weigh up very carefully how he is responding/reacting. He needs to know absolutely it must never happen again and you need to be able to believe him.

BTW my husband is over a foot taller than me and double my weight so he could have very easily really really hurt me and he I suppose he didn't.

That sounds like a long and protracted controlling and violent incident, not the first, and no, I have never ever met a woman who says "He only hit me once, it was 5 years ago and he never did again"

That's because it happens so rarely, if at all, for it to be statistically insignificant.

What does happen is that the woman will stay with him and the line has moved. that line - his personal line - has gone beyond hitting the mother of his child in front of the child. he has done it and there have been no consequences - ergo he will probably do it again, next time you make him angry.

This time he grabbed you round the throat - what about next time/ next time, he might black your eye - and that will be a one off too.

After that it could be a sullen kick with a steel toe capped boot to your knee cap - so easily done, so easy to say he was aiming for the wall and missed - but will probably still hurt 3 years later.

Things might go quiet for a year or too. You might decide to have another baby with him - and suddenly, you're pregnant, you feel like crap, you can't manage to do the huge amount of running around and placating that living with a violent and volatile (as a one off, of course) man requires. He resents your pregnancy, he resents your eldest child, you are both standing there and in that instant, who does he hate the most? Who is he angry with the most? The wife he perceives as lazy? The child he perceives as naughty?

Who will get the blow?

In 12 years time, you are going to have at least one teenager - not the most empathic, emotionally sensitive and naturally passive creatures.

How many one offs will she get?

maybe - in all honestly. Listening to you saying that you have martial arts training etc makes it even scarier. This could become REALLY brutal in front of your DD.

I'm sorry but i'm now thinking that one of you REALLY needs to move out and re-evaluate your relationship!

I'm agreeing with colditz, that's a really scary picture she's put forward as well.

What happened if your DD was screaming and his temper made him shake her?

it can be a single incident.

dp has laid hands on me once in 6 years, he grabbed me round the throat so i hit him with a 2 by 4.

never happened again.

being furious is a good sign, it means your not the type to be broken down by an abusive type.

though tbh it sounds more like he's having a rough time and snapped in a really horrific and inappropriate way. but he is looking for help which is promising, he obviously feels very ashamed of himself.

i agree with others here, if you feel you need a break is there a friend you could ask him to stay with for a week or so just to give you time to relax? things are only going to get more stressful if your not completely happy being in the house with him right now, whether that stems from the violance or the other relationship issues.

no one here knows your dh so it's hard for us to judge... keep in mind most victims of DA say their abusers are lovely men noramlly, etc, etc,.... it's impossible for us to know if your trying to make him sound better than he is or if he is actually a decent person who snapped.

And just because you're not scared doesn't mean he's not abusing you.

maybeitwillbeok, I still 'feel sorry' for my ex. Every day. Because he is a damaged individual who lost the family that he loves. I think it is perfectly reasonable to feel sorry for him but to still feel that his behaviour is unacceptable. Don't try to justify it.

You sound like a strong individual (not just the martial arts training!): I think you should be able to sort out how you are really feeling in your head and act on it. good luck.

harpo he held the door shut while shouting at me. dd was screaming in my arms which is the worst part of all this, her frightened little face. i got out the door and he grabbed me, tbh i went back inside because i was embarrassed about making a scene in front of the neighbours as much as anything.

colditz this is what i'm worried about. the potential escalation. my gut feeling is that i can't imagine things getting as bad as you describe with my dh. but other peoples experiences tell me they might. so at what point do i give up on my marriage and make dd cope with a broken home and all the issues that brings? should I wait until things get bad? or go now because they might get bad in the future?

dittany i'm not thinking along the lines "i can fight back" but more like "i can defend myself and my daughter if i have to". i don't want it to come to that obviously.

in my ideal world dh will deal with his problems now (he seems to be trying to) and this will never happen again. so dd will have no memory of it. am i being unrealistic to hope this might happen? or would i be over-reacting to leave him over this?

This happened with my dp, first incident he put his hands round my throat and pushed me against the wall then onto the floor.
Second time he hit me several times, pushed me to the floor, threw me over furniture, threw a bottle of wine at me.

I'd love to say it would just be a one-off incident, but thats how these things start.

For me it was an instant deal-breaker, moved me and dd out that same night, have never looked back.

Hope I'm wrong about your situation Maybe x.

YOu do it now.

You do it before your daughter learns to deflect his fury at you onto herself, so she doesn't have to watch daddy making mummy bleed and cry.

You do it before she is sitting on your stairs trying to push rolled up pieces of paper into her ears so she doesn't hear him hitting you, so she doesn't hear his fist against your face.

You do it before she learns that this is how a relationship works, and seeks out men who will hit her to show they love her as much as daddy loves mummy.

You do it before he injures you.

You do it before he injures her.

Say he throws something at you and it hits her? How would you feel if you knew it could have been prevented by you not being there at all?

Rich kids are just as easily fucked up by abusive parents (and forcing his daughter to witness her own mother being strangled is child abuse). It doesn't only happen to people in low rent property. Is it not better to be poor and happy than rich and terrified of Daddy?

Because, you see, you're not scared - you're a martial arts practitioner - but she is not. She is a child, and you can bet your life she is scared.

you need to really think about your situation because it is not just you. I hope he never raises a hand to you again, but the reality of domestic abuse is that he will. My exh hit me once 8 years ago and got counselling and we worked through it and had children. He didn't hit me again until last year when he was going through a hard time and had emotional and self confidence problems. i did everything i could to help him and he hurt me more than i thought was possible. i left and it is hard but i am glad that i never have to put up with that abuse again. i thought it was a one off and that we were very happy. whatever you decidei hope that it is the right decision.

IME, they do do it again, not least because it can become extremely habitual behaviour. Something has to break the cycle for there to be a chance of him not doing it again.

He isn't treating you or your daughter with respect when he behaves like this, it could lead to a very serious skew in your relationship... in fact, it sounds like it's already started.

As a child, my parents had the most horrific physical fights in front of us. I used to think he was going to kill her, it was terrifying! At the age of 6 I used to sit with my siblings heads in my lap, covering their ears and eyes as best I could in an effort to stop them from seeing and hearing what I was witnessing. Thankfully, they don't remember. I do.

My mum left my dad eventually and (comparably) 'poor' was fine by me

very very dodgy and in my eyes, unforgivable behaviour...it's irrelevant whether you have martial arts training or if your shame in front of the neighbours was the reason you went back into the house. The point is he was out of control and became physically violent towards you...the fact that his own child was there to witness this adds a whole other dimension. Unless he takes immediate action, removing himself from the house to receive treatment (anger management etc), he is simply not taking full responsibility. You need to put your child before your marriage here and put her safety at the top...your priority is keeping her physically and emotionally safe. Everything else comes second. As someone who witnessed many a horrible and occasionally violent scene growing up, she may not thank you for it but she will blame you if you don't. I actually don't see my mum because she never put me first and chose to stay with my father. She doesn't get to see either of my daughters grow up all because she lacked real courage and put lifestyle before safety. I hope this never happens to you- you have the opportunity to do the right thing for your daughter now so don't let her down.

thank you all for posting.

we are not rich, we are struggling but coping between us and we have built up a little bit of a life over the years to the point that we might be debt free in the next year or two, all being well. we both have to work hard. i'm not putting lifestyle over my daughter. if i left then we would face quite serious deprivation.

its easy to say from a distance, "you're better off poor" but I grew up in a single parent household on benefits. I know what its like to really not have enough money to pay the bills let alone anything else. I watched my mum crying with all the bills around her and going out to work cash in hand minimum wage, "benefit fraud", all the hours while i took care of my little brothers. I know what its like to only see your dad at weekends and see that he has nothing to live for now his family is gone. And I don't want my daughter to grow up like that just because I overreacted to a single isolated incident and ruined all our lives.

Of course I don't want to let my daughter down. That's pretty much why I haven't left yet. I'm not going to stay if there is a repeat of this. But I think everyone deserves one second chance... colditz you seem to feel very strongly that I'm wrong. I wish I could see things so black and white.

I left him - my XH after 3 incidents - they were much the sAame as yours - I then had to fight for custody of DD which took 2 years and was heartbreaking - and I can say now - it was worth it - and as a mother your child will have more respect and love for you growing up poor than growing up in an abusive relationship - you can change being poor yourself when you grow up - what you can;t change is the years of seeing your mother beaten, the emotional turmoil you are placed in when you hear the punches and the slaps and have to dry the tears whilst still loving the person that is inflicting the pain - what you can;t change is the idea that when you are abused like your mother was that it is normal - because it is what you ahve seen of adult reltionship all through your life and you can;t turn to your mother because you wantche dit happen to her and in your little mind think she won;t have sympathy for you - because you have been taght by your mothers inactivity when this was happening to her that it is normal.

Above all after hearing my 2 year old - say 'Daddy don't hit mummy' I didn't want to be bandaging up her face 20 years down the line and looking into her eyes telling her she should leave - because I didn't and she is in that place because she saw me putting up with it.

It will happen again - he has crossed the line and you owe it to your daughter to take huge steps - it is nicer being poor than it is living in an abusive reltionship for both mother and child.

Sorry I have harped on - it is all personal experience - the first time my XH abused me - other than the mind fucking games he used to play was grabbing me round the throat and pushing me up against a wall and he was the same size as me - anger though makes them much stronger and fear often puts you on the back foot.

Good Luck.

Mine pushed me once, I was sitting on the bed and he pushed my shoulders. We were rowing horribly and I was being very verbally aggressive to him. The push stopped the row for the time being (both knew it had gone too far) and we talked the next day about how to avoid getting in that state again, it was a low couple of months for us and we didn't handle it well. Upshot is, we never rowed like that again (at least so far) and he has never ever been aggressive to me since, and neither have I (verbally).
I class that as a one off. He never did anything like it before or since, with me or anyone else, and he (we both) realised a line had been crossed immediately and were keen to make sure it didn't happen again. Your DH was violent and aggressive over a prolonged period, that's more scary. I genuinely think there is a line of behaviour which, once passed, becomes acceptable and the line is moved further and further back until it gets really awful. That's why my DH and I really tried to work things out so it never crossed that line again...I really don't know if my rambling has helped but I'd be worried if I were you. He needs a living without violence programme, not anger management. Domestic violence is not simply not dealing with anger well, it's more than that.

I was told once that if someone is violent once, they will, someday do it again.

Turned out to be right in my experience, so I am extremely intolerant of it.

Can i just say, my husband grabbed me by the throat, pinned me down and scared the crap out of me about 8 months ago. I left, but came back but it got steadily worse, not in a violent way ut i just didnt feel the same about him anymore. I left him after xmas and it was the best thing i ever did. The divorce is going through and there is no looking back. me and my daughter are doing fine.

You miss my point- firstly you could surely work out a temporary situation where he lives elsewhere until he gets some help in place...if he could rent a room or sleep on someone's sofa that would give the necessary space to focus on his treatment and you would be in a safer situation than him staying, possibly both of you minimizing the seriousness of the problem and perhaps avoiding seeking help hoping that it just won't happen again... do you really want to take that chance? Next time you could be seriously hurt or worse...your daughter may witness this and be mentally scarred.

If your husband is taking this seriously he would happily live elsewhere and seek help.

Take this one step at a time. Avoid scaring yourself into doing nothing by imagining the worse case scenario, poverty and deprivation etc etc. I have heard my mum justifying her decision to stay with the same reasons many many times. While I feel sorry that due to no fault of her own she, like you, was put in a horrible position..I mainly feel incredibly let down that her fear of the unknown meant that I was ultimately unprotected and exposed to mental and physical abuse.

Unfortunately you are between a rock and a hard place and you have my sympathies- honestly you do- but in this situation you have an obligation to put your child's safety first. As I said she may not thank you for it, she doesn't understand such a complex situation and she no doubt loves you both and can't understand why her parents should be separate for a while, but you do. You are the adult here. He has already let your daughter down by violating her mother in front of her but you have an opportunity to do your very best to make sure that never happens again.

One step at a time. Ball in his court...he needs to prove it to you. Don't protect him- he is your husband, not your child.

I'm still together with my dp after a single incident. It's a little more ambiguous than your situation because we were both very drunk and I woke up with a black eye and a very sketchy memory of how I got it. We pretty much pieced together that he had done it. Then I found out I was pregnant so decided I wanted to stay. Nothing violent has happened since (2 years later). I suffered quite severe abuse as a child so I wasn't even that shocked by it. At the time, I accepted it as part of my bad luck. I think you can decide your own boundaries and you will know when enough is enough. It's good that you are communicating about it. We haven't spoken about it much at all - we both stopped drinking soon after and I'm convinced that his anger that night and his actions were a result of that.