Discovered something which has made me feel sick

[thrown]

I've been with my husband for 10 years and married for five.

I just found out that when he was a teenager (18/19) he punched his younger sister in the stomach during an argument- she is a couple of years younger than him. She told me this in passing this afternoon when we were discussing something else.

This was around 12 years ago. He has never been violent or anything close to it to me, or his sister (or anyone else), since we have been together. And he has expressed very strong (negative) feelings about men who hit women. Violence just isn't something I would associate with him at all.

Apparently he apologised at the time and then again some years later. For her part, his sister says that is what they were like as teenagers. They get along well now, the odd argument aside.

I am very shocked that he could ever have behaved this way and it is making me question the man he is.

I just wanted to get it out.

Wow, this thread has scared me

I'm an only child and the wild world of siblings is new to me. I think I'll stick with 1 baby only, thank you.

JJsandcat, not all siblings are as beastly to each other as the ones described here. Honest!

Me and my younger sister used to beat the hell out of each other. Poor mum even called the police on us once as she couldn't separate us . I was the hot headed one, but my sister grew up tall and able to fight back so we never knew when to stop. It was almost 20 years ago but I recall threatening each other with knives and a couple of trips to A+E.

We get on fine now, and mum works as a Samaritan .

This thread has upset me a lot tbh

Most of you seem to think that siblings fighting is normal and in retrospect funny

I wont ever allow my kids to fight in that way - if they do I will sit them down and explain why it is not acceptable in our house

Heres why:
I suffered nearly 20 years of physical and emotional bullying from my brother (who incidentally is younger than me by 2 1/2 years) My parents would try to stop it but generally gave up because it was somehow "my fault"

I was terribly unhappy and frightened
When I left home to go to Uni I was in many ways a freak (one of his names for me, Scum was another) It took me several years to be even vaguely normal.

Every day there are things that I do, ways that I think, thoughts I think purely because of what he did to me. I had nightmares for years afterwards. Even now in certain circumstances I have panic attacks and flashbacks

My brother and I rarely speak now - only at family gatherings etc

Yet apparently such behaviour between siblings is normal - I am struggling to understand how what I experienced oculd be normal

No way am I going to let my kids behave like that to each other

I pushed my brother through a glass door because he was flicking bubbles at me from the draining board. My Mum came downstairs upon hearing the crash and asked 'Have you broken a plate?'

Yurtgirl your experience sounds like a campaign of planned verbal and physical assault. My experience was a bit more 'Tom and Jerry', and we both gave as good as we got. It wasn't funny at the time! But with retrospect , I can smile about how we used to HATE each other so much. I'm sorry you have had a bad time.

My brother hit me in the face with a three pin plug, threw a rock at me in our local park and used to cosh me regularly with his mock German but still bloody hard gun!!!
I used to pin his legs back behind his ears, refuse to let him talk whilst he was in my room and generally cause him pain whenever I could get away with it........
We are the eldest two of four and eighteen months apart. I absolutely dote on him, its just part of growing up and we laugh about it a lot. I view it as normal and no harm done.....

Yurtgirl I think you are the exception rather than the rule. My children fight tooth and nail as well because they are different. I step if I felt one was being particularly targeted but I think it teaches them a lot and prepares them for life. People argue. Fact.

FWIW my kids do argue and fight but I would never ever let it escalate - thankfully mine dote on each other most of the time

What is both interesting, confusing and sad for me all at once is that most of you are reccollecting violent incidents that are worse than any I can recall.

So I am confused about why it was so much more awful for me at the time and why it was and still is a scar on my life.

I am upset just thinking about it - why???

my sisters and i fought big time

my next oldest sister was 3.3 yrs older than me and a bully - she was a beast

I remember her making my other two sisters put a pillow over my face and she beat me up whilst they sat on either side of the pillow trying to suffocate me

BUT

I do not let my dcs beat one another up

very infrequently they get to the fisticuffs stage but i dont like it

i am intolerant because i dont think it is nice

Probably because we recall violent incidents but knew we loved each other and it wasn't personal. We would be laughing half an hour afterwards.............
That's just how I feel anyway......

basically i wonder why my parents never seemed to be around....

i would be horrified if my dcs did to one another what we did

I have little recollection of ever being in the same room as my parents. Hence we were able to torment each other until fisticuffs.

I reckon wannabe10 - It is a family joke even now that my mum cant and wont say "sorry"

My parents didnt really get on, still together, still dont get on
My bro was and still is the golden child, the much wanted boy

Mum still "as a joke" calls him Cherub

Sorry for hijack Thrown

YurtGirl - it sounds like it was sustained, one-sided, and wasn't just physical, but also emotional/mental, PLUS it sounds like it was pretty much condoned by your parents. In short you probably feel far worse than the other posters because it was worse.

omg @ this thread. I'm an only child so have no experience of this kind of thing at all. Is it inevitable that my sweet, lovely dds are going to be horribley violent to each other?

I don't think I've ever in my life during or since, felt the same RAGE that I used to feel towards my brother and sister. And we used to be pretty violent too. Punch in the stomach? Pah! Kicks, hairpulling, biting , you name it. Maybe that's why we have siblings though. So we can get rid of all that anger out of the system before we're let loose on the world as sane, rational adults.
We all get on great now.

Incidentally, I tend to step in with my (v young) DCs because I really can't be arsed to go to A&E

agree mrs maidamess....

just think our parents were too idle or pissed or selfish to give one....

I remember my parents stepping in a lot, but tbh there was only so much they could do - with two or three children all swearing that the other one started it and they're just an innocent victim.

I agree with previous posters about the RAGE. Never have I met anyone since who has made me so angry, or who I've wanted to cause physical pain to more, than my sister. We love each other now though!

I think that the worst case goes to me.. my older sister and I were fighting with my then 7 year old little sister and trying not to let her into the lounge. She got one arm through the door and we slammed it shut squashing her arm. We broke her arm . It's actually pretty sad and a bit shit because I was 11 and my sis was 13 and my Dad had just left us so my mum was having to work all days and evening as a waitress to try and make ends meet so we were basically home alone a lot - imagine when she got home about 11pm to find my poor little sis sobbing in pain. . God I feel utterly crap about it all but I think the point of it all is that siblings can do really nasty stuff to each other when young but still be best of friends as adults.

Crikey ......... I've got a twin brother, were now 40 and we used to kick, punch and push each other, I kicked him so hard in the bo--cks once, he lay on the floor and cried {blush]

We get on fine now!!

Sounds like normal sibling stuff to me?

Yurtgirl, I kind of do know where you're coming from because I still get cross with my mum when I remember how biased she was towards 'the baby' (18mnths younger than me). I've forgiven him 100%, he was just being a rough boy/sibling. But I do think my Mum should have opened her eyes and intervened quicker and arbitrated more fairly.

Another vote for 'Totally-Normal-Sibling-Behaviour. Frankly, I'm amazed the OP's sister in law has only come up with one incidence of sibling violence, as I think this is pretty restrained. I (and all my friends with brothers and/or sisters) could easily fill an encyclopaedia with such incidents.

My brother and I (he's three years older) had daily spats amidst the calm. We'd be playing together quite happily and then it would disintigrate into physical violence over a deck of cards or a borrowed hole punch. His favourite trick, as a 15 year old, was to rugby tackle me when I was least expecting it: on the telephone, coming out of the loo, opening a door. I'd literally get cannonned across the floor by adolescent muscle whilst having "TRY" roared into my ear or some such rugby drivel. As a result, my teenage years were spent on high alert and I got bloody quick reflexes. The apex of his tormenting was when he chased me half way through the wood at the back of our house in order to flick me with a wet tea towel. I'd eluded him in the kitchen so the f*cker gave chase. Looking back it's hilarious now and he's a complete softie, but it was exhausting at the time. Christ knows where my parents were when armageddon was breaking out on a daily basis...

I am one of 6, I have some most interesting scars, but so do my siblings

Yurtgirl I think the variable in your story as opposed to the others is the power imbalance and the intent.

My siblings and I gave as good as we got and there was never anything really mean in it, we were like puppies scrapping really.

My DH has a large scar through his eyebrow where his younger sister threw a vase at him, she is still proud of it and is one of the most gentle, kind, giving people I have ever met.