The victim blaming and excusing of violence on this thread is absolutely disgraceful. Is it any wonder that so many victims of domestic violence find it impossible to admit to what they’ve been through for fear of not being believed/asked what they did to provoke it?
Yes, we can all admit that when you are first finding your alcohol threshold you might do some pretty stupid things, going home and vomiting everywhere being one of them, and that getting that drunk and behaving erratically does not necessarily equate to having a drink problem but it does equate to needing to curb one’s drinking if this culminates in becoming violent/aggressive for any reason.
We can also allow for the fact that the lad here is eighteen and is therefore probably in that early drinking phase. There are plenty of mn’ers who still go out and get wasted on occasions and they’re adults with mortgages and families of their own.
However, the line must absolutely be drawn at violence. Violence is never ever acceptable. No excusing it, no forgiving it because of being intoxicated, and certainly no making up reasons and excuses to turn the victim into the one who must have provoked it because that’s what suits the agenda.
The only response to violence is consequence. This is presumably the partner’s home too, and mature or not mature, the eighteen year old is legally an adult who, if he wants to engage in adult activities such as going out drinking, is capable of bearing adult consequences such as being thrown out when he assaults a member of his household. If he’d been living in a house share and done the same to a flat mate he would have been thrown out, whose home it is has no bearing on the consequences he should face. He doesn’t get let off because this is his mother’s house. His mother should be mortified that her son has assaulted another human being, regardless of who that human being is.
People downplaying this now, if this was the girlfriend who told him to clear up his vomit and they were living together, would you be blaming her? And seriously, if not, why not? When you consider that you’ve laid blame at the door of the partner for the assault he has had inflicted on him?