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I know that my husband has been abusive in the past, name calling, shouting, threatening violence and an odd kick here and there.
My dilemma is that over the past couple of weeks he seems to have calmed down and the accidents that I’ve caused that normally would have sparkef a rage haven’t. That said, there is still behaviour that I don’t like and makes me feel uncomfortable, yesterday I was making breakfast for our youngest who isn’t well. I made some eggy bread and he walked in and started shouting, right next to me, about why on earth had I put it on a plate to mix in? Why had I used a plate – surely I knew I’d throw egg everywhere when it should just be in the pan? He called me stupid and said that i had a brain disease. Later that day he said most of the time I dressed like a tramp.
When he then complains about a lack of sex and I say why would I and remind him of what he said he replied ‘well you are’ and ‘it’s true I don’t care I’m used to it’. He also continues to call our younger son a nick name by calling him his first name and adding ‘Spaniel’. I hate it, I’ve asked him to stop countless times but he won’t.
The thing is the above is a standard weekend and I think I’ve become used to it and as it’s not as extreme as some of the other behaviours and I’ve found myself wondering if it’s really that bad and if it would be considered abuse. Any thoughts please?
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Yes it’s abuse and it’s teaching you child how to behave. If you walked in on a friend and saw her husband behave that way you’d be shocked. We minimise their behaviour. Would he speak to his mother that way? For him to continue to name call when he knows it’s upsetting is not acceptable. It’s like he’s baiting you into an argument so that he can then justify his behaviour. No acceptance, no apology. Nasty bully. I often go back to the early part of the relationship. If he behaved this way on the third date, you would run for the hills. Not acceptable then and not acceptable now ❤️
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Hello, Robin. What you are describing is abusive behaviour. Remember that in situations of domestic abuse there are a range of behaviours, some may seem ‘low grade’ compared to the more obviously highly charged ones, such as physical aggression, but it is all part of the same pattern of abuse. Your husband is devaluing you and your children. Their self esteem (and yours) is being chipped away and because you all fear his ‘shouting’ you will give up defending yourselves against the insults. Your children will lose self-confidence and self-respect. They will start to feel shame but they wont know why. This will play out in a range of behaviours (withdrawn or acting out, depending on their characters). You will all give up or give in (‘maybe it’s not as bad as all that’). You will all feel confused about what’s right because what’s ‘right’ might not actually please ‘Dad’ so what’s right becomes the ‘Dad’ pleasing or calming behaviour. You’ll be treading on eggshells. Tiptoeing around someone is a real giveaway in a domestic situation. As you lose self-esteem, self-confidence about yourself in this situation he takes control. He becomes the self-assured one whose opinion carries more weight. You are all being led by him down a dark alley. This is only my opinion but it’s based on my own childhood and adult experiences of what you are describing. Do you have a positive relationship experience that you can compare your relationship with your husband to? Why does he get to behave like this and your best friend couldn’t, for example? Is it because he’s the one called ‘Dad’, ‘husband’? Is this person allowed to live under a different set of rules of conduct than everyone else? The fact that you ask if ‘kicking, shouting, insulting …’ is abusive shows how tolerant of it you are becoming. The children are young at the moment(?) and you are still unsure, but what happens as the children grow older and answer back to the shouting and other abusive behaviour? What will your husband do then? What happens if you decide that you’re not going to live with an abusive husband and make assertive plans to leave? (which is why leaving is so dangerous). Violence is one controlling tactic, it’s not the only one. You want to tell yourself it’s not so bad, because he hasn’t used it yet. Have you read the poem ‘Children learn what they live’? (Dorothy Law Nolte). X*x
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Hi Robin,
I can assure you that what you describe is horrible abuse towards you and your son.
It’s so difficult to see it when we are in it. I remember posting here for the first time, listing some things he’d done and asking ladies if it was abuse. I didn’t know. Now, I can clearly see how abusive it was.
These abusers change tactics, but it’s always abuse. Their mission isn’t to love and care : it’s to overpower and to maim.
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Thank you ladies – it was so very helpful to read this.
KIP – I have said to myself many times that I would not have married the man my husband is now. He’s quite intolerant of a lot of things and because I’m more relaxed I get called a p***y. It feels like we have totally grown apart.
Older Lady – thank you for your message. I had a read (detail removed by moderator)and found it very poignant. I’ve also come across various versions of the same parable (if that’s the word). One of these is that if you take a plate and break it and ask someone to put it back together it can never be fixed as it once was, and that’s the impact that the nasty words/name calling have on us. We can never truly forget them which is why emotional abuse is so terrible. And that’s why I’m struggling. I have to keep reminding myself of the things he’s said because I’ve blanked them (like the threatening to knife me when I was pregnant – how could I have forgotten that!). If nothing else I have to put my children first. I can’t let them see that this is a normal relationship.
I went to see my GP (detail removed by moderator) to log it with her. She was really supportive and really said you need to go. What did scare me is that she said whenever she hears cases like this she has to consider if Social Services have to be involved. I’m not sure how I’d cope if they were involved – I would just feel that they would have me down as a bad parent, but I guess if I’m in a situation that I know is abnormal and damaging to the children then they would be right. I have to find the strentgh to get out.
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Hello. I’m glad you spoke with your GP. I just want to say that you are not a bad mum. You are living with and being profoundly affected by abuse and trying your best to cope and find a solution, and you and your children have every potential to live healthy lives in a non abusive environment. If you google ‘cognitive dissonance’ it might help explain, in part, why you ‘forget’ about his threats. I understand what you mean by the broken plate but you and your children have a better capacity than that to recover (the brain has a neuroplastic ability over the lifespan to adapt to new stimuli). You learn what you live, and what you live you can change. Please take care. Xx
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Definitely abusive. The calming down that you are experiencing is all part of the cycle of abuse. You can google it but essentially after the calm period comes an explosion and then eventually calm again. Over time the abuse just escalates with the periods of calm getting shorter and he abuse more frequent and more intense/dangerous. The calm is all part of the trick to make you stay. As older lady says, please take care x
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Just because it happens only at the weekend doesn’t mean that its not abuse. He knows that you will be walking on egg shells throughout the week waiting for the weekend. If he doesn’t like the way you dress tough. Your son should not have to listen to him degrade you. He will grow up to think that that is how you treat women.
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Thank you for the words of support – much needed!
Strong soul – that is my worry. That my boys will think it’s okay to treat women badly. The other day we had a cold caller who was doing marketing research. Husband hated that she came into our porch to knock front door (no door bell) and said that if he’d answered it he would have punched her! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – I don’t know what’s happened to him.
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Hope you’re ok Robin! You are NOT a bad mum and IF (and that’s an if) social services got involved they would see this. I hope you’ve started to write everything down. Like you say it is so easy to forget in the calm periods. I worry all the time about my boy when he is older thinking that it’s ok to treat women (and his mum) badly. I cannot deal with that. Mine complains about lack of sex all the time and I keep reminding him WHY this is happening, it’s from his behaviour towards me. Like you say if you smash a plate it won’t fix back the same. But also someone said to me sometimes when things like plates are fixed back there is some technique in pottery where you can cover the cracks with gold (stay with me I am sure this is right!) and that plate comes back even better. So imagine yourself as that plate…you might be broken now but soon you will come back stronger and better. I’ve become used the the nasty tense bullying weekends too and I am trying to get out. Look after yourself xx
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Another terrible weekend (and it’s only Saturday!). I was woken this morning by him shouting at our eldest (I’d been up in the night with both of my boys so had been trying to catch up on sleep.) He was shouting at our son “every weekend it’s the same). The weekend is run around you. It’s party after party after party. Swimming, swimming, swimming. Football, football, football. I dont have a place in this family its like I don’t exist. I’m just here to pay the bills and be the janitor.” Then he decide to bash the door to wake me up. I came out the room and be pretty much repeated it. He was shouting and swearing and said that i arranged all weekends there was nothing for him and he was bored and itd been like this for 5 years. Every weekend was all about our eldest and soon it would be the same for youngest. He said he wasn’t interested in going to watch him play football, swim or anything else. Then he went out, leaving me to comfort our son who now didn’t want to go to his best friends party because he didn’t want to be shouted at. In fact he didn’t want to leave the house in case daddy came back and we weren’t there. Eventually i managed to convince me him to go. Later in the day when we went food shopping he was reluctant to go home and told me that he hoped daddy would find someone else to marry. Needless to say, we don’t go to parties every week. The football and swimming are across the weekend and either late afternoon or day am – and he totally supported the swimming (well up until 2 weeks ago when he said he wouldn’t contribute any more…)
So very upset and angry about his behaviour – I can’t quite believe he’s been such a bully to his own son. For me it’s just strengthened my resolve (he said he’d had enough of us and would get the house on market in Jan and do his own thing – I hope so, it would make it much easier for me).
I managed to record some of what he said – when I listen back his nastiness still surprises me. My son must be so confused.
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Yes it’s terrible emotional abuse. And he’s using it to control you and your child. Already your child is changing his behaviour for fear of suffering another emotionally traumatic outburst. Thats how abusers work. Before you know it there will be no football or swimming because your child is fearful of the consequences and his father will have moved on and ignored or denied his abusive behaviour. It’s terrible mind games with lifelong consequences. Women’s aid told me a good story about control within the family.
A mum dad and kids have finished dinner. The mum says to the dad, it’s your turn to do the dishes tonight. The dad goes nuts, screaming at the mum and the kids, terrifying them, saying he’s not doing the dishes, why should he etc. The family are terrified and upset.
The next night after diner, the mum just gets up and does the dishes.
My point is that you don’t see the control seeping in and before you know it, like me, you start to suffer anxiety and depression. Become socially awkward and withdrawn. And I’m an adult. Can you imagine what that behaviour does to a child and what they learn from that behaviour. -
Mine has done this before with our son saying how the weekends are boring and all about him! And this happened a lot when our son was a baby and on a routine like he’s a baby!!!!! And he’s said it on family holidays…. I can imagine how angry and upset you just feel over this he has no right To make your son feel like that. And so true about the control seeping in KIP it just does you jut do it to avoid another hideous incident with them. I am standing up to his control now and he doesn’t like it!! I can imagine my husband being the same when our son gets older and weekends start to build up with all the usual stuff that goes on with kids. And then those things don’t happen anymore…. hope you’re ok robin trust your reaction to his behaviour it is right. This is emotional abuse and you are right to feel the way you do!
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Robin, I have exactly the same issues at home. Name calling but saying he’s just having a bit of fun, refusing to stop doing it.
My husband drinks a lot every single weekend and becomes abusive. I worry about the impact it will have on my son and the example it is setting him.
My son can never seem to do right for doing wrong & neither can I.
He only ever does it behind closed doors, never when we’re around others.
I really feel for you, it is absolutely abuse xx -
the long term effects of emotional abuse are hard to deal with, for both you and your child. why would someone speak to someone else like this? would you? it is abusive and if you are unable to make him see this and stop it, it will affect your child in the long term, is that what you want?
even the stress effects of shouting and abuse in this way can affect a child, it affects their hormones and brain development, you may think they are young, but it increases cortisol levels which in term affects brain development. most of a childs brain development happens before age 5. please get this to stop some how by leaving or alerting him to the behaviour and the fact that it is wrong, however I suspect that if he does not see it as wrong now, he never will. don’t let him do this to you or your child, its not right xxxx -
Just want to add my suport too. Missed this back in November/December.
I’ve no doubt this behaviour is abuse and worry about the effect on you and children.
I’d also like to add that the only way to make really good eggy bread is on a plate so that’s another thing he’s doing wrong.
Keep positive. Believe in yourself and take care xx -
I haven’t been on for a while as he found out about the sites I’d been too and that I’d made a log of his behaviour and insisted I share it with him, so he knows what he’s said and how it’s made me feel. He hasn’t been at all happy about it but our relationship had started to get more normal with only a couple of angry outbursts in the last couple of months.
But it’s getting bad again, I feel the weight of it on me. I said I wanted to go to a class, in the evening, when the kids are in bed and only for (detail removed by Moderator) weeks. he told me no, I wasn’t. That he doesn’t want the kids in the evening after dealing with them in the day. When I suggested I work from home he left the room. I feel so sad that he won’t listen to me. (detail removed by Moderator) he was working outside and I’d made him a drink, I went to take it out but as he was on the front I was in my pjs I didn’t want to take out so I left it by the back door. A few minutes later he came by to ask for it and bashed on the window where I was sitting and called me (detail removed by Moderator) and threw it up the window. I went to bed to avoid him and this morning he wouldn’t speak to me, didn’t respond to my questions, nothing.
I’m feeling so sad. I just want to cry. I don’t know what to do anymore.
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Hi hun, your post made me feel so sad because it is the constant cycle of abuse, months of calmness when you think things might be getting better, then a big explosion. So you made him a drink, which was a kind act, yet he responded by swearing at you and throwing the drink against the window! Would he dare do that to his boss, or his friends? And I bet you had to clean the window up? You have to remember that these men CHOOSE who to be vile to, and they would not dream of swearing at their boss (they would get the sack) or their friends (as they would end up friendless) so why on earth do they have the right to swear at you? This is abusive behaviour.
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PS forgot to say that a few months with a couple of angry outbursts from him is still a bad few months, a decent man would treat his partner and his kids like gold and would not dream of ever having an angry outburst. Please ask yourself that if a stranger came up to you in the street and threw a drink at you and swore, what would your reaction be? So it should not be acceptable for your partner and father of your kids to do this to you, believe me I have been there!
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Hi Robin,
I feel so sad about your situation. Mine is very similar. Calm period, I’m thinking I’ve overreacted by contacting WA, then a big explosion and I’m furious with myself for letting him fool me again.
Unfortunately, my own experience tells me that what your husband is doing will gradually get worse.
Do you have a way out? Do you have somewhere you can go?AppleNinja
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Hi Robin totally understand how you feel. It really is a constant cycle. I have moments where things are better and like you Apple Ninja I feel the same, did I over react? Its all calm now, maybe there is hope? And then another explosion and that sends me right back to square one and I start thinking about divorce and finally ending the relationship for good. And then things get better and I think no, things are better now what was I THINKING with divorce. Its so hard. I do hope you have support and like Eeyore No More says you can’t break the cycle on your own. Keep posting we are all here for you xx
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Hi Robin,
I’m so sorry you and your child are going through this. My little one and I came away at the end of last year.
This was after years of behaviour almost exactly as you have described. The police were called countless times, I was referred,to a local support agency. They were amazing. They told me about the freedom programme. There’s a good book you can buy online by Pat Craven. It tells you about all the different abusive sides. I used to explain away my ex- husband’s outbursts all the time – he’s stressed, he’s lots of work on, it was my fault. This book a helped me to see the man I’d so happily married years ago had changed into an abusive monster. one of the hardest things is that he CHOSE to do all this. They always do. They know exactly how to push your buttons to terrify you into submission. He’ll keep pushing further. I’ve only just after almost (detail removed by moderator)months after leaving, accepted he won’t change. No matter how much I loved and supported him.
I read somewhere that after leaving, even the worst days you had were still better that the “best” days before you left. It’s completely true. Please do some research (end the fear.co.uk is good,national domestic violence helpline) , have an escape plan ready put some money aside, find out where you can Go, then just do it. It’ll be hard. Without a doubt, but it’s worth it. I promise. There are so many wonderful people out there who will support you through it.
It’s funny, I feel nervous for you, as the weekend is coming up. I remember this trepidation so clearly. Please keep safe. Start planning xxxx
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Hello, Robin. I just want to say, don’t give up, you will find a way to move forward from this. Could you ring your nearest Women’s Aid to ask for some support from one of the domestic abuse adviser’s there, maybe an outreach worker, to talk about how you are feeling? I never felt pressured to make a decision about anything. Speaking to someone who is supportive and understands really helps. Keep posting on the forum. Take care xx
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Thank you for your words of support I do need to pick up the courage to speak to my local WA. Its just that sometimes it doesn’t feel like his behaviour is bad enough but I know that as it is affecting me and impacting my work so I do need to get help.
I told him a few days ago how he was making me feel again and he said he didn’t give a ‘f***ing s**t’. He went off again saying I was being selfish not taking his drink to him and he chastised me for leaving the house for work whent he baby had a full nappy – I didn’t know this because he was caring for him while I was getting ready for work. He snaps all the time and although it’s not as bad as it has been I feel myself being dragged under again. My son wanted to hide a party invitation so that his dad didn’t call to cancel it! I’m so tired.
He keeps telling me I do too much with our son, he didn’t want me to start a second after school activity because he said it was making me tired and would affect my work, I had to tell him that it was the way he spoke to me that affected me. I hope he listens. I feel like everything I say is wrong. Apparently I even use the wrong simple words to speak to our baby.
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Robin, a lot of what you’ve written could have been me. I feel so sad that you are stuck in this cycle. I am going through it myself, and I have a plan to leave, but I feel enormously guilty too, because some of our relationship is okay. BUT…that doesn’t make the abuse okay, and I know in my heart that my child should not grow up thinking this is what a normal relationship looks like. Simply, it is wrong that your son is not enjoying being a child and going to parties.
Since I first joined this site, I have reported him to the police, had a visit from an officer to make a report, a visit from my local domestic abuse team and contact with children’s services. They all say the same – make the break, and stop the cycle. It is so so hard, but I know when I do, it will make my life and my son’s life so much better.
Have courage and be strong for your children x
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