My husband just slapped me

If you can't leave because of the kids and all you have built together, prepare to be progressively more attacked, more frequently. Expect humiliation even in front of the kids. Expect the kids to internalize the behavior and either support you emotionally but quietly in fear of their father or to victimize you as he does out of fear. Expect that behind the scenes somebody this morally bankrupt will make efforts to keep you from ever getting your fair share in a divorce as he hides assets just in case. Expect yourself to become progressively more depressed, and ashamed of yourself for refusing to be a human being for your self. Expect your life to pass by in a parade of misery and at the end, he will take all you have built together away from you anyway.

Really, sweetie, good luck on this.

Once there´s a once, theres a twice, three times...

Realistically, none of us here on EP know enough about your situation to label your husband as abusive or advise you to leave him based on this one thread, especially if you've been married for 15 years and he's never slapped you before. Telling you to leave your husband and take the kids without sufficient information is foolish, so please be careful of ruining your marriage based on our premature responses. If he were an abusive man then it likely wouldn't have taken him a decade and a half to react the way that he did.

Granted, there is no acceptable excuse for him to slap you, however there are definately factors in the world that you shouldn't ignore because when it's all said and done, everyone is capable of raising their hand against another given the right combination of stimulai and emotional strain. Everything from chemical imbalances to post-tramautic stress syndromes can play a major part in physical abuse, which are legitimate and completely involuntary factors that could cause a man to do such a horrible thing. The aforementioned are also factors that require professional and perhaps medical help to resolve. I never hit my wife and could never imagine myself doing such a thing, but I also think that if you abandon your husband without taking those other unnatural elements into account, that would be a heartless thing to do; I have known good married soldiers whose mental states had been negatively altered after deployments; they became angry and violent due to no fault of their own, but the medical and psychological aid that they receieved did help to recover some of them. So I think that seeking the police even in your case would be jumping the gun...unless you don't love him anymore and want your marriage to end. The key solution here is to "talk" about what happened. Talking is the only way your 15 year marriage can last another 15 years and more. Talk about your families, your jobs, the stress of daily life and raising a family, whether you both need some recovery time before you break. And don't forget about the marriage counseling option. No one is so perfect that they are incapable of lashing out unintentionally, we're only human.

For the record, I think there are more cases of women hitting men in a non-playful way among relationships then the other way around. The difference is that the average man wouldn't report their abuse and instead choose to work it out. I don't like how society depicts men as the only ones who ever slap their mate, while completely ignoring how violent women can be. A lot of husbands would have busted up faces too if they did not learn how to dodge the various objects their wives throw at them or they let their backs take the bruises.

I hope the two of you can work it out, neither you nor your husband deserve to be hit. (Unless cheating is involved; then one of you needs to worry, heh.)

A real 'man' would never strke a woman. Whether you stay,leave,whatever you are dealing with a childish man.

Simple and easy CALL THE POLICE

Charge him if you dont you will get another slap or even worse

o hell no slap that fu** bck wat the hell does he thnk of himself

OMG SLAP HIM BACK!

i have not read all the responses u got or the replys u gave but i can see u are making excuses for him so all i can tell u is what u whant to hear go an d get ur self some heavy duty make up to cover the bruising and enjoy the pain humiliasion that will follow and i hpoe God willl keep ur kids out of harms way

well you did push him its just about energy cause and effect.what you put to the universe comes back to you so it was your karma.just watch out for karma

I think you'd already made your decision princess ... before you even posted this. I don't think you want to leave him and you are looking for the justification for staying ... it's wrong that he hit you ... you know that ... whether you pushed him or not ... if you are willing to live with the possibility that he might do it again ... then fine ... but these things rarely solve themselves ... I know you are trying to put the welfare of the children first ... but how far are you willing to go ... allowing him to hit you only when the children don't witness it? Think about it.