NSFW. Was it abuse for my then husband to spank our seventeen year old daughter?

I would think more physical than sexual abuse but abusive behavior for sure.

I think of abuse as being what’s “CPS worthy.” A slap on top of the clothing is not CPS worthy. A slap in the face, yes. A punch on any part of the body, over the clothes or not, yes. Use of a belt or other item other than an open hand, no matter what part of the body and no matter if over clothing or not, yes.

If you said he took her pants off and put her over his knee, that’s CPS worthy (and freaky) but that’s not what it was.

If it happened only those two times, I’d say he was simply being a creep for a moment. Or two.
It would have to be much more often and continuous to be abuse.

Still a creep, doe.

It is abusive and it show a lack of respect for another person’s bodily autonomy. Beyond that it shows your husband to be an overgrown child who cannot keep his emotions in check.

Ignorance on his part, and maybe yours as well. You should have been spanking her when she was little. Doing it now is worthless.

Depending on the length of time the spanking took, it is not child abuse, it is correction.

@kritiper we did spank her as a kid! And we don’t do it now. He did it in 1982.

@filmfann. each time took him two seconds. And I am not excusing it.

Not a parent, but any form of physical correction (spanking, squeezing, slapping, punching, kicking), I feel, must be out of the question.
Don’t think your then husband is/was guilty of sexual abuse.

I’m a little younger than your daughter. I remember in high school talking to a group of friends about getting spankings. Every one of us had been spanked in our high school years at some point. It’s a small sample (6?) and it was all boys, but I just don’t think a quick swat was all that unusual.

Standards are a bit different now.

Gee, a spanking in 1982…was it abuse?
My dad used to whip our bare butts with his belt until he got tired.
He and I got in a fight in 1970, he sucker punched me and broke my nose. There was blood everywhere!!
A spanking in 1982 for two seconds…was it abuse? Sounds more like a lesson of parental love. But like I said earlier, it was worthless. Some other punishment would have been wiser and better applied.

@kritiper. I am really sorry to hear you went through that.

I believe there needs to be a sexualized element to be sexual abuse. The butt is just a traditional place to hit someone when you don’t want to injure them. Sure, things get a little unclear as a child ages, but it sounds like he wasn’t thinking at all, let alone in a sexual manner.

There is a strange double standard we hold men with daughters to (not for no reason, just not for good reasons), that simply because their daughter is past puberty, they must be seeing their child as an adult, and their actions should be interpreted as adult.

Is spanking abuse? Probably not, when if occurs very infrequently, but that doesn’t make it right.

Not exactly abuse but not the best way to handle things, especially if he did it on multiple occasions. That said though I have good friends that are awesome people, he is an engineer and they have 2 adult daughters. When their one daughter was 15–16 her husband, the worlds most easy going and funny guy, put their daughter over his knee and spanked her for some, forgotten, trespass. I was surprised because they had never spanked the kids.

My take was it was 16 years in coming and dad finally had enough of the little princesses snotty behavior. haha

The idea that one is justified in striking another person (whatever the age and whatever part of the body) for some transgression is an abusive one.

Not sexual abuse, but physical abuse for sure.

It’s physical assault/abuse and pretty creepy, but not quite sexual abuse. Does your daughter still bring it up and is it a contentious thing? If it bothers you so much this long after, maybe you should let her know that you remember, that it was problematic, and that you’re sorry it happened. Otherwise, let it go and forgive yourself.

Every parent who claims they have temper issues should not expect empathy in any way as that is no excuse for physical abuse, sort your temper out or don’t have kids…simple as that.

This was 30 years ago and you are still stewing about it?

For some reason, it strikes me as especially problematic for men to physically correct their daughters—especially after a certain age. Not only does it cross a potentially sexual barrier in some instances (spanks on the buttocks), but it also sets a dangerous precedent that it’s acceptable for men to hit you. (All of this is IMO of course)

As for OP, if you feel sorry about what happened to your daughter, you should acknowledge it, offer a simple and sincere apology, then move on. It was many years ago, you were potentially being abused yourself, and didn’t have the wisdom you have now.

On a personal note, a couple of years before she got cancer and died, my mom found some perspective in her 50s/my early 20s. She kind of came to her senses about a lot of things that went on in my childhood that were not okay and apologized. It was really meaningful to have that time with her and I’m grateful that we got to hash things out before she passed.

I have apologized several times to the girls about the physical fights they had to witness in those last years. And no; I never touched him except for the night before I left. It isn’t in my genes to attack males.
I also kept to myself to protect him the increased intensity of his anger. That was a mistake on my part . They want to think I left just because he had a twenty year old girlfriend. A demerol addict.

The word abuse is a bit over used these days but I feel quite strongly that what your husband did was wrong and his temper is no excuse. I think what you describe would damage to your daughter’s relationships with her father which at the age of 17 should involve mutual respect and should never involve violence.

Utterly ineffectual on an adult. Sounds like whacking was his go-to to vent.

It would only be sexual abuse if he was being weird about it but to spank your daughter when she’s 17 and especially if he was violent about it or scared you then, yes it was definitely physical abuse. My advice when something like this happens but you couldn’t live without him is to make him take an anger management class if he has a violent temper as you said. You could also talk to a counselor together if you believe that kind of stuff could help you. One last thing, if it was decades ago I would just talk to him about how you feel and if it happens again then you should do any or all of the following things I suggested.