I'm so sorry that you're going through this and it sounds like an incredibly scary night.
I had a similar incident in my marriage after being hit and attacked too many times to count. I'd say, "If you keep hitting me, eventually I'm going to hit you back." It was never my intention but when it happens over and over again in fits of hysteria, eventually something's going to give. One evening she attacked me and was punching and clawing at my face in a frenzy. Without even thinking, I slapped her back and it knocked her down. It ate at me for a very long time. She never hit me again though and I was thankful that the violence was over. Not too many years after that, she'd start getting into fights with our teenage BPD daughter...they'd explode and attack each other.
With my BPD ex and I, the police were never called. This was almost 20 years ago and I'm still ashamed of slapping her to this day. It never should have happened and I hate that I had that moment of weakness, but through time I also see it in a different lens today. What was supposed to happen? That she attacked me every time we disagreed, my face gets scratched up, the house gets wrecked from her tantrums and we just did that for the rest of our lives?
I couldn't see then what I see now; I was in an abusive, unhealthy relationship. Nobody is meant to take abuse like that and there's a decent chance that it would have continued to escalate. Just earlier that week, she had thrown a coffee cup and a fork at my head in rapid succession...she just barely missed as I dodged them. Why? Because I was washing the dishes and it angered her because she said earlier that she'd wash the dishes.
I hate talking about any of this. I hate violence and I hate even having these memories. I hate that I finally slapped her back. But at the same time, if it helps someone else see that this sort of things is real and it's completely toxic, then I'd rather talk it out.
Looking back, what I did wrong wasn't slapping someone that was attacking me for the 20th time (or however many times, it happened multiple times weekly). It was being in that relationship in the first place and allowing the violence to be a daily possibility. I deserved better than that, our kids deserved better than that, and you can't just keep abusing someone indefinitely without something else happening. Eventually, it is going to escalate past the point of no return.
I also wonder with my BPD daughter, did she learn to attack others whenever she became upset because she saw mom do it at an early age? I don't know. That stuff just doesn't belong in a home in any way, shape, or form though. It's a cancer and it spreads everywhere. Violence of any kind is not okay and it is a clear sign that everyone involved needs to take time away from the relationship to recenter and reset.



