I’d love to hear other users opinions on this as I’m facing the same situation. Pre-baby when e had conversations about this my husband was against hitting or spanking as was I. We both grew up in violent households like you mentioned and I don’t want to continue the cycle. While our oldest (now 2.5) was a baby things were fine we never had any issues. As he’s gotten older, more willful and spirited, tests boundaries, and has toddler tantrums im seeing a different side to my husband that I don’t like. He thinks ear pulling and hair pulling are the appropriate ways to teach and redirect a willful 2.5 year old. This started when he was probably about 18months and started to truly become a toddler. He’s slapped him a few times now. Hard. He now says that beating the kid is the way to get him to obey. Because toddlers often obey. This in turn infuriates me and has resulted in all out screaming matches, me shoving him away from the toddler, and me either kicking him out or him leaving voluntarily for a few days. We just had our second and she’s 4 months old. I’m completely at a loss of how to fix it and get through to him that him doing things like that to our toddler only makes it worse and in turn will teach him to do that to his peers when he gets to pre-k. It’s easy to say leave the situation but you can’t control what happens if you end up having to split custody. I’m hoping to hear some real, solid advice from other people that might have or are going through this. The only real advice I can give you is to get it straightened out now before they’re toddlers and it really starts to affect them and your marriage. I’m so sorry you have to deal with this now too.