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AIBU?

To feel sad that so many women are in abusive relationships :(

90 replies

NameChange30 · 27/12/2014 23:29

Since getting into MN the threads that have really stuck with me are the ones by women in abusive relationships. It's great that MN is somewhere they can get advice and support. But it's also sad and makes me think about them and all the other women who must be in similar situations and aren't on MN.
On the upside it has prompted me to start a monthly donation to both Women's Aid and Refuge.

OP posts:

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PuffinsAreFictitious · 27/12/2014 23:31

It is awful. It's also brilliant that you're doing something practical to help women to get the help they need to escape.

FWIW, I think that makes you a pretty good person.

skildpadden · 27/12/2014 23:32

NYANBU

I feel sad too. I was one of them once, for 7 years. I'm out now. It was like a sentence.

Low self-esteem has a lot to answer for. I think that's at the root of why so many women accept so much shit. That, and having nowhere to go and no money when they get there.

Sn00p4d · 27/12/2014 23:33

Also a substantial amount of men

spinduchess · 27/12/2014 23:33

I agree. It is very very sad, and it makes me feel lucky to be in the relationship I'm in. Although it is also sad that i feel lucky... because it shouldn't be luck, it should be a basic state for all people to not be abused by the people they love.

The donations are a very generous thing indeed. Thank you.

BertieBotts · 27/12/2014 23:34

There are a lot of threads at the moment :( Christmas really exacerbates these things, emotions, expectations run high, alcohol is around, family wind each other up. Horrible :(

Mumsnet is brilliant for support.

NameChange30 · 28/12/2014 00:09

I agree with you all. I think it's great that there are so many lovely people here who give advice and support.
skildpadden sorry to hear you've been through it but glad it's behind you now - well done for coming out the other end!
I wasn't fishing for compliments about the donations (but thank you!) I am in a fortunate position to be able to donate so I thought I would channel the sadness and do something about it. But I think that just posting on here can also be a huge help for many women

A side note... it really annoys me that so much money is donated to animal charities whereas other less "cute and fluffy" causes, such as domestic violence, rape, disabilities etc can often struggle for funding. This is where the government should provide (much more than they currently do).

OP posts:

RandomNPC · 28/12/2014 00:21

I agree with your feelings about these threads, there seem to be so many at the moment. I think a monthly donation to Women's Aid or Refuge is a sterling idea, I think I'll do it myself. It make me feel less helpless!

ouryve · 28/12/2014 00:26

I think that what's driven it home is the fact that the alcohol is flowing at this time of year and that sends so many over the edge. It's been a bit of a heavy night on MN, in that respect and I really do hope that all the women who have reached out find freedom.

Even more subtle is the number of women who have posted about what comes across as being rather martyred. They've bought into an expectation that they do it all, out of love, meeting some sphemeral high expectation, and more besides, while their partners and, sometimes, male children, loaf about.

blackheartsgirl · 28/12/2014 00:35

There was a thread on here this past week where people posted about their shitty partners and lots of holier than thou posters blamed the wives etc for putting up with it. They had no sympathy etc which I thought was pretty harsh.

If that's peoples attitude towards victims of domestic abuse or those with shitty lazy partners then it puts me off even further getting help or having the courage to leave.

As it happens leaving now would massively disrupt Ds GCSEs. I've planned instead and started saving.
I know I'm a weak and crappy person for enabling his behaviour, I just don't need my face rubbed in it

TerraNovice · 28/12/2014 00:39

I saw that thread, but i don't think you can equate partners who don't pull their weight at Christmas with abusive ones, and most of the posters knew that. I highly doubt they'd blame a woman in an abusive relationship.

adiposegirl · 28/12/2014 00:41

Could anyone offer their insight as to the origin/ manifestation of their low self esteem?

Anyone out there who was in an abusive relationship who had good level of self esteem/ confidence?

blackheartsgirl · 28/12/2014 00:42

What also gets me is that some people seem to say oh just give him a job, leave christmas to him then he will have to step up. ERM mine wouldn't. My dp would refuse and then pin me up a wall if I started and that would really ruin my kids xmas

ouryve · 28/12/2014 00:43

blackheart I know from my own experience that sometimes you have to play the long game, particularly if you have a lot to disentangle.

I would still advise someone in imminent danger to get out now, though.

ASAS · 28/12/2014 00:45

There was a thread earlier, "he pushed me", she signed off by saying she was going to bed as he's started drinking. My blood ran cold. It makes me worry if MN is the only place some people can turn too and what could happen to them in an emergency without RL support.

skildpadden · 28/12/2014 00:47

Well for me it was partly timing but not only. I'd been put in the bottom stream at school, I didn't do well enough to go to university, my parents were disappointed in me. They didn't say that. I was sacked from a job I had at 19. Over the years I was relocated and made redundant and I wasn't conventionally pretty either. I know none of that equals low self-esteem necessarily but I think I had been running on empty for a while, then I met a man I thought I loved him and he dumped me with a character assassination. It was in the wake of that 'rock bottom' that I met the abusive man.

So, that's just my story, I do feel it was an unrecognised low self-esteem combined with a crisis that led me in to an abusive relationship.

I am really happy now, on my own two feet, working, have my own place, kids are doing well. It's all good now. My last two boyfriends, the first one even though he was really nice I ended it. Old me wouldn't have felt I had the right to end a relationship with him. The next guy, it was more like a connection that felt so right,blah blah blah, but then he started to tell me what I thought and get annoyed with me because of what he had decided I was thinking, so before you could say 'ltb' I finished it.

I am a totally different person now.

blackheartsgirl · 28/12/2014 00:48

Maybe so Terra but lazy selfish arses quite often start like this then the aggression creeps in, then the violence.

I've had low self esteem all my life. My parents especially my mum were abusive, I was an odd child. Always on the outside looking in and I've never been cherished by any man. Everyones fucked off and left me.
I have no other adult male in my life. No family or friends who are male and I think my dp is normal even though I know full bloody well he isn't. But that's my experience of men

skildpadden · 28/12/2014 00:53

Blackheart, you'll get there.

I used to read messages from posters who literally couldn't comprehend that you can't make another person be reasonable. They just didn't get it! that if you're reasonable yourself and present a reasonable argument that you wouldn't be met with.............. reason. It is unfathomable to them, and I envied them that ignorance, but I wished they wouldn't comment with useless posts, like "well, sit down and talk to him". AS if the poster hasn't tried that a million times before coming to the internet ykiwm.

The strength it takes to endure life with an abusive partner, it is unending. I've never needed strength like i needed it when I was still with him. I'm just freewheeling now.

skildpadden · 28/12/2014 00:56

Although my x wasn't abusive to me right from day one, thinking back on it, there was a kind of disapproval that must have attracted me (in the fucked up state I was in). I'd never felt good enough, for the top stream, to keep a job, to find a nice man, and there was a familiar (although unpleasant) dynamic of him expressing disapproval towards me (for various trivial things) fairly early on. I think I didn't notice it because I judged myself so critically too.

blackheartsgirl · 28/12/2014 01:03

Thanks skil. You can't reason with someone who's logic is so screwed and who thinks he's right.

I honestly feel I've got a dead weight round my neck and its dragging me down into mud.

He's about to lose his job for yet another ailment. He does genuinely have a bad back but its the tenth period of sickness in 3 months. He had 3 days off last month because he wanted to play on Xbox.

I've been in a bit of a daze this year, lost my nan last month and my mums support as she fucked off with her latest squeeze and been dumped by my one friend so next year I will be getting a job if I can. I am not losing my house

skildpadden · 28/12/2014 01:08

Can you talk to women's aid? I know people are always reluctant too, my own reluctance would have stemmed from reasoning such as 'they aren't magicians', or 'what i really need is money and lots of it' and a million other reasons not to talk to them but now looking back on it I know that at the very least they would have made some good practical suggestions and they would have been aware of the law and where I stood and issues like that, they also would have listened and believed me and made me feel heard and that would have been invaluable. I know people on mumsnet will believe you but to say it out loud to a person in real life, and to be believed, it would be good for your soul. It is like having a size 13 boot on your soul the whole time.

The daze gets worse, it's like an self-defence mechanism, an anaesthesia that makes the abuse bearable but it also anaesthetises your fight or flight I think.

ProcrastinaRemNunc · 28/12/2014 01:23

Quite often women who are abused start off with low self esteem or at least low self esteem in some areas or over certain things. An abuser, ime, is someone who identifies then capitalises on those past hurts, for personal gain.

Mn helped me a long, long time ago, by first being an outlet, then providing encouragement to contact women's aid. I was (very secretly - wa take safety seriously) allocated a domestic violence outreach worker. She helped me to free myself and to put protective measures in place. I haven't looked back!

It is sad, to read so many stories of abuse but every one of the women who take the step of opening up here, are on the road to freedom

ProcrastinaRemNunc · 28/12/2014 01:23

Quite often women who are abused start off with low self esteem or at least low self esteem in some areas or over certain things. An abuser, ime, is someone who identifies then capitalises on those past hurts, for personal gain.

Mn helped me a long, long time ago, by first being an outlet, then providing encouragement to contact women's aid. I was (very secretly - wa take safety seriously) allocated a domestic violence outreach worker. She helped me to free myself and to put protective measures in place. I haven't looked back!

It is sad, to read so many stories of abuse but every one of the women who take the step of opening up here, are on the road to freedom

FastWindow · 28/12/2014 01:29

skildpadden so much rings true. Or as we say, ikke sant?

I'd like to reach out to adiposegirl who I've agreed with before on here.

I was a very well brought up, very well educated girl of 19 when I met my abuser. (not wealthy, in financial terms. Just morally, normal family stuff. You know, divorced parents.)

Met this guy, five years older. He had the handle on the world that I didn't. I surrendered my opinion to his. Pretty much within a month.

Four years later and I'm running for a train with twenty quid in my pocket, knowing that I need to make it to the train, or I'll go back and apologise yet again for making him lose his temper with me.

The answer? I was a supremely self confident and intelligent person up until I met him. There is no legislating for the reasons why outwardly strong women get into this black pit.

blackheartsgirl · 28/12/2014 01:36

I chucked him out 3 years ago but he wormed his way back. Like me he has noone, no family, swore he was different, a changed man. I was on benefits too, my son has aspergers and I was so frightened about the benefit changes coming in That I felt vulnerable being a lone carer.

I know. I am fucking stupid. I can't tell people in RL that I've made a huge mistake. I've cancelled our wedding thank god.

It feels like we are bound to each other by us having no one. If I play the long game then I can eventually move away from the area and not have him on my doorstep threatening to slash his wrists if I don't have him back.

Women's aid threatened to report me to social services if I didn't chuck him the day I went to see them. I am not ever going back to them. The DC have never seen the aggression but he is financially abusive and emotionally abusive too but its insidious. I just don't know what to do

blackheartsgirl · 28/12/2014 01:37

Yy to the daze. I feel like I'm in a fog and numb

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