My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

AIBU?

DM and her attitude to DV

41 replies

Emmageddon · 13/10/2016 18:34

AIBU to want to go NC? Her best friend's nephew has been jailed after assaulting his GF and causing massive injuries that required hospital intervention. According to DM, the girl deserved it, she had been taunting him about not having a job, and only reported it to the police to be spiteful. DM said it wasn't even that bad an injury and she probably exaggerated how bad it was for sympathy. I have read the court documents online and know what really happened, and had been happening for months, and am shocked at her attitude. I confronted her, said the girl's injuries were severe, but DM simply said 'no they weren't, I've seen her since, she looks fine.'

WWYD? Tell her to jog on and have nothing more to do with her and her horrific attitude or accept the fact she's an elderly woman who is trying to support her friend?

OP posts:
Report
Matchingbluesocks · 13/10/2016 18:36

My Mil thinks like this too. She thinks a DV victim is to blame because she should leave. Hmmm

I get your anger and frustration but I am Shock at the idea of going NC with your own mother over it, unless you have a very poor relationship and want to anyway

Report
QuiteLikely5 · 13/10/2016 18:37

I wouldn't fall out with my own mother over her beliefs. I would challenge them but that is all. Yab ott

Report
alltouchedout · 13/10/2016 18:38

I'd ask my mum if that's how she'd respond if I was a victim of dv.

Report
PigletWasPoohsFriend · 13/10/2016 18:40

I'd challenge what she is saying, but to go NC is way ott.

Report
Emmageddon · 13/10/2016 18:44

Yeah I know its OTT but I have been a victim of DV (in a long ago relationship) and never told anyone because I was so ashamed. I used to lie about the injuries, people must have thought I was the clumsiest, most accident-prone person ever. It's made me wonder if I had told her what was happening, whether she would have been supportive or dismissive. It's just brought back all the horror of the situation I was in decades ago.

OP posts:
Report
Dontpanicpyke · 13/10/2016 18:48

You can't know how she would have reacted to her own dd.

Her views are horrendous but just because you disagree with another persons views you don't just go non contact. Especially your mum.

Report
AyeAmarok · 13/10/2016 18:51

What a disappointingly ignorant woman she is.

I'd be very upset to hear my mum say that.

I'd try to educate her, relentlessly.

Report
ConvincingLiar · 13/10/2016 18:53

I might tell her I was reconsidering our relationship I felt so upset about her beliefs.

Report
Jinglebellsandv0dka · 13/10/2016 19:04

Some women have been engrained with a deep misoginistic value, some women will always over look the faults of their sons or there BF sons because of this.

I know a few women that are like this. My DGM has similar views - not so harsh but mostly in a way that women are here to serve men.

It's very very frustrating and sad that their minds are so small and ignorant.

Lately I've been spending less and less time around her as I just can't put up with it any more.

Don't go NC but tell her how you feel and just keep your distance for a while and she might start to see her actions.

Unfortunately my DGM sees how her views effect me but says she is too old to change so I don't visit as much as I used to .

Report
Starlight2345 · 13/10/2016 19:05

There are a lot of people in this world who don't understand DV...Why wouldn't you leave.. They never think they would end up in a realtionship like that..

Assuming everything else is fine no I wouldn't go NC.. I also wouldn't discuss it with her.. She has no interest in the reality.

Report
Emmageddon · 13/10/2016 19:08

AyeAmarok that's what I want to do.

I managed to educate her that being gay is not a lifestyle choice when my DD came out - prior to that she was absurdly homophobic, saying that people were only in a same sex relationship because they hadn't met the right man/woman. She supports the LGBT community now.

But with regards to DV, I left Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes on her bedside table when she last came to stay (she's an avid reader) but she opted to read another novel instead. I don't want to preach at her and cause upset, she's not a bad mum and is an awesome DGM, and I think she's just misguidedly trying to show her friend that she cares. I just want to find some way of letting her know that DV is a real issue and not just spiteful women who have bought it on themselves.

OP posts:
Report
madein1995 · 13/10/2016 19:13

I think going NC over it would be a bit ott but agree to disagree. I think some older women can have different views of DV. My mum for example thinks it's not abuse unless it's physical, that women should just leave, and that the man can't be blamed for his reactions if the woman is having an affair Angry we have different views on lots of things and just don't discuss it. I can't imagine how you feel hearing this though, having been through DV yourself.

Report
Waltermittythesequel · 13/10/2016 19:17

When the Operation Yewtree stuff first broke, my mother and sisters (similar age to me) said that the victims were just looking for money, that it couldn't have been that bad since they waited so long to report, and that people throw themselves at celebrities so what do they expect?

I was sickened.

I just don't speak to them about anything remotely serious or important.

Report
Dinosaursgoboo · 13/10/2016 19:29

I think it's inevitable that different generations have different views on things, as a generalisation. While many older people will have a greater understanding of dv than your mum, I wouldn't go nc over it. I'd tell her simply that it's a view you just can't agree with and you don't want to talk about it any more.

Report
Clawdy · 13/10/2016 19:31

My mum's brother used to hit his wife and also my mum's young neighbour was occasionally slapped by her partner. Mum always trotted out the same phrase "She goads him, you know."

Report
acornsandnuts · 13/10/2016 19:39

My first boyfriend was violent but I kept it quiet so no one knew. I got to a point where I wanted out so told my mum. She told me that I must be winding him up. I managed to leave him but never forgot that from her and never will.

Report
mum2Bomg · 13/10/2016 19:41

Has she read the same thing as you? It might help as a more objective account and then it's fact, rather than your opinion vs hers?

Report
VeryBitchyRestingFace · 13/10/2016 19:41

I managed to educate her that being gay is not a lifestyle choice when my DD came out - prior to that she was absurdly homophobic, saying that people were only in a same sex relationship because they hadn't met the right man/woman. She supports the LGBT community now.

Of course she does, because gay rights is an issue that now - albeit indirectly - affects her interests (via her grand daughter).

If you were to tell her that you'd been a victim of DV, she may well start championing that cause too and change her tune about her chum's relative.

Report
VoldysGoneMouldy · 13/10/2016 19:42

With your own past especially, I would. People who think like this disgust me.

Report
Emmageddon · 13/10/2016 19:45

I was thinking of printing out the court document and giving it to her to read, so she can see for herself what happened. It's a horrible thing to read, and if she turned round after that and still said she brought it on herself, I don't know what I would do. From what others have posted, it's obviously a generational thing. Men are weak and lash out in temper, and women are to blame for annoying them.

OP posts:
Report
GreatFuckability · 13/10/2016 19:45

I would find it very difficult as someone who has experienced DV to be around someone who thought like that.

I'd think about sitting down and explaining your past to her and how it makes you feel when she minimises this womans suffering this way.

Report
AuntDotsie · 13/10/2016 19:49

My mum is a bit like this. She has tolerated a few incidents of DV in her own relationship (that I know of). This sort of led to me thinking this kind of thing was normal and tolerating it in my own early relationships.

But it's all bullshit. Violence is violence, no matter what. Yet when I wanted out of my violent relationship, she was there with bells on. I still catch my mum making victim-blaming comments every now and again and pull her up each and every time, but I know she doesn't really believe me. I suppose she's invested too much now to change that particular belief of hers.

I agree with PP, NC is a bit far. I think you may have to accept that this is how she is, but it doesn't mean you can't challenge her at every opportunity.

Report
BantyCustards · 13/10/2016 19:53

I'd find it to be difficult to be around her. My own (D)M told me I must have done something wrong when I disclosed and incident to her - it's a really shitty attitude.

Report
somekindofmother · 13/10/2016 19:55

my MiL thinks DV is just awful, and understands that it's not the victims fault, that people get trapped with no visible way out etc

then my BiL (her son) battered his GF in the street after throwing a cup of hot coffee at her because he's an abusive twat bag "she was antagonising him and filming him, getting right in his face screaming 'what u gonna do, you gonna hit me? go on then hit me' " (i have seen the video sadly)
but that's "not real DV cos she was asking for it, and BiL is really the victim as she went to the police and he was subsequently convicted of domestic assault, and she ruined his job prospects over a little tiff..."

people get rose tinted glasses about the people they love, they can know one thing to be absolutely true, but they cannot mentally corroborate that with something someone they love would do, or even be capable of... because what would that say about them and their choice of loved ones?

if it was your friends dd that had been attacked she'd be singing a very different song. she loves her friend and is supporting her the only way she's knows how, i wouldn't go NC over it, i'd tell her that victim blaming is the lowest of the low and that if she wishes your relationship to continue maybe you should just not talk about her friend or their family members.

Report
CarrotVan · 13/10/2016 19:59

What amount of violence or type of injury is acceptable to her? Would she be ok with her daughter or grand-daughter being assaulted at that level? What amount of violence or type of injury is too much?

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.