To think there's not much help for women suffering domestic abuse?

Well said OP. what needs doing is raising awareness. People always comment on threads just leave and give an abused OP a load of abuse for not protecting their kids by leaving. No one really knows the reality of the family courts or refuge.

I left my abuser. I'd been trying to work out how to do it. Posted for advice and got attacked. Left suddenly to protect my child believing there would be help. NO HELP. I was on the mortgage so not entitled to benifits or housing. But couldn't stay in the house. Refuge wouldn't take me as I was on the mortgage. Social services wouldn't help me told me if I don't leave they will take my child, but when they heard I was considering sleeping in the car with a toddler while pregnant they changed time thinking kids would be better with their abusive dad.

I had a lot of evidence of abuse for family court. Including text messages where he admitted hurting our dd. Judge decided no risk to my children. Contact was forced. I had to prove I was same as ex said I was mental. That wasn't funded because NHS said I'm not mentally ill they have no role.

My ex never cared for our child when together. He got angry and hurt me around our kid but never hurt the kid. I left after he did hurt her and that was because I made him care for her while I was going through miscarriage. He hurt her and I left. Then followed a couple years where dd comes home with marks and trauma from him before he got a new gf to do all the childcare for him.

He even said in court he only wanted contact to stop his maintenance payments. Judge kept talking about what is best for ex and got passed off with me when I pointed out legally we were there regarding what is best for children.

My kids have SEND. Can't get any help with that because everything is attributed to parental conflict.

I'm still married because he cost me thousands fucking about with the divorce. He wants half my house. The house I paid for. I went back to work at 8 weeks after dd because ex gave me no help with the bills. He leeched off me and abused me and now he costs me thousands fighting over the house. If I hadn't given up o could easily have rated through all the equity on legal fees.

Oh and of course now he doesn't have the full amount of contact he won. He never really did mainly palmed them off on gf or his mum. But he knows child maintenance goes by court order not how much he actually has the kids.

It's a fucking joke of a system. My kids absolutely would have been better off it I had stayed and made sure I did all childcare and housework. Yes the would have seen him abuse me and lived in that atmosphere but they are suffering that anyway with their dad and his new partner.

Maybe people return because it's so fucking impossible to get support to leave. When you can't feed or house your kids of course you go back! I came to the conclusion that you either have to have enough money to fight or a family who will house and feed you or you have to have nothing to qualify for the help which doesn't exist anyway.

My children would have been better off if I'd have killed him and gone to prison for self defence manslaughter. Family would have taken them in and I would've out to care for them quicker than the years of contact they have been forced to suffer. And I wonder if prison is as bad for my mental health as what I e suffered trying to protect these children. I bet there is support for children who have a parent in prison or a parent who died. There is absolutely no support for them now and I can't even get anything privately because ex has PR so can block all that.

When I tell my story I get people no believing it. Particularly if I ever say negative about SS. The assumption is I'm lying or skum and there must be risks from me I'm not being honest about. The only people who believe the reality have been through it themselves. And we can't go public with what we have been through because we want to protect our kids from that and are scared of triggering more abuse.

What would help is public outcry and awareness. Family court overhaul and refuge to flee to. As a SW op people will believe you more than us skummy service users when we say what's happening. Don't just post anonymously online- speak out at work. The more SW who understand the better

You are right.

More people should know this.

Yes. This is how it is.

People are good at giving out how domestic abuse is bad, how awful etc

But really it's a way of making yourself into a leper. There is little support and no one really wants to know.

I can't imagine begrudging anyone having the services they need to escape abuse and recover.
There seem to be more services for women because most of those services were set up by women to meet the need. Its not a good thing that there are more services for women. They exist because there are more female victims, and they are the group at most risk of extreme violence and death. They are also more likely to have children.
Support services are single sex because the majority of women and children who exit are traumatised and need to recover from abuse. Mixed sex facilities just retraumatise female victims, and that doesn't help recovery.

Male victims are often abused by other men. They don't tend to be traumatised by being around women, so mixed sex facilities don't retraumatise them.

If we don't talk abut or record the sex of victim and perpetrator, how can society ever hope to reduce the numbers of victims?

Male victims fare no better. In fact, due to being in the minority (most documented victims are women and support services overwhelmingly focus on women) they are arguably worse off at an individual case level. I have never understood how it is helpful to refer to sex or gender when taking about abuse victims.

“The best defence for any female is to always have a career, always earn enough to be able to leave if necessary AND NEVER EVER rely on a man, financially or otherwise.”

This can be what attracts an abusive man though. Marry, then he has a personality change, quits working & starts making your life a living hell. Next thing you know you have an abusive man that will take half of everything you have if you’re lucky, or hunt you down and kill you (or have you killed) and inherit the whole job lot over your dead body.

These sorts of comments are depressingly naive because is no checklist that makes a woman immune from DA.

The trouble is, yes, on Mumsnet people sometimes seem to bully women into leaving without seeming to understand how hard it is.

However, there is support out there if you can find it, sometimes it depends on location and knowing which organisations to contact. Perhaps a list of all support services and charities etc. when someone is considering fleeing DV would be most supportive.

Even having a career doesn't always help, as you have to leave your job when you leave.
My cousin had to leave her job and the house she paid for to flee to another city.

Once she was there (OP forgot to add this bit), the Jobcentre insisted she attended appointments at school collection time or lose benefits payments, while social services (OP forgot to add that social services monitor and assess the woman fleeing violence rather than the abuser) insisted she be on time for school collection or her ability to parent would be questioned.

The strain had serious repercussions for her mental health and she's now, ten years later, on disability benefits, unable to practice her profession.

The judge ordered she allow her ex to keep the house, despite her having paid for it (he was unemployed and she supported the family before she left). Her ex was given supervised visits only, but unsupervised in later years.

What rages me the most, is the woman is told she isn't safeguarding the child by letting them witness abuse, and gets threatened with having the child removed. Nobody ever says the man isn't safeguarding the child by being an abuser.

My dd has been through this
But she's on benefits so it could be more things are available to her . I don't know what it's like from the situation of not wrong entitled to legal aid . I think local councils often don't do what they are meant to . When someone flees DV the council MUST put the person into emgency accommodation. Once the person is safe then things will be looked into a bit more .

Dd has been lucky that she's had support but recently when dd has been in danger the council did not do what they should have done and the lied several times. It took 3 MARAC meetings . 2 emgency housing panel meetings. And a MAPPA meeting The risk was/is under life in danger . The housing officer just kept lying. Not following things through not taking advice, not returning calling, ignoring etc etc. This had been going on since August. And it took threats from dd DV advocate and contacting manager etc . For this housing officer to do what she's meant to.

When DV happens the children are also classed as victims. The mum gets told by social services. you must stay away from him. You have to show you can protect your children. If not you risk your children being removed... also social services dad can have unsupervised visits the children can sleep over etc.

tell me you don't understand DA without telling me you don't understand DA. Someone who is deeply enmeshed in an abusive relationship has little to no say or agency in their own life any more. It creeps up on you so gradually you don't know until it's too late. It's incomprehensible to those who haven't been there but those of us who have and remember the fear and control know that it is a horrific situation to be in and you fear for your life. How many people who say they'd stand up to him, tell him no, just walk away would do that if a knife wielding maniac approached them in a quiet area after dark? Truth is you'd hand over your bag and hope to survive. It's no different if that maniac is your partner, you go into survival mode and do what you have to to get through including dealing with the fact that a clean break is unlikely if you have kids. I got really lucky and my ex decided to cut his losses and move onto his next victim. Neither me nor our child have seen him in years. I feel so much for those who don't get that severance and definitely more help and protection needs to be in place.

Yanbu
There is no help.

There’s no help. When I finally fled my first marriage, with no kids but pets, I got zero help. I tried to apply for grants to help me get back on my feet but they were all turned down. I couldn’t get a hostel place as there was no way in hell that I would leave my pets behind. Womens Aid even said they couldn’t help me as I had pets and to get in touch when I found them somewhere to go. I left behind everything else other than my car and a few clothes.

The only help I got was from the Crisis Team, because my ex husband was under them so I emailed them for help getting out. They were amazing. Other than that everyone washed their hands of me. It was terrifying.

Unless you’ve been through it, or know someone who’s been through it, you just don’t know what it’s like. I remember begging one charity for help, but they wouldn’t because I had a few Amazon purchases on my bank account. I tried to explain I had left my whole life behind and had to buy things in order to exist.

It does get better. When I talk about it now it’s like I’m talking about a television programme. One of my friends mentioned the other day about what I went through and how strong I was. No one has mentioned it for years, she’s no idea what they meant that people remember.

In a way I was lucky as my ex was so bad that there was a legal order in place that he could only have supervised contact ( supervised by social work), if I let him have contact, I knew there was a good chance my dc would be removed. This period of no contact let me break the "trauma bonds" and I could see clearly and break free. I now work in a related area and I see how professionals / policies deal with domestic abuse and quite frankly it would have not worked for me.

All of this. In my experience you are completely On your own. Ignore the misogynist who infests these posts

This entirely.

Every single point that you've mentioned, every single thing that doesn't exist in my home country.
I really find people in general very unwilling to help themselves here.
Every single point you mentioned is some form of help. An air BnB, housing, WA, police, social services etc - imagine if all that did not exist ? Now that is what being abandoned is.

Unless you've lived in constant fear you could be excused for thinking women return to abusers for stupid reasons.
The threat is he will track her down and kill her. Nothing the police or other agencies do can remove that threat.

I have been through similar and lost my home, my friends and my job as I moved hundreds of miles away to avoid the violence that I knew would follow when I left.

In my view, it's not more funding that's required, just a better understanding of what these women are going through and offering them real help that is not necessarily financial.

For a start, the courts need to take into account the reason for the break-up when they decide on custody arrangements. I was fortunate enough that my ex was stupid enough to be aggressive towards my solicitor in the court room and so he was only granted supervised access once a month. If he had been given 50:50 or even every other weekend unsupervised, I seriously would have taken the kids, changed our names and found some way to have gone abroad and started again to avoid him.

I was fortunate to have a career that meant I could start again anywhere, but I still needed a lot of moral support to give me the strength and courage to leave and get through the court system. The first year was complete hell but it was worth it in the end.

The fear of their children spending time unsupervised with their abusive ex's stops women leaving violent relationships.

This is one reason I hope never of have to return to the UK where my abusive ex lives. I just know I wouldn't get the help I need if he ever kicked off again.

Family court won't help either.. it's contact at all and any cost with an abuser.. so therefore the children will have contact without their protective factor (ie mum) and they become more vulnerable.
In my experience, I was in many ways worse off after leaving and there has been times when I'd wished I'd just stayed as at least I knew what I was dealing with. I left the home, not entitled to much financial help due to having "trapped capital" within the marital home, a court ordered childcare arrangement around his shift pattern which has caused me to have to become part time and spend more money on wraparound care due to the adhoc shift pattern, and less time to protect my children.
I am now more controlled by him than when I was his wife but just more so via the children.. any opportunity to punish me, report me, cause stress, he will take. I also have to communicate with him more due to the court order and arranging handovers and being expected to co-parent, as court ordered by family court.

Women's Aid were amazing but extremely limited in what they could do.. same as social care especially once a court ordered childcare arrangement is in place.

If I could have my time again, I'd stay to protect my children. But in that case social care would punish me by removing the children no doubt due to failing to safeguard them. It's a no win situation, but at least I could assess the risk to me and my children on a daily basis and act accordingly. I just assumed fleeing DV would involve a lot more help and support.

Excellent advice Meadowfinch

Yep basically spot on OP. I will say for balance that my experience with women’s aid in the area I lived in at the time was exceptionally helpful other than having to wait a few weeks before I left as there was no space in the refuge closest to me at the time. The most terrifying time of my life honestly. The waiting lists got even longer and I was in refuge with my kids for 9 months, partly due to taking ages for the council to agree it was safe for us to stay in the local area but mostly due to the ongoing housing shortage that is everywhere. This causes the waiting list to increase. They can send you to another refuge in a different location but of course they usually all have their own struggles too. It’s a mess and needs more money pumped into it as this is a societal issue that will never go away.

The staff in my refuge were great- very supportive and linked in with every other local service. But they were and still are chronically under resourced and under funded. And the way the system now works for housing in refuge is messed up. You needed to be unemployed or you’d be liable to pay the full rent which was £500 a week for each individual woman as a flat fee no matter whether she was there alone or with her children in a single room. The “rent” was paid from housing benefit but covered all utilities and other bills and the staff’s wages. I imagine that’s why your friend wasn’t helped with housing in a refuge.

@Edingril did you read my previous post. The law via the family courts, makes it illegal for a mother to protect her children from an abuser if the abuser is the father of the children.

That is fact. Not a bias. But fact.

I didn’t say we did.

Although through lack of funding for victims resulting in more children raised in abusive households, we probably will continue to see greater rates of DV in the following generations as it’ll be all they know.

Many of the services the OP mentions (apart from police and social services) have no statutory obligation to be funded, so rely on discretionary funding or charity. Given the squeeze on public funding to local authorities since 2010, no wonder they are under-resourced.