To think people who stay in abusive relationships long-term and expose their kids to it are complicit in harming them?

I remember the majority of posters seeing it from your point of view and taking your side!
But I may be suffering confirmation bias; I was rolling my eyes at the posters expecting you to sacrifice yourself endlessly for someone who was slandering you.

It is incredibly tricky. As PPs have said, abusive parents often get at least some access to their children and some do great harm to their children, including in some cases murder. The law often isn’t particularly good at protecting children in those circumstances. So I can understand why a mother might stay to prevent children having to be alone with the abusive parent at least until children are older and better able to protect themselves.

Saying how what is? That no one currently has a responsibility to care for children but it would be nice someday if they did?

People are saying this is how it is, not how it should be

When I left I had so much faith in the system to keep me and my children safe. The police were actually great, the doctors and health care professionals were great, I could afford decent lawyers and had letters from school backing up my concerns.

But cafcass have an agenda to push contact at almost any cost.

So no one protects the children and no one has a responsibility to protect the children?

It is deeply complicated. My FIL has been abusive towards my MIL in every way possible. These days their kids would be taken from them as you children because of things my FIL subjected his children to and the fact that MIL wouldn’t leave but things are very different now. MIL doesn’t even seem to love him but she has redefined love to another meaning and she feels that love for him. It is very very dysfunctional and toxic.

Look at the hateful comments made toward single mothers on benefits (scrounger, lazy, shouldn't have had kids etc). Is there any wonder people who are extremely vulnerable, ground down and possibly out of work due to their abuser don't feel able to leave and get help?

That analogy doesn’t transfer. Instead it’s like letting in a friend you think you know who treats you well, and then gradually turns on you but you don’t know it, you think you’re the crazy one, no one comes to visit etc and voila, you have actually let in your abuser and he’s locked the door behind you

Nor mine. The abusive man’s rights were privileged above his own small child’s. And it’s happening every single day

Good question!
Please let me know when you find out as it is certainly not the family court, child protection services or police in my experience.

Then who protects the children?

It is a persistant myth that women can protect their children by leaving their abusive partner.

Leaving an "abusive relationship" does not necessarily stop the abuse of women and children because abuse is not a relationship issue - it is the actions of one person perpetrating abuse who will continue to do so after separation.

It is called "Post-separation Abuse" and the patterns have been documented and are familiar to those working in the field.

Look up the work of Dr Emma Katz.

Yes it was my experience.
I can’t express the terror of being in a household where abuse happens. The world feels like it’s ending.
To have respite somewhere else in a healthy household was like entering heaven
And yes I was manipulated. The next day after hearing abuse, to what your protector and parent downplaying it and making it out it wasn’t that bad was unbearable.
I couldn’t have coped if that was full time. I’d probably have ran away

Nah. It’s easier just to blame the woman. We only tolerate it because we want a nice house. 🙄 So much for ‘sisterhood’.

And for the record, a nice house is still a prison when you don’t have a penny to your name. When you have to beg your jailer to buy your child a pack of socks and you’re using a torn up old sheet as a sanitary towel. Yet to outsiders I was living in relative luxury. Just fuck off.

It isn't easy to leave for some women in very abusive situations. I personally know of a couple of situations where she left and he went on to kill the children to punish her. The courts allowed access as they always bloody do! If you are leaving a dangerous man it needs proper planning and you need to go as far away as possible. Sometimes having the kids removed is safer for them as then the danger to the kids is removed if he can't use them against her. It's terrifying!

Is it? Was this your experience? Did you ever feel manipulated? Also did you get a choice in the end where you could stay?

Sorry you never hear the actual children's experience, feels like we have to assume and make decisions for them in the dark x

YANBU and I'm typing this from hospital whilst awaiting the results of CT scan to check for facial fractures or brain bleed following my now ex partner besting me up.

I understand how hard it can be to leave but this is the first time he's hit me and it will never ever happen again. I'm ashamed my 14 year old was in the house when it happened but sadly it couldn't have been predicted. He just lost it because I caught HIM cheating and calmly asked him to leave 😭

I deserve better but so does my child. Never again.

I don’t think it’s blaming the victim but we, not unreasonably, expect people to help themselves. I lock my door, not because if I didn’t I would deserve to be burgled. But because it’s sensible to protect yourself.

I’m relieved to see the majority think YANBU. There’s a knee jerk reaction on here sometimes to
infantilise women and make out they have very little agency, but in my experience people do leave abusive relationships but only when THEY reach breaking point and usually their kids are far past it by then. My mum happily turned a blind eye to her partner abusing us, but found the strength to leave once SHE found it intolerable. She may be a victim but she’s a deeply selfish woman the two are not mutually exclusive.

I'd normally agree with the opening poster, but the more I read, the more I understand that the most dangerous time for a woman leaving an abusive man, is the time she chooses to go.

So what a decision an abused woman has to make. If I leave, I may well die and he may be left with care of the children, if the police don't recognise that he killed me. If the police do recognise that he killed me the children will have neither a mother not a father. But if I stay ...

and on it goes. Why do you think abusive men can be so keen to have children? Could it be that they know a woman will try to protect that child as best she can? Even if it means staying and taking the abuse, so the child doesn't have to?

This is also a really valid point. There's a huge gap between the criminal system, the family courts system and social services and the community sector. All of these work in silos and there are lots of gaps where families end up in really difficult situations post separation. Obviously I'd advocate for any woman to leave, but I also can't say I'd judge them for being scared that that will mean they get away and their kids are forced to be there alone in future. Often it's a case of better the devil you know and feeling like you'd rather be there to protect them than risk not being able to.

Maybe, instead of judging, we should be trying to understand the reasons why people stay in abusive relationships. This would help us develop and teach strategies to empower people to leave.

This.

I remember your thread. I think you did the right thing. Why put yourself out there in terms of the mental load you took on if they won't leave?

I'm really glad you were able to leave safely op.

I've worked with women who were murdered for leaving. And children who were killed as revenge.

Preparing to leave is the time when women are most likely to be seriously harmed and I don't think it's fair to minimise that or to suggest that it's neglect if some women don't feel safe enough to do it.

Either way these types of posts are a race to the bottom. They criminalise victims for not behaving in a certain way, and it puts accountability on victims when the full accountability should be on the abuser.

Outside of rape i can't think of any other crimes or forms of abuse where we blame the victim for not being in control.