How can a parent let their child be beaten by an OH

Yes, but swallowedafly - she chooses to be with him. Same as he chooses to be unpleasant (not break the law, just verbally nasty). She was a professional woman with her own income and house. She is still with him. She chose him. He did not choose us. She puts her own interests before those of her children.

Not all women are blameless victims. Some are selfish, needy and very attracted to nasty men. They get something out of the relationship. The children don't.

of course he had reason to be nice to you and your sister - you were children and he was an adult human being. don't abdicate his responsibility to act as a decent human being, within the law and with some degree of basic morality! i can understand your anger at your mother and i know what it is like to have a passive parent who does not stand up for you and put you first, but he was the abuser - if he hadn't have chosen to willfully be cruel to children and break the law she wouldn't even have been in the position of needing to act on it.

i get that people feel more hurt by the parent who didn't protect them but that subjective feeling is not the same as reality and legal culpability - abusers are the ones who choose to abuse and all the consequences radiate out from that choice.

if a woman has been given all of that support, the man has been prosecuted and she has all along been warned that the ultimate outcome if the situation continues/reverts is that the children will need to be removed then at that point you'd have to go ahead and remove the children. there would be no choice. but you'd have done everything you could to avoid that.

tbh though i think it would be rare that someone who had been given all of that support, safe housing, counselling, police protection and support for a long enough period of time to begin recovery would then choose to go back to living with a violent abuser. if that was extended to all women i'd have no problem with the fact that sometimes it didn't work and children had to be removed. i would imagine though that for the vast majority of cases, if that support was consistently given and proper legal action taken, the strategies would work.

I think the focus is because it is such primary and insinctual role as a mother to protect your child, so it is shocking that some mum's seem to 'side' with the abuser. The abuser may well not be related to to child, but the mother is, which is what makes it so distrurbing.

As a daughter whose mother would always put her emotionally abusive husband over her daughters, I can tell you my mother has hurt me by her actions far more than my stepfather ever could. He is a git and if she had the guts to leave him I would never have to see him again. But she will always be my mother and will always have let me and my sister down.

I am not talking extreme domestic violence here, just prioritising your new relationship over your children. He has no reason to be nice to me and my sister, but she is our mother for heaven's sake. What is wrong with her? Why do women do this? I hope I never would.

Strange thread.

Why focus on someone other than the person who is inflicting the abuse? It seems like a contortion to me - a few people have said, well actually committing DV is obviously so bad what's the point in talking about it, the person committing DV is intrinsically bad so no point in talking about it, the women are worse than the men because the men are what they are and there's nothing you can do about them so lets focus on the women.

This seems strange and back to front to me. Surely focussing on the abuser is the correct place to start?

It's quite obvious that the victims of DV who refuse to do anything about it are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome - wiki have a good page on this.

It's difficult and upsetting but once more I see that women should be responsible for bad men's behaviour and this should be reversed. Women, if treated like human beings, would be believed and there would be countless campaigns targetted at men to stop doing violence against women and children.

x-post Achica.

So what should be the action taken when all the support services swing into operation, the man is barred from the home, the refuge is organised and the children and the mother are given what they need to begin again.
Then she takes the abuser back into her life and her children's because she feels sorry for him, or can't live without him, or whatever delusional excuse she makes to undo all that has been done to try and help her and her dependents?

swallowed I don't know what Force your talking about but my Force does all this as policy anyway. We are alos pilotting the Domestic Violence Protection Orders where perpetrators can be removed form their own homes in cases of DV. We're not allowed to caution for offences of DV. There is rafts of support available and victims are referred to a DIVA (domestic violence advocate) service. There is also the MARAC process involving numerous agencies too. If a victim wants to be helped the support is out there.

I hear time and time again that someone reported Dv to the Police and they did 'nothing'. A lot of these women are quite happy to tell their friends 'he hit me and the Police came and did nothing' but when you look the Police report they said nothing of the sort.

There is an alarming trend of women also lying on behalf of the offender claiming they have caused injuries themselves (but they won't tell their friends that they'll tell them 'he hit me/cut me and the Police did nothing).

I have been involved in numerous so called 'victimless' prosecutions and they're very hard work when you have a victim who is intent on assisting the offender. One case where we actually managed to get him convicted for 5yrs for GBH (v sympathetic judge) actually got engaged to the offender whilst serving his sentence and married him on release (there were no children involved thankfully but there was no reason for her to remain in contact with him). She refused from the outset to provide a statment and evidence was third aprty and forensic. A lot of them will even get their MP or a solicitor to get us to remove bail conditions and will lie to the authorities about what has gone on. They will also deny being in relationships with perpetrators because they don't want the authorities involved.

It's not straightforward and there's no simple solution.

'Women in abusive relationships suffer from massive cognitive dissonance. They have a great deal invested in making excuses for behaviour. So the overly harsh criticism, or the jealousy because you were talking to another man, or the refusal to help around the home become excused because he was having a bad day, or he loves me so passionately, or he can't help it he's just a typical man and doesn't see dirt. These things are not so far removed from what goes on in many 'normal' relationships are they?. '

I cant talk for others but these things are so far removed from what I would see as normal personally, especially anyone that puts up with someone who says they can only wear certain things, go certain places or see certain people. I think that is the most abnormal thing there is and if someone did that even one time I would tell them to fuck off. I really cant see how some people think this is normal even the one time.

There needs to be a whole separate system for dealing with abuse, rather than tacking it onto the systems which are supposed to tackle it at the moment but haven't the time, understanding or resources to do it properly. Start funding the refuges and the support system. Why is Women's Aid a charity, when the police aren't a charity, the homeless department of local councils aren't charities, social services isn't a charity. I actually think that children's services should branch into two, one support system for parents who are struggling and one abuse department which focuses on abuse solely, all the refuges, support services, aftercare, etc etc should come under this umbrella. A fourth emergency service.

There is good support and understanding around, but it's so thinly spread, only available in certain areas, and it just isn't valued as an essential public service like it really should be.

And by the way... police are useless on this, they don't have the time to deal with so many domestic incidents. It can take them several days to contact the victim... if they do.

I know someone who can fill a small supermarket trolley with reports to the police of the abuse she and her child have got at the hands of her ex. Police has not been much help, they normally go and talk with the very respected and mild mannered exhusband who claims the exwife is mad and paranoid, so they drop the case, no matter how much evidence she has of the claims.

Obviously, they see a deranged woman freaked out or reason out of fear and compare it with a very much self controlled and charming man who doesn't appear capable of hurting a fly. Who do they believe?

As a domestic abuse case worker put it once to me, all abusers are lovely otherwise how would they manage to get away with it?

I think she has been remarkable strong, I'm sure many women in her situation feel paralised with fear, their self esteem so damaged that they are no longer able to raise to the challenge and protect themselves and their children, afraid that the abuse will get worse if they step an inch out of line and sadly, in a rather distorted way, feeling they are protecting their children from worse to come :(

i also think the police should revisit the victim and tell them what has happened, inform them clearly of what protection they can offer them, how to change their locks (what legal action they need to take to allow them to do this given the ridiculousness that it can be illegal to lock someone out who is assaulting you if it is also their home), a named officer who they can contact etc etc. that sense of support and the police being there to protect them may also encourage confidence to prosecute.

i think for a start when it is reported and the police take the offender away he shouldn't be given a caution and sent straight back to the home. there has to be a way of saying you are released on the condition you go nowhere near the home or the person you have assaulted and an immediate call to social services who then go out and meet with the victim and offer support as well the clear message that dv is damaging to children and they will now be being observed and monitored (as well as supported) with a view to checking they are safe and well and not continuing in a dv situation. a clear message at that point that children cannot live in this, with the back up from the legal system that the man is not allowed back in the home for x amount of time allows a window of opportunity for supporting the mother to end the relationship and for processing how seriously it is taken by the law and the ultimate risk of losing the children if the situation was to continue.

i am not sure how this compares with what actually does happen. at the point of an incident a lot of services should kick into place imo and everyone should be informed of what is going on, hcps, ss, educators etc and a clear programme of support and monitoring of all concerned be put into place.

does anyone know what actually happens?

I see what you're saying, SAF, but who should it be placed upon? If the women [mostly] in these situations won't press charges or even agree that they're being beaten up, what are others to do (except in extreme cases of course, where the damage is obvious, blatant and possibly witnessed)? Who else is there to say "this man [usually] has committed this act of violence and he needs to be removed/stopped" if the bashee won't do it?
If the support were more easily accessed and the "victim" more assured that they could get away and be safe, perhaps they would be more wiling to chance it? I don't know.

i think there's also a cultural shift that needs to take place whereby we lose this idea of marriage being sacred and no one should interfere between a man and his wife. that attitude creates a wall of silence around dv and abandons women into it you know? we don't speak out and challenge in the same way we would seeing violence, bullying, abuse etc in other circumstances. we are restrained by our manners which are framed around this idea that the domestic realm is untouchable. we're not meant to say you're husband treats you like shit or don't speak to her like she's a dog or i heard you screaming last night and i rang the police are you ok?

and i think it's clear that this historically has interfered with how police deal with domestic violence and still is doing upon how abusers are dealt with.

it springs to mind that if someone was having the shit beaten out of them in their cell in prison but wouldn't make a formal complaint when asked to they wouldn't say oh well that's up to them then they obviously want to get beaten nightly. nor would the prisoner be likely to complain if they knew that 24hrs later the violent pscyho was going to be back in their cell.

we know victims of dv are worn down, their thinking distorted and their boundaries corroded so to place the onus on them of whether someone should be convicted or let back in the house etc is crazy.

Sorry for multiple posts, but from an analytical POV it could certainly be useful to separate children who are victims of a man's extended DV towards the mother (which child abuse often is) and children who are victims of a mother who is directly complicit in the abuse. There are some shocking cases of mothers who have deliberately harmed their own DC of their own volition, so I'm not trying to paint child abuse as something only men do. Although the effect on the child is the same I think there is a big difference between the motivating factors and that a lot more can be done to counter DV-associated child abuse than can be done to alter the abusive personality of a mother intent on harming her child. I'd also say that DV-related child abuse is more prevalent, which in some ways is more encouraging if you believe as I do that it can be stamped out.

X posted. I understand your anger and empathise. The day you stop caring is dark day and it is to your credit that it makes you so angry. I think we're just maybe approaching the same problem from opposite ends.

Dustinthewind you've completely failed to engage with the attrition angle of my explanation. I am in total agreement with you about how children need protecting from parents who behave like that, but if your goal is to reduce child abuse and cruelty, then understanding how it happens (which is not the same as condoning it) is key IMO.

I'm as horrified as you are by what some children have had to experience, and I applaud anyone involved in the fight to safeguard children. But I think it's as important to understand what is going wrong and to use that knowledge to reduce the number of households where this takes place as it is to mop up the pieces in court when the damage has pretty much already been done.

IMO there are a number of key things that need doing. We need much, much harder sentences for DV and a concerted campaign to make it socially unacceptable. If the same level of energy was put into it as smoking, for example, we could see a huge reduction. 50 years ago, 90% of men smoked. Now it's less than 1/4. No one believes DV is more addictive than smoking do they? The cost to the public in terms of dealing with the consequences of DV would make such a campaign money well spent.

We need to make leaving an abusive relationship easier - and I don't mean just practically. We need greater outreach support in schools to identify the children who may be suffering.

We will never change the behaviour of the parents like Reality's uncle's wife. It's always going to be the case that some people are too badly damaged by life/their own personality to be saved, but getting messages in young can change the acceptability of certain crimes (if it didn't, we would have a much higher murder rate) and reduce this blight for future generations.

You're right, I don't know why I said it. Anger at the people who think their children should be part of their warped and twisted world? Fury at the impotence of all the education and positive discrimination for girls that happens in schools?
Rage that all the work put in towards getting women equal rights in the eyes of the law over the last 40 years still doesn't begin to match up against the mindless drones whose highest ambition is to be decorative, a reality TV star or a WAG?
Who will put up with the unbearable because they fear standing up on their own? Pressurised by other women into behaving 'correctly'
I've been picking up the pieces of such failures for years, and I am very tired of trying to understand it from the adults' point of view.

Dustinthewind - your post of 15:59, I don't agree with what you said.
There are still enough women out there who truly believe that keeping the marriage together is more important than "a few little slaps" - and many of them are the mothers of currently abused women. These mothers will advise their DDs to stay in an abusive relationship, "for the sake of the children", for the looks of things, and/or because, for them, it is not abnormal behaviour. In another generation or two, I really hope those attitudes will be long gone - but they're still prevalent now, even in our society.

There are still mothers whose fondest hope is to marry off their DDs, regardless of to whom - and the more charming the sonIL, the more they will look past his "little misdemeanours" because he's a "good provider" and a "great dad".
I had my mind opened by MNers, I have to say - HOW can someone be a great Dad when he abuses the children's mother and exposes them to DV? How is that being a great Dad? It isn't.

'By the time you've reached this mindset, it really isn't that much of a stretch to believe that if smacking is acceptable in law and the child has been really badly behaved, then physical abuse of the child is ok. As long as nothing is broken it can't be that bad.'

You are right, I haven't been in that position and can't begin to understand how anyone can think a 6 year old might deserve being thrown across the room, beaten but not broken, slashed, burned or screamed at until they think they are a worthless piece of shit not worth a name.
If the adults in that child's life are as insane as that, then the child is helpless and abandoned and without a hope of safety.
Unfortunately the law relies on people like me to accumulate evidence of abuse to help protect a child. You can't remove a person from their home and ban them from contact without evidence, and if the best witness won't do anything, then it is so much harder to prove. Which is why so many children suffer and die in their own homes.

This is going to be a long post. I apologise in advance but I really want to help people understand what abuse does to your mindset.

I left my abusive partner on the first incidence of physical violence against me (when my DTs were 4 months old). The only time my abusive XP laid a finger on my DC was after I'd already left him, at which point I kicked him out of my house there and then, contacted social services immediately and established supervised contact only. I was the primary earner in the relationship when we were together so had more advantages than most when I left him (I was made homeless but had the means to buy a home, for example). As far as the outside world was concerned, I was the exact opposite of what an abused woman is like. I did everything that people on this thread think a woman should do when faced with an abusive partner or someone who hurts their DC.

Despite this, I can still see why so many women don't leave and why some go so far as to let their children be abused. I'm not making excuses for it, but I just don't think you can understand it unless you've been there.

For me, the saving grace was the wonderful example I was set by my own parents. As soon as things became physical, I knew I had to leave. There was simply no way - no matter how much of an angle he or I tried to put on it - that I could find a way to excuse that. But other abusive behaviour isn't that straightforward. I look back now and I cringe at some of the behaviours that my X exhibited toward me and the excuses that he or I made about them so that I didn't feel I had to leave there and then.

The psychological abuse started when I was pregnant (as is often the case). No abuse of any kind in the five years preceding this, though with hindsight I can see behaviours towards others that should have raised concerns. That said, I can just imagine people's reactions if I posted a thread saying "DP got into a silly fight in the pub and beat the guy up. Should I leave?" I guarantee that as soon as the words "he's never laid a finger on me" were said, most posters would say that I would be mad to leave him based on that example. Abuse is a pattern of behaviour. You can only see it for what it is when you look at the bigger picture, and when you're in the relationship you often can't, especially when each isolated incident can be excused by itself very plausibly indeed.

Women in abusive relationships suffer from massive cognitive dissonance. They have a great deal invested in making excuses for behaviour. So the overly harsh criticism, or the jealousy because you were talking to another man, or the refusal to help around the home become excused because he was having a bad day, or he loves me so passionately, or he can't help it he's just a typical man and doesn't see dirt. These things are not so far removed from what goes on in many 'normal' relationships are they?.

Abuse just ramps it up, step by step, until by the time the first punch is thrown, you believe the justification presented by your abuser. Indeed, if he's that good, he won't even have to make it because you'll already be blaming yourself for provoking him. Even if you make a stand over it, if you accept his apology and try again, you've drawn your line in the sand so far from your original stance that you may as well have scrubbed it out completely. THat's why I get so frustrated with the some posters who blame women for not leaving and protecting children when they are very often the same ones who come out with trite sayings like "every one deserves a second chance" or "it takes two to make a relationship fail" or "be honest now, did you provoke him in any way?" or "if he's genuinely sorry I don't see why you can't put this behind you especially as you've admitted that you were partly to blame".

By the time you've reached this mindset, it really isn't that much of a stretch to believe that if smacking is acceptable in law and the child has been really badly behaved, then physical abuse of the child is ok. As long as nothing is broken it can't be that bad. Especially as the abuser will be claiming that the child is over-reacting on purpose and by accepting that explanation you can shield yourself from the possibility of becoming homeless, fleeing to refuge, having no money, no prospects, being scared, etc.

It's all an exercise in desensitisation. One tiny little chip at a time. The scary thing is, as psychological research shows, it can happen to any of us under the right circumstances no matter how strong our personal moral code. Some women grow up seeing abusive relationships as normal (either their own parents or by watching abuse in families in their community where other adults stand by and do nothing). Others grow up assimilating the culture that relationships are worth making 'sacrifices' for, that a woman should 'stand by her man', that children from broken homes have dreadful outcomes. All these make women a step closer to that 'ideal' set of circumstances.

That's why the best way to tackle this is through tackling perpetrators and getting more help for women to leave and to STAY left. Heaping moral outrage on them will do little because they won't even recognise it's aimed at them until it's too late. They don't see it the way you see it. And often it takes months out of a relationship for a woman's perceptions to return to normal. Women who manage to stay away from their abuser for a protracted length of time tend NOT to return. It's the ones who can't avoid their abusers who struggle and often go back. This is why cutting refuge places, cutting social fund grants, cutting social housing, etc are so important. They trap women. And it's made worse by courts who insist that abuse toward a woman is no reason for a child not to have contact - seeming to completely miss the point that this prevents the woman from truly recovering and so renders her and therefore her children at greater risk for abuse in the future. There have been a couple of cases here on MN where the the family courts have insisted a child has contact with an abusive man who has been abusive to them as well as their mother. If the 'experts' say it's ok, how can we judge a woman so harshly when she may have had years of grooming to reach the point where she thinks it's ok?

None of this deals with the example of the women who made a decision to put up with her children being abused in the first few weeks of a relationship but then I honestly don't believe that is commonplace.

Nor do I think that the woman's suffering trumps the child. I have no problem with SS intervening to keep a child safe if the mother is incapable of doing so. The child has to come first. However, it makes more sense for the child if the mother can be helped to reach the point where she CAN stand up for the child. So giving SS or the courts the power to remove the man from the house and ban him from contact for 6 months WITHOUT the consent of the mother, would be a good step. Tag the man to make sure he won't flout it (as early on in the separation a mother who could in 6 months time lay down her life for her child might at this early stage let her abuser back in and he knows that). Mandatory prison sentences for DV instead of the usual caution. Lots of things can be done. But aren't.