to think that the average MNetter has a pretty rosy view about life in the "average" relationship

[livingonthedge]

Have been lurking for a while now and have seen several threads from (usually) women who live with men who shout, swear at them or manipulate them. Replies are invariably "this is abuse so leave him".

I agree that it is abuse but am not sure about the advice or that it is as uncommon as some make out. I think that (sadly) many (usually) men (sometimes women) have real anger management issues or control issues and that the partner gets the brunt of it.

A quick poll of a friends - one with OH who frequently yells verbal abuse; one "has to have sex every day" (or OH "loses it") and one who has no access to money (just housekeeping) and has things like time to bed and to get up dictated by OH. All stay because they look at the alternative and decide to put up with it.

If someone has a career which pays enough to cover the childcare; or if they are so wealthy that they can come out of the relationship with enough to put down a reasonable deposit on a house; or alternatively if they could get social housing then maybe it is a real alternaitve but for a lot of women I do not think that the desicion is that clear cut. Life in a hostel or refuge is not something that they want for their children. In many areas getting social housing with no obvious bruises or proof of abuse isn't that easy.

"supprt from family or frends" assumes that your family agree that the relationship is abusive and that you have friends that can help. My family would not consider it abuse (note that I am not saying that it isn't abuse - I thnk that it is - but my parents would just say that women have put up with worse etc - ie would not help me (my sister was in this position and was not helped). Friends (as above) are in similar relationships and so cannot help (can't see their OHs allowing it :) ).

Am not complaining - just trying to point out what life is really like for many "normal" people. Am not sending this for some "dodgy estate" - my friends and I would be classed as "typically middle class" by most people's definitions. Life is simply not as rosy as all seem to think.

99.999999% of men understand fully that it is not acceptable to be anything other than loving and respectful to their partner sorry but that is way too high and that is what I mean by too rosy view. Nowhere near that high (and partners not men as women abuse too).

So why do people get so entangled and embroiled to the point where it's so bloody difficult to leave?

I mean, I know some men start the abuse much later, but for most, the signs are there from the very beginning.

That is what I simply don't understand Jilly.
Even at the start the signs are there. If they obsessively want to know where you were and who you were with why not calmly say 'I'm sorry but I don't have to explain my movements and I am not going to' or if they hit you say 'you do that one more time and you won't see me again'-and stick to it-no ifs and buts and excuses, or if they swear and call you abusive names say 'none one talks to me like that-EVER'.
In those early days it is simple to walk away. If you go back for more and allow it all the first time then I imagine it is difficult. But why stand for it the first time?

sorry no one

If you have DCs you owe to them to show that adults treat each other with respect otherwise they think it is normal and probably start another cycle.

I have wrestled with that for years, exoticfruits, trying to understand why so many women put up with so much from so many shitty men.

Is it how they are raised? Do they have such low self esteem and low expectations?

Do they think jealousy is proof they are loved?

It is, quite simply, completely unfathomable to me.
Mind you, my parents have a super marriage but DH's parents had an appalling one where his mother actively served his father and was horrible little doormat so it can't be all about our backgrounds.

Having only read the forst post, I thinkit is very very sad that women have so few options often.
I think that there should be more focus on building up younger girls esteem at school age (although appreciate that isn't easy to get in to the curriculum)
It would be nice if it could be done at home but sadly it often isnt and women end up thinking they have to put up with abuse because the alternative is so grim.
The alternative shouldn't be grim. A man should enhance your life, not control it.

If I say anything on relationships I am told that I don't understand.
I don't understand.
If they do feel that is what love is why engage? Why not just say 'when you have finished your rant-I will listen-I can't talk to someone who isn't calm?' or 'I am not going to talk to you while you are putting me down-when you are prepared to talk to me as an intelligent human being Iwill listen'.
Maybe their childhood is to blame?
I feel that you need the same sortof advice of what you would say to a 2 yr old tantrum.

Jolly, it is a combination of low self esteem on part of women and the 'boiling the frog' principle.

To give clear eg from my own experience. I was 29 and for some reason desperate to get married. I had low expectations about the kind of man I could 'get' because I am disabled.

I met a doctor who was quite handsome and thought finally I had won my 'prize'.

For the first month or so he was lovely. Then little by little he began to ramp it up until I was living with him and it began to get more difficult to disentangle myself.

Anything I enjoyed he would try to sabotage, he would ring up my friends and family and say awful things about me. He would chuck me out of the car at the side of the road, he would drive fast and scare me, he would break my things. He threatened to throw my cat across the room.

They always have excuses or reasons for why they do it, sometimes they cry, sometimes they blame you. It is very confusing and difficult because you don't want to think that you have been such an idiot to be fooled by someone you thought you loved.

It took some mild physical abuse and the fact he tried to wreck my 30th birthday party before I saw the light. My friends had been trying to tell me for months to leave him.

I suspect my experience of the 'middle class' abuser is fairly typical.

Sorry jilly! Interesting iPad auto correct.

Thanks Pero.

You got out

OP i'd have to agree with others who say your view of an "average" relationship is far from average in my experience. It's really quite sad.

And a child is NEVER better off in a household where they witness/hear Domestic Violence. Ever. a hostel may not be cushty short term, but it beats a lifetime of psychological distress from having seen your mum's head having been smashed off the floor and having to tend to her cuts and bruises, or hearing one parent swearing and shouting and screaming obscenities at another.

no child deserves parenting like that.

livingonthedge Wed 14-Sep-11 14:28:13
99.999999% of men understand fully that it is not acceptable to be anything other than loving and respectful to their partner sorry but that is way too high and that is what I mean by too rosy view. Nowhere near that high (and partners not men as women abuse too).

I didn't say that 99.99999% of men do not abuse. I said that they understand that abuse is wrong. This is exactly my point - there seems to be a suggestion that if abusive partners simply understood better, or were helped to understand better, they would suddenly realise the error of their ways. The vast majority are not stupid - they understand all right and simply choose to carry on behaving like arses anyway.

I am still very uncomfortable with your approach. How about moving away from "everyone is wearing rose-tinted spectacles" and wondering if everyone is actually seeing very, very clearly with the benefit of a little distance?

I have to agree though that 99.9999 men is way to high an approximation. But I still wouldn't stand for it myself.

I am lucky however to have a great dad who is a solid example of what a man shouldbe. he treated me like a princess but not like an incapable one.. like an intelligent, important, independant princess

I know that makes me very lucky and if i hadn't have had that i may be in a position where I would put up with a shabby relationship.

Exoticfruits - interesting that you make the 2 year-old tantrum connection. I was also going to make a similar comment - only I was going to make the point that gently helping someone to realise that their behaviour isn't appropriate is what you expect to have to do for a toddler who can't yet manage their emotions, not for an adult with years of life experience behind them.

I think a lot of people with experience of abuse realise that if someone hasn't learned those lessons by adulthood then, in the majority of cases, they are unlikely to do so and all you can do is protect yourself by removing yourself from the situation.

So if 99.9999% is too high an estimate for the men who know abuse is wrong and either abstain from abusing or do it anyway in the full knowledge of what they are doing, what percentage of men do you believe genuinely have no understanding that abusing women is wrong?

I am finding it very hard to believe that there are many adults out there who genuinely, truly think that there is nothing wrong at all with shouting verbal abuse at their partner, or beating them, or controlling their movements, and can therefore excuse their behaviour in any way.

I'm sorry I wouldn't have any idea what the % would be. But I know that there are a lot of men who think women are second class citizens.
I have worked with abused women so maybe that skews my view on the subject.

I think i also misread the quote, I read "unacceptable" as in, they wouldn't accept the behaviour of themsleves. Not that they knew it was unaccaeptable and did it anyway.

I don't think I have ever come across a defendant in a domestic violence case who actually held the view that there was nothing wrong with their behaviour.

Every single person I have represented in relation to DV has lied, excused, minimised or blamed. If there were really many people out there who had no understanding that what they were doing was wrong, surely I would have come across one by now? Surely I would have had someone look at me blankly when I asked if they beat their partner up and say "well of course I did. What's wrong with that?"

I guess the issue is that emotional abuse is often more subtle and thus harder for some to recognise it is abuse. For example, a partner may not tell you where you can go, but may emotionally blackmail you so you don't feel you can go out.

Worked with another colleague who whenever there was a work night out would never come. She would start saying she was coming, but then drop out because her OH doesn't think he can manage the kids by himself, or isn't feeling well, etc.

It was pretty obvious he was stopping her coming. But I seriously doubt she would have thought her DH was trying to control her movements - although he was. And he was the same with her going out anywhere else without him in the evening.

I think in these kind of situations both the abuser and abused often struggle to see it as abuse.

Lots of women collude in it too.
They say things like, " Ooh, he won't let me walk through town at night" and think they must be so special and so adored . Or women who talk about being " let" to do anything. Some women seem to enjoy possessive, jealous behaviour and see it as how loved they are.

Very, very sad.

I don't think MNers have a rosy view of relationships - if anything reading these boards for any length of time you would certainly get an impression that they aren't all hearts and flowers!

I think most people don't have intimate knowledge of other people's relationships IRL. Even those of close friends or family. They just make comparisons against their own experiences or perhaps their parents' relationship.

Agree Jilly. I was gobsmacked by 1 women at work who seemed confident and strident and her DH seemed pretty quiet and unassuming. Until she came in to work bringing her lunch in a plastic biscuit box.

She told us she wanted to buy a lunch box but her DH had told her he didn't think she would use it after a few days. So he told her she had to use the biscuit box to prove she would use a lunch box, before he would let her buy one! I couldn't believe she had agreed to this and to him telling her if she could buy a lunch box or not.

I think more extreme emotional, physical and verbal abuse isn't that common. But I think manipulative and controlling behaviour is sadly far too common.

I'm not sure I grasp OP's point either. I wonder, though, if she is operating under the assumption that most people want or should be in a relationship, and that therefore, since "there are not enough gentlemen to go around", a lot of women just have to accept a certain level of abuse.

Is that it, OP?

If so, I would dispute the primary assumption and say that being alone is preferable to being in a relationship where you are not treated with respect and as an equal.

OP the relationships that you are describing are not normal. But I think I know what you are getting at. DH and I do argue from time to time and yes we both shout at each other and say things we don't mean. EG DH will say that I'm annoying sometimes so that's why he shouts. At other times I've shouted at him and tell him that he's being selfish or stupid. But we work through this and neither of us think it's abusive.

Women who aren't , " allowed" to wear certain clothes and like it because then they are for hubby's eyes only.

Or women whose husbands don't want them to breastfeed as they are his tits.

Or women whose husbands like curvy women and won't " let" their wives diet even though being overweight is making them miserable.

Or women who aren't allowed male friends.

Or women who can't go out at night because their children want mummy and daddy can't cope, silly daddy.

Or women whose husbands take the only car to work when they could get a bus and leave the woman stranded and carless with small children.

Or women who say, " oh, he's so generous, I only have to ask and he gives me money" and genuinely don't see the problem .

It's all there, it happens every day and the women it happens to are often in collusion, whether they realise it or not.

Jesus, writing all that has bloody depressed me.