to think that too many women need permission to leave abusive relationships?

[ginmakesitallok]

This is a thread about a lot of threads.

My heart always sinks when I see a thread with "is this abuse?", "is this normal?' Etc in the title. Where the op is obviously not happy in a relationship but somehow feels that unless their partner is being"abusive" or not normal then they should just put up with it?

Surely it doesn't matter whether partner is being "abusive" or not, surely the fact that they are not enjoying their relationship any more is sufficient reason to ltb? In fact even if p isn't being a bastard none needs "permission" to leave?

I understand that sometimes people need their point of view validated and need support to leave, but there seems to be an unwritten rule that in order to leave a relationship it needs to be abusive?

It's worse when I read ops talking about how they are spending time gathering evidence, noting events etc, before they leave. You don't need proof! Just go!

Rubbish parsnip. So educating women who've already suffered abuse is fine for mn, but women who haven't suffered abuse get called ignorant and should be posting elsewhere?

I'm not victim blaming, if anything my question is about how as a society we can support women so that they are empowered to leave a relationship without the need for validation of the abuse. Nowhere have I said that it's the abuse victim's fault for staying in an abusive relationship.

Ignorance means lack of knowledge on a paticular subject. That is the definition of the word ignorant.

Gin you shouldn't have to have suffered abuse to understand what it does to someone. I haven't. To me it's just common sense and compassion.

OP, maybe they ask because they have had all self esteem destroyed and have been told that they are not being abused, they are being loved and looked after and kept safe because they are cherished? Abuse can make you believe crap like that and stop you going anywhere.

They've more than likely been worn down to a place where they can't trust their own judgement anymore. Everything is twisted and they think they're to blame, that they're the unreasonable one. That they're the one causing all the problems in the relationship. So therefore it's hard to get perspective without asking an outsiders opinion.

parsnipbob That is not what I have said. I am simply pointing out that both personality disorders lead to chaotic lives and dysfunctional relationships, but fall into different narratives about mad/bad. Men are treated for being "bad" imprisoned and made to submit to procedures that illicit guilt. The women are "mad" paradigm means they are not just suffering a temporary blip but have an intractable flaw not subject to reason or treatment.

This might seem insignificant to you, but when you consider that women are conditioned from childhood to take responsibility for fostering healthy relationships. That women are brought up to accept, facilitate, support and be placid, to put others before them, this means that women are more subject to the effects of coercion in an abusive relationship. They are more apt to listen to messages that tell them they are to blame, they are mad, they imagine the abuse, they over-react etc,... this version of events becomes internalised.

In this narrative men as "bad" people can be brought to guilt, subject to reason, the rule of law etc,.. They choose to be bad. The abuser chooses his weapons and wields them because he wants to and because he can.

The problem here is that it seems men have all the power, because women have no capacity for reason. We are reduced to vulnerability by structural systems and histories that forever paint women as either evil as in the past and must be contained (funny how men have taken up this position now!) or as now, mad and must be controlled. Mad people are not taken seriously. Many women diagnosed with BPD have a history of suffering abuse in childhood, but their testament to this is subject to the charge that they are mad.

But the two conditions have a common genesis in abusive childhoods. So, is it enough to simply say the narc is "sane" but chooses. Or is it time we started to look at the causes, gendering, inequality more generally, rewrite the narrative about women, to take a more proactive role in ensuring our sons and growing up not having subvert whole areas of their emotional life? Which leads me back to my point about women crying tears that their "abuser" is unable to shed. Because women carry the emotional burden of the fact that men are shaped to never show weakness and vulnerability, but its there all the same!

Mini, in a way you are speaking sense. I recognise that my abusive husband is a product of his childhood, and also that perhaps I chose him because I am a product of mine. I don't hate him, and I don't think he is an intrinsically evil person who deliberately decided to be an abuser. However, I have had to get a non molestation order against him for the safety of my children. I have had to label him as the "baddie " because of the bad things he did. I won't let him set an example to my sons which damages them and turns them into abusers too.

It's a complicated issue, is it not?

Discussing it mumsnet is not a bad thing, because it empowers women by giving them information and support.

OP, I think a lot of the time posters aren’t looking for permission to leave, so much as validation that their perceptions of their relationship are correct, and validation that it’s OK to stop trying (usually single-handedly) to fix a dysfunctional relationship.

From my own perspective, the question of whether or not my H was/is abusive is an important one. My thinking goes something like this. If he is abusive, the chances that he will be able to (or even want to) change enough to save the relationship are slim, and nothing I do or don’t do is likely to make any difference to this. If he isn’t abusive, then he is capable of realising and taking responsibility for his part in the decline of our marriage, and then my actions might influence the outcome.

As to why women don’t just up and leave the minute they realise they’re unhappy, well that’s not difficult to fathom. You build a life with your partner, make decisions about jobs, children, mortgages, childcare, schooling. People rarely say to themselves “I’d better choose option B, not option A, because option B would still work if I split up with my partner and became a single parent, but option A wouldn’t”. Then the realisation dawns over months or years that you don't have the relationship you thought you had, and you are faced with the stark prospect of being unable to continue key aspects of the life you thought you had set up for yourself and your family. All the while, the person who you (once) loved and trusted is telling you that all of this is your fault, that if your life and the lives of your children have to change then that is your doing and your choice, that it doesn’t have to happen if only you would do xyz that your partner wants you to.

You mourn (for want of a better word) the life you thought you had in the past but didn’t, and the life you thought you would have in the future but won’t. All the while trying to work out how to move forward whilst limiting the damage to yourself and your DCs as much as possible. So unless the abuse is severe, it is rarely as simple as “unhappy = leave = happy again”. It can seem more like “unhappy = leave = unhappy for different reasons”. Hardly the stuff of easy decisions.

My H is a glass-half-empty, self-centred workaholic who thinks he should get a medal for the token involvement he has in domestic and family life. Yet he regularly tells me that “where we’re heading” (i.e. separation) is entirely my fault. If it weren’t for MN, I would believe him. By the time most people screw up their courage to post those threads that make your heart sink, OP, they’ve spent moths, if not years, reading Relationships threads and wondering about their own situation. By the time you post, you’re pretty sure that your relationship is dysfunctional and it’s not just you, but you’ve spent so long in the FOG that you can’t trust your own judgement. And the cycle of abuse means that during the “good” patches you second-guess your reaction to the bad bits. So the perspective of MNers outside your situation who can dispassionately comment on patterns of behaviour is invaluable.

I’m sorry those threads make your heart sink, OP. They make me glad – glad that one more person is getting closer to getting out of the FOG and owning their own life again.

It's not so much that people seek permission, it's more about your world view being so distorted and skewed by the abusive partner, that you no longer know what is normal, or which way is up.

MiniTheMinx

I think you are making quite serious assumptions here that aren't based in fact. I agree with you that there is a problem in society with men not being allowed to show weakness or vulnerability. However, I would certainly hope you don't think that's a contributing factor to Narcissistic Personality Disorder, because it isn't. For one thing, you get plenty of female narcissists too. Not as many as men, but they do exist. For another, narcissists wouldn't ever even know they shouldn't show weakness or vulnerability. They don't think they have any weakness.

In actual fact, you'll find that having an abusive childhood is not a pre-requisite to becoming a narcissist, in much the same way that it's not a pre-requisite to becoming a psychopath. And in my book, narcissists and psychopaths are almost interchangeable. Neither can feel empathy. They're extremely dangerous people. BPD is just not comparable - it's on a completely different spectrum.

I understand what you are trying to say, but frankly your narrative is damaging as this also forms the basis of the reasons behind why many women stay in these relationships - they do see their narcissist partner as having a mental illness and think that they can therefore be helped or that they should be pitied. They can't, and they shouldn't.

I think abuse is really difficult to understand unless you've been there and I think the OP has a better understanding now - although it's probably still quite difficult to truly empathise. Most people have a vision of domestic abuse which is completely different to how it really is.

The financial withholding, the put downs - the emotional abuse is insidious.

I've been away for a few days with DD. I don't let my Ex (we are still in the same house due to visa issues) drive my car any more (he used to smoke in it, pranged it, ran up thousands in fines that I had to pay etc - he would never countenance actually paying for a car himself ). I think he's found the car keys and has been driving it uninsured while I've been away. So now I'm thinking - has he? Has he got a ticket? What if he'd pranged it/somebody else uninsured ?

Is he laughing at me and thinking he's got away with it?

This man is 57 FFS. Their behaviour is so abnormal you constantly doubt yourself. Societal norms work with other people, but not these ones, so you try to justify their behaviour in order to rationalise it, because surely people can't really be that horrible/unethical/self-centred/uncaring.

Oh and my point was really that he has been horribly abusive for years, but I'm stuck for now. I've emotionally detached but he's still playing games.

He's probably laughing himself silly that he's taken my car - he's always been a bit sensitive about the fact that I've got an MBA while he's not educated beyond A'level, so to get one over on me will really have pleased him .

I'll take the car keys with me next time and I haven't mentioned that I know what he's done - he'll get off on the perceived emotion.

An abusive childhood is not a pre-requisite for either BPD or Narcissism, yes I agree, because its all rather subjective. Abuse is not thing that can be objectively and empirically proven. Collecting a lot of empirical evidence to prove that an non-objective thing, that is understood subjectively is impossible. If I asked the man I mentioned earlier I would get a long and subjective response. Yes his childhood wasn't normal but would he perceive it to have been abusive? He along with one other man I know both come from a cultural background which is marginal, that is overwhelmingly discriminated against. Both are now living shit lives, both to a degree fit the characteristics for narc. But then narcs and BPDs are made, they are not born, there is no gene mutation for either. Its very complex isn't it. And yes I agree, because women are brought up to be emotional fixers, carers and be maternal some fall into the trap of thinking he can be fixed. That is part of the problem which I think I have already acknowledged.

As regards the danger posed, well yes men are more apt to fit the profile for Narc and women for BPD. There are correlations and cross overs and complex diagnosis, the DSM constantly revises because there is no scientifically proven absolute diagnostic criteria for something that isn't an objective real thing! Its not like cancer or gall stones. Gender bias is prevalent in how we cobble together a list of characteristics, and biased in how we apply diagnosis.

I have worked with women with BPD and DP still does. Many are sectioned for offences for violence, against their partners, parents, children and others. However both conditions exhibit responses differently and both are gender biased. The narc projects anger outwards as do men, women tend to project anger inwards because we are already conditioned to blame ourselves, act subservient and punish ourselves, so BPDs spend a lot of time having aerials removed from the guts and their arms and legs stitched up.

As for narcs having the inability to perceive their own weaknesses, its an interesting thing. There is an obv splitting, because the whole thing is premised on their very low self-esteem, and lack of real self awareness. Both the men I can think of display both low self-esteem and a huge sense of entitlement derived from their perception of having been wronged. The idea of having been wronged...linked to what, where does that come from? is that a pathological medically scientifically provable thing? of course not, its due to nurture and life experience.

minx I respect your opinion on this but I think we should agree to disagree.

IMO narcs are horrible people and cannot be helped. I do not think it is comparable to people with BPD. You cannot help a narc with medication, or counselling. All you can do is get the fuck away from them.

When my marriage broke up I would sit and do nothing, I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't go to bed and would end up falling asleep on the sofa. Why? Because there was nobody to tell me to do it. Making the slightest decision was impossible, thank goodness I never had children with him. Abuse can do that to people and you have to relearn everything.