Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

*Trigger warning added by MNHQ - graphic imagery* WIBU to say something ? Now friend is not talking to me anymore. Warning something pretty bad is mentioned.

103 replies

Italianmoma1983 · 21/12/2015 12:49

Hi there,

Hope you can help me. I have this friend who lives in Italy at the moment while her husband is based in England for work. I saw her husband last Friday at mutual friend's house. He showed me a picture that she sent him with the caption : This is what's going to happen to you if you cheat on me. The picture showed a dead man with his genitals cut off...genitals in his mouth. This picture made me feel sick. The day after I contacted my fiend and told her I was really shocked that she thought it was ok to use such horrible pictures. She told me that it was none of my business that this picture was sent as a joke. She is disgusted that her husband showed it to me in the first place as it was between the 2 of them (I agree with her). The husband accused me of stirring shit between the 2 of them and she told me to fuck off and hasn't spoken to me since. WABU to say something ? I told her she completely lost her mind !

OP posts:
Original poster
Italianmoma1983 · 21/12/2015 19:36

She is a great mother to her children, she really is.

OP posts:
Atenco · 21/12/2015 19:41

Shahal, so who is an abused husband supposed to confide in?

Lweji · 21/12/2015 19:41

She really isn't if that's how she treats their dad.
They will be affected by the tension at home, even if it's not obvious.

Original poster
Italianmoma1983 · 21/12/2015 20:10

I just think their settings is shit, they should be all together, not in 2 different countries most of the year...it's not working for them.

OP posts:
Lweji · 21/12/2015 20:12

Do you really think that is their problem?
Or an excuse?

Original poster
Italianmoma1983 · 21/12/2015 20:19

No it's their problem, not an excuse, definitely not an excuse. She is alone abroad, raising their 2 kids alone while he is working very hard in England. They can afford a mortgage on a nice house but it really comes at a price...she misses her husband, the kids miss their dads but no one is willing to make a change. It's so frustrating to witness.

OP posts:
Lweji · 21/12/2015 21:11

But lots of people raise two kids alone without sending abusive messages to their partners.
Could it be that him working away from her is more a consequence than a cause of the abuse? And that it's simply more obvious now?

Original poster
Italianmoma1983 · 21/12/2015 21:49

She gets very lonely and sometimes the children are not easy :(

OP posts:
Gruntfuttock · 21/12/2015 21:56

OP, I can imagine being lonely, missing my husband and wishing he was home. Feeling stressed and possibly a bit insecure if I didn't trust my husband 100%. What I can't empathise with, is sending my husband that hideous, repellent, vile photo along with a threat to do the same to him. The fact that she went and found that photo in the first place is highly disturbing. She surely can't be stable enough to be a safe parent to her children if she can do that. It wasn't even as if her husband had done anything that she deemed worthy of "punishment"! It was as a warning. That's outrageous.

Justanotherlurker · 21/12/2015 22:03

If I'm reading this right, then I'm in agreement that if roles where reversed the amount of 'red flag' posts would be abundant.

Whilst I don't agree with ShaHal, you do seem to be giving mixed messages, you acknowledge that sending these types of images (however accessible, I remember seeing most of these on rotten.com as junior dev in the late 90's, a quick scan over live leak will bring up just as many)is a potential red flag and yet be more concerned that she blew up at you and that you should just have kept your nose out, maybe because she is your friend and you know her DH through her, but it does seem like trying to find an excuse or downplay this.

Lweji · 21/12/2015 22:08

Yes, why are you defending her so much?

mrsjskelton · 21/12/2015 22:16

I should think she's probably embarrassed that you saw the picture and is using the fact that is WAS supposed to be private to take it out on you. I wouldn't want to be friends with someone that vulgar (call me old-fashioned) it would be no love lost there!

Original poster
Italianmoma1983 · 21/12/2015 22:33

I'm just trying not to be horrible and goady. I needed to hear some different opinions. It's a very sad affair.

OP posts:
timelytess · 21/12/2015 22:46

Avoid both of them.
Don't interfere in other people's business, in future.

Justanotherlurker · 21/12/2015 23:00

In that case, I personally would reframe my view of my friend whilst keeping channels open to her DH and sensitively point him in the direction of resources and be there to help if needed, the same as I would any of my long term male friends wives. If it turns out to be nothing more than inappropriate images between partners, you have already reframed your opinion of your friend but you haven't potentially cut off a way out for him and/or their children.

I know it is a cliche, but if you had typed out your op and subsequent posts with the roles reversed this thread would have gone a very different way, that isn't a reason to try and brush it off.

Justanotherlurker · 21/12/2015 23:03

Don't interfere in other people's business, in future

I think that has just proven my point.

Lweji · 21/12/2015 23:04

Quite. Sad

timelytess · 22/12/2015 01:40

I think that has just proven my point

No it doesn't.
Allowing a man to show you communications from his wife is interfering. The wife would feel betrayed.
Then tackling the wife on the content of her communication with her husband - that's interfering in the most obnoxious way.
The content of the message is irrelevant.
Only on MN could this be seen as acceptable behaviour.

Lweji · 22/12/2015 03:28

The contents of the messages are highly relevant, actually.
Abuse should be disclosed and reported. It should never be a secret between partners. Abused people should be supported.

Are we back 50 years?
Or is it only when it's a man being abused?

Lweji · 22/12/2015 03:30

And damn well an abuser should be and feel "betrayed". Why should there be any loyalty towards abusers?

ShipwreckedAndComatose · 22/12/2015 08:51

Allowing a man to show you communications from his wife is interfering. The wife would feel betrayed

Seriously! 'Allowing'?

If one of my friends turned round to show me a photo his wife had sent I would assume:

  1. It was funny
  2. He had vetted it as not personal.

By the time op saw it, she had no choice. I hate it when people use the 'allowing it to happen to you' excuse.

It's entirely his choice to show this photo. Op was dragged in and I think! had no choice but to call the wife on it. Otherwise it's always there as something you know about.

Flashbangandgone · 22/12/2015 09:06

Allowing a man to show you communications from his wife is interfering. The wife would feel betrayed

Wtf? Would you feel this way if a husband sent a similar graphic photo of a dead mutilated women to his wife?

Original poster
Italianmoma1983 · 22/12/2015 09:07

Shipwrecked - that is exactly what happened...when he said : you'll never believe what wife sent, I didn't expect for one moment it was that horrible, he put his phone right into my face 😞. We were all having a nice chat when he suddenly decided to put his phone out of his pocket ! I didn't ask to see that horror, I just wanted to have a good time with my friends before we left to go for a party.

OP posts:
Atenco · 22/12/2015 14:05

I still think it is time that this taboo about a married man sharing his marital problems with a close female friend has to stop. Very few men open up about their feeling with their male friends, so who is an abused husband supposed to turn to?

worldgonecrazy · 22/12/2015 14:39

Domestic abuse is everybody's business. Or did I just wake up in the 1950s?

OP - if you google "support for male victims of domestic abuse" it will give you several charities. It might help your friend if he has these and knows there are people out there who will understand.

Try to keep communication channels open - one of the classic thing that abusers do is to try and cut their victims off from any possible support, and the wife is probably reliant on the husband being quiet and ashamed in order to keep the abuse going.