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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

DM and her attitude to DV

41 replies

Emmageddon · 13/10/2016 18:34

AIBU to want to go NC? Her best friend's nephew has been jailed after assaulting his GF and causing massive injuries that required hospital intervention. According to DM, the girl deserved it, she had been taunting him about not having a job, and only reported it to the police to be spiteful. DM said it wasn't even that bad an injury and she probably exaggerated how bad it was for sympathy. I have read the court documents online and know what really happened, and had been happening for months, and am shocked at her attitude. I confronted her, said the girl's injuries were severe, but DM simply said 'no they weren't, I've seen her since, she looks fine.'

WWYD? Tell her to jog on and have nothing more to do with her and her horrific attitude or accept the fact she's an elderly woman who is trying to support her friend?

OP posts:

Original poster

Emmageddon · 13/10/2016 20:00

It's the victim blaming that really gets to me. There's no sisterhood solidarity whatsoever. How she would react if I told her about my own DV, I don't know, I'm scared she would say I must have done something to deserve it.

OP posts:

Wheresthewine36 · 13/10/2016 20:14

This would drive me insane. Discovering that someone you love has views which are abhorrent to me makes me question all my previously held opinions of them. I would give your DM the court report so she is fully aware of the facts and I would tell her that you have been a victim of DV. Perhaps that information will cause her to reevaluate her opinion.

mum2Bomg · 13/10/2016 20:20

I'd definitely print it and leave it with her. I wouldn't bring it up again but then at least she will know the objective truth.

Original poster

Emmageddon · 13/10/2016 20:56

I will print it out and give it her, ask her to read it and then reconsider her opinion that the girl was somehow to blame. Then I will refrain from discussing anything of any depth with her again. I'll stick to the talking about the weather from now on and bragging about how well my DCs are doing at their various universities.

OP posts:

lastqueenofscotland · 13/10/2016 21:18

Dropped you a PM hope you don't mind

BowieFan · 13/10/2016 21:19

I would challenge her views over it and if you feel comfortable, relate your DV experiences.

I only say this because I went to school with someone who had a very openly homophobic father, who constantly went on about hating the "poofs" and all that and welcomed violence on them. Then my friend came out as gay to his father and his dad just accepted it. It made his dad see how stupid he'd been, and I last saw his dad when I was marching arm in arm with him and my friend at an LGBT march.

SeaEagleFeather · 14/10/2016 07:41

Your mother's comments are awful, but it sounds to me like you're having a very understandable bit of an overreaction. I don't mean that unkindly.

your mother doesn't know about your experience. You react so strongly that you want to go NC, but she does not know the impact of the words she is having.

What would her reaction be if you wrote a letter to tell her how you feel? A letter would give her time to take in what you say and think about her response, more than face to face.

If she was able to adapt her views towards gay people, might she possibly be able to adapt them to DV? You know her best, I'm just thinking that her views might be dinosauric but her love for you and her granddaughter might open her mind.

If you don't think she would respond well, then perhaps take a step back for now, but going NC with her would be very unkind when she doesn't even know why (assuming it's a reasonably ok relationship otherwise).

from what you have said though, I think that telling her your experience might be postive ... And at the very least, she might stop making such crassly awful comments with you around.

SeaEagleFeather · 14/10/2016 07:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SeaEagleFeather · 14/10/2016 07:43

sorry for double post

SeaEagleFeather · 14/10/2016 07:45

Also, when I say write a letter, I mean tell her in the letter your experience and how it changed you and your life. She simply doesn't know it happened at the moment.

Blueskyrain · 14/10/2016 07:47

Out of curiosity, how did you get to see the court documents online? Is there a particular website or something?

Bluebolt · 14/10/2016 08:07

I use to be shocked at some of my DMs comments but over the years got to realise just how far she had been conditioned. It was only after a failed suicide that her belief that it was women's actions that pushed men into their behaviour. A good wife's husband does not cheat, does not hit her etc. She had been physically and emotionally abused all her life and yet she was the one that carried the guilt of some how deserving it and passed that guilt onto other women just as the generation before her did.

AntheaBelveden · 14/10/2016 08:10

My MIL and her family have very odd ideas about DV.

SFIL used to hit her and the children. It stopped when DH grew bigger than him and could fight back.

Her family have a strange drinking culture. The men go out drinking and it's perfectly acceptable for them to go home and get violent.
Hitting a woman whilst sober however is a no no

DH's aunt left a very violent husband and the family tried pressuring her to go back because the husband was very well off and they couldn't understand why she left.

We went to a cousins wedding a few years back and the bride had a black eye.
But it was ok, cousin was drunk when it happened.

Luckily, this awful mindset hasn't rubbed off on DH or his brother. They have both distanced themselves from the family as they find the 'boys will be boys, alcohol is an excuse for anything' attitude repulsive.

Another of the cousins is in a violent relationship but it's ok because they're both men

Original poster

Emmageddon · 15/10/2016 12:39

Blueskyrain there was a link to a gov.uk website in the local paper when the incident was reported, the court documents were on there for anyone to see.

I'm quite disconcerted that so many other people have experience of women stating other women bring domestic violence on themselves, it's shocking and upsetting.

I have spoken to DM this morning and told her what was reported to have happened, compared to what her friend told her had happened, and that although I appreciate she is trying to be loyal to her friend, she should look at the bigger picture and stop minimising domestic violence. I am going to leave it there I think, and stick to talking about Strictly and the weather from now on.

OP posts:

TheVirginQueen · 15/10/2016 12:47

That's a good dripping tap phrase

"don't minimise domestic violence'' and no matter what she says , repeat it, ''don't minimise domestic violence'' it is a good response.

Careforadrink · 15/10/2016 14:35

Sadly this attitude is not uncommon in older women.

I've had to go nc with my own mother and stbx mil as they both minimised or were apologists for my husbands violence and abuse. It's like banging your head off a break wall. Police action is dismissed. They always blame the victim.

Misogyny is everywhere in society. You need to challenge it wherever it is found and if that doesn't work cut such toxic people out of your life.

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