to ask my fellow mumsnetters to stop saying 'I would have left'. **trigger warning - domestic violence. Warning added by MNHQ**

[myoriginal3]

or 'Id have left after the first slap'.

Domestic violence is insipid. You don't fucking know what you would do until it happens to you.

Every time I read it and I consider myself quite strong, I feel like I'm a weaker female.

You WOULDN'T fucking leave at the first slap. Statistics state that you wouldn't. So stop talking about something that you can't imagine.

I left when my ex tried to strangle me, punched me in the head and wouldn't even allow me to get my shoes when I ran away, (in the back of beyond in the dead of night) while pregnant with his child. He had been an utter cunt emotionally (and I don't use the cunt word lightly!) for months and the whole relationship was a crock of shit. Life was bloody awful with him and devastating after. Woman's' Aid were amazing as were various other support teams but the Police were utterly utterly useless and I have lost all faith in them.

I have since heard many a time how 'I would fight back if I was in that situation' 'I'd batter him' and so on. Yes dear, I am sure you would because we females are so much physically stronger than a het up big bloke who does manual labour for a living and has had a couple of drinks. I found these comments very unhelpful in the aftermath, as though I was useless and weak and some poor excuse for a female. Now however I realise that all the gung ho bravado is just a load of self deluded bollocks. We like to paint ourselves as indestructible maybe?

And yes, it was the first and last time he laid hands on me. Though I certainly wouldn't judge anyone who didn't escape at the first sign of violence. I was just in the position that i'd mentally decided to go it alone/knew i'd be a single parent and that was the final straw.

We never know how we will act or respond to a situation which is completely unknown to us.

Confused second sentence should read, 'I work with women who often have experienced DV and deliver the Freedom Programme...'

Folded I am taking the shark cage thing to therapy next session! Thank you for posting it - just read through it with my best friend.

Never been "slapped" or suffered physical abuse. So can't address the leaving the first time.

But re identifying red flags, not putting up with things.... I worked as a professional in an area directly related to domestic abuse. I knew this stuff well.

But he didn't ever stop me seeing friends. I just lost touch. Didn't see that he caused a row on my way out EVERY single time. My few nights out a year always started in the toilets having a cry then covering up my red eyes.

He didn't like my decor taste, I didn't mind his. So of course it made sense for the house to be entirely to his taste.

How ridiculous to be scared when he shouted at me or DC. He laughed at me, then admitted sometimes to being angry. But like he said much easier to take ADs for my "overreaction" than for him to get help for his anger.

When i was too tired for sex post children and he repeatedly asked me to do things I didn't want to i could have walked away, my fault I gave in. When I moved his hands and he moved them back he was being affectionate. When i said no to him taking my clothes off and he got fed up and did it anyway he was just helping me find my mojo.

And so on.

One day you are wondering the streets too scared to go home, too scared to ask for help.

Was it my mental health, was it a relationship gone stale, was it abuse.

It's not obvious when things go wrong.

That I could have helped myself, that any self respecting woman would have done things differently is very difficult to deal with.

Personally I think hectoring a woman who is clearly in the middle of the chaos and pain of domestic violence situation on the grounds of "well she did ask" is really rather unpleasant and I am happy to see I am not alone in that. But there's always one or two that don't get it isn't there?

MsGame Exactly.

The OP isn't the only one going through the chaos and pain of DV. It's unfair that other women who are having been so publicly slammed on this thread.

Not RTFT
But tbh most women who would leave after the first slap wouldn't get slapped in the first place as their dp would know this.

I think by the time it's reached slap stage, in most instances, the women have been worked on and gradually worn down with insidious manipulation and self doubt.

Blimey, why so much anger towards other women who have done nothing wrong? People and circumstances are different, sorry if it makes you feel bad, but you have to accept everybody's experience is different.

Of course some women leave at the very first slap! (thankfully). Quite a few leave before the first physical abuse and wouldn't put with someone starting to get controlling and unreasonable. Some wouldn't even put with someone decent but too jealous.

I refuse to apologise because I was raised to demand my home to be my safe place and to never accept ever to dread coming home. That's how we are raising our children. They can worry about our reaction faced to their latest school report, but that's the most of it.

I am very sorry for all the people, mostly women probably, who are going through hell. I don't think that spreading the message "if you are abused you won't be able to leave immediately, you are in the weakest position and it's normal natural or even acceptable to take it for a while" is helpful at all.

I know people that have left after the first incident, both sexes and I've done the same.

My children know that they will always have a home here once they leave and can't just turn back up if they need to.

They also know that's it's never ever a good idea to rely financially on their partner as I think that's what keeps many there after the first time.

Everyone is individual OP, you can't say nobody would leave because plenty do after the first incident. It's about personal beliefs and I abhor violence so would have no hesitation.

Yes, indeed MrsGame

But ... some people think having posted on AIBU is reason enough to be unpleasant. They must bloody love it on here.

Everyone has different levels of self-esteem and different things that they consider to be unacceptable. However even if you are able to dispassionately and accurately gauge how you would react in a circumstance that you haven't experienced, I don't see how simply saying, "I would have done this..." to someone who clearly hasn't (for whatever reason) is at all helpful. You may as well say, "I'm much more sensible/brave/clever than you are."

Soyamilkisniceintea:

I don't think I was being any more unpleasant than other posters who disagree with the premise that the OP has a right to police what people say or expect them to accept what she says about their lives as fact. Women don't leave DV situations for all sorts of reasons. But some women do. There is no right or wrong. The OP is no more entitled to speak for all women (especially when so many of them are trying to help her and speak for themselves at the same time) than you are entitled to tell me my thoughts and feelings.

well, what's the context?

If the OP is telling someone her story and explaining that she is leaving an abuser, telling her "I would have left earlier" is not very kind and not helpful at all.

If it's a discussion about abuse in general, or about a celebrity showing photos of her bruises, saying "I would have left" is not unreasonable. Again, there's nothing wrong of not tolerating abuse. Some women wouldn't stay with a partner if they saw a swastika tattooed on their chest, a filthy home or god knows what. It's not unrealistic to leave at the first sign of abuse!

Everyone has different levels of self-esteem and different things that they consider to be unacceptable. However even if you are able to dispassionately and accurately gauge how you would react in a circumstance that you haven't experienced, I don't see how simply saying, "I would have done this..." to someone who clearly hasn't (for whatever reason) is at all helpful. You may as well say, "I'm much more sensible/brave/clever than you are."

Good post GrandDesespoir.

theBaldSoprano:

You are right. Whether 'I would have left' is appropriate is dependent on context. I think what most people who say this seem to be trying to get across is that the situation is far from normal or okay, and that feeling that you have to put up with violence for any one of a host of reasons is a view that can be challenged. There are people who can help. I don't think it is usually meant in a judgemental way at all.

The OP is saying "don't say things that are dismissive"
whilst being dismissive about any woman who did leave after the first incident

You've turned this into an argument it never was. The point is if you haven't experienced DV it isn't very helpful to say to someone in it "I would have left" which is quite a different statement from "I did leave"

It's really sad to see the way this thread has gone.

I agree with the original premise. It's really damaging to hear the "i would have..." statement in response to abuse. It totally undermines your experience and reaction.

When i was sexually assaulted by a boss who was a bit of a father figure to me, i completely froze. A friend said to me "i would have kneed him in the nuts". It made me feel terrible, like my response was the problem.

Smell The OP asked for women who had left after one "slap". She actually said it doesn't happen in DV cases, and when others have shared their experience she says "well actually I think that would have been medical, it was after 20 years".

Sorry, you don't get to complain about dismissive attitudes to DV whilst displaying those attitudes yourself without being pulled up on it.

"You WOULDN'T fucking leave at the first slap. Statistics state that you wouldn't. So stop talking about something that you can't imagine."

I would leave at the first slap, I did leave at the first slap, statistics state that people do leave at the first slap, and I can imagine it because I have been there.

Yes exactly user you did leave. That's the point. Talking about your own experience is quite different from pontificating about what you would do in a hypothetical situation you have never experienced, it's those kind of "I would have left" comments that are both pointless and unhelpful, not yours.

Smell, but the OP is brandishing the pitch fork and women who have left after one incident (you may not be) so that we can't know and totally dismissing our experiences.

I'm leaving this thread because I actually just had the thought that I should write to my ex and apologise for leaving because maybe it was DV after all and I was too premature in my decision to leave.

*and - at. "brandishing the pitch fork at women"

I left at the first punch. Mostly because of things I'd read here; about what he'd say and how it'd escalate.

I don't judge anyone else. Everyone plays the cards they hold. There's a value in someone saying they wouldn't put up with a behaviour, though - it reinforces that it's not an acceptable behaviour.

User415

You are completely and utterly misinterpreting what I'm saying.

You left. I applaud you.

For people who don't manage to leave, there is no applause.

That is what I am talking about.

STOP making this all about you. It's not about you. It's about women like me who DON'T manage to leave.

But women who don't manage to leave are no weaker than you are. We're just coming from different circumstances.