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 know a woman who did not leave after many incidents, (as far as I can gather from what she has told me) - eventually the dh recieved help and is no longer violent. They are an older couple and from what I can see, happily married now for many years. He changed and she forgave him. It can happen but perhaps she should have left and made a new life without him. Who can tell?

From what you can see he is no longer violent. You think they are happily married.

For a start, being violent is only one aspect of being abusive.

From what you can see, none of the people you come across in all walks of life every day aren't in abusive relationships but a significant number are. Most of those that are will tell you they are not. They will defend their abuser and convince anyone who asks that everything is fine.

All you know is that you haven't seen any marks on her and she tells people he has changed.

Maybe, just maybe she is the one in a billion whose abuser did stop but it is far more likely that the abuse is continuing but is now just less apparent to others.

from what I can see, happily married now for many years

My ILs thought we were happily married.

I agree that telling people what they should have done years ago is pointless, but if you don't want to be told to leave now, then don't tell people about your abusive relationship.

"Leave asap" is the only sensible advice one can give a person in an abusive relationship. The only things that needs debating is how to do it.

I disagree Vestal. The more people post about their shit relationships, the better.

The trouble is that when you're in it, it's hard and some people will say the wrong thing inadvertently. When you get out, some people will say the wrong thing.

The people who understand DV are either trained professionally how to speak about it, or have experienced it themselves. It's a closed world, and people who haven't experienced it or been trained professionally on the whole simply don't understand it, it's insidious nature, how it acts on your psyche, how living with it - for a long or short time - can destroy you, how you plaster on a smile and pretend everything's fine "you're just a bit tired/down today but no reason......."

People are raw. Their emotions are right there, if you prick them they will bleed.

So yes, a call for greater sensitivity and more a general population-wide knowledge of dv would both help a great deal, and I too think young teens would benefit enormously from some discussion, at least, on the subject. I want it to be much better empathised with in our whole population, and I would like more funding for projects and organisations which work at the sharp end, with the victims, much more help and support available.

We can't stop people from expressing their views, whether they are crass and ill informed or knowledgeable and kind. But we, as a community, should try to ensure that any victim who comes here for help and support and advice gets it, and that the lone voices (and there are pretty few of them overall) are drowned out.

I know a single voice perpetuating the views the abuser has been inculcating into their victim can be more cutting than 1000 voices speaking kindness and support, and I have no real idea how to stop that as things are. I don't think there is anything we can do to stop it happening, myoriginal, and I'm really sorry for that. All we can do is what mainly happens on Relationships already.

I know it's not enough at the time, and I think your wish that people who have little or no knowledge of dv themselves to not comment like that is entirely understandable, but we can't stop them, we can only try to help clear up the mess they leave in their wake.

Great post Jux I think you hit the nail on the head

I know two people who are very close to me that haven't left their abusive relationship. Both were attacked physically and both called the police who were brilliant and told them that the abuse would continue and might even take on a non physical threat. The latter has happened because they went to anger management courses. But they continue to be controlling. One is female and the other is male, both heterosexual. Their relationships are dysfunctional but they cannot see it because their partners have 'reformed' and are no longer physical in their attacks. I can't really do anything about it, but I do fear for their safety at times. I do not judge them though, as I do love them both very much.

This is a brave thread OP and you are absolutely right.

I say this as someone who was in an abusive relationship too, but he never hit me. I did throw his dinner in the bin one night because he came home late the third time that week (turned out he was indeed having an affair, but I forgave him). He left me 10 years later for someone who fell for his charms, was indeed charming and I had lost my lustre anyway. She is welcome to him. I'm sure he's a reformed character - not!

OP and anyone else who struggle to understamd watch this

I do kind of agree with the OP - but admit I've not read that full thread (too much to and fro-ing in the middle)

When women say they suffer abuse and people respond with "I wouldn't stand for that" or "I'd have left at the first slap" etc, sometimes they're telling the truth, sometimes they will have left the first time they were physically assaulted, but sometimes they're just guessing at what they would do in that hypothetical situation. But - particularly on an internet forum - you cannot honestly know if that person is making a comment based on what they did do, or if they're hypothesizing.

I used to hypothesize that I'd leave if a man ever laid a hand on me. I didn't. He'd been psychologically abusing me and gaslighting me for 8 months before he first properly hit me, and then he minimised it and explained it all away, promised it'd never happen again. And so I stayed. I suffered extensive abuse after that. Horrible things. Sometimes someone will ask me "why didn't you leave when he first hit you". Looking back, knowing what I know now, I should've left when he got drunk and screamed in my face until I cried two weeks into our relationship. But I didn't. The psychological and emotional abuse rewrote what I thought was normal back then.

It's also worth pointing out that every different woman (and indeed man) has their own different lightbulb moment or final straw.
For me, the final straw was when child services threatened to remove my baby. My lightbulb moment as to the extent of his abuse didn't come for another year when I fled to refuge because he was stalking me and breaking into my home (I was living alone with DC). Looking back I'm both lucky and thankful that he didn't kill me, he'd tried to a few times and he definitely had plenty of opportunity before I fled.
I've lived with women who have suffered horrific physical abuse, but their final straw came when they had proof that he'd had an affair.

It's not up to anyone else to get to decide what a persons final straw should be. I just hope you find yours soon OP - and when you do need the support and help to leave please know that you can find it here.

This really pisses me off.
But it's a pig ignorance thing.
I was a "I wouldn't have stood for that" girl. until I was there, didnt see any of it happening, was taught to believe my friends and family were bitches and then I believed it was my fault, and that I owed it to him to stay, and there I was, for five years

and when I eventually managed to LTB I had a full entourage of 19 of my colleagues, and half a dozen of our clients, who didn't once go down the I told you so, or why didn't you leave sooner. I was very blessed.

The psychological and emotional abuse rewrote what I thought was normal back then.

That is a really effective way of phrasing it.

Supermoon, I think your focus on 'incidents' - by which I suspect you mean hitting or other physical violence - illustrates that you do not fully understand that physical violence is always accompanied by emotional and psychological abuse. Physical assault is in some ways less damaging than the other forms of abuse.

to the poster who said they went out in the middle of the night, called a cab and booked into a hotel. Perhaps you did this because you were financially able to? Not everyone has the access to their own money.