Advice for abusive man

[SoShinySoChrome]

I’m changing some details so as not to be identifiable.

I know a young man aged 22 who has 2 young children with a woman his age.

I know him through, let’s say working together and sharing a cigarette.

He has just said they have separated and he’s not allowed there by the police because he put his hands round her throat. On another occasion he threw a cold drink on her.

He says ‘she makes me angry sometimes and I can’t control myself’ and that if he found out she had started seeing anyone ‘he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions.’

He said he will start anger management in September (there are low cost student therapists).

I’ve said it’s never acceptable to put your hands on someone, and then he said ‘I can’t help it’. I said how come you don’t throw drinks at cunty customers. So you can control it when you want.

I’ve never seen you strangle the manager who is a prick. I’ve said that is domestic violence. He talks about killing himself if they can’t be together, he will never love anyone else etc.

I’m out of my depth here.

He doesn’t want to call Samaritans or anyone like that.

I was shocked by the incidents because he seems like a lovely young man and I would never imagine him committing dc. I’ve never met his partner and she now lives with her parents.

What can I do here?

Frankly it it was me I'd be stubbing my cigarette out on his face then telling him "I can't help it". Fucking weasel obviously thinks he's justified in his violence and stalking if he's willing to talk about it to a casual acquaintance. Men like this don't change.

Not sure he is as "lovely" as you think. Walk away. He is trying to garner sympathy

Not your circus (you know the rest).

If he genuinely wants to change he can refer himself to a perpetrators programme respect run them and sometimes the local authority, given what he's done he may well end up with a court order to attend one on probation. You've challenged his self pity which is good, rather than silence which can be seen as collusive or tacit agreement, but ultimately this is way out of your remit.

I don’t think there’s anything you can do tbh. He’s been identified as abusive and is not allowed near his partner and kids.
The stuff he’s coming out with is indeed a worry but I can’t see what else you could do.
You say he seems like a nice bloke, well.....
“She makes me angry “ is classic abusive bully shite.
Personally I’d have my cig break elsewhere

Ennirem, he does tend to over share everything though, so I don’t think think it’s because he is being casual.

Glad you reinforced the it-is-never-acceptable message.
Make sure he has the number for the Samaritans in case he is serious about suicide.
When he is ready for professional help he needs to seek from his GP.
I caution you to avoid trying to help him yourself. Keep signposting professional services.

You cannot do anything. He's not accepting responsibility for his own actions and will not change until he accepts that he has a problem. Until he accepts that he is at fault then no course will make the slightest bit of difference.

Google what services are available in his area for DV perpetrators and then give him this info.

He needs to take responsibility.

He is not 'lovely' he's a violent cunt who is a danger to the mother of his children. Nothing you can do except show your disdain and be adamant he needs help.

Your responses were good. He isn't lovely.

Hands round throat is desperately dangerous and can easily lead to death.

He admits he's the type to murder her (and perhaps her new BF) because, depsite the fact they've separated, he believes that having once fucked her, he owns her.

That may not be an idle threat. They really do this.

Yeah tell him to go fuck himself.
One good thing all women can do to support victims of domestic violence is isolate the perpetrators from society . Don't give them work. Don't support them. Don't call them lovely . Don't try and understand them. Support women only, leave the abusers to the professionals and the police. A man that puts his hands to a woman's neck is a potential murderer, if he kills himself , all the better.

Stay well away from him OP.
He is bad news.
He probably did more than just put his hands on her throat.
He's offloading all this crap onto you to garner your sympathy a classic way to try and get another victim to fall for all his crap.

Hoovermanoevre has got it totally spot on!!

Just also know that every time you so much as speak to him, you give the impression to everyone that he's ok , in your opinion. If people respect you as an individual , they could believe he couldn't be guilty of the accusations against him.
So totally silently , let the world now that he's a cunt. You do this by never , ever, engaging with him.

Know , let the world know that should say

So, what to do? Tell him you're really, deeply shocked. That his behaviour and beliefs are extraordinary, they not in any way normal, very shocking and very dangerous - he should expect to live out his life in prison.

If he wishes to avoid this, therapy is the shallow end and slow. He needs to isolate himself socially, avoid any intimate contact with women, perhaps talk to a doctor about drugs to lower his sex drive.

If he wants to avoid life in prison (and damage to others, including the poor children - not that he actually gives a fuck) he may need to go much further than this and needs to seek serious help.

and I agree - deliver your message then turn your back and walk away.

Perpetrators always minimise their violence. So whatever he said he did, it was certainly much worse than he admits.

SoShinySoChrome

"He says ‘she makes me angry sometimes and I can’t control myself’ and that if he found out she had started seeing anyone ‘he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions.’"

I think that's information the police need to know.

Absolutely. The violence could be far far worse.
Don't even think for a moment that you have the tools to deal with something this serious, or that the version of the person accused of violence is anything like the fake public persona you see at work.

There will be women who read this thread stuck in abusive relationships , unable to leave , wishing that the real world operated like mumsnet, where people spot red flags a mile off. It doesn't work this way, as people will do anything to tell themselves otherwise if their first impression of a person is proved wrong. Abusive bastards walk among us. They offer lifts, they cut hedges, they volunteer, they are salt of the earth... They are mr. Wonderful , mr charitable, Mr help the old folk for free. When any of us have an inkling we've unmasked a cunt, it is our sisterly duty to ensure he is frozen out of society. This is what will empower women ultimately .

Everyone thought my ex was wonderful. They were shocked as fuck when they found out how he treated me and the level of violence.
I agree with pp Google local services for perps of dv. Give him the info and cut him off. I'm glad you want to do something positive.

Anger management is not appropriate for relationship abusers because their problems are not about anger, but about control.

He would do better to book himself into a perpetrator programme. This would be more likely to help him look at his beliefs which allow him to act like this - because it is an extreme end of normal human behaviour.

For example - you might not be a violent person, but what if somebody was harming you or your children? Maybe an animal rather than a person? What if you were in a situation where getting help or back up or police etc was completely impossible? If you were shouting at them and they were taking no notice? If you tried pulling them off and it had no effect - if you thought it was your only option? Anybody can be pushed to violence - if they are desperate enough. It would take extreme situations, for most people - somebody who is more accustomed to using violence will resort to it more easily, though (that's where anger management IS usually useful). For most people it would have to be as serious as life and death before violence came out. Although most of us will shout or perhaps even become physical (in terms of pulling/grabbing for example) in situations of panic induced by fear or strong frustration - a parent whose young child has just run out into the road could be forgiven for pulling the child back more roughly than they would ever usually handle them, and most people would instinctively shout or even smack in this situation simply out of shock, and this would not be considered particularly unreasonable, even if the parent felt guilty afterwards. Extreme end of normal human behaviour.

Abusers don't have the problem of resorting to violence too easily, they have the problem that their view of relationships is completely skewed. They expect (and believe that they need) to have total control over their partner, and don't accept that this is not only undesirable and unrealistic, it's actually impossible because their partner can't read their mind. Their response to some quite ordinary situations is likely to reach this panic point - as though their partner is the proverbial child who almost ended up under a bus.

You can't have an ordinary conversation with an abuser about why they act abusively because they don't believe they are acting abusively, they believe that their actions are justified. "I can't help it" is exactly this - they mean "Anyone would do the same in my place" and they genuinely believe this. You can't unpick it for them because they will not spontaneously explain that their expectations for how their partner must behave in order not to panic them are extreme, because they don't believe that they are. Abusers think that everybody sees relationships like they do. It is quite the herculean task to unravel this partly because it is very abstract and difficult to explain, but also because they simply won't believe you even if you do manage it.

Manipulative comes to mind