To be fucking sick of domestic violence and men abusing women?

[Frouby]

I know I am not BU. But am venting on here to let off steam.

Last weekend there was a horrible incident on our estate. I don't want to give details as it's an active case. But after years of abuse a woman is in hospital after very nearly being murdered by her exp.

My dsis is currently being emotionally, financially and physically abused by her husband. They have been seperated for a couple of years now but have an on/off relationship. 2 weeks ago he broke her nose. This week he has smashed her car up, smashed her windows (again), taken her house and car keys and his childs bike. She has been staying either with her grown up dd or my mams. Her 10 year old has autism. He isn't coping very well with the upset. His father is using him to get to his mother.

Day after fucking day I read stories like this on mn. I see my sisters being abused by men. I saw my mum abused by my stepfather. My aunties ex husband commited bigamy, left her bankrupt and homeless. My friend has an on/off boyfriend who is a drug addict and she is almost bankrupt as he has financially crippled her for years.

I shouted at my dsis tonight. Told her if she didn't report his latest cunts trick to the police herself I would be doing it to SS. That she needs to do something to stop the absolute fucking bastard she married from making hers and her ds and her grown dd who has a newborn from living their lives around that piece of shit.

She says they won't do anything. I suspect that she is right.

My mum ended up homeless for 10 minths with 6 dcs when she finally left my step dad. He kept the family home by terrorising her into not fighting for it.

Am just absolutely fucking sick of men abusing women and getting away with it. Why? If I walked up to a stranger and broke their nose I would probably do time. If I broke into someones house, smashed their car up and stole property I would do time.

My other dsis was held for 3 hours by her ex at knife point and threatened with being raped and her throat cut. He got a 2 years suspended sentence and an anger management course. It's a fucking absolute disgrace.

Why are these crimes against women not taken seriously because they are crimes by partners or former partners? I just don't get it.

Most men who are ‘terribly abused’ are terribly abused by other men.

Men aren’t filling the refuges and the hospital beds and the morgues.

Goth she has left him. She left 3 years ago. She left him because he was cheating on her. The abuse was happening before, but afaik not physical. The physical stuff started once she had left.

This is what people have been saying. That you get advised to leave, that it's your fault if you stay, but when you leave it actually gets worse and the police and authorities won't or can't help. That the men seem to get away with it.

The only reason they are still married is because she is scared to start divorce proceedings.

YANBU OP and I'm sorry to hear what your family has/is going through. Yep, the root of evil in this world is men. It sickens me every day and I wish it would change but I think it's getting worse.

Its not Victim Blaming. As part of looking at DV we do have to question the female psychology When you spout nonsense like "why doesn't she leave" you are putting the onus for the DV onto the vicitms. Because essentially you are saying that if she left, he wouldn't abuse her...

It's absolutely sickening for mothers of sons to read this misandry every day.

As absolutely sickening it is for mothers (and fathers) of daughters to read about a death of a woman (sometimes 2) EVERY WEEK by her intimate partner, or ex? I can assure you, my fear of one of daughters being that woman one day is far far greater than your absolutely sickness at reading the truth about men. Why? Because you fear he will get locked up/tarred with the same brush, and my fear is that my daughter/s could die at a mans hand.

Recently in Australia 5 females were killed.
A woman, her daughter and her daughter's three daughters (3 and under)
THREE generations wiped out.

Like that. By ONE man. He was the father of the girls, the husband of the mother. He killed his wife and children and waited days inside the house with their bodies waiting for his mother in law to arrive

Then he drove for FIFTEEN HOURS before handing himself in.

All over fb there are men and woman excusing him. Why? They say that his wife, because of her seniority over him (he was 24, she 41) must have controlled and groomed him and he flipped due to PTSD. They blamed her for being the violent one. Even though he killed FIVE people.

Then there is the case where the Grandfather killed his 4 grandchildren, his wife and his daughter.

So you be absolutely sick of reading about this, I don't care. I am too busy feeling gut sick everyday that some one like the men above will choose one of my daughters.

An abusive man abuses, full stop.

No matter what a woman is like or what she does, she does not and cannot change, amend, lessen, cause or stop abuse. The only one who can stop abuse is the man abusing.

Nothing you say or do will have an effect. A man will only stop abusing if he wants to. Some men feel entitled to, for others its a pattern learnt from early life that they would break if given the chance and some are just evil bastards.

However there is nothing a woman can do. Everyone trots out the just leave line, what nonsense as abuse often ramps up and then continues just under separate addresses. The police are still not willing to intervene and act and then the law also labels you as bitter (the scorned woman) or accuses you of parental alienation if you let them know about the abuse. Not only the law but friends and family too.

Abuse needs to carry a longer sentence than theft or drug crimes but it doesn't as it is not seen as important or serious. Until the law gives it a serious sentence, nothing will be changed.

This government have got rid of around 35% of refuges in the last 8 years so we can see how much they care. They know what happens when funding is cut so they went ahead and cut funding.

But having done the freedom programme, all I know is that abusers abuse because they abuse. I know the red flags to look out for, should I ever want to go into another relationship and I know what to do for me to make myself stronger. I also know about my own personal shark cage and I've done lots of personal growing.

However I was and am a strong woman, I am educated and independent, I am well rounded and I have invested time in personal growth, before after and during abuse. I've got everything going for me and all those saying about educating women seem to think it only happens to some poor love on a council estate who never sat her gcses. Pure bull, it cuts across all classes and all races and the races or class that will have more of it, are the ones where the man feels and is more entitled either because of his class status or because of the status that being a man gives him in his culture or race. He knows he can do it and get away with it.

All those women saying what about men and namalt, stfu please.

There you got me to swear and I don't often do that but please yes stfu, do some actual reading that you tell victims to do and educate yourself.

To all on this thread who have and are victim shaming then I say, there but for the grace of God, it could be you next or your daughter.

Wow, OP. No, YANBU at all. I didn't see nearly the amount of shit in my own family as you have and yet I knew as of the age of 8, (when I started to see barbies in wedding dresses) that I never wanted to get married. I wasn't sure why, except that I had already connected it to a lot of emotional abuse. I have since gone further and decided I never want to live with a man either or have children. And the more people started pestering me about both concepts the more I was set against it.

I am still very glad I don't have any children and it keeps going around in my head that if I would have a daughter she would now, with social media, face even worse shit than I did when I was young and if I'd have a boy he would most likely help to contribute to making the lives of girls miserable just to impress his mates or because he had already decided that he is somehow superior to girls.

I really hate this world sometimes.

To all on this thread who have and are victim shaming then I say, there but for the grace of God, it could be you next or your daughter.

Totally agree.

Neshoma et al.
I am an educated woman (post grad qualifications). I am sixty. I was in an abusive marriage for over twenty years. You have made this my fault and set my recovery back. I was doing okay, not brilliantly, but okay until you and a couple of others started blaming me for what was done to me. Why? Why would you do that to another woman? Do you get some sort of pleasure from it? Can you not see that this gas lighting is abusive in itself? It's scary, reading what you and a couple of others have to say. Minimising, marginalising and blaming. How fucking dare you do that to another woman. How dare you come into my home (the internet allows that) and bully me with your abominable views.

Gilead and
Absolutely, as I've already said, the pp that are posting this shit don't seem to have any concept of the harm they are causing and hope you can block it out for the total and utter crap it is.

They are lucky that they have no idea of the terror that removes normal choice-making this is why 'leave' is such a fucking stupid word, as this is about escaping (knowing you are committing the ultimate and ultimately punishable offence in doing that if he ever catches hold of you on your own one dark night down an alleyway).

You and I know that, and the other poor kids and children that have suffered and live that every day, and keep living it as its a real threat even after escaping.

Do these people blame kids for being abused? No I guess that's a bit easier, because physical size is soo different, but the position of perceived authority and power isnt, because of the system that's to blame for supporting it. The language that goes unchallenged, the jokes about 'er indoors, the lack of 'partnership' in any and every relationship around the country \wirld where a women is accused of 'nagging' when in fact she is no more responsible for the cleaning, jobs around the house and kids and shopping than he is.

Escape = greater vastly increased risk

You don't just fucking stroll out the door, and if you could why should you.

All these women make themselves homeless and friendless as a result as people like you don't fucking understand how dangerous it was to escape and what like is like as a refugee.

You can't even imagine life without friends\family, going to foodbanks, running the gauntlet of fear every day and night despite escaping.

Please exchange leave him for 'get him out'

What life is like

You are strong for escaping after all those years Gilead it takes huge strength.

Shocking that a woman has recently spent £60k trying to divorce her abusive husbad, unsuccessfully, she didn't want to bring further retribution to her door so generalised about his being 'insensitive, moody, argumentative' or similar.

This is what I mean, menz

What man wouldn't agree to give this divorce his agreement?!?!? An abuser, who will not 'let' her go and the law STILL supports it.

There is nothing wrong with being kind, forgiving, supportive of those struggling with stress, these same 'menz' have had some of the best support and understanding available from true and loving partners, in the real sense of the word. It's a world full of fault s and weaknesses to be embraced, not abused.

I am just shocked this still even now people don't understand the nature of abuse, and I guess they are the problem and shouldn't have a view on it, as they say things like leave him, or don't ask genuinely and enquire 'why she doesn't leave' looking for deeper understanding, but demands, and blames, she should leave him.

Women and children are killed trying to 'just simply leave '.

It's to become a refugee, without a soul in the world apart from strangers in refuge who give kindness endlessly to support, and have specialist training in supporting battered women and children.

All women and children just want it to 'stop' don't for a minute ever think they dont

Long time ago I knew a woman who was a Samaritan in a very posh part of London. She told me how often women rang her in despair from very wealthy families. Their husbands would be judges, hospital consultants, celebrities, barristers - all jobs in which reputation really matters.

These poor women knew that if they started a divorce and the DV came out their DH might lose his job. Their DC were all privately educated and these poor women just couldn't bring themselves to do anything that would lead to the school fees not being paid.

Women like this just couldn't contemplate their DC not attending public schools like their parents and grandparents.

On top of that, they feared everyone they knew would ostracize them if anything as sordid as DV was mentioned. There was a universal belief that "people of our class don't do things like that."

They were trapped in violent relationships by their love for their DC and their fear of isolation. My friend said the same women rang all the time.

NAMALT irks me.

50% of the population commit almost all of the crime. I don't know a single girl or women over the age of 15 who haven't experienced at least low level sexual abuse or harassment. 1 in 4 women have been raped. Two women every week are killed by a man in their life.

Maybe not all men are like that but statistics show the ones who are like are that are not a minority. And still women defend them.

Why? Why do we fall over ourselves to excuse the crimes of men? It's pathetic.

I had two relationships with men who hit me. I escaped because neither of them put in the time to properly ensnare me. They started the abuse too soon, iyswim. And when they did I was able to take refuge with a loving family who had the space and money to accommodate me, and who were well enough connected for the police to take my side (DF a doctor).

I saw what happened to a friend who had none of those assets, although in other respects - education, intelligence - we were the same. He put her in hospital. He drank all their money. She ended up having to shoplift nappies, ffs. I saw how the police spoke to her. It seems the big difference is background and upbringing. Her DF had money and a big house but none of it was for her or her DC. She grew up witnessing abuse while I was sure enough of my value to run away.

Children are simply pawns to abusers. He knows the power of the lionness instinct women can have for their child \ren.

It's used all the time to make women stay I line and to protect him and his abuses, so the kids are as protected as they can be.

I would hide his abuses to me even when it affected the DC not wanting them upset, but I would have served them better being blatant about his tactics, but that out him at his worst, so what to choose?

I can't really describe the fear that becomes part of the day-to-day experience of life when I was in an abusive relationship. How the knot of anxiety sat on my sternum 24/7 and made me feel like I couldn't breathe. Doing everything at speed. Not knowing when the next shitfit would happen but knowing it was coming. Being raped, anally, dry, because I dared to have a phone conversation with my best friend. Being scared that I looked scared, or wild eyed, or having a tear escape. Being drugged and not knowing why I couldn't remember things or why I'd fallen asleep. Being told "i won't kill you, I'll just make you kill yourself, I'm not doing time for you" and believing it, and thinking "death would be easier as I'm never going to escape". And that is just dusting the surface of the shit he pulled.

That wasn't his chat up line though. He sent flowers, was delightful, took me out, showed me off, made me laugh. It was ages before he showed his true self. By that time, I was invested, then I thought I just needed to "be better", eventually I gave up.

I come from a lovely, middle class family, church attending, family meals, stories and warmth. I now know I was singled out by a man who was determined to bring me down, to see if he could make me grovel at his feet. He put the time and the leg work in.

But yeah, totally my fault I didn't just leave.

And if you met me now, you would never know.

I still get nervous from the dv and abuse towards me over 40 years ago

I can remember an ex asking me why I was laughing it was a nervous laugh I wasn’t able to work out if he was in a good or bad mood I couldn’t read him - he was fine he was moody at times and closed off he wasn’t in anyway abusive but that made me nervous. My step dad was often nice and playful just before I would get a beating

This thread has bought up a lot of horrible memories but has also been cathartic

I am a mother of a son. My father was abusive, emotionally and financially to my mother and me and physically abusive to my brother.

I was raped as a teenager by a taxi driver and sexually assaulted in minor ways by many men too many times to count while I grew up.

My brother is having his first baby in the next month or so and has been with the same woman since they were 15/16. He treats her like a queen and is so excited for the birth of their child.

My previous long term relationship was abusive.

The man I am with now would never hurt a woman.

I worry so much about raising a son to treat women well. I do not find these threads distasteful just because I bore a son, I want him to know what women have suffered, I want him to know treating women with entitlement and intimidation is wrong.

I worry though because there are so many awful men out there. Surely they can't all have had shit mothers? Surely the vast majority of mothers are like me, wanting to raise a happy, healthy, respectful, caring man? How can I combat society?

I feel lucky to have met men who weren't skilled as abusers. If they'd put in more time and effort they might easily have trapped me, but they produced the nasty shit too soon, before I was in too deep.

Pregnancy is often when the gloves come off. Reading other women's accounts is heart rending. There are some evil fuckers out there.

Marriage is another time gloves come off, the mask slides down, you are trapped.

There is an endless list of serious medical ailments that burden the NHS as a result, or often don't because women too terrified men will be involved in that, or it will raise suspicions or the dominator will go with them.
But stomach ailments are rife, life threatening ones, I was reminded by mention of that continual knot in stomach...teeth falling out, accessed, any anxiety related condition as well as all the broken bones, instruments removed vaginally including bottles and broken bottles, the depth of depravity is shocking.

...as I said the men wouldn't let go of their prostitutes even in refuge and the men lined up in the cars outside to violate them, even with DC in car too. Men brought the drugs in for women to carry on supplying for them.
Easy to leave...don't make me laugh.

I haven't got a very wide circle of friends. Probably about average. And among that circle three of my friends have experienced severe DV, all now divorced over it. And there's my own DV experience too. So that's four. It's really common. It's appalling.

Someone upthread was talking about how if DV was an illness it would be seen as a national emergency, but as it's 'just' women it's ignored.

I can sound a bit NAMALT when describing my life because all the men in my close family are truly lovely, but I'm all too aware of how fucking common VAWG is. OK, it's a minority of men but it's a horrifyingly large minority.

That anyone should suggest women are to blame for this is disgraceful. Men who beat up women will beat every partner they get. And I have frequently been in awe of women's courage in threads here, getting together to escape terrifying situations with the expert support of some amazing Mumsnetters.

Wow! Prawn

"And I have frequently been in awe of women's courage in threads here, getting together to escape terrifying situations with the expert support of some amazing Mumsnetters."

So sad these weren't tales of experts evicting dominating perpetrators, and stories of them being caught, and stuff actually being done, consequences for awful crimes and measures to stop any repeat.
My ex broke court non-molestation order, and got my friends to collude in stalking us, which was also an arrestable offence, according to court order, but not worth paper its written on!