To think she should have known better? Trigger warning - DV

[Frederiki]

I've name changed for this as I know these people personally.

Three years ago a 'man' was sentenced to 6 years in prison for a horrific attack on the mother of his child which included horrible violence and what can only be described as torture. During this, he told her he was going to kill her and very easily could have done. The offence was published in the paper and online, outlining exactly what he did and what he was capable of. He plead guilty and made no attempt to deny it. He couldn't.

After serving half of his sentence he was released and within a few weeks he's in a new relationship with another local woman who knows all about the crime. This woman has children of her own, daughters.

Yesterday this new girlfriend posted on Facebook a photograph of her swollen and bruised face saying he has beaten her up. Cue 100+ comments from people offering their support and at least 5 of those saying they "can't believe it'

Far from wanting to victim blame my initial reaction was disgust and sympathy, but the more I think about it the more I wonder how she could have expected anything less than this to happen. Why would you get involved with somebody you know to be capable of something like this?

I can't fathom why you would knowingly expose yourself and your young daughters to a person like this.

So many women wish they had the benefit of foresight when it comes to dangerous men. I wish I had.

If you already know, you knew you were getting into.

The mother of his child has seen this now and feels as though what she went through was for nothing, her sole motivation in taking it to court was to make sure it couldn't happen again to somebody else.

Do you think I'm an awful person for feeling this way? I'm in no way saying she deserves it, it's deplorable and I genuinely hope she's ok, but just why would you put yourself in this position?

Aren’t you more bewildered OP that he served just 3 years for the ‘torture’ of a woman?

I know who I’m judging and it’s not this poor woman with a bruised face.

Sometimes we spend so much time debating why women enter relationships with abusive men we don't even bother asking why men keep abusing women over and over again.

This^^

The focus needs to be the action of the violent person

I don't think it's victim blaming to question why she didn't take reasonable steps to protect herself and her children! You can make poor choices and be a victim at the same time.

What a lot of commenters have said - a predatory abuser, targeting someone vulnerable is something that definitely happens and is the image of DV I seem to see most in the media.

However there are a lot of victims of abuse (still victims) who are shitty people at the same time. The abuse is still wrong, and the victim doesn't have to be an innocent person for it still to be a bad thing to happen. Putting your kids at risk is a terrible thing to do, but it never implies that what the abuser did is still okay.

@Apple31419 see, to me, that sounds very like i don't blame the woman for being raped, but why was she walking in that area of town

[quote sillysmiles]@Apple31419 see, to me, that sounds very like i don't blame the woman for being raped, but why was she walking in that area of town[/quote]
No, it sounds more like ‘I don’t blame the woman for being raped but she started going out with a known and convicted rapist’

People do what they do and to expect otherwise is foolhardy.

I agree, it's incomprehensible, particularly if you have children. completely incomprehensible as to why you'd go with someone (or even choose to live with them) if you know they're abusive. Especially if they know there's physical abuse. And if you've got children, it's just so sad.

But all I can assume about women who knowingly and willingly decide to do this, and do it to their children is that they are massively damaged individuals who have such a low sense of self esteem (or personality disorders) that they do this, that they think they don't deserve better, or they choose to believe their abusers lies.

I think it's often the case that the abuser is very skilled at picking and exploiting abused women. If you read Don Hennessey he explains a bit about this. I don't know if your relative has been in a previously abusive relationship OP?

My god there's some bollocks on this thread.

So women are/are not capable of making their own decisions.

Do/do not need total protection

Can/cannot choose their own partners

Women are/are not to be blamed

Men are/are not solely to blame

Offenders are/are not to be rehabilitated.

Not much expertise or facts being offered but a lots of conjecture and what aboutery.

Just imho from legal knowledge & volunteer work in dv/da charity:-

Like it it or not, the criminal justice system in this country provides for a balance of both punishment/containment (ie. length of sentence/fine/community order) AND contrition (reduction for guilty plea) AND rehabilitation (consideration for early release). Whether an offender has 'changed their spots' ie is likely to offend against previous or new victims is considered by probation service.

Yes, its far from perfect system. But just bear in mind three things.

One, very often offenders and victims (new and old) can have chaotic lives. 'Liklihood of reoffence' may seem low on paper but is increased by unpredictable crisis events. Bereavement, unemployment, illness, poverty, addiction. Should we stop everyone, offenders & previous victims included, from having any kind of crisis? Oh, don't be poor, don't be ill. Oh yeah, we can't. That's not victim blaming, that is understanding how cycles, sometimes intergenerational multilayered cycles, of dv and da work. Offenders and victims. Victim offenders. Not victim blaming or excusing offenders. Anyone can be a victim, or an offender, it is classless, but certain risk factors predominate.

Secondly, to condemn any offender to never having a relationship, 'just in case' comes from a point of saying rehabilitation/recovery will not, and cannot happen. Not all offenders have the same motivation or effect, just as the language of 'these men' is unhelpful. Some ex offenders with youthful convictions for violence will go on to have healthy relationships, with support from re education, rehab. Freedom programme for victims includes behaviour change for abuser to correct their behaviour (but isn't usually offered if police involved... Not sure what happens at this stage re abuser/offender behaviour change)

Finally, those monitored through probation are a tiny proportion of the actual number. Many go unreported. Don't assume 'the loud bully in the village everyone knows' because he knocks his wife about after a few beers is the worst. You need to worry more about the quiet one who makes sure to hide the bruises and the means for her to show them.

[quote sillysmiles]@Apple31419 see, to me, that sounds very like i don't blame the woman for being raped, but why was she walking in that area of town[/quote]
That's very different though.

However if a woman got into a relationship with a convicted rapist.. It's highly like she will become a victim of that type of crime herself.

It doesn't mean she's deserving of it when it happens or that he shouldn't be locked up for a very long time, but during a trial the defence would definitely be asking the question: you knew what he was capable of so why did you seek him out for a relationship?

It's not as though she was already under his control when his true colours came out. She knew exactly who and what he was before she decided to start seeing him. Armed with all of the information that she had at her disposal, she still chose to get involved and expose herself and her daughters to this trauma.

I don't think what I'm saying takes away from the fact it's these men who are the problem, but she had a responsibility to herself and her daughters not to get involved with this little shit head in the first place just because it was a bit of excitement.

I have been abused and I know how it feels, it is dehumanizing. Therefore i would never blame a woman for what a man does to her and I'm not blaming this woman here.

What I'm doing is pointing out that this could have been avoided had she took heed of the warning she had. Most DV survivors can only wish for such a warning.

Are we really ranking the deservedness of two DV survivors? Nobody needs to have an opinion on this woman, or the first woman at all do they? We just need to know that there's a dangerous man out there praying on women and he's a POS and the system has let everyone in this scenario down.

Save emotion for where we need it - anger at stupidly short sentence and the man himself

A staggering lack of understand on here as to how these scumbags operate and control and manipulate people.

I'm no expert whatsoever and I realise that these abusers can be extremely clever in how they methodically go about doing it, but I still genuinely can't understand why you would get involved in the first place. If you're already in a relationship with them, maybe have kids with them, and they change or start to show their true colours gradually, I see how you could easily end up feeling trapped; but if you know what they've done to somebody else (not even a he said/she said scenario but actually been convicted and served several years in prison for it), why would you even speak to them in the first place or give them a minute of your time, as if they were a normal decent human being, much less become friendly enough to form a relationship with them?

If they ran a shop that I used, I would go elsewhere rather than give somebody like that my business. If it were my relative, I would seriously distance myself.

Tell your friend it wasn't for nothing.

Thanks to your friend, this woman was primed not to dismiss his violence if it happened to her. Yes, she believed he wasn't going to hit her, but when he did, the new gf was straight on facebook and informing the police.

He's infringed his licence and will be going back to prison and that is thanks to your friend's bravery.

I agree with you OP.

This situation happens all the time. All the time. To the point social services and the police will have meetings with the person involved urging them to consider the risks to themselves and their children. I don’t know about you but if I was in a new relationship I’d find that a bit of a passion killer but many obviously don’t.

I’m not sure what the answer is, I’d suggest it’s linked to poor self esteem, minimisation, maybe previous abuse, low aspirations, desperation to be in a relationship, any relationship but these abusers don’t seem to suffer any societal consequences and just worm their way in with the next poor sod and tell them a sorry tale which is all wrong. In the meantime all we can do is buck people up to have better standards for themselves and their families or the cycle will just continue.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll
I'm sure no one on here knows why she entered a relationship with him. My guess is that
a) he convinced her he had been rehabilitated
b) he love bombed her
c) he convinced her she was special/different

Again I can only assume a 40yr old woman who gets with a 28yr yr old ex con does not have her shit together. And may in fact be lonely and have low self esteem.

But maybe now she doesn't even know why she got with him.

From a rational POV you're right and on the face of it it defies belief that anyone would want to become involved with someone with a conviction for domestic violence.

But of course these people aren't rational: as someone else pointed out we're talking about severely damaged people whose perspective on what "love" is and on what a relationship should be like is so warped, and whose self-esteem is so low, that they are not able to be rational.

He's probably spun her a semi convincing story that makes him the victim.

My ex son in law is in a new relationship. I do wonder what he told her to explain the months he didn't see his children and the almost two years it took to get unsupervised contact (that's a whole other tale of how these abusive men beat the system). I suspect it's the crazy ex yarn again.

Not anything like as bad as your story op, but somehow they find another vulnerable woman to be with.

You could be talking about me, but I kept the abuse to myself as fully expected to hear 'what did you expect?'. I also don't have kids.

And I agree. I asked myself the same question and all I can say is I was lonely and desperate for attention and affection but they're not sufficient excuses. And I understand how pathetic it is but I have to take responsibility for the choices I made.

He was also cheating on me with 2 different women who both knew his history and were both as keen on him as I was at the start. I think it's far more complex (and actually doesn't help perpertrators or victims to change) to say that it's always that the men are such manipulative experts as sometimes they are, but often they're not but women are wanting to go for it anyway.

ohcomeonjohn

Yes... Exactly why the attitude here 'how could you be so stupid??? pushes victims further away from help. Not just abuses isolating victims from friends, families etc but shame.

Do you people on the thread really think abusers come wearing a T shirt, a label, a hat saying' I am an abuser who will wreck your life'? Don't be stupid. They are charming and lovely and many don't intend or even know they abuse to start. It's a sticky slope. Victims don't just jump in bed with them.

It's far more complex than that, far more.

It must be different air you are breathing up there in your ivory towers. Freedom Programmes for victims, especially those of repeat offenders (going back to same offender or falling for same type of man) are not about victim blaming. They are about understanding their psychology, their needs and desires, their pathology, to help them build resilience against vulnerability. It is not about criticising their choices in the past, but about giving them more control over the decisions in their future.

@OhComeOnJohn

You could be talking about me, but I kept the abuse to myself as fully expected to hear 'what did you expect?'. I also don't have kids.

And I agree. I asked myself the same question and all I can say is I was lonely and desperate for attention and affection but they're not sufficient excuses. And I understand how pathetic it is but I have to take responsibility for the choices I made.

He was also cheating on me with 2 different women who both knew his history and were both as keen on him as I was at the start. I think it's far more complex (and actually doesn't help perpertrators or victims to change) to say that it's always that the men are such manipulative experts as sometimes they are, but often they're not but women are wanting to go for it anyway.

I'm sorry if this thread has upset you OCOJ. It wasn't my intention to hurt anybodies feelings and I can understand if It did.

I hope you are doing much better now and have found healing

Do you people on the thread really think abusers come wearing a T shirt, a label, a hat saying' I am an abuser who will wreck your life'? Don't be stupid. They are charming and lovely and many don't intend or even know they abuse to start. It's a sticky slope. Victims don't just jump in bed with them.

No, but in this case he arrived fresh from prison with a criminal conviction for battering his ex.

No one is disputing these men are evil and clever but there is a sense of wonder when someone willingly entertains a relation with a known, convicted abuser.

You really need to read some of these posts. So condemnatory:'' she should, I would have done".

None if us know exactly how we'd behave, and none of us are perfect. If we all did what we should, nobody would smoke, drink, overwork or overspend. We'd all eat a balanced diet, drink plenty of water, take regular cardiac, weight-bearing and mindful exercise, spend regular time in nature, communicate with all age groups, protect our teeth & hearing, have sex 2-3times a month and poo 3-6 times a week.

If you're doing all those things, great, well done you. Bet you're not though, so don't pretend you can tell other women how perfect you are and how to behave in a situation that is more than likely bloody terrifying.

If you're doing all those things, great, well done you. Bet you're not though, so don't pretend you can tell other women how perfect you are and how to behave in a situation that is more than likely bloody terrifying*

Are you reading a different thread? Can you quote one of my posts where I have told other women how perfect I am?

I understand the complexities of domestic violence. I struggled for 5 years to leave my abuser and like many, had no prior warning as to what I was getting myself into.

Being armed with concrete evidence that somebody is a sadistic abuser, enabling you to make an informed decision, is something that most domestic violence survivors can only wish that they had.

@sillysmiles this is what I mean. Im sorry you interpreted it in that way, by no means is it her "fault" the same way that it wasn't my fault when I have been a victim of crime.

It's exactly what I'm saying - she is still a victim and what happened was wrong regardless of any of her past actions. If a crappy person is abused, it is still a tragedy whether or not her decisions lead directly, or indirectly to it.

Yes, I am not arguing point for sake of it. Personally, I just don't get it. Rationally I believe in rehab but in my gut sometimes...

I am saying it is incredibly complex, wrapped up in layers of vulnerable 'rescuing' behaviour which can be exploited.

Having also dismissed employees in previous job for criminal activity, against line managers wishes ('because he's good bloke, he were just drunk w' lads, w'missus. Din't hit no'one on street. 😱😡.6mths ABH), anecdotally, the halo & horns effect is v strong. People get a mindset & cannot accept they could be wrong or need to change their opinion in light of new info, refusing to acknowledge any evidence that doesn't suit their view of that person/situation.