Spend your energy on being baffled why men are abusive, not on why their soul-destroyed victims stay with them.
This!
We are learning all the time that abuse can be far more subtle and insidious than the "traditional" hitting, shouting, throwing stuff etc
My mum is in an abusive marriage which yes, has included the above but by far the most damaging, hardest to resist abuse has been the systematic, relentless and constant undermining of her self esteem, confidence and ability to resist my dad.
I would argue that many if not all these women are also victims to a greater or lesser extent.
Plus you add in the societal "abuse" in the form of financial and mental entrapment these women feel and experience, plus like it or not while the stigma of being a single mum is less than it was, it still exists as does the discrimination and inequalities against single parent families. Even more so against women who have children with different fathers.
This is what makes women even more reluctant to leave a relationship once children are involved.
Also because the financial and emotional abuse doesn't stop when you leave him, because we don't have a robust, fair and efficient system for enforcing payment of reasonable child maintenance, preventing exes from continuing their harassment and undermining of the resident parent etc
And that's without the overtly abusive tactics of coercive rape, stealthing (removing condom without the woman knowing) and tampering with contraception which can and does happen.
It doesn't really matter if outsiders can tell the difference though, as they're not the ones making the reproductive decisions.
clearly it does! Because from the outside you CANNOT know what is going on re potential coercion/abuse.
My mum is an amazing woman, intelligent, funny, thoughtful, caring, extremely capable in every job she's had, very financially adept (she's had to be!) yet my dad has her convinced she is stupid, fat, ugly, boring, useless with money etc she genuinely doesn't believe she would cope living alone because she's had almost 50 years of being told she wouldn't EVERY SINGLE DAY all day. Not only by him but he's created scenarios where he's managed to get his family and friends to see her that way too and say so! And isolated her from all but her most determined family members.
You could have started a whole thread about why so many men are useless and bad fathers, but no, you had to hone in on the women victimised
totally agree
The anonymous vote is interesting as it’s clear that an overwhelming majority (2:1) agree with the OP. This is certainly not reflected in most of the comments on MN about these situations, so I think it’s interesting to get a bit of an insight into how most readers (rather than commentators) think.
yet very few of these have the courage of their convictions to post even though it's an anon site! Cowards!
I'm genuinely sorry for those who have suffered abusive realionships but the OP has clearly stated, several times she is explicitely not talking about abuse.
Then you and op need to make more effort to understand mental/emotional abuse
Physical barriers to leaving are easier overcome than mental ones.
Definitely! My siblings and I have shown mum how she could manage financially and practically if she left dad but she can’t make the emotional leap. She can’t believe it’s possible.
@IsaLain your comment is SO disgusting I won’t repeat it but I have reported it and your subsequent equally nasty posts, I’m shocked if nobody else has or they were and mn left them standing!
You clearly have NO understanding of the mental effects of abuse! Shame on you! Regarding contraception sexual health services have been absolutely decimated especially in the more deprived areas. Medical confidentiality can be poor in some areas too - it’s shite where I live which is a small insular community where bloody everyone knows everyone! Abusers could find the contraception I’ve even known of cases where they’ve felt the coil threads or seen other signs and it’s resulted in further abuse. Not all women are medically able to use the methods that are easier to hide.
@op - having been in an abusive relationship yourself you seem to be suffering a serious case of denial/cognitive dissonance
It's unhelpful, and makes it harder for women experiencing actual abuse to get perspective on what is happening to them.
No - attitudes like THIS are unhelpful and make it harder for women experiencing more subtle, more insidious forms of abuse to be taken seriously and accessing help - you’re helping abusers!
Going to the police station is great as long as that officer understand DV also true, several posts/threads on here where abused women HAVE gone to the police and been fobbed off, there’s even been cases in the news where this has happened and it’s resulted in the death of the woman.
Even the govt have created situations making it EASIER for women to be financially and otherwise abused or stay in abusive relationships - joint UC claims, 2 child limit, reduction of funding to councils...
I would love to live in the world of some of these posters where they think a person living in abuse can just up and leave yep sounds a great easy world eh?
What I can’t see mentioned to this point is also the fear that women have that if they leave the guy, without any proof of abuse their children are likely to have to have unsupervised contact with this man on a regular basis and the women won’t be able to protect them. The mothers correctly assess that the father will simply switch their abuse to the children.
Extreme but did/does happen. There was a spate of murder/suicides in the news a few years back, I don’t know if it’s happening less now or simply isn’t being reported, where men who were non resident parents were killing their children on contact visits and then killing themselves. I’m fairly sure there’s a considerable number of women who fear a similar scenario, iirc in several of these cases the women DID tell the relevant authorities that there was abuse and the father was likely to be abusive to the children and the women weren’t believed!
@noneformethanks I am so sorry for all you’ve been through and glad you managed to escape. My mother is in a very similar scenario, dad checks all phone calls, mileage on the car, times how long she’s out and if he deems she’s taking too long to do x kicks off. Lockdown has been a bloody nightmare for her as they’re in their 70’s so it provided the perfect excuse for him not to allow her out at all! It’s having a horrible effect on her. We’ve (siblings and I) done all we practically can short of kidnapping her ourselves! But we cannot persuade her to leave or even seek support.
I’m truly disgusted by the ops and their supporters attitudes on this thread! Shame on you all! You’re actively making it HARDER for women in difficult/abusive situations.