To understand why some women are trapped in abusive relationships?

[Temporary1234]

I know there are a fair lot of people who blame their mothers for not leaving their abusive fathers before it escalates and consider them to be complicit.

But after watching few programs, I feel like, most women who are in abusive relationships might worry about actually leave their vulnerable kids in 50 percent custody with abusive partners who might have already weakened them enough to make them vulnerable and not influential in their children’s lives..

So a life of patching up the marriage until the kids are older seems more beneficial for the kids until the mother can protect them??

Usually abusive people are attracted to women who don’t have much support or isolated or unable to stand on their own feet... or they manage to strip them off those powers..

Soo am I unreasonable to think some women in these situations especially back in the days when there was little support but still even so today, am I unreasonable to think they need to be seen as victims and not complicit? And not have their motherhood questioned ?

YANBU.

Everything you say is right. But also, it’s really important to understand that 75% of domestic violence homicides happen at the point of separation, or within the first four months after separation. When the abuser realises he is losing control, he will often escalate the abusive behaviour and turn it towards the children as well. Women know this - whether sub consciously or consciously - and often, them staying in the relationship is the only thing keeping them alive. They need very specialist help to exit the relationship safely, and to stay safe once they’ve left.
It is never as simple as just kick him out or leave with a suitcase.

Children are the priority in your scenario. They don't have the luxury of saying "it's not as easy as just leaving" . They don't have the option to leave.

There's no such thing as patching up an abusive marriage. It's just forcing children to live in an abusive environment and be damaged. Lifelong, catastrophic damage.

I have compassion for women in that situation and women struggling with guilt afterwards; I have more compassion for children who are reliant on adults to protect them and are being failed or have been failed.

It's an uncomfortable fact that children are damaged living in an abusive home. It's the abuser's fault, but trying to make women feel better by pretending they have no responsibility to protect their children or that staying is a-ok is unhelpful. As is the pretence that a child can in any way be protected whilst living with their abuser. They can't. That is a fairy story.

We do need better societal understanding and much better resourced support services. Peddling the fallacy that children will be fine left living with an abuser reduces the likelihood of either of those things happening. We need to be honest about what is at stake.

RUOKHon

That is terrifying !

user18435677565533

Indeed children are the priority, but I do feel the woman in this scenario is perhaps putting her children first from her position of lack of power as she cannot offer the protection needed..

Which is why I think more needs to be done to address those obstacles and assigning blame to victims is just not helpful

Stockholm Syndrome is the psych term. It's an abuse victims coping strategy. You have feelings for your abuser, which can also make the abuse less often & more manageable ,as the abuser feels reassured by your compliance & 'love'. Also, if you can document or have witnesses of any abuse re yourself & the children it's highly likely you can insist on contact centre only for seeing the children, so please don't see it as a given that abusers automatically get unsupervised contact if you leave. If you see or experience abuse daily,it normalises it. And if you are a child it sets the template for relationships in later life: either they model & repeat that abusive behaviour or, are attacted to abusive partners who abuse them, as that's their experience of 'normal'. The emotional damage it can do to a child is massive .

I think that the women are adults and have more power than the children. I don’t think a risk of 50% custody is realistic is most cases. It’s not a reason to stay in an abusive or even bad relationship.

What this pst makes me think of is that women who horribly neglected her kids and had a dead toddler in her bedroom for literally years. But all social services were interested in was “supporting her” because she was in an abusive relationship. Whether or not people are victims of abuse does not excuse failure to protect their own children.

@CSIblonde

Stockholm Syndrome is the psych term. It's an abuse victims coping strategy. You have feelings for your abuser, which can also make the abuse less often & more manageable ,as the abuser feels reassured by your compliance & 'love'. Also, if you can document or have witnesses of any abuse re yourself & the children it's highly likely you can insist on contact centre only for seeing the children, so please don't see it as a given that abusers automatically get unsupervised contact if you leave. If you see or experience abuse daily,it normalises it. And if you are a child it sets the template for relationships in later life: either they model & repeat that abusive behaviour or, are attacted to abusive partners who abuse them, as that's their experience of 'normal'. The emotional damage it can do to a child is massive .

Exactly this - children from abusive homes (I am one) tend to recreate what is familiar, it feels like “home” so they are attracted to abusive partners and the cycle repeats. I saw this very clearly in the dynamic between me and my exhusband who became /escalated his abuse when I was pregnant and then he saw me as vulnerable. I was lucky to be financially secure /hold the financial cards and I made him leave - because it was clear that if I didn’t I would divorce him soon enough and if I waited I would be paying him financial support to e a stay at home parent (unemployed) and he would be living in the matrimonial home . He made that clear - our child was $$$$ to him

YANBU.

Contrary to popular belief, family courts are weighed in favour of abusive men - even if he beat his ex partner to a pulp, his feeling are still taken into consideration. Just awful.

I have a good friend in a very emotionally abusive relationship who won't leave because she firmly believes it will be worse if she does. I can see her point

What about when the children are the target of physical abuse but the mother isn't and never was? Emotional abuse, yes, but never laid a finger on her.

YANBU

Despite what many people believe:

• the abuse does not necessarily end when an abused woman leaves the abuser particularly when they have children

• the family courts are heavily biased towards fathers contact. The threshold of abuse towards a child required for no contact is very high.

-Abusive men are significantly more likely to apply to the family courts. They have an equal voice to non abusers when it comes to children.

• children can be just as abused via court enforced contact & a mother has less ability to be protective (many abused women act as a ‘shield’ for their children whilst living with the abuser - they take it so the children don’t)

-leaving an abuser escalates the abuse

The dynamics of abuse are complex, victims need support not judgment.

I think it's also important to acknowledge that not every abuser is abusive to his wife as well as his child - it's not always as clear cut as that. But even if he is, you have a duty of care to your children and I don't believe sticking it out helps anybody long term (not trying to minimalise the effects of abuse, but if you have the capacity to get support and remove your children from an abusive home then I don't think you should ignore it under the guise of protecting them somehow).

I can't think of many situations where children are better off in an abusive home, if I'm absolutely honest.

If my mother had left my father back in the day I would have seen him for at most 2 evenings and 2 days in every 2 week period. That would have meant 280 hours every 2 weeks when I could relax, 280 hours where I didn’t need to worry that my dropping a crumb would get my mother hit, 280 hours where when I was older I didn’t have to worry that he would mistake me for my mother. I would have gladly entered hell on occasion if it meant peace the majority of the time.

You're right OP.
The blame lies not with desperate traumatised women. It's the failure of services in properly protecting women and their children.

Look at the relationships board. Courts are ordering (often unsupervised) contact for children with proven abusers. Family courts and judges (and some of the support services themselves) need an overhaul.

Then there's the issue of housing and much needed emotional support.

Don't blame the victims. Call for better funded and informed sevices - including the courts.

Moreso today even than the 50s to 90s, due to the push to make 50/50 happen even where abuse has occurred. The problem is that women are disbelieved even when there is good evidence, and on the odd occasion a woman is believed, the position reverts back to "contact at all costs".

The rhetoric is that "a child has a right to a relationship with their father" but the truth is that it has zero to do with the child's rights (and they would surely also have a right to safety?) and everything to do with a man's right to satisfy whatever is his wont.

The Family Court keeps women in abusive relationships.

YANBU but it isn't quite so clear cut.

I don't believe domestic abuse victims should be blamed for staying with their abusers (there are many practical and psychological reasons for this).

But equally, I don't think I have the right to tell children who grew up in abusive households how to feel. It's more than reasonable to be angry that a parent didn't 'save' you, even if they were a victim too.

Abusive men have too many rights when it comes to custody. I wonder how much childcare these men actually do when with the mother, I'm guessing not 50%.

@GlowingOrb

I have seen a group on FB where a mother has fled with her children. The father has started this group and it now has over 500 members. Almost daily he posts begging for information of where they might be and people are giving it him! Anyone who tries to advise caution is attacked by him and other members of the group, Through this group he has managed to track her down and this week is boasting about how he has called her current work place and had "enlightening" conversations with her work colleagues. He can't get to get to them fortunately because of Covid and inability to travel. I have significant experience of abuse and every time he posts a sob story about just wanting to see his kids he shoehorns in a criticism of their mother and I know this is not just a well meaning, desperate father wanting to see his kids. He "likes" threatening or abusive posts about her. He posts photos of her family, he threatens suicide. His fury gleams out of every post. This is a man who cannot bear that he has been thwarted. I dread to think what will happen when he catches up with them.

This is what happens when some women leave the abusive relationships they're in. My ex couldn't leave me alone for 12 years. Sometimes leaving is as bad as staying. Sometimes when they are murdered, leaving is worse than staying.

I can see why subjectively it may feel better to stay, but objectively that will rarely be the case. Abuse messes with your head, so it's hard to see straight.

You know what it is the woman's fault.

I realise that is a harsh thing to say but she is the one who brought a child into this world with a shit father. Maybe she should have thought a bit more about that rather than f*&kin up her life and her child's. Rather than crying fir the next 18 years that she dare not leave her kids with him for visitation. The cycle then continues.

Rather than investing more money in social services and blaming the system we ought to educate girls to have some self respect and esteem to not get together with, and most definitely not have babies with dickheads.

I now I will fet abuse for that message and I don't mean to kick anyone when they are down but if we recognise where the problem is now- ie picking the wrong guy to be a father to your children - then we look to stop it perpetuating the problem.

That would not fix every case as some men do change when they become father and the abuse kicks in but I'll bet it would solve alot.

Have read the whole thread and I'm very sorry fir those examples of abuse listed here i think they are the extremes , and not the ones I am referring to when I have commented.

The problem with that @Whattherapy2020 is that often pregnancy is the trigger for domestic abuse and coercive control. It is the point at which the abuser feels he has caught his victim and can stop the charming perfect partner act and show his true colours.

YANBU. I didn't understand this until I discovered MN tbh. I think it's very hard to really get it unless you've been in that situation yourself. Also it's not just about the practical difficulties of leaving, and the fear of the actual process, custody of dc etc. What lots of people fail to appreciate is that it's also often that women in abusive relationships have been brought up in abusive or dysfunctional households themselves, so they are traumatised and their view of what a decent relationship is like can be completely skewed.

I left an abusive relationship with two kids aged 2 and 12 weeks. I was utterly trapped. He had chipped away my support network. I had lost my own income stream. I couldn't attend groups.

It didn't all happen at once. He didn't lay a finger on me until I was well and truly pregnant but it was then I realised how isolated I was. The day I lef5 was actually after I found out he was also having an affair. I had our tiny baby in my arms and my 2 year old on my leg and he held a knife to my throat. I had to have panic alarms and multiple other things to keep us safe. He emptied my bank account of every last penny. He left me with nothing, no one and nowhere to go.

I got through it but I can 100% understand why women stay. The prospect of him getting 5050 of our babies was terrifying. He had me genuinely believing i wasn't and would never be a fit mother without him and SS would take the kids. 4 years on and the psychological impact of him is still huge.

@Whattherapy2020 you clearly don't have a clue!