To wonder why so many women ignore red flags?

[Bumbleumbo]

Would you date a man if after a few months of dating the police visited you with some shocking revelations of previous DV? It seems like a stupid question to ask really but so many women accept this shit and I can only assume it’s out of desperation or low self esteem?

8 years ago I left an abusive relationship. We shared two children and I owed it to them to get away. It took me a long time and even after I ended things he continued his campaign of abuse (still does really). He was eventually charged and convicted of some pretty serious DV incidents. I have a lifelong restraining order..you get the picture.

He moved on quickly and within a couple of months had moved in with a women with a two year old. He was electronically tagged and she risked losing her child due to social services involvement. They deemed him a risk (which he was) but she moved him in regardless. She even helped facilitate him breach his restraining order and supported him through both a criminal trial and family court hearing. According to her, I was the ‘crazy ex’ and the courts were wrong.

Fast forward several years and another child later and she found herself in my shoes. A similar pattern of abuse on all levels, police involvement, no financial support for their son and well the pattern continues…

Partner number 3 came along just as fast with him moving himself in when partner 2 changed the locks. Within weeks he had proposed, they were house hunting and planning a family. She believed that both exes were crazy and his reasons for not seeing any of his 3 children or paying child support didn’t seem to bother her. Once again things unraveled and she too reported him to the police, he’s now into number 4….

Number 4 has 4 children. Like myself and all his victims in fact, she has a successful career, owns her own house and has a lot to offer a freeloader like him. Last week she received a visit from the police after GF number 2 requested a Clair’s Law disclosure. The police wanted to know who he is now dating as under this law they can voluntarily contact new partners. They shared with her details of his previous DV and criminal convictions as well as their concerns for her and the safety of her children, but guess what, she’s still with him. I only know this because Ex number 2 updates me on a regular basis and if I’m honest I find it all a bit triggering. I can’t believe anyone in their right mind would turn a blind eye to this information. Why are some women so naive?? Does this happen a lot?

My sister was the same, found out a guy she was dating after a month had punched his mum in the stomach yet still continued to date him, I don’t understand it fair enough if you find out years down the line I can understand how it’s hard to get away but he was giving off warning flags within the first 2 weeks hence why she did Claire’s law

Totally with you, and I'm sorry for what you have been through, and well done for getting away when you did. It is sad how some women will do anything to cover for and protect a bloke. I've been there, but I still had some idea of right from wrong! But I was a bit like you, that us having a DC highlighted a lot of things and somehow turned my attention away from my exP and that in turn also helped release feelings I would of still had for him had our DC not come along.
I know of women who are still with their abusive partners and so they also seem to make excuses for other men they know of who have/are doing inappropriate things.
I think as for getting involved with or staying with someone when you have been told the score on their history, yes some of it is probably self esteem issues and a little desperation. Need a man etc, I have still got myself involved where that sort of stands, but thankfully no one abusive and I wouldn't put up with it.

Because a lot of women still believe any man is better than no man and anyway it's different with their relationship

It's so sad. But I don't know the answer.

These men seem to be able to push the right buttons to get in womens' lives.

The same reasons it took you time to leave?

Because a lot of women still believe any man is better than no man

This. Plus there are stupid specimens in any population, and this sort of guy knows well how to reel them in at the outset before showing true colours. Why did you get involved with him initially? Because that's probably why they have.

All sorts of reasons.

They think they can change him.
Desperation.
Any man is better than no man.
Low self-esteem.
They've previously been in abusive relationships and don't know any better.
Most abusers are very convincing liars.
Mental health issues.

Attraction to the wrong men.

Because their parents reacted angrily when they had any reaction to being treated badly or hurt?

I know my parents told me endlessly I was sensitive and emotional. They also told me I was paranoid.

So I was a combination of 1) too trusting (to prove I wasn't paranoid) and 2) trained to never show any reaction to being hurt.

Over time, if you get in to the habit of never visibly outwardly showing any reaction to being hurt, it gets confusing. You can't assess it as accurately. If you have any reaction to being hurt, even your own thoughts, then that's punishable with silent treatments, martyrdom, victim blaming........ so you have to be really really certain you were hurt.

maybe it's not worth tuning in to the fact that you were hurt.

Everyone assumes it’s naive young vulnerable women who succumb to men like this

im a successful woman and I have had a very stable good life but an ex I had was emotionally abusive. Never in a million years did I think I would be someone who would put up with that as I’m a very no nonsense kind of woman,

the 3 successive women he dated were all highly successful and he actually progressed from emotional abuse to physical violence with them.

hes now been in a relationship with a very very successful IT professional for a few years. This woman is internationally renowned in her industry and travels the world giving speeches etc. DV is so so complex and so difficult to come out of once you’re in it: it’s just simply not a question of the woman being naive,

Yes fair point. We met whilst we were in our 20’s and no red flags in his past at that point. Certainly no police disclosure (I’d like to think I’d have run for the hills if that happened). It took me a long time to leave because he blackmailed me over the children. Abuse creeps up on you, it’s a gradual thing. Only after the babies were born could I see how toxic things had become but abusers don’t leave easily, they simply ramp up the control.

I don't think I thought any man was better than no man but I suppose I got in too deep and then I had nowhere to go and no money when I got there. I longed to be free from him. For the first five years that I was free, I got in to bed every night thinking thank God T0nail is not in the bed.

Anyway, when I first met him, He kind of half love bombed me and half let me know how I could do better. It was a horribly familiar feeling. It was exactly the way my family still treats me.

We love you but and whatever comes after the but is going to be stomach churning request that you respect their right to abuse you/label you/smear you/ignore you/put your brother first/put the dog first

But when I was younger i was drawn to my x. It was awful. He was never going to see me for who I was and that's exactly what my parents have never ever done. Still.

Because they are brought up in an abusive household and don't know any different.

Because they have fallen for him before the first red flag.

Because they move you away from your normal surroundings and when that red flag smacks you in the face you have no way of getting away safely.

Because they distance you from friends and family, they are your only 'friend'.

Because they mess with your head, you're in a constant state of confusion, you do not have the clarity of mind to see the red flags. Until they are gone.

Extremely intelligent people (of both sexes) fall for scams. Because the con artist criminals see something in them that confirms they are a good target.

Men like your ex do the same. I don't understand why anyone would stay in such circumstances but there's a certain amount of brainwashing going on. People don't always want to see what's before their eyes. And they think they know better than other people and it won't happen to them etc.

It does creep up on you. And they wait til you're financially dependent on them to really kick off. But saying that, I should have seen his coercive pressure on me to give up my job as the kicking off. That should have been enough. I think I was already pregnant when I realised what a trap I was in.

because my parents raised me to feel that putting my own feelings first was a massive betrayal of them, I felt like it was normal to be not heard, not considered, not seen, used...

In total that's eight children in the wake of that one man's shitstorm who have absorbed an experience or relationships that demonstrate the status of women in relationships and the abuse they will endure to maintain them. It's a blueprint of what is to come and what they should endure.

Without great effort on the people who are around them, they get to adulthood with elastic boundaries and their warning system is completely fucked. So, that's why, I guess. And that shit just keeps rolling.

Love is blind is not a cliché.

True about isolation. my x loved that I was Irish. He loved that I had no long term friends around to size him up and think what the hell. I had flat mates and work colleagues and they did TRY to communicate to me that he wasn't winning them over but nobody who would really stand between him and me when he basically ordered me to move in with him. I look back now, and I didn't want to but he talked me in to it. He was like a barrister, he had a closing argument for everything. In the end I just moved in with him and tried to see the best of it. he was exactly like my mother to be honest. I sound so spineless typing this but my mother wanted me to have no spine in my dealings with HER but yet to go out in to the world and conquer it, financially, socially, professionally, academically.......... Obviously I didn't manage that. Was a nervous wreck til about 47.

My mother was nice and certainly identified with being 'nice' and she was, superficially, so long as you never tried to hold her to account for hurting you or being late, or being inconsiderate or labelling you something derogatory, or forgetting to do something she'd said she would do. They are peas in a pod my mother and my x and this is very common

In answer to the question though, I wouldn't assume that because the women don't appear to have taken immediate action that the news hasn't penetrated. The cogs are probably shifting.

It's so sad but also quite complicated.

My friend is one of the women you describe. She was partner number 2 to an abusive, narcissistic drug addict. He spun her all the usual lines, he love bombed her, he was totally charming and persuasive. My friend fell for it despite her friends and family raising the obvious with her - nice men don't have court orders against them preventing them seeing their children. Of course the ex had been painted as the crazy one.

My friend ended up pregnant within the year and she was a successful, independent woman in all other aspects of her life before this man came along.

She did manage to get out and her and her child have an injunction against this man. Anecdotally he had already hooked his next victim before my friend finally reported him to the police (she took him back a few times prior to day he held her and her child hostage!!)

She has had a lot of therapy and is very candid about her experience. For her it was a combination of embarrassment and shame (she'd been told by absolutely everyone he wasn't a good guy and almost felt the need to prove everyone wrong and also her lifelong need to help and fix people (childhood career for a parent) that led her to this man.

I don't understand why anyone would stay in such circumstances but there's a certain amount of brainwashing going on. People don't always want to see what's before their eyes.

Not just a certain amount of brainwashing, the whole relationship is about being groomed to accept his behaviour. And as I said, your head of so full of shit you don't have the capacity to see what's before your eyes, it's not just sticking your head in the sand.

And they think they know better than other people and it won't happen to them etc.

🤔

Wow, you’re so right. That hits home. it’s actually 12 when you include GF number 3’s DC. I heard she’s really struggling with her eldest DS who is extremely autistic and has began copying Ex’s behaviour (inappropriate groping of his monther, verbal abuse etc). It’s just so sad. All of it.

My own DC have had years of manipulative mind control. Thanks to a family court judge who ordered contact against the advice of Cafcass, the police and SS. He has now stopped seeing them all (as HE can’t be bothered) but it’s all coming out now - the abuse they whitenessed whilst he was with GF number 2. Even after YOU leave, the DC’s are often exposed to abuse just within a different family.

My friend refused to leave her abusive ex despite a Claire's Law visit because in her words "he's the only bloke that has ever gone down on me"

Ironically enough eventually he got - ahem - sent** down for several years for the way in which he had been treating her.

She also believed him when he said that his ex was "more susceptible to bruising" than others.

I knew a lady, youngish, seemed nice. She had had her first child taken off her and had been told without doubt that if she were to be in contact with her recent abusive partner, the unborn baby would be taken as soon as born. Social services and charities were doing so much for her to facilitate her being able to keep the baby, live in a safe home and have help and guidance. She gave the ex her new address and he was found hiding out there. Yet the hollow utter sadness in her eyes when the baby was taken was hard to see. It happened a while ago and I still remember as I just cannot work her choices out. The ex would be long gone by now, doing god knows what.

Women are conditioned to believe the best about people, and that includes men with red flags. Just look at the majority of "advice" on here on how to deal with men who have behaved appallingly. "Just walk away/block him/don't contact him" - no wonder these men never learn. Women are encouraged to show no reaction to bad behaviour and are considered obsessive stalkers if they attempt to warn a new partner. So generally they don't and stay silent.

But some abusers are very highly skilled manipulators, and they pick their victims cleverly and sometimes groom them for lengthy periods before monkey branching into relationships with them, breaking down their boundaries over a prolonged period of time.

Additionally, there are some women who enter and stay in relationships for the financial advantages. They don't want to rent a small studio in a rough area, they want to stay in that nice house/flat that attracted them in the first place.