Again & again

[beachcitygirl]

So many threads @ topics where husband/partner treats wife like a slave and they put up with it.
Aibu to say "yes, it is that easy to leave and be happier aloene" and model good behaviour for your kids. Why, why, why do people accept crumbs?

It's so hard to leave. I was with my ex for 15 years, I got with him when I was 24. He ground me down with years of abuse so I was too scared to leave and be on my own. I was constantly told I wouldn't cope on my own, that I was useless, that I would lose everything, that no one else would want me. Being told that almost every day you start to believe that.

When we did split up, he even told my parents that they should take all my money off me as I can't be trusted with it and would waste it. That all my friends weren't actually my friends just after my money.

I do look back and ask myself why I didn't leave but at the time I was not the woman I am now or the woman I was before I met him. It was only thanks to one guy I randomly met and became friends with that I realised I could go it alone.

Its not easy to leave, but we are in a country whereby there is a lot of help to do so, and financial support from the government if living alone. I left when my kids were 2 and 5. They are 16 and 20 now, they are close to their dad and I moved on from the situation that occurred to cause me to leave (not abuse, related to ex and my older child, not his bio child) so that we were friends and i’ve always consulted him on big things and we generally have a similar view on parenting.

I grew up in an unhappy home. Parents hated each other, my mum says she doesn’t know why they didn’t separate. I guess it wasn’t as easy in the 80’s as it is now. All I know is that my kids won’t ever turn to me and ask why I let them be a witness to all the arguments and sometimes physical (this was more from my mum who had a mental illness) altercations. I knew once things started to go wrong in my relationship that I wasn’t going to put my children through what I went through. Anyone who says the kids are unaware are kidding themselves. Things are good for me financially now, through sheer hard work. I could have had a very different life had I stayed, but staying in an unhappy relationship which was impacting on my children wasn’t going to happen on my watch.

I think it's great the OP has solved abusive relationships. Great.

Now can she fix the climate crisis? Then the economy. Don't hate on her, she has all the answers 🙄

Right, just like that…

it’s obvious you’ve never been in this position.

Op, some mean partners will have access to the children for days each week and the children could suffer there alone..

In all the tragic posts on the Relationship board from women in terrible, often abusive, relationships, not one of them is ever staying in the relationship for sex. It's normally lack of money, no family support and fear of having to share often 50:50 custody for the children with an abusive man, who couldn't give a shit about his kids but just uses them to punish her.

You have absolutely no idea.

I stopped having sex with my ex, because he was an abusive prick and it was the one thing I could still control. No child deserves to have him for a father and thank God I didn't have one with him, I only hope his latest victim, sorry girlfriend, isn't going through what I went through (all the others have wised up to his narcissistic behaviours but this one seems to be in it for the long haul).

Sometimes it just feels too overwhelming and scary to try to change things in such an enormous way. You think about it but don’t know where to start. You have spent years trying to make things as non volatile as possible, so it goes completely against the grain to instigate what feels like it will be the worst kind of upheaval and upset in the world. It is like paralysis, a feeling of being trapped. And it is easier just to carry on carrying on. You read people’s advice but you can’t apply it to yourself. Well done for leaving, you must have been very brave.

Quite!!

Interesting. You want praise for doing it while simultaneously criticising those that don't leave exactly as you did. What a spiteful post.

You only have the idea for you and in your life. Zero understanding that for others it would be different.

Is it cold up there on your high horse?

I’d love to “throw him out” but as we are married and own the house jointly, he can refuse to leave, and does. Divorce takes time and in the meantime we are under one roof. That’s not a great environment for the DC, and many times I’ve thought of capitulating to make their lives better, but then think of the long term and press on. There are many women as stuck as I am. It’s not as easy as “kick him out”.

You don't have any idea do you?. I bet you have never been in this situation yet here you are judging

Throw him out - erm, what if you both own the house or both your names are on the tenancy? Then legally you can't.

Family - some people don't have family

Friends - same as above. Maybe the woman has been isolated from them as this is what abusers do

Council - do you have any idea how long this takes? Years and years if you are classed as adequately houses

Squirrel money away - good if you have money to do that in the first place

Then add in the worry of only having your children half the time and worrying about them when you can't protect them, plus the psychological impact where you are so worn down you question your own reality.

But yeah it's easy isn't it? Why don't people think before posting nasty jibes like this. Slow handclap op

You’re obviously not very up on the news!
You were lucky to get offered somewhere to live, there’s nowhere around lately, where I live every property that becomes vacant, there’s at least 30 people minimum that applies for it!!
Rent is also triple now, 2 bedroom flat is literally £1000 a month rent in parts of Devon/Cornwall

I think for a lot of women there is an aspect of learned helplessness to staying in a shitty relationship. The situation they are in, has often developed over a long time. By the time they realize that their partners are making them miserable, they are often financially dependent on them. Although this is not insurmountable, it makes leaving that much harder.
This is compounded by the fact that men are typically granted custody if they seek it, even if she has evidence of him abusing the kids. Fortunately these shitty men often don't seek custody, but she can't know that in advance.

The ideal scenario is to leave at the first signs of red flags, but many women don't know the red flags and mistake them for green ones. I grew up with Disney renaissance movies and romantic comedies of the 90s. These movies teach girls and young women such fucked up relatioship dynamics that it is no wonder many of my generation ended up in such shitty relationships. The fact that I didn't, seems more luck than concious choice.

Financial pressure
Lack of family support
Fear of making life financially worse for the children - not being able to keep them warm or well fed or keep up with their clubs
Lack of self esteem
Poor relationship modelling so they don’t fully understand early on enough when there are red flags
And in some cases family pressure to ‘make the marriage work’ because the marriage is seen as more important than the individual.

I know someone who didn’t ever leave even though she has every reason too. However her own family would have stigmatised her, far from telling her she was worth more they tied themselves in knots trying to normalise her H’s abusive behaviour and telling her she had to deal with it. Her self esteem was poor before marriage and worse during. She has no financial experience and is terrified that the one comfort she has known, ie a warm house and enough food, will be gone if she leaves because she will be poor. By the time she has matured enough to realise she should have left she is too exhausted and broken, and has no way of supporting herself having never worked (was never allowed to).

Of course none of this would matter if she had enough confidence in the first place to even tell herself she can do it alone, but that’s one of the problems with abuse - it takes away a person’s self belief.

Yours is one of the unkindest posts I’ve ever read OP. Good for you that you had the strength to do it, but not everyone has the mental strength you did and that’s often not their fault either.

‘Council’ 😂😂😂😂

Yes, many many properties available….just show up and they immediately hand you the keys.

Also just to add - even if a woman does work it’s not suddenly ‘easy’, it’s still a massive financial hit going from 2 incomes to 1 and if you’ve never done it and have children to provide for it’s a massive risk. And anything other that physical abuse is still not seen as a strong enough reason to leave because the women questions herself constantly and doubts if what she is feeling is valid.

You're right to highlight that many women put up with far too much, but in many cases it isn't simple at all to leave. If you're working and just married to a lazy misogynist dick then, yes, I guess it is relatively simple to leave. However if you're married to a lazy, misogyist, dick who also controls your money, has isolated you from friends and family, shattered your self confidence and self belief over a long period of time, appears charming on the outside so no one believes what an arsehole he is, it's very hard to leave.

How do you get the money together for somewhere else to live when he takes all the money or keeps getting you fired from all the NMW jobs you managed to get? There are far too few shelters for all the women who need them and they're not actually safe. Where are they to live? It's easy for some people to facetiously say they'd rather live on the streets, but would they really, with the very real risk of rape, abuse, lack of basic toilet facilities, no food etc.? Friends may actually know or suspect some of what is going on but in reality, they're very reluctant to intervene and, unless they're rich, what support can they actually provide? They don't have room for you to live with them, they can't loan you money for a rent, they can't keep you or themselves safe when he inevitably tracks you there, breaks down their door and attacks you in front of them.

And what if you have kids? The courts will grant the father access no matter how violent he is or what sort of environments or people he exposes the child to. At least at home, the mother can be the punching bag and main focus.

Until you solve all of these problems, women are more likely to stay than leave.

Sometimes the worst situation to be in is one where the partner isn’t seriously abusive but also not a good partner - leaving means more stress, upheaval, change in the children’s standard of living and the fact that the woman would actually see less of her kids because she’d have to up her working hours and share custody - it’s easy to see why many women in this situation choose to stay despite it not being ‘good enough’. For them, being able to see their children every day and not have the stress of sole financial responsibility (and the impact of that on her and the kids) is the better option.

It's sadly not uncommon for women to be killed when trying to leave. I can think of too many examples already this year in the papers. Leaving might be the right decision, but it's also dangerous. We need to ensure the right support and protection is available to women trying to leave before we can judge anyone for not leaving.

Also the courts often will not stop domestic abusers seeing their children because "he was abusive to you not them". Often it might seem better to the abused partner to stay and protect the children (who are often not the abuser's main focus until his victim leaves and he can use them as a tool to get back at her).

Look at the case of Lance Hart, who shot his wife Claire and 19 year old daughter when they tried to leave. I've often wondered if Claire plucking up the courage to do so coincided with all the children entering adulthood and the knowledge that they were not so dependant anymore and he could not weaponise them and abuse them in her place with her gone. And also her sons were able to help with accommodation. And still she and her daughter were not safe.

You are being totally unreasonable. There are a lot of reasons why women might put their own happiness last - including the financial stability of their children. If the alternative was to live on the breadline and my children living in a hostel, or in fuel/food poverty etc, I wouldn't leave unless I or they were in physical danger. I'd just suck the personal misery until they were adults.
Lifetime outcomes for children in poverty (especially housing poverty) are far worse than those living in an unhappy marital home.

Also, this.

@beachcitygirl , if you are genuinely struggling to understand how it can be so hard for some women, check out the short netflix series called Maid. I thought they captured an example of this struggle so thoughtfully and creatively.

1.4 million families on the waiting list...

Many people now spend over 10 years in emergency accommodation.

Nobody would put their kids through that if the alternative wasn't physical threat.