To think there's not much help for women suffering domestic abuse?

[ChicaChow]

Just the title really.

Before having witnessed two of my closest friends and a family member go through DV I thought there was a lot of help for victims of DV to leave. But actually it's really pitful!

I believed, as do many others that you could just ring women's aid and they'd assist you. You'd either have help to leave right away into a refuge or have someone allocated to help you make plans to leave. But the truth seems to be

1. You ring women's aid and it's engaged constantly. Literally for days at a time sometimes. The chatlines can also take days to respond. Likely due to being massively under resourced.

1. Many DV organisations won't work with victims if they are still in the relationship. My local council will only help once you've actually left the relationship. Surely you need the organisation to actually be helped to make the plans to leave?

1. You don't get legal aid unless your on certain benefits and very low income. My best friend has had to take out a credit card after leaving with NOTHING and sleeping in her car as she has a job. She can't claim benefits as her income is too high. She can't get a council property or assistance with accomodation because her name is on the mortgage of the house she fled from. Her wages were paid into her abusive ex's account. So she slept in her car until payday. She has terrible credit due to her abusive ex running up debts in her name. So had to take out payday loans to get a private rent and now a credit card for legal fees.

1. If you do flee DV with just the clothes on your back then there's a high chance you'll be put in a dodgy B+B and not a refuge as women's refuges are oversubscribed, you may even be put of area.

1. When you do leave, if you go to the police, without hard evidence of your abuser attacking you like a video, it's basically just your word against there's. Then with no prosecution, you can't use it in court to protect your kids from them. Many victims are closely controlled and monitored. My friend said there was no way on earth she could have recorded him being abusive. He had full access to all devices and money. He read through every text, went through her phone regularly and she had 0 access to funds without his permission. She couldn't spy a secret camera as he'd see the transaction. She couldn't take out cash to buy a spy camera in person if she even found a shop that sold one, as he would question why she withdrew money and want a receipt. How can you collate evidence when every inch of your life is being monitored?

1. On the note of children. No matter how horrendous and abusive your ex is, even if you do have video footage of them abusing you and s conviction, the abuser will always have access to the kids. Unless there is concrete evidence of them directly abusing the kids and proving they are a risk to them, they will have access. Even if you can prove a risk, they'll just say supervised access. The supervising person may even be an enabling family member of the abuser like the abusers own parent who the victim doesn't trust.

There is so much more. But I am horrified at the injustice to women and children in this country. One of my friends told me her life is harder now than it was living with her abuser. She has been alienated from family and friends of decades who've taken the side of the abuser or don't 'want to take sides'. She's lost her home she spent blood, sweat and tears on. She's financially ruined with horrific credit and no chance in owning once this is all over. Worst of all, her kids who were her reason for leaving (to keep them safe and from witnessing the violence), have to be sent to the abusive man unsupervised without her there to protect them. If the kids themselves say anything or speak out, she's accused of parental alienation.

I'm a social worker (in a different field) and am horrified by my recent experiences with friends and family. It's nothing like what our training says there is available to support.
I am at a loss as to what women are suppose to do!

Am I being unreasonable to think it's all lip service and actually women and children are unprotected?

Even having a career doesn't always help, as you have to leave your job when you leave.
My cousin had to leave her job and the house she paid for to flee to another city.

Once she was there (OP forgot to add this bit), the Jobcentre insisted she attended appointments at school collection time or lose benefits payments, while social services (OP forgot to add that social services monitor and assess the woman fleeing violence rather than the abuser) insisted she be on time for school collection or her ability to parent would be questioned.

The strain had serious repercussions for her mental health and she's now, ten years later, on disability benefits, unable to practice her profession.

The judge ordered she allow her ex to keep the house, despite her having paid for it (he was unemployed and she supported the family before she left). Her ex was given supervised visits only, but unsupervised in later years.

The trouble is, yes, on Mumsnet people sometimes seem to bully women into leaving without seeming to understand how hard it is.

However, there is support out there if you can find it, sometimes it depends on location and knowing which organisations to contact. Perhaps a list of all support services and charities etc. when someone is considering fleeing DV would be most supportive.

“The best defence for any female is to always have a career, always earn enough to be able to leave if necessary AND NEVER EVER rely on a man, financially or otherwise.”

This can be what attracts an abusive man though. Marry, then he has a personality change, quits working & starts making your life a living hell. Next thing you know you have an abusive man that will take half of everything you have if you’re lucky, or hunt you down and kill you (or have you killed) and inherit the whole job lot over your dead body.

These sorts of comments are depressingly naive because is no checklist that makes a woman immune from DA.

Male victims fare no better. In fact, due to being in the minority (most documented victims are women and support services overwhelmingly focus on women) they are arguably worse off at an individual case level. I have never understood how it is helpful to refer to sex or gender when taking about abuse victims.

I can't imagine begrudging anyone having the services they need to escape abuse and recover.
There seem to be more services for women because most of those services were set up by women to meet the need. Its not a good thing that there are more services for women. They exist because there are more female victims, and they are the group at most risk of extreme violence and death. They are also more likely to have children.
Support services are single sex because the majority of women and children who exit are traumatised and need to recover from abuse. Mixed sex facilities just retraumatise female victims, and that doesn't help recovery.

Male victims are often abused by other men. They don't tend to be traumatised by being around women, so mixed sex facilities don't retraumatise them.

If we don't talk abut or record the sex of victim and perpetrator, how can society ever hope to reduce the numbers of victims?

Yes. This is how it is.

People are good at giving out how domestic abuse is bad, how awful etc

But really it's a way of making yourself into a leper. There is little support and no one really wants to know.

You are right.

More people should know this.

Well said OP. what needs doing is raising awareness. People always comment on threads just leave and give an abused OP a load of abuse for not protecting their kids by leaving. No one really knows the reality of the family courts or refuge.

I left my abuser. I'd been trying to work out how to do it. Posted for advice and got attacked. Left suddenly to protect my child believing there would be help. NO HELP. I was on the mortgage so not entitled to benifits or housing. But couldn't stay in the house. Refuge wouldn't take me as I was on the mortgage. Social services wouldn't help me told me if I don't leave they will take my child, but when they heard I was considering sleeping in the car with a toddler while pregnant they changed time thinking kids would be better with their abusive dad.

I had a lot of evidence of abuse for family court. Including text messages where he admitted hurting our dd. Judge decided no risk to my children. Contact was forced. I had to prove I was same as ex said I was mental. That wasn't funded because NHS said I'm not mentally ill they have no role.

My ex never cared for our child when together. He got angry and hurt me around our kid but never hurt the kid. I left after he did hurt her and that was because I made him care for her while I was going through miscarriage. He hurt her and I left. Then followed a couple years where dd comes home with marks and trauma from him before he got a new gf to do all the childcare for him.

He even said in court he only wanted contact to stop his maintenance payments. Judge kept talking about what is best for ex and got passed off with me when I pointed out legally we were there regarding what is best for children.

My kids have SEND. Can't get any help with that because everything is attributed to parental conflict.

I'm still married because he cost me thousands fucking about with the divorce. He wants half my house. The house I paid for. I went back to work at 8 weeks after dd because ex gave me no help with the bills. He leeched off me and abused me and now he costs me thousands fighting over the house. If I hadn't given up o could easily have rated through all the equity on legal fees.

Oh and of course now he doesn't have the full amount of contact he won. He never really did mainly palmed them off on gf or his mum. But he knows child maintenance goes by court order not how much he actually has the kids.

It's a fucking joke of a system. My kids absolutely would have been better off it I had stayed and made sure I did all childcare and housework. Yes the would have seen him abuse me and lived in that atmosphere but they are suffering that anyway with their dad and his new partner.

Maybe people return because it's so fucking impossible to get support to leave. When you can't feed or house your kids of course you go back! I came to the conclusion that you either have to have enough money to fight or a family who will house and feed you or you have to have nothing to qualify for the help which doesn't exist anyway.

My children would have been better off if I'd have killed him and gone to prison for self defence manslaughter. Family would have taken them in and I would've out to care for them quicker than the years of contact they have been forced to suffer. And I wonder if prison is as bad for my mental health as what I e suffered trying to protect these children. I bet there is support for children who have a parent in prison or a parent who died. There is absolutely no support for them now and I can't even get anything privately because ex has PR so can block all that.

When I tell my story I get people no believing it. Particularly if I ever say negative about SS. The assumption is I'm lying or skum and there must be risks from me I'm not being honest about. The only people who believe the reality have been through it themselves. And we can't go public with what we have been through because we want to protect our kids from that and are scared of triggering more abuse.

What would help is public outcry and awareness. Family court overhaul and refuge to flee to. As a SW op people will believe you more than us skummy service users when we say what's happening. Don't just post anonymously online- speak out at work. The more SW who understand the better