(CW Child abuse) Why do mothers not protect their children from abusive boyfriends

[OutWithTheMule]

There has been another horrific child abuse death and I have noticed in the majority of these cases the mothers boyfriend has been abusing the child, and the mother is aware and allows it to happen, and usually protects them by trying to cover it up from the police after the fact.

In the awful case that has been in the news today the mother had only been with her boyfriend for 36 days. She allowed the abuse to continue because she didn't want him to leave her. How the fuck can you choose someone you have known 36 days over your own child!?

I just can't understand why these women choose their boyfriends over their children, if anyone laid a finger on my daughter I would flay them!! Even if you wouldn't physically intervene you would take your child and leave surely? If the boyfriend isn't the child's father they have no access to them if you just take them somewhere else. I know women are sometimes scared to leave abusive partners but often in these stories the partner is not abusing the mother, they are only abusing the child and the mother either passively allows it or sometimes joins in.

I understand that the fault lies with the boyfriends obviously, they are monsters and there is no excusing their actions, it's horrific. But it makes sense, violent men abuse children, it's straightforward as disgusting as it is. What I cannot understand for the life of me is why a mother would allow a boyfriend to harm their child or actively choose a boyfriend over their child. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Can anyone shed any light on these women's behaviour?

I don’t understand it either. There was a family living near me in which the man sexually abused his girlfriend’s daughter. The girlfriend chose her paedophile boyfriend over her own child, so her daughter was taken into care.

Less importantly, the man was a physically unattractive drug-addict who was unpleasant to everyone and treated his girlfriend like crap. No, I will never understand that woman. The paedophile was in very poor health and physically weak, so I don’t think she stayed with him out of fear.

I think the mother has been groomed, is being controlled, usually has send and complex needs herself (usually in serious case reviews there is DV addiction and mental health issues)

Maybe they are being abused. It is totally messed up

My ex is living with a woman who he (apparently) had known for about 6 months before the decided to move in together and he was regularly doing her young child's bedtime routine with them (and they, apparently, met two months after the gf broke up with her child's dad). He has a lot of abuse tendencies including violence which would have showed on a Clare's law if she'd bothered to do it - shes very lucky he isn't a paedo (as far as I know) she's not stupid academically but she is very naive and I think was desperate after her marriage breakdown.

It’s shocking that within 36 days, Isabella’s mum went from a seemingly good mum to one that allowed her daughter to be kicked, stamped and punished with cold showers.

I think it’s a case like Star Hobson, her mother had a low IQ but was seemingly a good mum
until her girlfriend moved in.

The BBC say Isabella’s mum needed learning support.,

I think some women cannot function except in a couple- I don’t mean they like having a boyfriend, bit that there’s some deep a nd fundamental flaw that means they prioritise their partner over everything else. The result is that they become complicit.

Just unfathomable

Same here
It suited her. She didn't have to work and could do her hobbies. Only had to put up with the beatings twice a year as my father was a binge drinker. Both narcissists.
She also cared more about what people would think than the welfare of her children. What people? We had no friends or social life.
She's now 96 and I care for her and sort out her life so she doesn't have to live in a home but I hate her. I have to pretend she's just an old lady that it's the right thing to do to care for her. I have to break the cycle for my own sanity and to prove I'm not the person they could have made me be.
Another thing that I think about these women who put men first over their children. I know they have had lacking childhoods, but why do they have to be the worst of the person they could be, and not the best. Break the cycle
And once he left, cos that's another thing these men don't stay forever. Their children will hate them

That’s horrible. I’m sorry that happened you. I’d let her go in the home.

I googled it myself and they do indeed collect the data. It shows that the vast majority of abuse is carried out by parents. Step parents (ie married partners) carry out 12%. I've no UK stats for mothers boyfriend, but US stats for unmarried partners (presumably both sexes) is 7%. No stats at all for percentage of mothers who lie to protect their boyfriends, but i think its fair to assume its single figures. I'm not suggesting for a moment it 'doesn't happen'. I questioned your claim it happened in a majority of cases when I had always believed otherwise, which data appears to support.
I think with such an important issue we need to be accurate and not throw about unsubstantiated claims. If we wrongly believe that this is all about women colluding with and lying for boyfriends, then we are not looking at what is happening to the other 90% or so of abused children.

Or the data shows that the justice system catches male abusers more often than female abusers.

When you look at crime surveys, not convictions, the rates of reported child abuse by survivors and perpetrators are pretty even between the sexes.

Some women are being abused and everything becomes distorted

some women will value their relationship more, they are often addicted to these high drama relationships where it becomes all about themselves and their new partner and really their children should be taken away from them but as will work with the mother to become a better parent but many simply don’t want to be

This is the only way I can understand it - they were both high on crack cocaine. I’ve seen similar cases, and the only way it makes sense is if they are literally out of their minds on drugs.

They don't though as the system has quotas to actively let male perpetrators go! The data isn't even between the sexes at all. 99.3% of males are not sexually assaulted by the time they are 18.

I think there is a sort of deep biological drive to be paired up for a lot of women. They probably couldn't explain it, but it's like a kind of obsession, the male object is constantly in their mind and they feel desperate at the idea of not having him.

Maybe it is not that different from the male drive to shag a lot of women, and we know how powerful that can be.

Lots more people die in car accidents than sky diving, it doesn't mean sky diving is less risky.

I agree 100%. There's a case in the US Madeline Soto. Not only did the mother serve her daughter up on a silver platter to her pedo bf, when the police said he killed her she text the guys father to get him a lawyer. Then asked if she gad to press charges. Unbelievable.

I mean in the monster mother's own words(from the Ipswich Star) "The court heard her family had warned her not to re-kindle a relationship with Jeff, as she had previously been with him in 2019.
Prosecutor Sally Howes KC said Gleason-Mitchell’s family had “pleaded” with her to leave Jeff and her mother had offered to let her stay with Isabella but these pleas had been ignored.
“If I went back, they would tell me ‘I told you so’ because of what he was like in 2019,” said Gleason-Mitchell.
Ms Howes continued: “So rather than be proved wrong you decided to stick it out and keep Isabella in that environment?”
“Yes” replied Gleason-Mitchell."
She let the other monster beat her daughter to death because her family might comment on her poor choices!

But it doesn’t really ‘prove’ anything, because for a start, males are less likely to admit to being abused because they experience more shame about their experiences because of cultural and societal norms (a male friend of mine was SA’d and kept it a secret his whole life until it came out when he was drunk one night!). Added to that some people don’t remember their abuse but can still be affected by it.

Also, although females can be just as abusive as males, one would think biology would be a deciding factor in how abusive females are because one, females are biologically programmed to be mothers and have caring instincts, and are physically weaker than males, where as males are genetically programmed to be more aggressive.

Having experienced ACE’s compared to a stable, loving upbringing makes a person more likely to be abusive because they may have a harder time regulating their emotions, have had poor role models, very little nurturing, a genetic predisposition to aggressive behaviour coupled with adversity which sets them off on that path. They harbour resentment for their poor treatment and take it out on others.

Alternatively, a lot of people who have ACE’s - dependant on their personalities etc are perfectly lovely, empathetic individuals, but I don’t know how you can conclude that sufferers of ACE’s are less likely to abuse. It makes no sense.

Because some parents are just shit at being parents and are incredibly selfish, that could be a mother or a father.

Fucking evil bastards, the pair of them. I hope they rot in hell.

CCTV shows couple laughing days after toddler murder

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c86w19l7zzwo

I remember having friends at school and uni who were terrified at the thought of being alone. Not having a boyfriend seemed to be the worst thing that could happen to them. One of my best friends was like this: she went from boyfriend to boyfriend, no breaks, and would be out with total arses rather than be alone. To this day, I don’t know what drove that behaviour but I’m guessing it’s what they learned from their own mums / family members, having low self-worth, and feeling inadequate or like a failure if you can’t attract a man to protect / care / support / love you. There was also a fair bit of expecting a man to provide for them, to earn money and provide them with security, a home, material wealth, that they couldn’t get on their own. They would choose a shit man over no man at all, every time.

i can imagine women like this accepting an abusive man into they homes, putting their children at risk rather than being single.

My parents taught me that it’s fine to be single, that relationships aren’t the be all, that I have choice and worth, independent of whoever I go out with. And to keep a running away fund. I’m so grateful to them for this.

It is untrue that ACES are no longer used as a model.

When taken on the narrow frame of scoring you may be right about the negative consequences.

However, you are ignoring how (non scoring ACEs) training can support understanding of individuals who have grown up in an environment conducive to chronic stress and what this might present like.

You are also ignoring the recent work done by organisations such as Grow Together and Liverpool John Moore’s University, which have expanded the list of ACEs and are supporting a positive strength based approach to support. The example you gave of the Syrian refugee, would absolutely be covered by the extended list Liverpool put forward.

@rickyrickygrimes your final paragraph makes a very important point

I agree, and I think part of this is that being single is looked down upon, as if somehow you are failing.

Would not stop many such instances, though even one saved is worthwhile.