What would you do if you found out your son is beating his girlfriend?

[Pinkflowersxo]

If you found out your 30 year old son has been battering the mother of his kids for over 9 years, you witnessed his rage to her before and know he’s beat her I front of their young children to the extreme of strangling her. To know he grabbed the steering wheel whilst she was driving over 80 miles ph on the motorway and jerked jt side to side repeatedly to make her stop and punch the chair she’s sitting in over and over What would you do ?

bare in mind she knows he refuses anger management / counselling as he doesn’t think he needs it.

Asking because when I told his mother she said “I don’t think he was trying to kill you as that would have meant killing you both “ she did also say it’s bad and unacceptable.

just to add I have left , moved to a new address , and reported him to the police 3 days ago.

I am just wondering if my feelings of anger towards her for thanking me for not reporting all the times I could have were valid or if that’s just a “mothers love”

Yes completely understand this that’s why I’m venting here before I make any decisions to get some views from people who do not know me personally x

It sounds to me like the mother was a victim of abuse and therefore scared of both her son and his father. It doesn't excuse her behaviour at all but it may help you to understand why she was weak - a kind of learned helplessness.

You're incredibly strong to have got away and she probably envies you your strength. A part of her wants to support you but she also fears being left with nothing if she loses her son as well as his father.

It's not good enough though and I'd support you every time if you were my DiL.

Thank you very much 🤍 and thank you everyone for all of your views/ input x

He made it. I didn’t know until he showed me it me after..

She will be mad at you for reporting him, yes.
She will say it is your fault he is facing going to prison and she will lay the blame for hurting your children on to you.

She is wrong, of course, but she will do it anyway. Keep well away from her. She is no friend to you or to your kids. In fact, she’ll prolong the abuse of your kids. She’ll mess with their heads no end.

I hope you can keep your kids away from that entire side of their family for as long as possible.

So?

Abusers have been raised in loving families as well as horribly abusive ones, and all dynamics in between.

I then found it in fab swingers.com because a friend found him on there. I did not give consent for this at all

Isn’t this against the law?

I would sit down and tell him that it had to stop - immediately! I would tell him quite clearly that if it didn't stop then I would be siding with his, hopefully, ex-partner and my grand children.
I absolutely would do everything in my power to support this woman.

Yes I have saved evidence last year when he did it and recorded him admitting it on voice note I reported this to the police too in my report. I didn’t report last year because I stupidly believed he was sorry. A pattern of mine 😥

I am asking if I am wrong to feel that she should have pushed me to report

i am glad you are away from him and i am glad the police are involved. You are wrong to say that of her. Everyone who has ever been involved in this situation as an onlooker, even a related one, knows that (unfortunately) nobody can force a woman in this situation to listen to them and leave. I was a friend in one case and a cousin in another. And in the friend's case i wasn't the only one offering a shoulder, a bed, help with moving and so on and so on. She cut us all out in the end and we have no idea if she survived.

The cousin? blamed so many of us for not "making her leave" that another cousin slapped her in the end and told her in no uncertain terms that we had been offering help and support, but that she wouldn't take it. Years later she apologised for not listening to us and for pushing blame our way.

Every story of DV is different, but often the people who are trying to help are blamed.

We were in a 9 year relationship so when I found out he recorded us I wasn’t too bothered because I trusted him. Of course I didn’t expect that he would post it anywhere

I don’t blame her for not making me leave. That was my bad decision. I feel let down that she didn’t encourage me to report him to the police Instead of thanking me for not reporting him. Knowing he did the same to his ex before me. That is all

As a dv survivor and mother to 3 boys (2 grownup and 1 teen), I would report to the police myself!

No ifs or buts.

He may have learnt the abuse in his own childhood? Was she abused? Was she staying in an be abusive relationship?

You probably don’t know, you don’t need to know. But people respond to abuse both as victims and witnesses in many toxic ways. Trying to figure this out will “just” hold you in a place of anger. It is done now and you can’t change that .

at end of day it was your partner inflicting the abuse. You have shown such determination and strength to get away . Something that many of us take so long to be able to do.

Focus on recovery from his abuse, get serious help in form of treatment for possible complex PTSD . I was messed around for years with standard nhs counselling and CBT type crap. Finally managed to get proper psychotherapy and used a number of techniques like EMDR which have finally got me to a place a can move forward from

dont let these questions eat you up

Yeah I’d cut contact with my son. But so many women wouldn’t because it’s their little darling DS. A significant number of mums with primary school age sons will be the mums of domestic abusers in 20 years time if statistics are anything to go by. I think many people find that thought really scary. But wife-beaters, rapists and perverts aren’t sewer-dwelling monsters. They are all someone’s son, someone’s brother etc. And many of them were raised by loving parents but they still act how they do.

Bloody hell! I would support my DIL in anyway I could.

I’m aghast that another woman (mum or not) would try to minimise this.

I want to make it perfectly clear I am NOT blaming her for him abusing me. I feel let down that she would thank me for hiding it and not reporting it instead of encouraging me to report. You can tell somebody to leave all you want but when you know your own son is a risk to women and has been for 9 years at what point do you decide that the police need to be involved especially when he refuses help by other measures

This is sad but I realise it’s the truth 😢

You're assuming it's mothers' fault, perhaps for spoiling them. Are you also blaming all the women on here who get abused by their own sons for their own predicament? Aside from the fact that maybe they've found it harder than others to set boundaries, possibly as a result of their own upbringing.

OP - wwll done for getting out and good luck to you and your kids.

I would do the same and also be shocked by my son's behaviour.

@Pinkflowersxo did you ever share his behaviour with your own mother?? why did you always tell his mother instead of just leaving??? you cannot put all the blame on her when it was his doing and your accepting that resulted in all this!

I don't think it's her place to 'push you to report it'. The horrific abuse you and your children were suffering should have done that. If you weren't strong enough to leave despite his beatings, would you have responded positively to his mother's pressure on you to report? She also pushed you to leave him but you went back. You were being coerced by an abuser so you weren't making sensible decisions but as an adult these decisions are yours, and can't be laid at her door.

Generally, supporters of dv victims are not advised to push the victim into any course of action. They have to make decisions at their own pace.

I really have to ask. If you as a mother who raises a son , have seen your own sons anger towards you , smashed your own house verbally abused you , his ex left him because he hit her, he met another partner who he physically abused and almost killed multiple times over 9 years. I really wonder how I can be wrong for expecting that instead of thanking me for not telling my family and police that she should have supported me to go to the police. Nobody can make a woman in DV leave I know that but if I had known that she would still support me and we would still have a relationship I may have reported much sooner I didn’t want to let her down. He refuses to admit he has anger problems and isn’t taking any other measures surely for your own sons well being as well you would want the law to get involved because all other measures had been missed. What if I had died all those times. She knew every time. Again this is not to blame her for the abuse but I don’t think I am wrong for feeling let down by her