Fearful for my adult son. How do I support him?

[WinterGold]

My 30 YO DS has been in a relationship with a woman for around 2 years.
It’s always been volatile with big bust ups every 3 - 4 months, followed by forgiveness and getting back together. Luckily, they don’t live together or share any assets.

She’s always been quite high maintenance inasmuch as the relationship seems to have been based on her wants and needs rather than his. He’s willingly driven at all times of the day and night to see her, takes her where she wants and is on a substantially higher salary, but happily subsidised her lifestyle as he wanted to be with her - and entirely his choice.

However, she constantly puts him down, tells him he’s lazy and boring, that she could do so much better, that she could have any other man she wanted. She’s accused him in the past of trying it on with his best mate’s GF, has on several occasions got very drunk and screamed and sworn at him in public, so much so that he’s walked out and left her at different venues as she was being so confrontational and she’s also rung his friends and told them that he’s hit her.

Things came to a head on Sunday night. We received a phone call from him saying she had physically attacked him as he was cleaning up his carpet after she had just thrown her glass of red wine at him following yet another row. She also threw a heavy ornament against a wall causing damage and then tipped a whole tub of food into his fish tank which could have killed them. I know this sounds a bit pathetic, but it’s his hobby and he takes great pleasure in it.

Luckily, he called the police as she had punched him repeatedly in the head and scratched his face. How he didn’t retaliate, I don’t know. The police arrested her, and as she was kicking off, had to be restrained, they kept her overnight, took a statement from him and photos of his face - which is an absolute mess. He won’t press charges and she maintained during questioning that he had done it to himself (he has no marks whatsoever on his knuckles) She isn’t being charged but will have to attend a CARA course (?)

My fear is already he’s questioning whether he should have called the police, that if she gets a caution it may affect her application for citizenship (she is a foreign national with pre settlement status) and that would be his fault and he would feel guilty and that when things were good, they were great! A condition of her bail is that she doesn’t contact him, his family or friends or go to his property, but I’m really not sure about his resolve and I truly fear that she has now crossed a threshold that if they renew this relationship, she might actually kill him next time.

How do I support him and be firm without either alienating him or pushing him back into her clutches? He has a very responsible job in which others lives depend on him and he’s very capable in his professional life, but seems to be under some kind of thrall to this woman and in the past, has forgiven her whenever she ‘promises’ it won’t happen again.

Keep him with you for as long as possible, I'd probably book him some very urgent therapy or counselling private if possible to help him understand why he is struggling to walk away and give him tools to make the healthy step to finish it once and for all.

Good luck.

My youngest son had a gf like this. Didn’t want to eat but hosed down vodka and got nasty. Her parents blamed my son for not looking after her. Glad it’s over now. Let some other mug put up with it all

Thank you - that’s sort of it really.

I guess as an adult, my logical head says he has to make his own choices, but if it was my daughter I would be even more frantic - and that’s so wrong, why should female to male abuse be treated any lesser than the other way around?

I'm currently hoping that since the attack, and his friends have all reinforced their same feelings and are united in disgust with her, it might get through what bad news she is and he finally sees the light.

I wonder whether you should encourage him to watch ‘My Wife the abuser’ on Ch 5? Harrowing, but shows how a lovely, lovable man was emotionally coerced and abused for years, even in front of his children. Your DS needs to know that this could be where it ends up and that he deserves better.

Read up on Toxic Bonding. She clearly has servere MH and addiction problems.

Can your DS get some counselling and access DV support.

This is the window of opportunity for his family and friends to now step up and support him - can you let them know? Maybe keep him busy - get him away on holiday.

Please take this very seriously dont let your DS minimise what has happened to him.

Watch these:

https://www.channel5.com/show/my-wife-my-abuser-the-secret-footage - Richard Spencer

NetFlix: My Lover My Killer S3E1 Tai O'Donnell

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0700912/abused-by-my-girlfriend - Alex Skeel

OP, I wonder if he could take some leave from his job and go and stay with family or friends in a different part of the country? Distance might help him to see clearly.

Or, if it's not too wild a suggestion, a retreat in a monastery or spiritual community? (Not a commercial organisation offering retreats.) Somewhere that offers time for contemplation and maybe work such as gardening, with no mobile phones allowed. Just to remove him completely from the situation and give him time and space to think.

I would go and see her face to face and tell her never to come near my son again in VERY STERN terms.
Id let her know you have evidence of all the assaults and that you'll be filing for a restraining order.
Fuxk her citizenship application. If anything id play to her worries on that and reiterate if she goes near him again you'll be contacting the home office.

In the UK it’s not his decision to “press charges”.

he can withdraw his support for the investigation, but if the police have enough for the CPS they can do it without him.

for this exact reason.

i’d phrase it as she has an order not to see him, if she breaks it she will be arrested again and put her citizenship further at risk.

I absolutely love the police to press charges. The officer who has been liaising and updating DS said unfortunately, although she believes him and his version of events, there isn’t enough evidence - which is frustrating as his facial injuries, the damage in his property with the broken wine glass, the splash across the carpet and up the wall and the splats of DS’s blood on the furniture make a pretty telling crime scene.

DS coincidentally has a camera in his kitchen which filmed him calling the emergency services, her snatching the phone mid call and screaming that he’s actually attacked her, the dispatcher telling her to hand the phone back to him and her then telling DS to, “go fuck himself” as he continued with the call. She then headed across the hall into the bathroom to await the police. Just such a shame the camera wasn’t in the lounge.

Does work know?
Does be have any siblings he’s close to?

there isn’t enough evidence - which is frustrating as his facial injuries

photos of his face - which is an absolute mess.

op… she has no wounds whatsoever whereas his face is an “absolute mess” added to which the police would have photographed the damage to his property, which sounds extreme.

and you say the police say there isn’t enough evidence to press charges? Are you sure this is what they’ve said?

Hopefully this might be the straw that broke the camels back and he will take note of everyone's advice around him and not go back!

If you can afford it, get cameras bought and fitted in every room and hallways now.
Also external cameras front and back) if she violates the caution you'll have proof.

If you have his friends number contact them directly so they are aware.

Let him stay with you as long as he wants / encourage it. "Your dad needs a hand doing X at the weekend.if you could stay and help we would really appreciate it"

If you’re getting cameras installed in every room with the intention of recording a guest abusing you…. Then save money in installing expensive equipment, and deny access (or indeed refuse to do any picking them up and bringing them to your property).

Does he live alone or shared?

Abuse isn't so straight forward.

My male cousin was in a terrible situation. There were sadly 2 children involved.

Due to camera footage she was prosecuted, he now has full custody and she's essentially been told to leave the country.

I'd be willing to spend a a few hundred pounds on cameras if it was what helped extract my son/daughter from a situation like this.
Abuse is complicated.

She’s been told to leave the country? So she was here illegally? Not a citizen? She’ll be forced to leave her children?

is this the UK?

DS had his phone on speaker when they called back so I heard what they said.

Apparently, during the interview, she accused DS of hitting himself and causing his own injuries! She admitted the property damage and offered to pay, but DS wants no money from her. The officer took the view that without a witness, it was very difficult to prove.

I do find this disappointing as how many crimes are committed ‘ without a witness’ but evidence is sufficient to convict? DS was the one with the clear claw marks, scratches and bruised eye socket and he has film footage of her walking confidently around and then snatching his phone whilst he is on call to the emergency services. Her demeanour in the footage shows she is confident and feels in control of the situation, whereas he is intimidated enough to call the emergency services.

However, despite her not being charged, she has received a conditional caution and has to attend a
Cautioning and Relationship Abuse course, failure to complete will result in her rearrest. She will also go on some sort of list which will appear if she heeds an enhanced DBS check. There are also bail conditions that she cannot contact either DS, his family or his friends - who incidentally have been brilliant and very supportive to him.

That’s exactly what I’m hoping. His friends are all aware and are also reinforcing the message that she is/was very bad news.

On a sad note, his best mate told me yesterday that DS had said to him, several months ago, “She’s going to destroy me”

Has he been signed off work?
does he live alone or flat share?

He’s told his immediate boss as he had to explain the state of his face when he returned to work, and his sister has been amazingly supportive.

She has seen through GF a long time but like us all, have had to stand back as every time we hoped it was over, several days later they were back together.

No, he’s gone back to work as he felt he needed to get back to ‘normal’ asap.

He lives alone, but is currently staying with us just to get over the shock.

Your poor son, OP. I have nothing new to add, just wanted to say I really hope he can be helped now to keep away from his abuser. I am only too aware of how hard that can be. It's fantastic that he has such good support from friends and family and she hasn't managed to alienate him from them. X

Thank you - truly appreciated.

She’s certainly tried to alienate his friends, but they’ve been incredibly loyal. She accused DS of being unfaithful with one of his mates GFs and she’s told them that he’s hit her on occasions.
She’s under the impression, and proudly told DS that myself and DH absolutely love her, which is so delusional as we certainly haven’t ever felt like that about her. Before all the dramas, we were pretty indifferent and had no feelings about her either way, just accepted her as DS’s choice, so were merely polite and friendly.

Does he have a ring door bell? Have the police given him any other advice to improve his security? Does he have a car or gym etc he goes to regularly?

Can he get a new phone number (but keep his old one to prove she has broken bail conditions)?

Dont assume its over from her part - the stalking and abuse can last for 2 years post break up on average.

This is very hard for you all but you are at a cross roads now due to the escalation and the involvment of outside agencies. Pace yourselves here.

I would be emphasising that if a man did this to a woman, what would his advice be to that woman

And

Impressing on him that he must not make contact with her or see her as that could now cause her to be in more trouble / lose her status.

Mention how lucky it is she didn’t get pregnant as that kind of temper loss would be so damaging for a child…

Support him, don’t criticise her (except for objective observations on the results of her behaviour)

Say how brave he was to call the police, and to realistically think through what could have happened had he not, and she was blaming him.