Marrying an abusive partner.

[thefinerthingsinlife]

Ok I have been posting in Feminism/womens rights about this and one of the lovely ladys over there reconmended posting it here.

I'm sort of posting on behalf of my sil, she is in an abusive relationship, but wont pist on here herself as in her eyes its not 'proper' abuse. So I intend on showing her your responses.

Brief discription of the relationship

My sil is 29

She has been in the relationship for 4 years. She jumped straight from one relationship into this one. She meet him on the internet and move 100's of miles to live with him.

We found out 6 months(roughly) he has hit her a couple of times and is regularly verbally abusive to her on a daily bases.

She works full time to pay the bills and he does not work.

A few month ago it reached a head and she had enough of the abuse and left, and was temparaily staying with a friend my dh and I were going to travel and get her, she told us she quit her job and was all set to move back down. However just before we were leaving she rang and said i'm staying up here. Dh asked if she had got back with the boyfriend and she said no.

It turns out she had got back with him and was back living with him.

Her parents are very pro-marriage and are encouraging her to marry him as that will help 'fix' there relationship. And they keep asking her about when they are going to have babies.

She thinks this guy is her last chance to get married and have a family, a thought that is reinforced by her parents.

I have tried everything to make her see but she has no self confidence and can comprihend that she can not rely on others for her happiness, and that she needs to love herself before anyone else can.

Please her her see that she doesn't have to stay in an abusive relationship and she most definately shopuldn't marry him/have children with him

YOu could get her the Lundy Bancroft and Patricia Evans books?

She's a prime target for an abuser like this man as her innate sense of self worth and self esteem is so low and likely has been so for many years. Jumping from one relationship into another without any break is also a bad sign. She's a magnet for bad guys, my guess too is that she has never had a healthy and functional relationship with any man. She is herself not an emotionally healthy functioning adult.

Of course she should not marry him or have children by him. Getting married to him will make her a battered wife, do her parents really want this for her?.

How does she feel about him not working, what's her opinion on that?.

Unfortunately you may not be able to get her to see sense because she is herself in denial even by showing her responses on this page.

She needs to talk to Womens Aid and listen to what they have to say. If there is a Freedom programme in her area she ought to attend that as well.

Her parents know about the abuse but they have the mantra that he is a good christian man and marriage will help calm him down.

When ever him not work is brought up he is very defencive, i expected her to be like that. She claims he is looking for work, but he's been looking for the last 4 years.

Your right about her not having healthy relationships, all the men she has been with have been controlling.

I have given her womens aids number but she wont ring because she will be 'wasting their time'

katisha i will look for those books at the weekend thank you

Does she want to be a child abuser? because if she marries him and has a child with him in all likelehood that is what she will become. If you collude with a man in the abuse of children then you are no better than him.

How will her children be abused? By being subjected to his behaviour towards their mother and, after a while, probably towards themselves. If he is so damaged that he doesn't know how to treat the one person he is supposed to love and respect and protect properly what kind of a father will he make?

Does she want to have children who will grow up to either be boys who behave like their father, to hate and hurt women? or girls who expect to be treated like shit by men and endure a liftetime of abuse like she will?

That's the path she is setting herself and her unborn children on, by choosing to marry him.

And as for fixing the relationship? Firstly having children doesn't fix relationships - it magnifies problems a thousandfold, even in relationships that are not dysfunctional.

Secondly, when an abused woman gets pregnant she is usually in for a big shock - the extra vulnerability and the fact that she is now "trapped" usually gives the thug she is with the opportunity to ratchet up the abuse to whole new levels of evil. I mean - what's she going to do about it? go off with another man? and her pregnant? no chance!

Could she really stand there and take vows with a man who she actually knows will treat her like shit for the rest of her life? Why does she think so little of herself? Would she want her own daughter to do that?

Your friend has a choice - swallow a bit of pride and tell her parents it didn't work out, and ok accept the embarrasment of admitting that she got it wrong AGAIN but for God's sake how much worse is the alternative?

Isn't it a small price to pay for the chance to find a man who will treat her with love? and raise their children in a happy home? She has years and years left to find herself and find a good man.

One last thing - he will NEVER change - he will only get worse and worse and she will get sadder and more downtrodden and lonely.

She should picture those for her wedding vows

him: I promise to take my anger out on you, hit you and abuse you whenever I feel like it 'til death (or another woman) do us part

her: I promise to love you and be downtrodden by you until our children grow up to repeat the pattern.

get out now while you still can.

Your best bet is Amazon

here and here

I'm not sure what you can do except to be there to pick up the pieces when it all goes wrong. You could tell her a few facts though:

1. Abuse almost ALWAYS escalates
2. Abuse almost ALWAYS gets worse when the woman gets pregnant.
3. An abusive man will almost ALWAYS be abusive to his children in some way.
4. A woman has to be abused on average 30 times before she will report her partner to the police

It's hugely selfish to stay in an abusive relationship and to bring children into it as well for your own 'happiness'

I only know this because I was in an abusive relationship - physical violence and emotional/verbal abuse as well. I also downplayed it, and also tried to bring children into the world (sadly I miscarried twice, although now it seems a blessing in disguise). I took my exceedingly supportive parents and friends to pry me away from the tosser, but now I'm away it is crystal clear that I should have left the very first time he hit me.

print this and give it to her

Your all so fab, I just want her to see she deserves so so much better. It's absolutely heartbreaking hearing her defend him

i love that link MOTN.

In what was does hitting your partner connect with being a good christian? He cannot promise to honour her when they get married as he clearly doesn't.

Has her brother/your DH (I presume) talked to her about it? He might be able to help her see that he is on her side despite having the same upbringing.

Her parents are allowing their child to be hurt and abused. Beggars believe .

Their parents believe that the fact that he's a "good" christian negates the fact that he's an abusive twunt.

Yes my dh is her brother, he's spent hours and hours on the phone to her, she know that we (dh and I) would do anything to keep her safe. My dh is deversated by it and has had many an argument with their parents because of it

I know convent

good christian = batters wife behind closed doors but goes to church

her parents' hypocritical religious sensibilities need to be the very last of her worries right now.

later, when she has been abused for 5 years and has 3 permanently traumatised kids with behavioural problems her parents will probably tell her its too late to leave him now that they have kids and that she shouldn't have married him in the first place.

marriage will calm him down indeed! That statement is one of the stupidest I have ever heard. Marriage will only cement his sense of entitlement to conduct himself like a domestic thug and enable him to be much worse.

belief not believe

I bet you are right about what the parents will say msboogie.

She has no commitment to him now. She can just walk away and never need see the bastard again.

I think you mentioned on the other thread that she blames herself for him hitting her?

Msboogie I know, i've told her and told her that if he was a good christian he would not be abusing her.

and if he was a good man he would protect her and make her feel like she was the most amazing women in the world world. Not make her feel worthless

Yes elephant, she thinks it's her fault he hits her because she is rude to him!

Her exact words to dh was 'well you know what i'm'

and when dh rung mil, she said exactly the same

if it helps, one of the key reasons I stayed with my abusive XP was because my whole life was tied up with his, and because at age 31 I thought that I didn't want to throw away the investment I'd made in the relationship, and because I was also scared I wouldn't get another chance to start a family.

Wanting a family, and feeling like this is your only chance is a VERY powerful motivator to stay, even if it is ridiculous.

I only really let go of the relationship when I went to see a counsellor, who quite correctly told me I didn't need to start worrying about not being able to have children for at least the next 10 years! It was massively reassuring, and without that added pressure it was much easier to let go of the relationship.

As Elephant says, she could walk away now...and not look back.

But what will probably happen is she'll marry him in the hope he'll settle down, she'll have children in the hope that it will calm him down, she'll walk on eggshells for the rest of her life in the hope of not upsetting him...and yes by then she'll have two or three terrified and damaged little babes.

sorry it meant to say "you know what i'm like"

My sil has alot of issues from growning up and I think that contributes to all of this

"Her parents know about the abuse but they have the mantra that he is a good christian man and marriage will help calm him down."

What lovely parents to have! No wonder her self esteem is rock bottom. These are your PILs, right? Ugh.

Argh, I am so incensed by that utter bollocks I can't even write more. She should get out now, never have DC with him, he'll probably belt them to "knock the devil out of them", what a FUCKING stupid thing to say!!! (the parents, not you) Sorry for swearing in caps, I am SO .

I am also outraged at your PIL's attitude. My parents are over-religious bible-bashing types who think that marriage is the be-all and end-all. Even they would never want me to marry and abusive git.

They would also not call him a good Christian. A good christian does not beat people up.

How is getting married going to calm him down? they've been together FOUR YEARS - marriage is a piece of paper, not an altered spiritual state of enlightenment or something.

Yes unfortantly my pils, they have a very warped view on life.