If you like to make a big deal of how happy your marriage is, does it not worry you that a lot of women are suffering within marriage?

[SolidGoldBrass]

Two women a week are murdered by partners or ex-partners and one in four women will experience domestic violence at some point in their lives.
If you yourself are in a wonderful marriage and like to talk about it and recommend the institution to other women, do you think you might have some responsibility towards those who naively think that love&marriage will solve all their problems and thereby end up in awful abusive relationships?

Yes this is a folow on from the sex work thread, I thought it deserved a thread of its own.

As I said earlier, women who enter into abusive relationships have most likely been trained to accept the abuse from childhood abuse. It's not a choice as such, but treat any child badly enough and they'll accept abuse in relationships as the norm, having had no other experience and lowered self-esteem allows them to believe they deserve or are responsible for the abuse.

But as I said earlier, this can happen in monogamous marriages, open marriages, monogamous unmarried relationships, poly-amorous relationships, whatever permutation you care to choose.

What is wrong with being a women who was nieve as being a reason for entering an abusive relationship Pixie? I find that once women understand why they got into the relationship they realise they were nieve for having done so, there is no shame in that and I don't think it is a good idea for those that have been abused to feel there is shame in it, otherwise they may proportion all blame on the ex partner and be at risk of contining the cycle and if there are children bring them along...

It is ok to have been "naive", I for one had not had many relationships and was in my early twenties when I entered one!

Whenever we make a choice in life, like any decision-making process, we work with the best information we have at the time. Those decisions might turn out to be bad ones, or in the case of "Mr. Wonderful who turned out to be an abuser", might lead us to make new decisions based on the current information available. But is is about choices and to imply people don't have them, is disingenuous.

Very often in unhappy marriages, it is helpful for the miserable party to think: "What is stopping me from making a different choice?" and "What am I getting from my choice to stay?" or "What do I fear from my decision to leave, what perceived losses will I incur?"

I was in a desperately abusive marriage and count myself very lucky to have escaped alive.

I'm now in a very happy marriage for which I thank my lucky stars every day.

I would recommend the institution of HAPPY marriage to anyone. Personally though, I dont take a single shred of responsibility for anyone else's abusive marriage in much the same way I dont apportion the responsibility for my previous abusive marriage with anyone who at any point ever put forward a positive view of marriage.

'I feel no repponsibility for anyone unlucky/lacking in self esteem/stupid enough to be choose a bad husband', which struck me as extremely lacking in sisterhood.'

Well, I really don't think people choose abuse (in tha main): most choose someone they consider rather nice who turns out to be an abuser. There's a difference.

I've never suggested anyone should be married as far as I recall but my marriage and my willingness to say this works for us is not responsible for that, the abuser is in entirety. basic decency means I support refuges, help friends (As best I can, they won't always be helped ) who have wankier partners, but that's becuase it's what a decent person does rather than an acceptance of my responsibility.

It's quite possible to be part of a supportive sisterhood without denigrating my own set up.

Dizietsma, i don't know if what you state is fact, however i agree for me the childhood emotional abuse (which I was not fully aware I had gone through as it seemed normal to me) was a factor for me, I still believe that there was a choice, for example when I had funny feelings I ignored (gut feelings) and I could have gone to have counselling, I chose to keep going in my life as it was, I then had a choice after divorce to get counselling or do as many do and go and repeat the same sort of relationship with a different person, I chose not to do that!

According to the Millennium Cohort Study, the parents of a child are five times more likely to split up in the first three years of a child?s life if they are cohabiting than if they are married. They are twelve times more likely to split up if they regard themselves as ?closely involved? than if they are married.

'But is is about choices and to imply people don't have them, is disingenuous.

But it's not a proper choice is it? Not as in 'I choose to be with an abuser'. You choose the nice man that turns you on, has similar moral codes and is a laugh.

The significant choice should they then abuse is what to do: it's then that a choice can be classed as good or bad, in the sense that the term good choice or bad choice implies a certain level of either chastisement or congratulation which is silly to attribute to such a situation.

Choices are only truly so when you are in possesion of a full set of facts. And in fact it is IMO very clearly important that we clarify this becuase it's linked to the shame that make so many women feel they cannot admit what is happening or feel themselves to be at fault. A horrid cycle that leads women to stay in relationships that palce them (and possible their children and extended family) in danger.

We shouldn;t be teaching blame, or anything that allows people who probably are a bit vulnerable anyway to extract responsibility from. We should be teaching an absolute of no person has a right to harm you or abuse you in anyway and if they do so they have broken teh relationship and you have the right to leave and seek whatever help that entails free of guilt and shame.

Agreed, I don't think anyone 'chooses' abuse either - and I am coming out of an unpleasant marriage.

However, judging from this thread a lot of people do.

My point was that the institution of marriage has the potential to be oppressive. In part - by society in general making all women feel that they should be married, and should accept anything bad that happens within it because it is better than being single. I think for the the 'lack of sisterhood' is in part not acknowledging these pressures when discussing marriage.

Which is a recurrent theme accross I come accross in RL and to extent on MN too.

Sancti, the thing is we know hitting is wrong, where is the education about emotional abuse, it goes on continually, I see it so much in RL and here on mn, people are not aware they are abusive to one another and what is respectful and not, they are unwritten rules sometimes!

"We shouldn;t be teaching blame, or anything that allows people who probably are a bit vulnerable anyway to extract responsibility from. We should be teaching an absolute of no person has a right to harm you or abuse you in anyway and if they do so they have broken teh relationship and you have the right to leave and seek whatever help that entails free of guilt and shame."

... exactly...

Agree with wubbly and as ever WWIFN - SGB I understand where you are coming from on this thread, however are your points coming from the book 'wifework'?

Don't forget it is easy to log the criticisms and the negatives much more than the positives - you could argue that all 'happy' relationships between men and women create problems for everyone else trying to aspire to the 'normality' - and yet relationships come in all shapes and sizes.

It's almost back to the thread is sex a commodity? Or a service? Begs the personal question what do you get from sex SGB and why do you have sex? For many reasons I should think.

Yes MH, I do apportion all blame on my abusive ex!

Abusive men don't generally punch you in the face on the first date. It's much more subtle than that, otherwise we'd all run off as fast as our legs could carry us.

I didn't have low self esteem when I entered the relationship, though I certainly did by the time I left it. I've never repeated the pattern.

I agree with Pixie. Any woman can find herself in that situation. I wasn't abused and I'd never witnessed domestic violence.

LA: I've read Wifework though it was years ago and agree with a lot of it.
Sex is basically sex It can be a commodity or service, or it can be shared mutual pleasure, or a bonding ritual - or it can be a compulsion, or a weapon, and of course it can also be procreative.

wubbly of course they charm to begin with, did you not see any red flags or warning signs that you ignored, when looking back after leaving the relationship?

MH yes it does go on continually, but you know I think emotional abuse is very much a owrk in progress.

Now, I relailse I come from The Sticks but when I was a kid, there were no sibgle mum's: or at elast only one, and she was a widow. So going from there to people feeling entirely confortable with themselves enough to trust their own instinct and sense of when something is harmful is going to take a while and a learning curve.

What i woudl teach my kids (boys, but boys can be vulnerable too and it's the same message) is that if someone makes you feel bad about yourself then you need to know that you can be happier without that and have a rewarding and enjoyable life in or out of a relationship, but that if youa re with someone who treats you poorly you will always be betetr off alone, once the ending it thing has passed.

It's partly related but I don;t think anyone ever told DH that (well, MIL has her own ways of being abusive) and as recetly as yesterday we had the discussion and that led (entirely his choice; I suggested he delay teh decision for a few days) to him deleting a so-called mate from facebook becuase the bloke only ever posted negatiove things about DH and when he saw DH in public blanked himj quite embarassingly. We live in a culture where we are told that friends are all, a relationship is all, our value is ascribed by who cares for us.... fotr some reason some people fail top cotton on that the word 'positive' needs to be inserted in each relationship to qualify.

Yes Sancti this is exactly what I was saying. That initial choice was made with the best information available at the time, i.e. "S/he was wonderful then.....but s/he isn't now"

Any abusive tendencies are not seen or perhaps shown before that initial choice was made. I think often, with the wonderful benefit of hindsight, age and wisdom, people can look back and see that some signs were definitely there, but no-one should blame themselves for making a choice based on what they believed at the time. And the abuse is completely the fault of the abuser.

Sorry, not gone past the OP, which makes NO SENSE.

Why on earth should you feel responsible for saying marriage is great if it is for you? It's not like recommending a brand of car that turns out to be crap.

Sorry MH, my last post came across rather harshly.

In hindsight, yes, there were red flags. I was 15, it was my first relationship, so I probably was naive in that sense.

I could not agree more with you Sancti about a relationship needing to be positive, the thing is I would say despite all the control and emotional abuse that i was not despirately unhappy in my marriage, maybe one day I would have woken up and seen it for what it was, I had a family and children and a life invested in that marriage and I loved him, he was like many abusers he had a good side to him and still does, i concentrated on that during the marriage, the bad in him after and now I see him as a whole and myself good and bad as a whole, I would be in that marriage now I believe if he did not leave me, I was ok with being controlled, scary as that is to me now, I was ok hiding behind it and being told I was bad at xyz, that was a choice, be it a hangover from childhood or not, I was with him long enough to have two babies etc... I was so concerned about the fact I was like that I went for therapy, all the can find wrong with me is a low self esteem and recovering from abuse, anxiety and depression as a reactive, no personality disorder or anything as I was scared there was something wrong with me!

You were very young wubbly, you have some valuable lessons now as do I, painfull though they were learned, we all live and learn as whenwillifeelnormal states, hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Personally, I'm not too bothered about marriage (for real, not just saying that) - It never really crosses my mind. If DP asked me I would say yes I suppose. I think if you co-habit with someone and have a child together then it's no different than being married unless you are talking finances etc. Call me extremely cynical, but marriage to me is really for protecting the financial interests of the stay-at-home or part-time working parent. If I were not financially self-sufficient I would probably get married for that reason only. God, that makes me sound extremely hard and cynical, I'm not really, I'm actually quite a romantic at heart . I certainly don't agree that my kids suffer for us not being married - the suggestion of that makes me .

Re- abuse etc, I think the media and marketing have a lot to do with perpetrating the 'happy married' image and the pressure to get married is quite high. Also, some women have the idea that marriage will 'change' an abusive man (not the case) or will do anything other than be alone. This is but not the fault of the happily-married IMO.

I think marriage is not suited to everybody anyway, regardless of the perceptions of society.

I whole-heartedly agree with SGB on the Sex-Work side of things, but this is a different thread.

Everyone experiences things differently, there is no 'universal' norm. Every marriage is different, every sex-Worker is different (I'm not comparing marriage to sex work there btw) - that's what makes us unique.

I thought 'wifework' was a very interesting read - although I did wonder how objective/subjective it was as I think the author (Susan Maushart?) was obviously affected by her own marriage(s).

I don't equate my own marriage with legalised prostitution although I will admit that when I was a SAHM and not doing paid work I think I did question my 'value' for a small period of time until I realised just how important a parent role is (which unfortunately is still not recognised by some - more fool them).If you wanted to class me as financially dependant on my husband at the time - the same could also be said that my husband was equally financially dependant on me as the sole childcarer for a large proportion of his working time.

I certainly don't go around encouraging people to marry. I think I tend to comment a lot with my own friends and family that you can't make assumptions about anybody's relationship based on what you observe?

I think the difference with this thread and the other one is that the 'happy hookers' seem so desperate to get across how happy they are in order to prove how far removed they are from the 'unhappy hookers'.

mummiehunnie I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with a woman being naive about the situation, just that it's wrong to assume that everybody who enters a relationship which ends up abusive has to be a 'naive person'. It's like saying you have to have some kind of personality 'flaw' to end up in a bad relationship, which is just not the case, and puts the blame partly on the woman, when its 100% the fault of the abuser.

I am in no way 'looking down' on naive women. I suppose every woman who gets out of an abusive relationship in one piece (myself included) can look back and say that she was naive at some point in the relationship when she should have walked away, but then its always easy to see where it all wrong in retrospect.

pixie xxx