DV: Advice from someone who turned their R around (so worth it)

[Abitwobblynow]

This is an extract from KIM COOPER's book 'Through the Looking Glass' It is available on download and you search narcissismcured.com The comment at the end is from her now-grown-up husband explaining things from his point of view and what her behaviour did for him.

Step 4. If he is Intimidating Call The Police
Again, when you call the police, don?t expect miracles or be overly emotional with them. If they ask what you want them to do, say, ?I want you to tell him what the consequences will be if he continues to intimidate/threaten/assault me.? If he runs away when the police come, you can still talk to them and make sure it is on record and that he knows you reported it. Still, you need to insist that they talk to him directly about the consequences of his behaviour. While they are talking to you, try to do it out of his earshot but where he can still see you, so he is left wondering what has been said. (Say, ?Can I talk to you over there?? and point to where you want to move the conversation). This is a really important point that the police taught me. One officer talked to me for twenty minutes, leaving Steve waiting where he could see us. He said, ?See, he is wondering now what we are talking about and let him wonder!?
You need to let him know that you will not tolerate emotional or physical intimidation and that he is going to have to deal with the consequences, not you. If you have already gone in to the police and spoken to the head of D.V. (domestic violence) it will help a lot. Just knowing this person?s name will make the police attending respect you better. In my case I got an AVO (apprehended violence order) on Steve (where he could still remain living with us) and this was very worthwhile. This was in Australia and I don?t know if they have something similar where you live but I hope so. Once the order is in place, if he intimidates or hits you again, he will go straight to jail. If he needs to go to jail to see you are serious about this boundary, so be it. You mustn?t try and protect him from the consequences of his bad behaviour.
The court brought us back three times on the assault charge that precipitated the order. I found this frustrating, but in retrospect it was important. Each time they said Steve was not ready and had to prepare better. This taught him that his bad treatment of me was more serious than he had thought. The male judge and police officers in the court room looked very disapproving and that helped too! Many men who mistreat their wives grew up with men who did the same, so Steve seeing these men who were respected and in authority really disapproved of his behaviour was a big wake up call. Their disapproval really sunk in and made a big change in him. The judge also thanked me for my time and even commented how nicely groomed I was. This might have been because I had made the effort to make friends with the police, but whatever reason it was a very good day for me. They made me feel very solid, strong and supported and showed Steve he was on shaky ground.
Some men whose wives assault them do not feel they can get the police to help. If this is your situation, I think it is important that you do. You do not have to play victim in court or with the police, but instead you might want to say that you are concerned about her behaviour and that she needs to learn it is not okay and that you do not want to be forced to restrain her or play policeman in your own home. The truth is that women, just like men, can be very scary and dangerous when they are violent.
The AVO helped us because Steve then knew that if he intimidated, threatened or hurt me again (and in his case one of the provisions of the order was that he could not drink at home or
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come home if he had been drinking) and I decided to call the police, he would be put straight in jail. This was important. He learned that he no longer had the upper hand and was not going to get away with sweet-talking anyone anymore. The power balance was now swinging in my favour.
If you can get a provision like this (that he can?t come home if he has been drinking, or something very easy to prove) in the AVO, it is really good, then it is not about the police taking sides. Once the AVO is in place, if you call and he is at home and has been drinking, he gets locked up, that?s it, no telling stories. He does not have the chance to charm anyone or provoke a fight, or confabulate and confuse things. I would still let Steve drink, but he knew there was a line in place and what would happen if he crossed it.
Fortunately, I never had to have Steve put in jail, but that was only because he knew I would call without hesitation if he ever tried to intimidate me again.
This will be a big disincentive to your partner continuing to disrespect you, but you have to be prepared to go through with it. Again, the only reason I didn?t have to have Steve put in jail was because he saw without a doubt I would do it. This is really important - as threats won?t work, he has to know you mean it, and that will probably involve you having the police over a few times. Don?t call them as a threat or because you are angry, call them if you feel you need protection. The sooner you do this and the calmer you are about it (?Honey, I don?t know how to handle you when you are like this so I think I am going to need to get the police here to talk to you?) the more effective this will be. You might also choose to quietly call first, then explain this, or he may try to stop you.
He might tell you he is not in control of his behaviour, but I am telling you that he only intimidates or puts people down who he thinks are weaker than he is. He?s not insulting big guys in bars, he makes decisions about who he can get away with this behaviour with. You need to become the wrong person for him to pick on.
This was quite troubling for me. The experience of court was horrible. I realised that I had made a terrible mistake and that the law was there to punish me. The D.V. officer from the police explained the terms of my Apprehended Violence Order and they were that I was to obey the terms or be thrown in jail. His words were simple and matter of fact, ?Prison is a tough place to survive.? That was enough for me, but I DID need to be told. Kim was sad the day we went to court, I could see that she was very disappointed that our relationship had come to this, but she kept a brave face and knew she was doing the right thing. This experience I will remember forever, and I cannot ever have my conviction for ?common assault? overturned. Society, through a magistrate, was able to make a statement to me that my behaviour was unacceptable. I had crossed a boundary that I obviously had no respect for. Steve

Good lord. Those screen shots on that article make my blood run cold.

I remember a lot of hideously offensive stuff, and rape 'jokes' staying up on the threads for hours before they were deleted when the MRA fuckwits came onto the feminism section.

The end result was that MNHQ took a 'everyone is welcome' stance and a lot of the feminist regs left.

I know I'm in a minority, but imo it's worth letting bigoted & misinformed posts stand - and replying to them, when we can be bothered. You can hear the same racist, sexist, classist, disablist, etc views down the pub any night of the week.

Rather than supporting the suppression of free speech, I'm in favour of refuting the arguments with common sense and logic. That way we inform other 'listeners' - which isn't possible down the pub.

If all the offensive posts were deleted, the arguments would be one-sided and look like just another bunch of like-minded ranters.

Also, bear in mind that deleting sexist comments would trash a whole lot of threads along the lines of "Men are so useless at ..."!

Ken clearly is trolling, either deliberately or out of sheer numbskullery. But I've seen Mumsnet regulars express similar views, and remain in favour of addressing them for as long as the will remains. If he totally derails a thread, then so what? Start a new one. There's a good DV thread in Feminisim, iirc.

The interesting thing is that since that period when the feminist section got invaded by the MRA types and it spilled over into AIBU etc., I've seen many of the boards on MN become more feminist. Despite the apparent backlash against feminists at the time, I think a lot of people were lurking and taking it in. Looking at some of the posts in Relationships, for example, there are a lot more people now saying things like 'that's unacceptable' or 'leave him' than there ever used to be, while the numbers saying 'oh, men', they can't help it' or 'you're being petty and over-reacting' have markedly decreased.

When you get posts that are almost caricatures of misogyny I think it can be helpful to let them stand. They are frequently so extreme and ridiculous that they fail to be offensive, and often they show fence sitters the logical conclusion of a certain way of thinking, making them more inclined to take the opposing view. It's the more reasoned posts that can cause damage, offense and fear IMO. These combine hatred with clever writing and they are very, very dangerous. Posts specific to certain posters should always be deleted and anyone who clearly comes on to target others or cause a ruck should be banned.

I've asked MNHQ about allowing sexism to stand in this thread sexism

I have gained so much from being part of this site and really do like it, but have been bewildered by their stance on this since the attack on the feminism board.

i find it very difficult to reconcile myself to the fact that mnhq is happy to let hate speech towards minority or disempowered groups stand. it seems to me to be a total denial and disengagement from social responsibility.

the reality is that by the mn rules policy saying, 'you're racist' is a deletable offense whereas, 'people of ethnic group x are all criminals and subnormal' is fine. so if you respond to the latter with the former you're the one who'll get deleted even though you're actually just pointing out a fact by modern day standards - re: stating that all people of an ethnic group share a common, negative trait = racism.

hence someone could come on and say, 'all single mums are dole bludging slappers who need their kids taking away and a good kicking' and that would be fine however if someone turned round and said, ' you are a bigot for saying that' they'd be deleted if reported.

it's a bit of a farce really isn't it and not in keeping at all with the ethics and concerns of our time.

garlic - fair enough but I'd like to see MN treat people equally. If they are going to let racist posts stand, they have to allow anti-racist posts to stand. If they are going to let sexist posts stand, they have to allow anti-sexist posts to stand. No deleting one side of the argument. Current situation is the misogynist goes whining to HQ 'ooh, the nasty women are being horrid to me' and gets posts challenging him deleted, while he's allowed to smear murder victims and claim they deserved it because they were women. Someone who tried to say Stephen Lawrence deserved his horrible fate because he was black would be deleted PDQ.

No double standard - either MN allows posts on either side to stand, or they delete posts from either side. Either they delete BOTH sexism and racism (and other forms of prejudice) or they allow them to stand. No deleting racism but allowing sexism to go unchallenged.

Wot Edam said.

MN's stance on sexism and the Kens of the world, is woeful. What he is posting, is basically hate speech.

But if any of us point out what he is, we are breaking the guidelines.

If they could deal with the Daftpunks of the world, why nnot Kens?

Mind you, they did take months to deal wiht Daftpunk

I just don't know why they have to be so tolerant of this shit. Surely there's a point at which giving someone the benefit of the doubt, is just silly? Why do they feel the need to defend the freedom of hate-filled loons, to free speech? They can bugger off to Comment is Free, they'd fit right in there. Why does mumsnet have to welcome them, why do they fit in with the ethos here?

I have to say, I've never had a post deleted involuntarily before under any name, in all my years on MN.

Is there some sort of handshake?

Mixed over reactions here. Lets clear some things up and do some....

Womansplaining to coin such a term

You know how serial killers have a motive? Well what I Was getting at was men who are deprived of seeing thier children might murder for that reason. with me so far? No? Lets carry on. At no point did I say it was good or funny, nor did I encourage it nor do I think anyone should be murdered or suffer dv

I am dead against it and reported only one post because it accused me of something I never did nor will I ever

Of course, as I type this at this time in The morning on my smartphone I do wonder if it'll make a difference, I'll still be a troll/mysogynist/derailer etc

Think what you will, time to give more helpful advice

Perfectstorm - it's not that hard - just call someone directly a bitch, or a racist, or an unacceptable racist term, or even tell them to F* off and you hope something bad happens to their family. These are all examples of posts I have seen deleted. It got so bad at one point that you only had to call someone a name directly - e.g. Perfectstorm, you are an XYZ (where XYZ is a pejorative term) and that would do you. It's calmed down a bit now, but not much!
It does usually require someone else to report you as well though - MNHQ haven't the time to trawl through all the threads to look for people being abusive towards each other except in the case of a certain fairly recent poster where anything relating to her disappeared VERY QUICKLY INDEED.

kens, at the risk of being accused of being patronising, it was your use of "false claims of DV" that initially got people's backs up. Perhaps if you had even just used inverted commas, thus: "false" claims of DV, it would have saved an awful lot of aggro.
The point is that you appeared to be accepting that wife-murderers were falsely accused of DV - it was inherent in your language usage - when clearly they weren't false claims, as the men then went on to murder their wives/partners/mother of their DC.

what 'motive' do you think serial killers have? really odd example to chose there given that serial killers, by nature, don't really have a motive other than being psychopaths in the main

When a dog bites, a killer kills or a man beats up his wife, there is always a reason that makes perfect sense in the perpetrator's house. Doesn't mean it's a perfectly sensible reason.

I see the sense in looking at motives and ways to prevent them from happening again in the future, but if they are unreasonable motives, this will solve nothing. It is not reasonable to beat up your partner for any reason, nor its it reasonable to murder your X because she won't let you see the children. If the dog bites, it's put down and the killer is put in prison.

you are just not getting it Kens. A man who is likely to murder his partner/ex/mother of his children is not a suitable person to have around small children if he has previously shown violence. Of the men who murder their wives/exes/mothers of their children, exactly how many do you think do that as their first act of violence against her? Pretty damn few, I reckon, if any.

kens if men kill the women in their lives because they don't let them see their children, how come so many men kill the childless women in their lives, or those who do in fact enable regular contact?

I expect there is another reason for them isn't there? Abusive men can always come up with excuses for killing women, because basically, their starting point is that women had better do the hell what men want, otherwise men might kill them.

I hope women reading this understand that any man who ever tries to come up with excuses as to why murderers murder women, is a man they shouldn't be dating or living with, because he is dangerous to women.

And FFS it beggars belief that MN are so blind about this sort of hate-speak. Like so many liberals, they recognise hate speak when it is directed against every other group than women.

That sounds more than a bit threatening. "Let them have the access they demand or they will kill you. And maybe the kids too".

Funny thought - perhaps that mindset is why they some men don't have as much contact as they would like/feel they deserve.

Well if you think I would hand over my DC to someone I thought capable of murder, you'd be very much mistaken. Would you be happy to let your children be cared for by a violent man ken? If so, perhaps a call to SS is in order.

Men who murder their partners/wives, rarely do it in a vacuum. There is normally plenty of episodes of abuse leading up to it. Murder is the end product. Domestic abuse features in 75% of child abuse cases. Research shows that abusive partners pose a substantially increased risk to their children. Ironically, this tends to get worse, not better, as the children age and push more boundaries - again because it's about the perpetrator's desire to control and not about frustration/loss of temper or any of the other shown-to-be-bullshit excuses that these men trot out.

perhaps you could lend your children to murderous men kens - you could run your own pilot scheme.

personally i think if i gave my child to an abusive man in order to avoid being murdered that would make me somewhat less of a parent.

i'm actually baffled that someone can really say and believe what kens is saying. if you don't want to be killed do as your told? it's baffling.

yes basically it's if women just stfu and do whatever men want there'll be no problems. you do get that women and children are people too? not just 'things' for men to do what they want with? and we don't live in a world of might is right on principle hence having a legal system and official channels for dealing with disputes. we also have a prison system for those people who refuse to act within the law and think that getting what they want is far more important than the right's and safety of other people.

Because someones violent then they are a potential murderer? Not at all. Men are usually more violent, so are all men capable if murdering? I guess women are capable too

what a bizarre sidestep. perhaps you could respond to the challenges people have put forward against your view - for example the idea that maybe people capable of murdering their partners aren't good candidates for being left alone with children.