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

garlic, if mine was deleted, then yours will go too

If someone came on and made racist comments about black murder victims, saying they deserved it because they were black, that post would be deleted, and quite right too.

Yet a man comes on here and says victims of domestic violence deserve to die - and not only are his posts allowed to stand, people who dare to object to them are deleted! FGS, what on earth is going on?

well can i say he was talking a load of shit or will i be deleted?

Dunno, blackout. He was talking a pile of shit. But can you say it?
Hmmm

Women stay in relationships with abusive men because abuse has ground them down so badly that they don't have the self-belief or self-esteem to leave. They also stay because leaving means facing up to the fact that the whole relationship was a lie; that that man is incapable of love, that he lied when he said it would change, and that every minute and every scrap of love was and is wasted. They also stay because the most dangerous time for any woman in an abusive relationship is when she leaves. That's when she is most likely to be killed, because she has finally escaped the controlling fuck's clutches.

It is always worth leaving. There are lovely, decent, kind, interesting, funny, loyal faithful men out there who will treat you as the best friend and dearly loved family member you have every right to be. It took me years, but you know what? I got there. Now been married to an amazingly lovely man for 7 years, have a beautiful son together. All I regret is not leaving the piece of shit I wasted five previous years on. Thank God I didn't take your vile, self-interested excuses and stay. He's abusing someone else, now (he was abusing her as his bit on the side when we were together; poor cow's been sleeping with him now since 1994 when she was only 17 years old. He's still treating her like shit, so I hear.)

Your whole argument is that the woman can control an abusive man if she just behaves in the exact precisely right way at all times. Newsflash: abuse fucks you up. You can't think straight at the best of times, so how in the name of all that is sane can you know the precise right thing to do at all moments to avoid being beaten like a carpet? The guy in question will not allow you to control the situation because that's the whole fucking POINT. He doesn't want that and will go to any and all lengths to achieve it! What you recommend is a sick, co-dependent dance in which the abused party takes responsiblity for the abuser's conduct, because hey, if she does X, Y or Z he won't abuse her! So she has this smidgeon of hope that she will win the Euromillions of relationships and the Bodysnatchers will arrive when she's asleep and replace her abusive, fucked up, psychotic waste of oxygen with Prince Fucking Charming.

I'm not sure if you're just incredibly stupid, or an abusive man seeking to find some way to place responsibility for what you do onto the woman in the equation through indirect, thinly-veiled means. It doesn't really matter. The basic fact is you are talking arrant and total nonsense.

"If someone came on and made racist comments about black murder victims, saying they deserved it because they were black, that post would be deleted, and quite right too.

Yet a man comes on here and says victims of domestic violence deserve to die - and not only are his posts allowed to stand, people who dare to object to them are deleted! FGS, what on earth is going on?"

Thank you.

I'll never understand why misogyny is not seen as equivalent to racism. People rightly campaigned virulently against apartheid, but Saudi is a favoured trading partner.

I just love the idea that a man can be violent in a relationship, but apart from occasionally hitting his partner is kind, considerate, respectful and treats her as an equal individual. I mean, such creatures must exist, mustn't they? Or the woman in the OP wouldn't have thought it a good thing to stay with 'Steve' would she? Or are there special police that you can phone if your hubby puts you down, calls you names and stops you seeing your friends? I assume there must be, because that would be the only way he would be restrained from stepping over yet another line.

I suppose there ARE people who are sufficiently shamed by one involvement with the police and court systems to take a look at themselves and stop their violent behaviour; but I'm quite sure they're in the minority.

And I am a bit over the person in the book's blind faith that the AVO would be as effective as she thinks - I have had personal (well, family but my family) involvement with AVOs and quite frankly they're not necessarily as effective as some people might like to think. My BIL has had AVOs out on him for nearly 2 1/2 years, well more than one to be honest; he's also supposed to have been on a Good Behaviour Bond, which is even stricter than an AVO and means he doesn't have to breach the AVO to go to jail, he just has to do something bad anywhere that involves the police.
Has he been to jail? No.
Has he breached the AVOs and the good behaviour bond? Yes.
Is he violent? Yes, when he's been drinking.
Is he a drinker? Yes.
Has he stopped drinking? not as far as we know.
Is he guilty of DV? not quite - but it was only a matter of time before he hit his mum, he's come bloody close!

Did the first AVO bring him to his senses? Did it fuck.
However - one point in the AVO/police's favour - they insisted on pushing the AVO through because our under-2yo was on the premises when he kicked off, despite DH and his mum trying to withdraw the complaint. SO - perhaps they would be more rigorous where small children are involved, I'd like to think so.

When I was starting to get my head around the fact that my X was abusing me (not physically at this point) I browsed the internet looking for material that would validate my unwillingness to leave because I was a heavily pregnant women with nowhere to go. I didn't have trouble finding it. Stuff like this is dangerous! I wised up anyway but many won't.

Love the idea that infidelity is an excuse for murder. Given that infidelity is much higher among men than women (given research stats) you'd expect more men than women to be murdered surely? How come then that the rate (based on available figures from the Home Office) is 4x as many women as men who are murdered? And the flawed logic of 'false' allegations of DV (ending up in murder) is just laughable.

Hmmm... I don't recall saying dv victims deserve it, no one deserves abuse (including posting on MN). If you read my posts you would see what I was getting at

From Ken: Not to sound like an MRA but if you asked all this men why they killed their partner/ex-partner, you could bet many reasons would involve false dv allegations, unfair divorce asset splits and child custody disputes

If it's not an excuse, why bother giving a reason? The only purpose of giving a reason is to justify something.

Actually ken, maybe I'm being a bit unfair on you. It's always worth exploring the reasons for someone's behaviour as it can help us prevent it in the future. The problem you're making is in thinking that this means a victim can use that knowledge to stop abuse in her current relationship. She can't. The only thing we can say with any certainty from research into abusers is that the vast majority of them do not change.

That is the abusers justification. It's still wrong either way, but usually reasons as given. I still stand by my point that numbers will drop if you made custody and divorce fairer

Fair enough. That isn't something that can be helped in a current situation, I agree. We can definately learn from those reasons, though by now it seems too little too late

your point is not clear ken - you are talking about men who actually murdered women - them being murderers kind of makes it likely that there was dv and the woman was very right to be disputing him having custody what with him being a potential murderer and all.

very many people can go through all sorts of conflict and sense of injustice without actually killing anyone. being the sort of person who is willing to kill someone for not giving you your own way makes you a very good candidate for lifetime imprisonment and a very poor candidate for being given custody of the children.

I'd say you're missing the point. If custody and divorce were made 'fairer' I think you'd find that the abuser simply found another justification. You're either the sort of person who thinks it's ok to abuse or murder someone because you're not getting what you want or you're not.

My XP has little interest in our DC and pays no maintenance. Strangely enough though I feel no need to murder him.

You know that abuse features in 75% of child abuse cases don't you? Are you aware of the increasing body of research that shows that men who abuse their partners pose a significantly increased risk to their children even after separation? Any man who ends up killing his partner/ex-partner is almost certain to have exhibited abusive behaviour beforehand - most of the cases of family annihilators in the press turn up this little fact after some investigation. If anything, abuse is a damn good reason to prevent contact, not grant more of it in the interest of fairness to the abuser.

you seem to be recommending that giving a potential murderer custody of his children would stop him murdering their mother. doesn't sound awfully good for the children does it? surely it would be better to use the law against psychopaths rather than give them children?

Hence contact centres etc. I'm in no way defending people that do this kind of thing, nor is it properly justified. It would be hard to tell if someone actually is a potential murderer. Surely though if you eliminate the cause the figures would drop

Surely though if you eliminate the cause the figures would drop

Ho do you not see that this statement is, in itself, apologist tosh? The cause is that the murderer is predisposed to murder. They are capable of such violence that they would take someones life. Christ almighty!

You'd be amazed how many violent men who must not have unsupervised contact simply cannot be arsed to turn up to contact centres, parenting courses and various other support systems put on place to facilitate contact with the children they claim to live so desperately.

Actually I think out of this thread only ken would be amazed. No one else would.

You're wrong. I'm not amazed by it as it's not uncommon. It's not like all men do that though

And not all men are violent shits. But there is no excuse for the ones that are.

No, not all men do that. I don't think I said they do. However, an awful lot of violent men, men whose only real interest in their children stems from a desire to use them to control their ex spouse, do behave like that. And those are the men you advocate should be given "fairer" contact arrangements so they don't murder their exes.

Seriously, have a word with yourself
Ken.