False accusations of domestic violence (long, sorry!)

[ebmummy]

Grr, just spent 30 minutes typing this out, only to lose it all!

Ok, so I have a dear friend who I have known for 25+ years (since we were 5!). I was his lodger throughout his 3 year marriage to his wife until his divorce in 2009. Basically he had an arranged marriage with his woman in India (he's Hindu). She was a complete bitch, really nasty to him, me and my dbf (now dh). She hit him and was physically, verbally and emotionally abusive. On one occasion, she was so unhinged I taped the incident on my phone and called the Police, but nothing was done cos he wouldn't press charges).

Long story short, she started pilphering their joint account (he was the only one who worked), and moved in with another fella. She also stole items from the house (including from me) and left. He filed for divorce, and Immigration tried to deport her (she was on a marriage visa) but she claimed domestic violence. She thus allowed to stay, despite the fact she couldn't prove it, HE could. And as I was there all the time (studying for my PhD), I could verify he was never violent towards her (he's the kindest gentlest guy I know, apart from DH!)

Anyway since then she's been going around his close tight-knit community saying he's impotent, he's not a man, that he stole her gold (he managed to hold onto some of the gold that HIS family gave to them as gifts for their wedding). He wants to meet someone new, but can't cos of the mud-slinging (he's married the guy she moved in with btw). Is there anything he can do? Obviously he's a long-time dear friend and want to see him happy as well as DH and I being fed-up of him moping around our house every weekend cos of what this spiteful woman is doing

what were the arguments about ebmummy - for instance the saucepan incident you filmed - what was going on prior to this - what were they arguing about?

as awful as the dv business is now that it is over do you try to support him in becoming more... adult? autonomous? true to his feelings? because as math says he is still the same man who dumped his love for his mummy isn't he? and is now being passive to all that is going on with this woman instead of taking action by going to the police or drawing a line and ignoring her and moving on with his life?

given he doesn't want to act on the dv or go to the police about what could be harassment that is done isn't it? nothing you can do for him if he has made that choice? so how are you supporting him in moving on and becoming a stronger person who will make and stand by his own feelings and relationships etc? i think that is where you may be able to focus in order to move forward and help him do the same because the past is gone and he's choosing not to go to the police about it so as much as we could all talk about it it's actually none of your or our business - he has made his choice.

OPs account of the immigration applications made by the XW does not square with my professional experience- I worked for three years as an immigration and asylum practitioner. Domestic violence applications are spectacularly, notoriously difficult to prove. I have never yet heard of one that was successful on DV grounds, with no evidence. The Home Office usually want absolutely fuckloads. This is not to say that OP is necessarily lying, of course, but I highly doubt we've heard everything. There are a few other things that don't make sense either: for example spousal visas are 2 years not 3, and the terminology being used isn't correct either, but I suspect that's just down to the fact that a layman's doing the explaining. Whichever way you cut the cake though, the suggestion that a DV application with no evidence was successful is very surprising.

What I mean by that last bit is that i didn't just look through the account for reasons to pull it apart- I actually rationalised away most of the issues with it and tried to think of possible explanations.

flang I honestly don't know the legal terminology. He took out an injunction in March, her deportation papers arrived in May, and the court case was in September. She was married by the following April (I don't know when their divorce came through). Without outing myself, she'd said stuff like he wouldn't let her wear make-up, he wouldn't let her have long nails etc. I was asked whether this was true and it wasn't.

Brb (at work)

Right, the thing is that if it's just her word and nothing else, the odds of a DV application succeeding are incredibly low. I've never ever heard of this, and did have some specific training on the issue and encounter it in practice, so I'm not just theorising. I know of a case where a GP report wasn't considered sufficient, for example, as all it consisted of was confirming that a woman had visited her doctor and disclosed what had happened. This is what makes me think there's got to be something you're not mentioning, possibly because you don't know it. I wondered if the hearing had happened after she got married again (based on the timeframe you give, she'd have needed a Certificate of Approval to marry- surprising but not impossible that she got one) and she'd actually been successful on the grounds of private and family life, not DV. But if she got married after that, obviously not.

Sounds like they got their divorce pretty quickly too, if he was contesting the things she said about him.

Let's be honest, Math is a misandrist. Regardless of whether certain feminists regard "misandrist" as a real word, it perfectly describes someone who will look for the innocence in any woman and the guilt in any man. She is also showing a shocking lack of cultural awareness. I have been friends with several anglicised asians who are horribly torn between two cultures. A good friend of mine married an English girl and his entire family refused to attend his wedding and have only semi reconciled now two children later, so the consequences to some asians of ignoring parental pressure are not small and it does not make the OP's friend weak or unworthy of sympathy.

Let's look at the actual problem. This guy was hte victim of betrayal and domestic violence and is now being slandered post split up. As to the answer, though, that is a lot harder. There are two roads for him to take. He could move away and start afresh within a new community that would not know his past or be able to be influenced by his ex or he could fight back, going to the police and trying to get an order to keep him away and not to allow him to spread rumours about him and also telling his side of the story to as many as are willing to hear it. The OP could help in this by strongly backing him up and also maybe introducing him to her female friends as someone who has had a tough time of it and is now being slandered.

fb didn't add up to me either - i really can't see a deportation order of someone who was only here on a spousal visa being overturned because she said he wouldn't let her wear make up.

btw did the 40 witnesses bit strike you as odd or have you heard of that before?

But the op said the dv accusation was thrown out of court and the female proven a liar. The only reason she is still in the country is that she married the new guy, otherwise she would have been deported, no? Have I read this wrong, or is the op unjustifiably being called out again?

Math has always struck me as a realist Larry

'I cannot see how you think getting shouted at, and hit and having things thrown would be be 'the making of' someone!'

Neither can I.

That is why I didn't say all of that might be the making of him. [duh]

What I suggested was that allowing him to sort it out himself might have made him decide to take the driving seat in his own life. As SAF says, he is still a very passive person, and my guess is he will go through it all again until he learns how to deal with it himself. It happens to women too.

('Let's look at the actual problem.' -- loving the usual mansplaining...) My own Asian relatives have never been anything but lovely to the Irish side of their family, Larry.

Sorry back so late. Was at work (hate it when it gets in the way of MN!)..

flange she got married after the DV accusation. F's lawyer said she was trying to avoid deportation, and it was common. I don't know how true this is.. I would love to help tell you exactly what it was, but don't particularly want to ring df and ask him for risk of dredging up the past..

Math, YOU said it dealing with dv alone might have been 'the making of him'. One of your posts has been deleted. But Lil saw it too-she has also quoted you on the previous page. WHy not stand by your statements with conviction instead of denying you said them?

swallowed, I'm not trying to make him go to the Police now. What would be the point? As you said, it is done. In fact we have very rarely discussed this topic since 2009, but df has gotten increasingly depressed lately due to the fact she has been badmouthing him (mainly that he still has her gold). I have advised him that he might consider counselling (sp?) as he now needs help that none of us can give him.

I didn't say dv was potentially 'the making of him'. I said, as I think SAF clarified, that through acknowledging it in his own time and dealing with it he could have started looking at what he valued in relationships, starting with the one he was involved in (just as pretty much everyone who is involved in a relationship that involves dv must do) and as I said, he might then have taken the wheel -- either way he would have emerged a stronger person, but if you like him the way he is, quite passive, unhappy or even depressed, emotionally dependent on you and your DH, and spending his weekends ruining yours, then fine.

He has needed help that you could not give him right from the start of this tortuous tale, OP. What he doesn't need is to be emasculated by someone trying to force him to be shocked at the way his wife treated him or trying to force him to go to the police or do things that he might have felt were humiliating. Maybe you could trust him to make decisions about his own life.

Ok, so in your opinion math, it is 'emasculating' someone by telling them it is unacceptable to be shouted at, and hit on an almost weekly basis.

Maybe you could trust him to make decisions about his own life

He HAS made decisions about his own life! What makes you think he hasn't?! HE decided to marry her. HE decided to divorce her. Someone along the lines, just cos I've said her behaviour was bad towards him and I advised him to seek help from the police I have somehow been leading his life (according to you!)...

I will NOT be made to feel bad for advising someone to seek advise about abuse. You weren't there so please don't pass judgement on what you think others should've done.

You went far beyond advice. You filmed an incident where he was hit in order to shock him into realising what was going on. He might not have welcomed the sight of himself being hit by his wife as much as you thought he would. You also said you called the police. He may or may not have found this helpful. It may have embarrassed him - you have said yourself that you do not know everything about his culture.

It's fair to suspect that there may be a culturally based reluctance to see himself being hit or to call the police on his wife. Or maybe he thought he and his wife could work things out - maybe his mother would have expected no less. Maybe it is more acceptable for a man to divorce a wife quietly than to get involved in a dv case with his mother breathing down his neck - in some cultures 'keeping face' is important. It's also fair to suspect that since his wife would only get to stay in the UK as long as she was married to a citizen, he might have worried that her status would be threatened if he didn't put up with her behaviour, or if he called the police and was put in the position of being asked to press charges against her. When you import a bride whose immigration status depends on her staying married you truly jump on the back of the tiger don't you.

What may have seemed very clearcut to you might have been a lot more murky to him and for all sorts of individual and cultural reasons.

Even now, knowing that he went ahead and divorced her, and even though you claim that he is capable of making decisions about his own life, you are still trying to get involved.

(I am only giving my opinion of what you did based on what you have said - so a bit silly to tell me I wasn't there; I know I wasn't there but the only reason I know anything of this is because you posted it. If you think there's more I should know before coming to the conclusions I have drawn then post some more.)

Swallowedafly I've not heard of there being 40 witnesses at a hearing against removal directions (which i think is what this actually would have been, not a deportation, as a deportation only happens if someone's committed a crime- the non criminal version is called removal, but most people wouldn't know this). I suppose it might be justifiable if they all had something relevant and different to say. It's unusual rather than totally impossible.

Ebmummy I thought you said she got married after the hearing? Did she have permission to stay when she got married, then, or was it when she was still waiting for the decision? It's just that she'd have needed a Certificate of Approval back then, and the only way to get one was from the Home Office. They didn't tend to give them out to people who they were trying to remove, for obvious reasons. So again this all sounds rather unusual. There would've been great practical difficulties in her getting married before she had status in her own right. And there was no reason for her to get married to remain in the UK, if she'd already been given permission to remain based on the domestic violence .

flange, yes she did get married after the hearing. TBH, I didn't really have contact with her (for obvious reasons) from the hearing onwards. She was still married to DF, though he took out the injunction and started divorce proceedings in the March of 2009. She married an English guy, so I'm assuming she's since got residency/passport? Also the witnesses had to be at the dv case, not the deportation thing (I don't know whether there was a deportation hearing. There was a letter that arrived at DF's house for her in May (2 months after she moved in with her bf) saying she had to leave the country. DF gave it to his solicitor to forward to hers. The next thing he knew, he was called to court on accusation of DV with the date set for Sept 2009).

DF's solicitor said he needed 40 people to vouch for his character so it may not have been asked by the court. I don't know.

math, do you think dv/ea should have cultural barriers? Does the ethnicity of the person suffering matter?

but allegedly the court made him give the names of 40 character witnesses flange - sounds odd.

so it was a case where he was being charged with dv? and he had to produce 40 character witnesses at the courts request - strange.

ebmummy - be fair - it is clear that is not what math said - she merely said that when a person was choosing how to handle a failing relationship and dv their culture would influence how they wanted to handle that and what they saw as the best route through it.

for example if you lived in a culture where adultery meant honour killings you might want to keep quiet about your wife's affair and find another way out of the marriage if you had any compassion for her as a human being.

if you live in a culture where it is deeply shameful to admit you couldn't 'control' your wife you might not want to call the police or create a big public fuss and might choose a different more careful/timely way out of your marriage if you didn't consider yourself to be in immediate danger.

Math,

You have compared arranged marriage (not forced marriage, note) as a "huge act of violence against the woman concerned" and said that you have not an ounce of sympathy towards someone who was the subject of real DV. I.E you have equated an arranged marriage, normal within some cultures, to physical violence. Is that really your belief? And would you say that of a woman who brought a husband over from Asia to marry her and he was violent towards her?

I think this thread exposes a lot of your personal assumptions and does not show faith in the OP.

This is not really adding up, ebmummy. The account is very confusing and seems to keep changing, and is very hot on assumptions. I don't know if this is coming from you or your mate, but either way it's getting to be an increasingly tall story. What exactly was the domestic violence court hearing for, then? Are you saying it was family law proceedings, or criminal?

Btw, you certainly don't automatically get residency when you marry a British citizen, let alone a passport! And if you don't actually know whether she's been allowed to stay, as opposed to not having status but not been removed yet, I don't know why you said in your OP that she was allowed to stay because of having claimed domestic violence.

none of it adds up.

All of you saying "this does not add up", what exactly do you mean? Are you saying that the OP is a troll or is she confused or do you feel that she has been lied to?

It all rings reasonable true to me in substance. As to the exact details, who knows? But, do the details really matter? Her friend's partner hit him and left him for another woman and is now slandering him? Does that not qualify for some sympathetic advice?

the account of legal and immigration procedures, this 40 witnesses bit, the changing of why the incident was filmed to fit with responses, etc etc, the idea that a community that doesn't accept mixed marriages and is cool with importing brides would believe an adulterous woman over a man of long standing. etc etc etc.

that doesn't necessarily mean i think the op is lying mind you. could be other explanations for all of the discrepancies.