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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Is this normal ?

206 replies

Waitingforthestormtopass · 15/09/2012 21:32

For him to tell me he's going to smother me ..
I do know it's not normal in a way but do people put up with it because it's 'their' normal and that's just how my life is?
Some people wil have non of this going on for them so to them it's a big NO that's wrong, others maybe it happens , there told he's going to kill them?
I have no idea if I'm making any sense ?

OP posts:
izzyizin · 15/09/2012 22:49

It was that easy, sgb, but there's a massive backstory and I suspect that the police feel a certain reluctance to invervene given that the OP has withdrawn charges against her abuser on numerous occasions.

It's also complicated by the fact that, against all advice, the OP invites her abuser into her home on a regular basis where, more often than not, he kicks 7 shades of shit out of her or makes her engage in certain games, shall we say, not entirely against her will.

cashmere · 15/09/2012 22:55

In that case I would assume that your children are (rightly) deemed to be at risk OP and that should be top if your negatives list.

I work with troubled teens, many of whom have a background similar to the one you are in. In many cases history us repeating itself.
Think about the future you want for your kids.

solidgoldbrass · 16/09/2012 00:01

OH bloody hell, is this that same silly cow whose DS got taken into care after one of her 'friends' bit the poor little sod?

izzyizin · 16/09/2012 00:20

No, this isn't same silly cow sgb.

This is another OP who may well find that continuing to interact with her abuser against all advice leads to entirely predictable consequences although, in this case, I suspect that she'll be permanently incapacitated or in her grave before her dc are taken into care.

weegiemum · 16/09/2012 00:28

Never a joke!

One of my besy friends heard it for a few weeks from her (ex)h, then he tried to do it!

If it hadn't been that she worked in secure accommodation for violent and disturbed teenagers, she wouldn't have known how to break his hold and escape. She lived with us for several weeks 7 years ago.

If a man says this you MUST take it seriously and have an escape plan.

Even though my friend is now in an easy, friendly, lovingrelationship, she has still given me copies of her birth/marriage certificates, and I hold her and dcs passports and bank details.

She's o lucky with her new dp. But she's terrified of the possibilities!

What you describ isn normal. It really isn't!

weegiemum · 16/09/2012 00:30

Sorr my post was not helpful.

Not a situation yo can explain away.

Get out now! I wish my friend had done so!!

garlicnutty · 16/09/2012 00:55

I think your post was helpful, Weegie. You showed that people who make repeated threats to kill go on and do it. Lots of people don't realise this.

Thing is, the words we speak demonstrate the thoughts we think. Not true in all cases, of course: liars lie to hide their real thoughts. And children might repeat crap without knowing. But an adult who says they will kill you, and how they will do it, has worked it all out in their head. Each time they say it is a step closer to doing it. If he does it to frighten you, the day will come when your fear is no longer enough. He'll want to see you actually die.

OP, he is killing you anyway. He's taken away your friends and your life. He's taking your sanity. I'll bet he's taken your confidence.

Who taught you to believe your real purpose is to be hurt? Was it him? Or somebody before him? It's not true, you know. Your real purpose is to be safe and happy, confident in yourself and creative.

You can start on that now, if you want.

izzyizin · 16/09/2012 01:03

The OP is out, weegie, and has been for more than a year.

In addition, she's been the beneficiary of considerably more help than most victims of dv and I suspect that, in common with myself, those who've expended considerable time and effort in supporting her are no doubt utterly despairing that she continues to engage in sexual liaisons with a man who poses considerable danger to both herself and to the dc.

The problem is that the OP has little experience of loving and caring male/female relationships with which to compare the dysfunctional and cloistered life she and the dc led with her abuser and she has got it into her head that only the mentally sick, twisted, and violent, pervert he can satisfy her sexual needs.

Unfortunately, in bald terms, the OP chooses to put the fulfilment of her sexual needs above the welfare and wellbeing of her dc and I further suspect this may be motivated in part by a desire to become pg with yet another dc who will almost inevitably be destined to pass abuse down through generations as this will, in her mind, provide her with an 'acceptable' reason to sign her own death warant return to live with her abuser.

deleted203 · 16/09/2012 01:08

It's never normal for someone to threaten to kill you. Unless you are James Bond. I'm assuming you are not. And therefore this guy is a psycho. Do you want a psycho in your life, and more importantly in your DCs lives? Phone police/phone Women's Aid/and get a bloody injunction against him.

izzyizin · 16/09/2012 01:17

It's all been done, sowornout.

The fact is that the law is unable to protect someone who gets a sexual thrill out of living dangerously and who erroneously believes that, by sexually engaging with their abuser, they are able to control or in some way avenge themselves by tormenting a psychopathic pervert controlling personality is likely to pay a high price for their folly.

Markingthehours · 16/09/2012 01:29

Izzy, I have seen the fantastic support and advice you give and can totally understand your frustration. May I respectfully suggest you hide the thread if it's, very understandably, doin ur ed in?

Waiting Have you thought of volantarily asking for for your DC to be taken into care?

If you really cannot bring yourself to cut all contact with this potential murderer, then don't you think you it at least to your DC to remove them from a potentially fatal situation. Do your children deserve to die for your desire for this man?

Markingthehours · 16/09/2012 01:32
  • don't you think you owe it to your children to remove them from a potentially fatal situation?
izzyizin · 16/09/2012 01:59

It's not doing my head in at all, Marking, as I know full well that only the OP has the power to save herself and the dc change her circumstances by changing her mindset.

If I've given any impression to the contrary, it's because I don't see any reason why others should waste invest time in suggesting measures that have already been put in place and which the OP has made a mockery of.

The clue is in the OP's question as to whether other people put up with it because it's 'their' normal and that's just how my life is?

To which the answer has to be that yes, they do, but their lives don't have to be like that any more than yours does , OP.

You're an intelligent woman and you've already drawn comparisons between how your friends live and how you lived which have showed you that you can have an infinitely more fulfilling and enriching life than you and your dc experienced with him if you put your mind to it.

There is no magic wand and no-one else can do it for you. It's down to you to prove to yourself that you can end your dependence on him and that you have the grit and determination to give your dc the life they deserve, free of fear and free of abuse.

garlicnutty · 16/09/2012 02:45

OK, Waiting, I'll try and answer the questions in your OP.

I do know it's not normal in a way but do people put up with it because it's 'their' normal and that's just how my life is?

Yes, you're right, it does become your 'normal'. That's why we call it "normalising abuse", this process of making excuses and blaming yourself and thinking if you just did this or that, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It actually does become your normal. When I was 17, my school friends told me their dads didn't thump them. It was a massive shock - to me, it was normal to get thumped. I assumed all men abused their wives and children.

Some people wil have non of this going on for them so to them it's a big NO that's wrong, others maybe it happens , there told he's going to kill them?

Yes. Again, my dad told my mother he would kill her one day. She knew he meant it. Once, my brother and I pulled him off as he was strangling her. He told me he'd kill me, too. As I went to sleep at nights, I used to think up ways of defending myself against the various attacks I thought he'd try.

My first husband stopped hitting me after I left him briefly, moving on to emotional abuse which I didn't recognise for what it was. He still had a violent temper, though, and would say he'd kill me. I didn't believe him. Many years later he came into the room where I was sleeping and strangled me.

So what I'm saying is: I know what you mean about it becoming 'your normal'. But the fact you've got used to it means nothing, really, the threats are still meaningful. When they say it, they will do it.

I have no idea if I'm making any sense?

It's like this, I think ... The part of you that knows this isn't all right, and you have the right to live safely and calmly with your children, fights against the other part of you that has normalised the violence. It gets all twisted up in your head, along with the blame and the excuses, so you almost feel as if you're living in a dream sometimes and nothing makes sense.

You can get so used to it that you really can't imagine life any other way. After Dad died, Mum dated some men who were nicer than him. I had to coach her through accepting that decent men do nice things for you without demanding some humiliation in return, and that you don't have to tiptoe round decent men's moods. She had completely lost her view of what really is normal!

My father was a sadist along with his other lousy qualities. I picked up on this in later years, and Mum has now confirmed it. From what Izzy said about your previous threads, I'm guessing your ex is one as well. For these people, it's not like a BDSM game; they genuinely find it arousing and amusing to cause pain and fear.

Just because they like treating other people like cats treat mice, it doesn't mean you've got to be their mouse! The mouse suffers injuries, intense pain and fear, then dies. The cat walks off and forgets about it, it's not grateful to the mouse or has any feelings towards it at all.

The world's full of decent people who don't hurt others for fun. Live in this world.

izzyizin · 16/09/2012 04:40

I sincerely hope you'll take garlic's extremely powerful response (above) on board, OP.

You think you're being clever and inflicting some revenge on him by toying with him, but the only mice who survive a cat's attention are those that are successful in secreting themselves in inaccessible places and those that play dead immediately in the hope that the cat has already eaten, or that it will be distracted by something else thus affording the mouse an opportunity to escape.

Your notion that beating you up is evidence of his love for you is equally foolhardy as the abuse he sustained during his childhood has ensured that he is incapable of feeling love and compassion for any living creature - not even for his own dc who, like yourself, he regards as merely his toys, his possessions, his chattels to whatever he wants with and, to this extent, as far as he's concerned you are all expendable.

If you were able to take yourself and the dc off to a place way beyond his reach, he'd lose no time in recreating another kingdom for himself and populate it with serfs dc by another vulnerabe young woman.

The only regret he'd feel is that he's got it all to do over again, but he wouldn't be unduly bothered by that prospect because in his mind he's entitled to do whatever he wants to whoever he wants and, by failing to follow through when you've had numerous opportunities to see him brought to account in law, you've proved it to him.

Waitingforthestormtopass · 16/09/2012 04:45

I'm back here again in this world of confusion.

Thankyu garlicnutty you made lots of sense.

No one in rl is going to help me now anyway, I made sure of that.

OP posts:
Waitingforthestormtopass · 16/09/2012 04:49

X post izzy

What do you think I can do if anything?

OP posts:
izzyizin · 16/09/2012 04:57

In that case, you're best advised to back to the people whose efforts to rescue you from yourself you've sabotaged and throw yourself on their mercy implore them to give you another chance to get it right and keep it right.

Insofar as the police are concerned whenever he assaults/attacks you and you call them, they're duty bound to haul his arse off to the cells intervene and you should assure them that you now understand you are not duty bound to withdraw charges just because you fondly imagine that somewhere deep inside he feels some love for you, or because he's the father of your dc.

As I've already said, you're an intelligent woman and, as you've been more than capable of getting many people to jump through flaming hoops for you over this past year, I have every confidence that you'll be able to prevail on them or others to rescue you again.

Waitingforthestormtopass · 16/09/2012 05:07

I think the police are fed up of me and I see why, they aren't stupid only I treat them like they are Sad
When he's hurt me ands it's obvious I lie and say he didn't, he's inside my head so much, he tells me to lie to them I do.
Got issues with my memory too that I'd like to understand.

You think these people are going to wish to help me.

OP posts:
izzyizin · 16/09/2012 05:42

The law is there to protect you but it's powerless to do so while you remain in thrall to him, and the fact the you remain in thrall to him must be the cause of many police officers who've dealt with your 'domestics' to have developed bald spots.

You are far more intelligent than he is. He's cunning in the extreme but he's not very clever in the accepted sense of the word. What pumps him up and inflates his ego and makes him particularly dangerous is having you protrate yourself before him and do his bidding in all things.

By way of subjugating yourself to him, you enabled him to fulfil the perverted needs desires that began to manifest in his pubescent years due to the incestuous sexual and other abuse he witnessed and was undoubtedly, despite his denials, subjected to in his early childhood.

To some extent you colluded with him in creating the monster he's become, but if it hadn't been you he would have found another vulnerable and emotionally needy young woman to debase and denigrate because men like him cannot have 'normal' loving and caring relationshps with the opposite sex.

izzyizin · 16/09/2012 05:53

If you've alienated your friends, you need to go to them and ask them to help you once more.

If you've withheld information from police, social services, health visitors, doctors, and other professionals/agencies that have endeavoured to help and support you, you need to start being honest and, if necessary, admit that you lied in the past.

Above all, you need to put the welfare and wellbeing of your dc first and foremost and co-operate fully with those that have the power to protect you all.

No-one has ever died from eating humble pie and it's never too late to start over - and start as you mean to go on.

MsFanackerPants · 16/09/2012 06:01

These people do want to help you, but you have to want to help yourself to. The police cannot protect you or protect your children while you keep inviting him into your home. Are your kids on care plans? I assume they are if the police have been involved they will have notified social services.

I've dealt professionally with a family in a similar situation. The police, the domestic abuse adviser, the social worker, the schools, the health visitor offered and offered and kept offering help to the mother. She minimised the violence, the threats, the abuse, because to her it had become normal. However, every time it damaged their kids just that little bit more. Your children will be picking up on this. For this woman, her children were beginning at the age of 4 to think violence was normal, it was incredibly disturbing to see and hear the stuff they came out with. She minimised it, as did he. The kids never saw him hit her, but they could hear it all, they could see bruises, missing teeth, missing hair the next day.

The police continued to come out, she continued to press, then withdraw charges. The social worker continued to try to get the mother to see how her choices were damaging her kids.

And ultimately, the police, the social worker, the hv, the teachers and everybody agreed that the best thing to do was to take the kids into care. And still the mother continued to see her violent 'ex' partner, have sex, get beaten black and blue. And the kids stayed with their foster families. And then the decision was taken that the children should be placed for adoption, because they were very young and had a chance at finding a family where it wasn't normal for dad to beat the shit out of mum. And the mother was heartbroken, and couldn't seem to understand why this had happened. All that help had been turned down and only when it was too late did she seem to realise what was truly at risk.

It's your choice to keep letting him back in, albeit an incredibly dangerous one. And yes, there is a very real chance he will one day kill you. However, you are failing as a parent if you keep allowing him to do this while your children are in the house. If you love your children, keep him away from all of you. And if you can't do that then social services will have to, because your children have to be protected.

wannabedomesticgoddess · 16/09/2012 08:08

OP everyone is giving good advice. I have to say though, I dont feel you are making a mockery of the support you have been given. You are trapped in his web. His voice has become your thoughts.

There is a way out. You can stop it all. You can rebuild your life for your DCs who deserve so much more. You have to protect them. Can you see that?

Waitingforthestormtopass · 16/09/2012 08:30

I kinda don't see how it harms my children, I know it effects them, I know my son who's five is very troubled things he said to me this week, I cryed all morning from taking him to school.

I carnt see a life beond with him? There's nothing there.

I'm not a silly cow either, i may have not judged things the best and I may of turned down help before but I think thats not fare when I'm trying to reach out ( again I know I have asked on here before)
I have worked and took advice of program old before my hv made me promise if I wanted to go back to him them write a list of reasons why and call her I did, I think 48 reasons I wrote she was a bit stunned but said ok you did what I asked of you.

The thing is I lie, cover up etc I have told the police the wrong info and now I look like I'm a lier.
Iv told them my home caused me so many injuries stairs doors etc they tell me look we don't believe you.

I was sat next to woman who lost her daughter as she's with him still last week,

I need some intense help don't think for one min that's going to happen x

OP posts:
Waitingforthestormtopass · 16/09/2012 08:41

I'm not allowed to let him in my house Im ment to call police if he comes near me or the house.

OP posts: