It can happen to anyone? Abusive relationships

[LadyBlaBlah]

I hear this a lot on here and elsewhere and I understand the reason why we say this.

However I think it needs clarification as it totally disempowers women.

"It can happen to anyone who is ill informed about abusive relationships."

For many varied reasons, I think there are many women who do not even realise what abuse looks like/believe it is part of relationships/don't understand their self-esteem has been destroyed and so are sitting ducks for abusive men.

I had a long abusive relationship and only after 14 years did I put the label abusive on it even though there had been physical violence! And now, the thought that could happen to me again ("it can happen to anyone") is just ludicrous, there is no way this could happen again. I would recognise the signs and walk away.

This is not meant to victim blame but I just don't like the inference that this can happen to anyone and so we women cannot protect ourselves - I am absolutely 100% that this will not happen to me again - someone may try some one-off abuse but I will not be in a long term abusive relationship ever again.

Who are you calling up on it?

When I say "them", I mean men who are treating their partners (my friends or acquaintances) awfully/abusively.

Yes I have lost a good friend through speaking out. But I would prefer to point out bad behaviour than be a bystander.

I found saying the shit he said to me back at him hurt him and rendered him a gibbering wreck.

Because he's saying the worst thing to me he can think of. But the worst is HIS worst.

See though the fear. Stand strong.

My "out" was the realisation that he had to lie about me to make me look bad.

To make him look bad, all I had to do was to tell the truth.

My mantra was "and the truth shall set you free"

And it did. I opened up on here, to friends. To groups.

To family... Ok that was counterproductive but illuminating, and I'm free of them now too

It doesn't mean a woman is to blame, but recognising your own relationship patterns and working on having strong self-esteem and boundaries will reduce the chances of being taken in by abusive men.

Maybe you could have made the situation x10 worse for your friend, in fact you probably did and lost a friend also. I think that is unfair and also abusive. You threw some one under the bus for your own agenda when you could have been a massive support to them.

Op I'm really glad your out of that horrid situation but I think you need to go seek professional help as you seem to be a very angry lady and it will do you no good.

All the best

Yes I agree Goats, there is a very fine line going on here.

There are conflicting messages of you can do something about it or you can't.

You can't stop an abuser being an abuser I completely agree. But you can (eventually) be in control of what you do about being around it. I think the things can remain separate.

Joy - I don't blame myself however I do think "what if". What if I had known and understood this all properly. I think there is a subtle difference and I don't think thinking that harms my self esteem, it arms it further actually, well that's how I feel.

Further to my first post I do agree about boundaries and learning from your mistakes. Give young people as good a ballast as possible to not put up with crap. But where do you buy this self awareness at 16, 20, 25? I had no idea of who I was until pregnant with my Third child ( for reasons I have worked out and accepted for myself). My parents gave an amazing relationship template, my mum being a strong loving woman, my dad and her communicating well, equal in the relationship etc. It never dawned on me that people could be nasty and evil if you only loved them. Naive in the Extreme perhaps.
But the abuser is the one to be tackled first. Through programmes and strong Messages on what is acceptable, what is a kind way to behave to people you profess to love.

With the exception of me talking about my ex, I've deliberately written non gender specific posts.

Let's not attribute abuse to men?

My exbf was a victim of abuse, twice.

I we keep labelling abusers male, it normalises it and denies victims the support they need.

Abusers are abusers they deserve no further description, they deserve to be pushed out of the gender group and society

My son needs to learn that men aren't abusive. Your daughters need to learn that men aren't abusers.

They both need to know that abuse is unacceptable and that it kills.

You can make that judgement Joy, that is up to you. However I am not angry. And no it is not abusive to tell a friend she is in an abusive relationship. That surely is a contradiction to what you have said previously.

My friend is with a known abuser. I did not approach this just saying "you need to get out", our relationship is not broken down completely and she will turn to me if she needs to. I say I lost her because we don't do the things we used to do but that would have happened anyway given the nature of this guy. At least she knows I know. And she has somewhere to be believed if it goes wrong.

Agree on not labelling all abusers as men Hissy. My example from Kenya was gender specific, but otherwise I think it is more important to talk about abusive people.
And I dont say this and look away from the fact that the physical violence is gendered and that the overwhelming number is of women being battered by men, it is to acknowledge that abuse is mental and emotional too.

There are conflicting messages of you can do something about it or you can't

That not true. The message is ' it's not your fault if you find yourself in abusive relationship and you can always do something about it'

You didn't tell your friend though did you? You stated before you told him and called him on it which is very dangerous to his partner. Maybe it wasn't fear you saw in his eyes it was pure anger towards his partner.

You absolutly contradict yourself in what you are posting. You lost a good friendship but now you havnt and still support her?

Getting a bit weird. I'm off the thread.

Joy - the guy punched a dog right in front of me, you seriously expect me not to say anything?
There's no contradiction.

He punched the dog for "being gay" btw.
Not being aggressive or anything.

I'm so intrigued by the comment that it's abusive for me to say a relationship is abusive to my friend.

I thought abuse was always the abusers fault? Yet somehow you are letting him off the hook here and it's my fault.

If you said it to your friend in confidence, not abusive, but unlikely to make her do anything about it immediately. Worth sticking with.

If you said it to her abuser? Dangerous and Illadvised. It could put her at great risk.

Cruelty to animals is an indicator of abusive traits. But again, arseholes are arseholes.

RSPCA is your best bet, not calling him out as an abuser. It places everyone at risk.

Admittedly I have only read the OP but need to post. You are victim blaming and truly do not understand the whole abusive psychy if you think it couldn't ever happen again to you. Every kind of woman can find themselves in an abusive situation and as it can start imperceptibly the first time it can be the same again. Your victim blaming is the worse part of your post.

I said to stop punching the dog. It was unacceptable.

She was laughing with him for which I don't blame her and understand why she was doing it but it was still very uncomfortable seeing her do that.

In that same meeting-up he also said he is glad the are dying of Ebola. She did a "oh x " while laughing, I called him an ignorant racist.

No, I have not called him abusive to his face. And I wouldn't do that - I know the danger (although it still would be HIS fault if he was then abusive to her) and I also know there is no point. I have however told my friend I am worried about her and here to talk to.

LadyBlah

I'm going to agree with those that say you are wrong.

Abuse can happen to anyone, often those in abusive relationships do not realise that its abusive because the abuser has spent years grinding them down so that they have little or no self worth.

Read the whole thread Just - I do understand the abusers psyc. And know that you cannot change it too.

It is not victim blaming to say you can guard yourself from abusive relationships. Yes, there may be some people who slip through the net, but you certainly can mitigate your risk. Painting women as hapless victims does not do any of us any good.

And I stand by saying it will not happen to me again - despite some of you probably wishing it would just to prove me wrong !

Why do we always talk about self-esteem and bad templates as being an issue? That is not BLAMING (they haven't done anything wrong) it is a way of understanding then arming yourself up from it happening again. There are abusive people out there right now, we agree we can't change them (and perpetrator programmes have limited success) so what do we do about that? I wish there weren't abusive people, but the narrative of it can happen to anyone is not entirely true - if we mean rich or poor, black or white, yes. But I think if we look at the 'typical victim' they do have certain shared character traits - e.g. low self-worth, bad templates, internalised cultural messages about relationships/people - e.g. they are all kind. These are the things I am talking about.

I don't agree.
I'm an educated, confident, successful woman who had a lovely childhood, but I ended up in a relationship with an extremely violent and emotionally abusive man.
While I was in this relationship (which took me years to leave, even after prosecuting him) I still appeared confident, articulate and successful on the outside, albeit aloof and cold as well. On the inside I was broken.
No one I have told about the relationship since could believe I had been in that situation. Not just because of the way I came across but because I hid it so well.
I've been in therapy and it turns out that I may have sought out 'controlling type' because my previous relationships had all been imbalanced in my 'favour'. Plus, he was extremely charming, generous etc in the beginning.
I'm in a very healthy equal relationship now though, which I'm extremely grateful for.

I certainly am not wishing you to go back into an abusive relationship in order to prove me right.

All I am saying is that I knew the signs after my first abusive relationship. Believed that it would never happen to me again, felt I was well armed and equipped to not allow me to be in that situation ever again. I left that one with nothing and my possessions in a carrier bag.my self worth was rock bottom.

The second time I was in an abusive relationship it was much more insidious and very subtle. It was only after it ended due to an entirely different reason that I realised what I had been living with. And it wasn't horrific, there was no violence. But it was still abusive.

I see what you mean op and Agree that educating young people on the issue could be a very useful starting point.
There still does not seem to be a typical victim. The only common denominator is there is an abusive person involved. And they are insidious and would very rarely label themselves as abusive. Neither do they necessarily seek out people with low self esteem and a back of boundaries. So whilst an endeavour to educate people on the impirtance of these things is a good thing it does smack of victim blaming to suggest that this is the only remedy needed to counter and stop abusers.
Not sure that is what you are saying though. If your issue is more to get away from the women as helpless victims I can see that but dont feel the phrase you have chosen implies that. To me the It can happen to anyone is used to remove the crushing sense of guilt and self loathing that often follows with beingabused

I did end up reading the whole thread as it was then before I posted. I feel the same.

Why do you think it blames the victim to say that they can protect themselves and we can protect others by educating them for the first signs of abuse?

I said in the OP I understand why we use the phrase "it can happen to anyone" to relieve the shame but it doesn't get away from the feeling of disempowerment this phrase also articulates.