Leaving an abusive relationship may be a difficult choice but it's still a choice, right?

[maggiethemagpie]

I will confess before we go any further that I have very little experience of abusive relationships. Personally - never, I am just not attracted to that kind of dynamic. I was exposed to my mum's abusive relationship with my stepfather when I was a child however. Maybe that's why I have 'never gone there' as an adult?

I have a friend who knows being with her abusive partner is the wrong thing, and says things like she hopes it will fizzle out or he'll want to spend less time with her (fat chance) but despite repeatedly trying to leave him, can't do so.

I have struggled to understand why. They are not married, or cohabiting, have no dependents, and have been together apx 18 months (they are late 30s) however she has been trying to leave him since 4 months in.

I can see that psychologically she's in some sort of trap, but surely the ultimate choice to stay or go is hers? I'm not denying that it's a difficult choice, it must be a very difficult choice but then life is full of difficult choices and these are what shape us and make us grow.

So is it a free choice to stay in these kind of relationships? Or is it a bit like addiction - where logically the right thing to do is to stop but due to the drug dependency it's not so easy?

I do have some experience with addiction so that may be an easier way to understand it. I don't subscribe to a disease model though - I still think remaining addicted to anything be it drink, substance or gambling or whatever, is still a choice although often a very difficult one.

So is remaining in an abusive relationship a choice or not?

*And then all of a sudden -wham - he's back, that lovely man you fell in love with. You stay. You tell yourself it's not that bad. At least he doesn't do X. Once he does X, you'll leave.

He does X. He's sorry. There's that man again, the one you loved. X becomes Y. He does Y. Y doesn't seem that bad anymore. You're so beaten down, the abuse is so ingrained, you cannot tell what is abuse and what is normal anymore. You should leave. Is leaving really better?*
Itwillwash this so reasonates with me. I have had X, Y and Z happen to me in the last week. I can see it, I keep believing the best and I am wrong to do it. I keep re-negotiating with myself and i am the loser each time. Well said.

I think if you asked all the abused women out there, the ones that have left and the ones who know they are in abusive relationships and want to leave, they would all say that hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I can pinpoint a couple of incidents early on that should have been red flags, but the whole fucking point is that they are not red flags at the time.

You seem to think that abuse is obvious and somehow these women are stupid for not seeing it, or they have deep psychological issues for not recognising it. that's the offensive bit.

To use your example of choosing a holiday, it would be normal for a couple to argue over the destination if they both felt strongly, it would be normal for them to compromise, it would be normal for one to give in, if they said they weren't fussed.
Which one of those would be an abusive reaction, can you tell?
All 3 could be. Shouty, manipulation or pretending to be submissive- but holding a grudge.
So there's no way to pick up a red flag there.

lative partner would last very long with me... I'd see through it and kick back.

That's what we all think though Maggie!!! How naive!

Sorry I meant this bit
I don't think a manipulative partner would last very long with me... I'd see through it and kick back.

There was a documentary on a couple of weeks ago about women who'd been very violently attacked by their partners.

One lady had been beaten for six hours straight and was lucky to be alive. She'd only been with the guy for a few years and they didn't have kids.

The police were involved in all of the cases.

The lady who had endured the six hour beating broke down and sobbed when her partner was sent to prison because she 'just wanted to start again' .

It's a very deep, dark, twisted dynamic which takes a bigger brain than me to understand.

None of the three women featured had children with their abuser. One was bringing a charge of harassment against her ex whilst secretly meeting up with him.

Some people are just incapable of creating healthy boundaries for themselves, presumably because of trauma in their past or something similar.

That's life - maybe that's why I've never had a relationship with a manipulative partner and you have?

Sandinmytoes, if I am happy in the relationship surely I'm not being manipulated? If I was being manipulated, there would be some sort of emotional reaction or unease on my part, maybe not the first time it happened but over time?

I can't believe people on here are telling me I must be in a manipulative relationship because I compromise with my partner or sometimes do what he wants to do out of respect and consideration for him.

Maybe you don't have a frame of reference for a healthy relationship.

Just because you can't tell the difference between manipulation and healthy relating, doesn't mean I can't.

Well said Morris Zap particularly your last sentence... will touch a raw nerve for some I'm sure.

Some women cannot make healthy choices, it's not because they want to be abused or they are addicted to abuse, it's because no one has ever modeled healthy choices for them.

They believe they are causing their abuse. It's their fault. They want it to stop, but they don't know how to make it stop. The man abusing them loves them. He can often seem like the only person who does. It's never just physical. There is always EA. Insidious, slow, mind fucking EA. They've been taught, often throughout their entire life that they are worthless, deserving of abuse, if only they could be better, it would stop. How selfish are they, causing their partner to beat the crap out of them when it makes him feel so bad? Why can't they just be better?

It can seem like madness from the outside, crying for that man who beat you for six hours, but that man loves you. You made him do those things. You really, genuinely believe that and now he's going to prison and it's your fault and now you are alone, with no one to love you or protect you, because he did protect you, maybe not from himself, but from everything else.

And then it will start again, because you don't know how to make healthy relationships.

They are just as trapped as the women on this thread or as I was.

They need support. They need years of counselling. They don't need someone who doesn't have a fucking clue what it is like to walk in their shoes judging them as less than because they are 'too clever' to be abused.

And if you think it can't happen to you, you are as mad as the women Morris watched in that docu. Abusers don't care how strong you are, or how clever you are, or how rich you are. They will break you down, bit by bit. By the time you realise you are being abused, it's too late.

But - it will wash, surely if it hasn't happened to me after nearly 40 years on this planet, it's a good indication that it won't?

And just remember I did have negative relationships modeled for me in childhood and it still didn't happen for me.

Ok so I can't say 100% guaranteed it won't ever happen to me but I think it's extremely unlikely particularly as I'm getting married to a lovely, non abusive man in a few weeks.

I'm sorry if it hurts for me to be saying that. I don't intend to insult or offend any one in this kind of relationship but it is kind of insulting and offensive for my view to be dismissed out of hand all the time.

My friend's partner.... I clocked within five minutes of meeting him that he was a wrong un. At this point he'd not been with her long, he was still in nice guy mode but I just knew there was something not quite right about him. I couldn't rationalise how I knew, I'd just met the guy, but I just knew. Call it a gut reaction or something.

Four months later boom, she tells me he's controlling her every move treating her like shit and has a big paddy every time he gets his own way.

I do believe that women who are psychologically healthy don't get into these kind of relationships, I knew people on here don't want to hear this but psychologically healthy people don't attract unhealthy relationships.

My friend, I know she was badly bullied at school sadly this is continuing now in her adult life with her abuser.

I wish everyone in an abusive relationship the best for breaking free one day, it can't be a nice way to live by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm not for one second saying you are being manipulated, I couldn't possibly comment on your relationship.
You're missing my point- going with your example of choosing a holiday, all of those responses would be seen as normal within a relationship, but All of them could be abusive, so not obviously red flags.

If it hasn't happened to you, that's because you have been lucky enough to not meet an abusive man, who had his mind set on you.

The women stuck in these relationships aren't lacking in anything, they don't deserve it, they aren't causing it, it is nothing they did or did not do. It's nothing they can control if only they were more like you.

They came across an abuser, who decided to abuse them. You didn't. That's the difference between them and you.

It is possible to leave and I would urge anyone who is trapped to do so. It is possible, you can do it. It might not seem like you can, but you can.

Taking that first step is the hardest. After that it's easy. Do it today. Ask for help. Go to CAB, phone Women's Aid, speak to the council about support in your area. Reach out to someone. You don't have to leave, not today, not if you're not ready, but ask for help. Take that first step.

There'll always be a reason to stay. There's never a right time to leave. Don't wait until X has happened, after X has happened you'll have to wait for Y.

Assuming women who stay have some deep psychological trauma or "issues"is offensive.

Obviously it could be the case, but to generalise is offensive.

I get that Sandinmytoes, I think my comment was more because another poster couldn't see how I could take my partners views into consideration and this was not actually me being covertly manipulated.

Actually it makes me very sad that someone would think that, that they have no frame of reference for someone doing something out of respect for their partner rather than obligation, fear or pressure.

I think most psychotherapists would support my view, Sandinmytoes.

Are they all wrong?

I think most pyschotherapists understand the nuances of abuse and how disguised it can be at the beginning

I think thou doth protest too much.

Are you worried about your impending wedding?

That doesn't really answer the question. The therapy I underwent looked at my relationship patterns and how I'd subconciously manifested negative patterns in my life, to do with abandonment in my case if you must know.

According to my therapist, who is fully qualified and very experienced, you oon't get into unhealthy patterns of relating without there being unresolved underlying issues usually from childhood.

I think I will believe him over you!

Me?

Not particularly Onceiwas, I'm looking forward to it.

I'm just hacked off that my 'friend' has chosen not to attend because I uninvited her abusive partner (due to him saying he'd be taking drugs. Oh, and also because he's an abusive twat and he knows I see through him)

I've been to 4 different therapists and they might have suggested that the abuser had underlying issues, but no-one ever suggested I did!

yes, sand - you said that I was offensive to say that healthy women didn't attract unhealthy relationships, I'm saying my view on that has come from my therapist so I choose to believe him over you.

Seriously , you want to try cognitive analytic therapy if you have relationship issues. It's painful and does require taking some responsibility for change, but I found it life changing. Best money I ever spent.

Can you not imagine the hell she's had to endure about your invitation?
How can you think it's easy for her to stand up to him right now about this one issue, when she can't leave him?

Op, does it make you feel superior and better about yourself to tell me and all the other women on this thread who have been advised that we have psychological issues, am incapable of making healthy choices and all that?

I heard enough of that crap from my abuser. I don't need to hear it from you as well. I stayed until he hit me. I was already making plans to leave safely. I stayed for ages because marriage means something to me, and I didn't want to be selfish or immoral.

Why did you feel the need to start this thread? If it's because you want to prove how psychologically healthy you are, and what great choices you make, methinks you are protesting too much. There's nothing psychologically healthy about starting a thread on the relationships board in which you effectively tell women who have been abused that we are a bunch of losers