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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

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Original poster

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

415 replies

maggiethemagpie · 27/03/2016 21:27

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?

OP posts:
saltlakecity · 28/03/2016 13:20

Still awake - I understand that but there comes a point when he shows a nasty side. I'd be gone. To be honest in the above scenario I'd have gone to the cinema with my friend though to be honest!

Creativethinkingaloud · 28/03/2016 13:23

Is this a troll thread Hmm

hownottofuckup · 28/03/2016 13:32

Sadly creative no, I don't think it is

DioneTheDiabolist · 28/03/2016 13:40

Stillawake, that is a brilliant post.

StillAwakeAndItIsLate · 28/03/2016 13:43

Yeah I thought you'd say that. But not everyone would. And maybe you wouldn't even if you had the subtle coercion applied. In which case an abuser would move on to someone who didn't have that level of confidence. Or who felt that honouring an existing commitment was the right thing to do. Or whatever...

And the point at which it started to become unpleasant, the damage would already have been done. Or because it was so out of character, the woman genuinely considers she might have been wrong. After all, he is normally so reasonable and considerate. And he, of course, is apologetic and so sorry and had had a crappy week at work and was just a bit stressed. And she thinks about their whole relationship and the days out when he packs a picnic of her favourite foods, and massages her feet on a Friday night and suddenly one unpleasant comment doesn't seem worth ending an otherwise good relationship for...

And then she starts trying not to do things that annoy him just because they're only little things and it isn't that important to her that she sings in the bath and if it really distracts him while he's working in the office next door...

Or are you honestly saying you dump someone at the first hint if a bad mood or impatience after a long day or frustration that something didn't work out as expected or request that you just don't do something for a minute because they can't focus...

StillAwakeAndItIsLate · 28/03/2016 13:46

Dione voice of experience, sadly.

Original poster
maggiethemagpie · 28/03/2016 14:31

I agree with salt lake, there must come a 'tipping point' where you want out, obviously everyone's tipping point is different.
In my friend's case she has wanted out since four months in, but keeps going back. She's admitted he's a shit.
As I said in the OP I haven't had an abusive relationship of the controlling type. However I was once in a relationship with a dirtbag who repeatedly cheated on me and lied to me, he had sociopathic tendencies. After two months i admitted to myself that I'd backed the wrong horse and was off.

Is a lot of it to do with not wanting to accept reality and give up on the dream that they really are mr. wonderful?

OP posts:
SmallLegsOrSmallEggs · 28/03/2016 14:33

my friends case, by choosing to stay with that is abuse of the self!

So I'm not so much victim blaming such as disputing the concept of a victim at all.

So basically you are saying the recipients of the abuse choose to stay. So they choose to be abused. So it's all their fault.

But that being the case they aren't victims so you aren't victim blaming.

Nice. Very nice OP.

No. The person responsible for abuse is the abuser. Even if the victim goes back twenty times it is still the abusers fault and always the abusers fault.

Hope that helps.

No doubt next you'll be telling us the victims or rape choose to be raped by not taking enough steps to ensure they aren't. Hmm

And well done salt congrats on being so smart. I was that smart too once.

Original poster
maggiethemagpie · 28/03/2016 14:33

Still awake the 'woman' in the example you gave seems absolutely desperate for approval. If my partner spoke to me like that, I'd tell him he'll be fine to go shopping on his own, and if he's not sure of anything take a pic on his phone and we'll discuss it later and buy it online.

OP posts:
SmallLegsOrSmallEggs · 28/03/2016 14:35

He repeatedly cheated on you over the course of a 2 month relationship. Really?

Creativethinkingaloud · 28/03/2016 14:36

Maggie. Depends a lot on how old you are, with age comes wisdom.

Original poster
maggiethemagpie · 28/03/2016 14:36

So where does personal responsibility come in to it small eggs?

Or is it easier to believe in the victim concept, as it absolves one of having to take any actions?

Victims don't have a choice. If you truly don't have any choice but to stay with an abuser, yes you're a victim.

If you do have a choice, then you're not - you're a participant.

So i guess whether you believe you are victim depends on whether you believe you have a choice.

OP posts:
Original poster
maggiethemagpie · 28/03/2016 14:37

Smalleggs - yes really. He was a dirtbag as I said. He had two exes going on in the background.

OP posts:
Creativethinkingaloud · 28/03/2016 14:43

Maggie. If you are for real. Would you say you had a relatively stable and secure childhood? Your self confidence is good which usually comes from that?

StillAwakeAndItIsLate · 28/03/2016 14:47

So i guess whether you believe you are victim depends on whether you believe you have a choice.

That's the point. No one in that situation believes they have a choice. Dur...

As for my post... Well I can't fabricate an entire upbringing and a relationship

It was to give those who don't understand a flavour of when abuse doesn't look angry or insultingg.

Original poster
maggiethemagpie · 28/03/2016 14:48

Creative thinking. actually no. I had a terrible childhood. Broken, dysfuntional family. Abandonment issues. Abusive stepfather. Cold hearted stepmother. I was really fucked up. Depressed. Addiction issues. Quite the opposite of stable and secure!

30 years later, I was lucky enough to access psychotherapy on the NHS which changed my life, I now have the self esteem I never had before. What made the biggest difference though, was learning to take responsibility for my life without blaming myself for the mistakes I had made. The day I started to do that, with the help of a skilled therapist, everything started to change.

Maybe that's why I have an issue with the concept of victim.

OP posts:
Original poster
maggiethemagpie · 28/03/2016 14:50

Ok still awake so if I do believe it's a choice (a hard choice admittedly) then surely you can accept my right to say that you're not a victim?

OP posts:
SmallLegsOrSmallEggs · 28/03/2016 14:55

It is really easy to leave a 2 month rs with someone who is obviously cheating on you.

My main conern is that you are trying to shift the responsibility from the abuser to the victim.

If your partner hits you once it is DV and they can be prosecuted. If they hit you 20 times it is still DV, still against the law and they can still be prosecuted. It doesn't syop being abuse because they have done it more than once.

The problem in DV is not the people who 'put up with it' it is the people who perpetrate it. People like you are happy to put the blame on those on the receiving end of the abuse instead of where it belongs only make the problem worse.

LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett · 28/03/2016 14:55

You talk about 'choice' as if it's such a simple thing. Will I choose film A or film B, will I wear the blue shoes or the red ones. In the situations you are describing, there is no choice - or not a free one, anyway.

FeckOfffCup · 28/03/2016 14:56

Victims don't have a choice. If you truly don't have any choice but to stay with an abuser, yes you're a victim.

If you do have a choice, then you're not - you're a participant

Are you serious Shock
The only person responsible for the abuse is the abuser.
I'm really not comfortable with this 'if you chose to stay then you're not a victim and you're partly responsible for being abused' angle.

Original poster
maggiethemagpie · 28/03/2016 14:58

I never said it was an easy choice! Life is full of hard choices. Doesn't mean you are powerless to do something about your situation though.
Of course the abuser is at fault, but I do genuinely think that if someone is in an abusive relationship they have a responsibility TO THEMSELVES to get out of it. Whatever it takes.
If you want to call that victim blaming then go ahead.
I call it taking personal responsibility.

OP posts:
Original poster
maggiethemagpie · 28/03/2016 14:59

Feckoffcup....so? I'm really not comfortable with the victim concept....

OP posts:
Original poster
maggiethemagpie · 28/03/2016 15:01

I can understand that people like Feckoffcup may be uncomfortable with the notion of personal responsibility, as it means you have to do something about your situation rather than just sit there blaming everything on someone else/ your upbringing/the world. Which is a lot easier. But ultimately keeps you stuck.

OP posts:
Creativethinkingaloud · 28/03/2016 15:02

I think you might need some more work on your empathy skills HmmGrin

FeckOfffCup · 28/03/2016 15:03

But what you're saying is quite harmful imo. Especially as most victims of DA have it drilled into them by the abuser that what is happening to them is their own fault.