Can you be abusive but love your child?

[Overwhelmed83]

I’m struggling so much with this.

Can a man abuse their wife, be a bully to people they don’t like but genuinely love their child?

He was found guilty at the fact finding, refused to admit any of it and just blamed stress and me etc. Child witnessed his behaviour but wasn’t towards them. Child was only 3 at the time.

He is mentally unstable, I suspect some kind of personality disorder so I can’t see how he will be different around our child. He will manipulate emotionally like he has always done won’t he?

@MauraandLaura

I think it depends tbh.

My family member does love her kids but she is emotionally immature and abusive. I ended up going away with her once and I was cringing at how she spoke to her kids and behaved towards them but then I seen her in moments where she didn't know I was watching and there was moments where she shown love towards her kids. Her kids are going to be pretty fucked up when they get older.

However I have been following the two cases of child deaths that are in the media at the moment and I think the parents had totally reduced their kids down to objects of disgust and couldn't have possibly loved them from the amount of physical abuse they infected on them

This is exactly what is messed up: excusing abuse on the basis that this parent you know may be slightly less abusive than another one.

It is never ok and all abused children should be taken into a care system that provides financial and emotional support as good as an average family as a minimum, so waaaaayyyy better than those shit parents.

I have been that child. It damages you forever to be left with abusive people and told it is in your "best interests". What kind of system is it that thinks the best it can do for a child is to leave them with abusive parents because they haven't yet been abusive enough, and they can't care for them better than these abusive excuses for parents?! And people wonder why children keep dying?

It is a shame on our country. Children can't vote so nobody gives a shit. Again and again we hear "lessons will be learned" but they never are.

With all due respect @TowerOfGiraffes, you are right, things need to change but try to find loving foster homes for all those kids who have a parent that can look loving or abusive in the same 24 hours, especially if said parent is providing an acceptable accommodation. There are simply not enough nice foster parents around, in fact there are not even enough foster parents whether they are good or bad.

Things need to change but for that change to happen, we need to change as a society as a whole, which is difficult in cultures like ours were individualism and keeping out of other’s people’s business are so entrenched. There are simply not enough people around who cares enough about the issue to take action on it, like opening their home to foster kids.

Yes, it's possible, but love isn't always enough and not everyone's brand of love is worth having.

They usually had shocking parenting themselves and often genuinely believe they are good parents because theyarebetter than their own parents were and/or are following the example set by their own parents.

Yep.

Sometimes, some people were never taught how to not be abusive and can be taught how to parent effectively as the underlying love is there. Unfortunately these parents are never supported in the way they should be as SS is so over stretched and so the cycle continues.
My ex has one diagnosed PD although he has traits from many. He was abused by almost everyone close to him growing up. He loves the idea of being a parent, likes the attention that goes with it but has absolutely no idea how to deal with anything or anyone that isn't perfect. He could possibly love a child until they cried too much/knocked a drink over then they'd be tainted. Once they'd lost their 'perfection' he wouldn't think twice about hurting them emotionally or physically to hurt me. He is amazing at masking, the court and cafcass thought he was lovely, thankfully he unravelled quickly after being caught out in a lie and will never be a risk to our child.

When it comes to parenting, love is a verb, not a noun. If you love a child, you protect them and nurture them. To be abusive in front of a 3yr old definitely doesn't show that.

It confuses the issue that many abusive parents have an unhealthy "love" for their child which is actually enmeshment and codependence which places an unbearable load on the child. Often involves parentification and making the child responsible for their emotional needs. As PPs pointed out, it's a repeating cycle.

When you left, you broke that cycle - good for you. If he gets unsupervised contact, you'll have to protect your DC from him as much as possible with talks about boundaries, secrets etc. Things that people do that make you feel bad - it's OK to say "I don't like that". (That might sound really dumb and obvious sorry, but it's something my useless parents taught me I wasn't ever allowed to say.)

"Can a man abuse their wife, be a bully to people they don’t like but genuinely love their child?"

Yes.

"He was found guilty at the fact finding, "
What was he found guilty of specifically?

I have very strong feelings about this topic. Depends what you mean as abusive. Not everyone agrees. I've seen many MN threads where posters have said that OP's behaviour / parenting / way of dealing with a situation is abusive, others disagree.

@Oblomov21 he was found guilty of hitting me and throwing things at me, emotionally, mentally and sexually abusing me. Fortunately he went down the line of admitting it all but saying that I made him do it all, he was stressed at work, his back hurt etc etc. He was also found guilty of neglect, emotional abuse and safeguarding issues of our child. Enough for the court to deny access so far for 2 years. But he continues to say he loves the child. I find it difficult to understand how you can love a child but destroy its mother…but reading these posts I can see that we all have different idea as about what love is.

[quote Overwhelmed83]@Oblomov21 he was found guilty of hitting me and throwing things at me, emotionally, mentally and sexually abusing me. Fortunately he went down the line of admitting it all but saying that I made him do it all, he was stressed at work, his back hurt etc etc. He was also found guilty of neglect, emotional abuse and safeguarding issues of our child. Enough for the court to deny access so far for 2 years. But he continues to say he loves the child. I find it difficult to understand how you can love a child but destroy its mother…but reading these posts I can see that we all have different idea as about what love is.[/quote]
He probably does love your child, in that he sees them as an extension of himself. Doesn't mean his brand of love is worth having.

Then yes he is abusive.
Does / could he love his child? Probably. What was decided about access, does dc want to see him?

We go back to court December again. He wants to see child and child wants to see dad. But they are young and I haven’t told them anything apart from what they remember about him. All they remember is daddy buys me what I want.

The love of an abusive parent isn't always valuable in itself as a pp said.
My mother said until she died that she loved me. However she procured me to be sexually abused, so that comment about the love being valuable just doesn't compute.

You have to understand the bar is set very, very, low. A parent can be acknowledged as abusive both directly (i.e. abusive towards the child themselves) and indirectly (through abusing the mother) yet it's still viewed as ''in the child's best interest'' to maintain a relationship with that child. It's all about ''how'' abusive, which is why they talk about thresholds.

I feel for you, I've been in a similar situation for more years than I care to say. Of everything he's done to our child, I'd say it's the years of emotional abuse and manipulation that has had the worst impact. A child isn't equipped to sustain that long term. All the so called ''professionals'' do is put in place more counselling to help her ''cope'' with seeing him. The social worker explained it best: he loves her but it is conditional upon her meeting his needs, doing what he wants etc. If she can't or won't... well he retaliates.

It's perfectly possible to love your children and be abusive towards them. Some people are very messed up and don't actually read lose how harmful they are being to their children, despite loving them.

Just as it's possible it not to love your children, go through the motions,make the child feel loved and be a good parent.

I think it absolutely is possible, I think many people lack the skills to deal with the stresses of life without abusing others, but that doesn't mean they don't feel love.

I don’t think he loved me but he loved the version of a me he wanted. Unfortunately I’m not him so my needs were irrelevant unless filling them meant he got some benefit.

I feel this will be the same relationship he has if he gets it with dc. He won’t see the unique person they are just a person who can fulfil his needs.

OP, I'm in a similar situation, this thread has been really helpful. He thinks he loves them, but his love is not of much benefit to them and contact has fucked one of them up badly, but DS still waits for that call or text to summon him to undertake a 2 hour journey each way, to see him for a few hours.

@Overwhelmed83

We go back to court December again. He wants to see child and child wants to see dad. But they are young and I haven’t told them anything apart from what they remember about him. All they remember is daddy buys me what I want.

While obviously I wouldn't recommend regaling a child with tales of how awful your ex was and a long list of the details, I do believe that keeping it all secret is totally counter productive. All it does is confuse the child - "but daddy loved me and mummy didn't let me see him" and of course, once he IS allowed contact again, you can rest assured he will continue with that narrative.

So, an age appropriate explanation that daddy was very mean to mummy and sometimes he hurt her and so everyone wanted to make sure that he wasn't going to hurt mummy or you seems to me to be fair.

SIL is currently in process of separating from BIL and while she facilitates contact between him and the DC, I really hope that as they get older she is able to articulate the behaviours that were problematic because BIL is already, in front of SIL telling them that Mummy is a horrible person and won't let him live with them anymore. who knows what he tells them when she's not there.....

Yes it important to tell them but in an age appropriate way, you don’t and shouldn’t tell them everything even in age appropriate words, as you need to ensure you don’t add to the emotional damage by telling them the truth. What you tell them know should be seen as the “foundations blocks” of their knowledge of the situation, you would build up on that knowledge or fill in the spaces as their questions change as they grow up.

And also, never build up the image of the other parent or lie to excuse their absences. The best answer to “why did daddy didn’t come?” Is not “daddy loves you a lot they must have asked him to work extra hours” but “I don’t know, really but would you like to go to the park?” (Truth+distract, distract, distract)

Yes but... it's complicated.

Also I think what you're really asking is whether someone who abused a partner can be a safe person to have around a child. I think no, but unfortunately the family courts don't agree with me. Therefore I think the best approach with an abusive ex is to grey rock them - be as boring and nonreactive as possible, which means letting the child go for contact initially, and hope that they get bored, which IME they generally do.

If that is not an option and contact ends up being court ordered, then be comforted by the fact that providing a non-abusive home will do a lot to counter the effects of anything scary or upsetting they do experience.

@TowerOfGiraffes that's interesting about the results of foster care in Denmark. I've Ling suspected that the worse results here are due to the poor kids being pushed from pillar to post and onwards, plus variable quality of care.

I do think that if there was a less fractured care path and more resources then foster care outcomes would be much better.

But then firstly I suspect that as a culture the Nordic countries have a far more positive outcome. You only have to see the UK media to see how vituperative they are to a child who does bad things, instead of asking what went wrong and how can the child be helped.

Plus the insane view that a parent can be an absolute shit and they still get contact.

I think a lot of people who are abusive are so caught up in an ongoing fantasy of victimhood, feeling that they are themselves being abused in some way, perhaps a hangover from actually abusive childhoods themselves, that they cannot really fully see nor take responsibility for how very abusive they are being themselves. Thus you have the phenomenon of people being really abusive but thinking that somehow it is "justified" - because of how abusive someone has been to them (whether as a historical fact or as a style of relating).

Take a paedophile who thinks that the child he abuses is asking for it and leading him on. He is so busy feeling abused by being tantalised and frustrated in this way that he doesn't truly face what he is doing - and how sickeningly abusive it is.

The other thing that happens is that abusers "identify with the aggressor". If they were themselves abused when small, they identify with the abuser rather than the victim, so they never have to feel powerless again. Then they can be abusive themselves, because the part of them that might identify with and empathise with their victim and how they might feel, is closed off and dead to them.

Whenever someone is doing something very abusive to someone else, something has gone badly wrong somewhere. That is not to excuse it ... nor to say that abusers shouldn't have to take responsibility - in fact this is precisely what they need to face - to really face what they are doing, its impact, and feelings of remorse.

But I don't believe abusers are just "evil". They are people who are seriously damaged.

I agree @Bumpsadaisie with a lot of what you say. My ex was abused by his father and his mother was abused very badly also, his sister was never touched and adored by the father. The sister is an alcoholic and my ex terribly abusive. He always talked about how awful his father was to his mother but he did the same to me. Not so much physical though which he used to tell me I was lucky for that I never got hit like his mother. He was deeply disturbed.

Oh and he was a massive victim. He literally was, he suffered as a child but he carried that on all the time. I could not make up for his childhood even though I tried. He couldn’t get out of being a victim.

@bibliomania that makes a lot of sense.