This Morning - who is that woman 'presenter' and why is she so crap...

[LineRunner]

...and what is Natalie Cassidy saying?

i don't watch and havent watched but if those quotes are direct from what NC has said on air i do hope that This Morning have an "expert" who will come on and challenge those statements.

they cannot be allowed to be aired without someone explaining to both NC and the viewers that it was not her responsibility to control her "stress over his drinking". that his violence was all HIS doing.

I agree Wannabe

I didn't feel sorry for her either. I thought she came across as foolish.
It was cringeworthy, and like you say - probably irresponsible to air.

Just read an interview with her elsewhere (same subject) where she pedals out the same spiel, pretty much word for word.

Why do women still do this to other women?

why will they refuse to understand that domestic abuse is about a whole lot more than just the slap/punch/kick?

NC was probably groomed into believing it was all her fault long before she was ever hit. She is the product of intensive emotional manipulation. of course you should bloody well feel sorry for her.

MOST women who are abused by their long term partner return. I don't have the statistics to hand but a large % of women take their abuser back after the first police intervention. It takes an average of (i think) 7 assaults before a woman even seeks help.

Hey Valar - look...I know...I spent years in an abusive relationship. I understand how one finds themselves caught up in the manipulations of an abusive partner.

I think the hard hearted element of what I've said, actually comes from the fact that she is on tv saying this stuff. Thousands of women experiencing abuse, will now also cling to the hope that their tormentor will change like Natalie's.

You are right in what you say - of course we should feel sorry for her. I guess I just wish her blindness had not been aired as it was today.

Oh i absolutely agree that what was aired should have been challenged, As i said in my first post.

But she, like many who have experienced DV, are embarrassed by everyone knowing. It is humiliating that everyone knows your business but to be quizzed over the whole thing must be horrific.
She was probably trying to downplay the events (i didn't see it so don't know) to as to not feel so silly.

As you say pictish - you spent years in that relationship. We should applaud NC for at least kicking him out until he received help for his drinking. Whether that "cures" his abusive nature we can only wait and see. But she did at least do the minimum I would hope she did.

I also didn't like the fact that when they panned the camera straight after to Colleen for her to read out viewers' opinions, the first ones were of the 'My partner changed' variety, and only after these did she read out a couple of 'Don't go back to an abuser' messages.

I think that a woman who was vascillating about leaving an abuser might have heard the wrong message today.

there should have been someone from Womens aid or Refuge offering the more realistic and certainly more common experience that abusers rarely "change"

What worried me was that she blamed his bad behaviour on alcohol.
It's not alcohol that makes him violent. He is violent because he wants to be.

She also took responsibility for his violence herself, 'confessing' to winding him up, by being 'uptight' about his drinking, while she was pregnant.
Again, no. It is not her fault that her partner hits her.

I could not help but find the interview really frustrating.

I think so, too, Valar. Even agony auntie Denise would have put a bit of perspective on to the proceedings.

I feel sorry for NC, she is in the same bracket as Kerry Katona selling every aspect of her personal life

Sounds like her partner has already fallen off the wagon once, it will probably happen again

Emma is gorjus

actually i have to agree that the booze just excacerbates an already aggresive personality

I watched on plus one after seeing this thread. It was so sad. Her saying she was a strong woman, it was all the drink, if it happens again thats it but if he drinks again we will see at the time. I feel sorry for her daughter. I think Colleen felt embarrassed reading out negative (yet realistic) comments with NCs face watching her on a big tv screen.

I wish they had had someone from refuge on and spoken more about what to do if you want out. They needed Denise on!

If a man is abusive when he drinks, he is no less abusive than any other abusive person.
Plenty of us get bladdered and don't hit our partners.
Alcohol is NO excuse.

the problem is that we run the risk of falling into a mindset that when positive things happen (i.e. someone leaves) it's the woman's doing, but when the bad things happen (i.e. when she goes back) it's all the man's doing.

The only person responsible for the violence suffered by NC is her partner, there is no disputing that. But, having thrown him out, taken out a restraining order against him, she had taken control. The fact she then decided that actually she loved him after all and wanted him back was equally her responsibility. If he hits her again (and he most likely will) it will again be his fault. But she went back to him of her own accord. That is her decision, of course it is, and if she ends up back in the same situation I will have every sympathy for her.

But I cannot sympathize with the choices she has made.

And I still think it is totally irresponsible for This morning to broadcast an interview with an enabler who is prepared to sit on camer a nd justify her decisions and excuse his behavior.

Alcohol is a facilitator not a justification.

Yeah, I'm of the same view that it was irresponsible to allow NC to do that interview, especially without someone else - either from Refuge or Denise - present. I'm not really sure what NC and the producers thought they were aiming to achieve.

have been thinking about this, and am in process of writing a blog post (and might even start an ibu topic )

I think my issue is really with This Morning.

One of the predominant messages about domestic violence is that the abuser rarely changes, and that the only way to stay safe is to get out of the situation. And now here we have a television show, watched predominantly by women, many of whom might be in abusive relationships, helping to spread the idea that a man can change and that even after having been abused to the extent that a restraining order was necessary, a woman can forgive her man and they can live happily ever after, and there was no-one to challenge that.

Now, if NC had been a woman who had taken this step ten, twenty, thirty years ago, I could see the motivation behind the interview. But we're talking what, a matter of months? There is no way of possibly knowing that someone has changed in that short a timeframe.

Shows like that have a responsibility to their viewers. So one might ask, how many women will have watched that show and think that their man could change too? How many women might choose to give him another chance and go back? And put themselves in danger?

What Natalie Cassidy does with her life is her business. If she wants to take back her abusive partner that's sad for her but it's her choice. But shows that are watched by millions of viewers do not need to be shown to be supporting such decisions by broadcasting them live to potentially other vulnerable women.

This is just wrong on every conceiveable level and should never have been given airtime.

wannaBe, I'd be pleased if you started a new thread on a board with more traffic.

When I started this thread NC had only just started speaking, and I did give it a rather frivolous thread title.

Also, I presume it is possible to complain to - is it Ofcom?

I am really tempted to linerunner, and I am usually of the "if you don't like it, switch it off" persuasion.

Me too, wannaBe. But your point before is a bloody good one - this isn't about you being personally offended; it's about other women potentially being lured into really risky false sense of security by this piece.

have started thread - it's in ibu.

I've just posted on it, wannaBe.

You are getting 'YANBUs' so far. Well done.

Oh, it's kicking off a bit over there.