How can a parent let their child be beaten by an OH

[JugsyMalone]

I just don't get this. I am a single parent to 2 boys.

I would never be with a partner for one second who hurt my kids. I would batter the bloke back and be straight down the police station. Even if I was mortally afraid I would be out of the house with my kids at the corner shop or anywhere public asap.

But it's always the boyfriend who batters the baby to death. Yes, he's the nutter. But what is wrong with the mother?

maresedotes - can you link to that please?

I am torn over this, because I believe there are women who are like Stickafork has described; women who, on being told by their child that they are being abused by the partner (father or no) either refuse to believe them or blame them - and they may not have any violence ishoos with the partner themselves (they might) - but they refuse to dissolve their partnership to potentially protect their child. No I don't know anyone personally in this situation and perhaps I have been led astray by the various stories I've seen in the media over the years, but there are women who prioritise their partner over their children (even on MN).

However, I also understand that women in a DV situation do have altered perceptions and may get to a point where they don't know which way is up, so making any strong decisions is very hard for them - but still, and I know I'm ignorant about this, I just don't see how they can normalise seeing their child be damaged so badly, to the point of death. How, how is it that it doesn't snap them into action, to protect their baby?

Yes I am enormously grateful and lucky that I don't know how this happens, and I'm really sorry if I've offended anyone - but it really doesn't compute with me how they let it happen. :(

JugsyMalone

YOU are terrible naive if you think it is that easy in all relationships. It is normally years & years of soul destroying/controlling/gas lighting/beating etc. The woman is SO worn down that she lacks the confidence, the strength, the know how to leave.

It's easy to say that you will leave if you/your kids are hit/beaten when in a perfectly normal (define normal yourself) relationship. Myself, yes I would leave dh is he did hurt our girls, or myself, but that is easy to say because he doesn't spend him time belittling me, terrorising me & destroying who I am. I can see his behaviour for what it would be, because I haven't been programmed to think of it as acceptable.

Thumbwitch It is so complicated isn't it?
The 2 women I have posted about, well, they both put their need for a relationship (whole other thread) over and above their children. But how sad that their self esteem was so wrapped up in being in a relationship they glossed over how their DC were being treated. And they glossed over it right from the start.
I have to admit, I haven't been in an abusive relationship, but I grew up in an abusive house so I tend to come at these things from the childs perspective.

Haven't read the whole thread. My mother did not leave my father. She stayed and watched him abuse me for years. I left them eventually, but she is still with him. She may have been traumatised by his abuse towards her before he started on me. But she is an inherently weak person. That's why she didn't leave.

I don't think it's up to society to make it easier for women to leave. It wouldn't have made any difference with my mother. She is and was simply a weak, cowardly unfit mother.

Stick. I agree that it is hugely shocking how anyone can do that to their child, maybe when we see instances like this we need to be the children's voice and call in outside help. If the children's own mother won't help, maybe the other adults round the children should.

Unfortunately as with many things, there is not a one solution fits all. Which includes demonising those who don't seek help.

HPTU I get what you are saying, but my (admittedly only 2) examples weren't from women who had been ground down after years. They made the choice right at the beginning.

The problem with your argument as a response to the OP, Stewie, is that it presumes that all women who stand by while their children are beaten are victims.

It's only victim blaming if you assume that women whose children are hit are victims by definition.

That's the circular logic I was talking about earlier - you are presuming abuse as the only possible explanation for women who don't help their abused children, and then using the abuse you have presumed as the reason they do nothing.

Is it really beyond the bounds of possibility that as well as abused women paralysed by fear and trauma, there are also other women who don't act for different reasons?

Sometimes there are traumatised victims who are doing their best, but sometimes there are women who buy so utterly into the idea that it is wrong to split up a family that they think a violent father is better than a "broken family", other times there are women so enamoured of a new man that they overlook how he is with their children.

And, and, and...

There is no one answer to why this happens, and an argument that all women who stay are too afraid to leave is as knee-jerk and simplistic as one that thinks any woman would just walk at the first sign of violence.

I have seen those kind of injuries to dustin and Im only a nursery worker. Some women are weak and put up with it, they often even after all that chose the man over the child and lose custody of the child. They often defend the man even after they have been caught out, even after sexual abuse. I have seen some awful cases and been involved in the cp and removal of them from the family home.

StickAForkInMeImDone

I was answering the OP who (it reads here) seems to think that all relationships are devoid of all & any type of abuse.

My brother stayed with a woman who called his (older/left home, lives with his ex) children skanks & whores & bitches. Why did he stay? because he was scared of being alone. For some reason he didn't see what she did as a problem. In his case, he was just stupid. But it isn't always like that, is it?

Your SIL & friend, did you know ALL the intricacies of their relationships? I worked with a women for 3yrs & she was badly abused/beaten by her partner. NO ONE knew, he was 'clever' only hit her where it wouldn't show. She didn't tell anyone because all her family/friends loved him so much & he convinced her that no one would. One time she was so badly hurt she took time off work. Another girl at work saw her in town & she was black & blue. She said her & her partner were beaten up. I left that place of work & heard that she left him after he kissed another girl. The years of beating etc, did nothing for her, a kiss was all it took!

he convinced her that no one would believe her

One of the hardest points for me it when I first realise what I'm seeing or hearing. The tidal wave of incandescent rage that floods me is hard to contain, to keep your voice steady and even and your manner light and gentle and calm when all I want at that moment is to disembowel and dismember that person that caused the harm.

It is so very visceral, the need to protect. Even when they aren't my children.

HPTU My SIL stayed with my DB for similar reasons your DB stayed with his partner.

Re my SIL, no I didn't know all the intricacies, but I knew a lot, staying with them 4/5 days a week. I also knew what my DB told me himself how he felt about his step children (and yes I did call him on it) and what DIL told me, in her words just before they married "I know he doesn't like my DC, but I love him and they won't be at home forever"

With my friend, she told me what her OH did to make her DC do what he said. I told her it wasn't right and her response was that it was for the greater good and maybe they would learn to behave. (they were normal DC, didn't need to be held by their necks with their feet off the floor to remind them to take a glass out of the lounge). Friend's OH behaved like this from the beginning.

The thing is they go for women that display a certain type of weakness/vulnerability in the first place and then they just play on that. I can sort of understand that as some people are needy and will put up witha lot, and it makes them very easy to manipulate and the man senses that whn he originally gets with her. Unfortunately these types of men often already sense these things in women that are already mothers.

However I really do struggle with that when there are children involved that have been threatened with hammers, covered in bruises, sexually abused, etc. With the physical abuse the mum has often seen it with her own eyes and talked bout that but still wouldnt leave for whatever reason, even after offers of being moved away, lots of support, free childcare, help with jobs, could live in mother/baby unit/supported living etc. I think with some people they just 'love' the abuser more than the child/ren.

HPTU my mum was like the woman you worked with. No-one would have believed what he was capable of. She hid it well.

molly - or they leave but then they go back - what IS that all about? :(

Thumbwitch my friend (a different one) allowed her H back after 4 weeks. She had had to call the police on him 3 times and he had beaten her, but the "kids missed him and she loved him".
My mum kicked my dad out for 4 days after he tipped boiling water over her, she let him back home.
I think the thought of going through the separation and all it entails (plus the fact the women feel to blame) means it is easier to go back to what they know.
Still don't understand why women stay with men who show their behaviour at the beginning of the relationship though

StickAForkInMeImDone Then they are just selfish, to put their happiness over their children's. Like my brother. Who is on his 4th girlfriend/fiancée in a yr.

stick it's HPTUser, btw! :)

i do think we have to consider the culture women are raised in that implies your success is marked by whether you keep the family together, whether you have a man, etc. obviously that really influences a lot of women. many, many women on here put their partners and marriage before their children in different ways. the women who send small children to boarding school for example so they can stay with their military husbands are choosing to be with their man rather than their children. i've heard them too make the point that their children won't always be there, their marriage will if they look after it.

you also have to look at the advice that gets doled out here to women being treated badly and very unhappy in their marriages where everyone piles on to say that marriage takes work you don't just throw in the towel and they should train their man, change themselves, put up with it etc because god forbid they don't want to end up a single mum.

then look at the way society as a whole treats and regards single parents and the obstacles that are put in their path to being able to be functioning members of society with access to a good quality of living.

no, personally these things wouldn't stop me putting my son and myself first, but obviously they do for a lot of women re: those who put up with serial adultery, their husbands repeatedly frequenting websites for nsa sex, their husbands doing nothing for the children or the home and treating them like an unpaid slave. it's all a continuum isn't it?

stickaforkin - see i find it shocking that your dad was free to move anywhere 4 days after having poured boiling water over another human being - he should have been in prison.

and we do have to consider that too - that if a man on the street beat a woman and child he would be in serious trouble but it gets treated differently still if it happens within the home or effectively if it was 'his' woman and

we need to lock these arseholes up and get through to them that society will not accept violence whether it is against a police officer or your wife .

swallowed it was 20 years ago and the police showed no interest.
I would laugh if it wasn't so ridiculous, but dad stayed in a B&B, he dropped his dirty washing off in the porch in the morning and mum would wash and iron it for him to pick up from the porch in the evening!
You are right, if he had done that to any other person he would have been charged, but hey, it was only my mum, a domestic.

Isn't it similar to the other thread I see occasionally on here - who would you choose? Your dcs or your partner? Quite a few people say they would choose their partner over their dcs. I'm always when I read those comments as, at least imho, my child would always come first over any relationship I had with anyone else.

I'm not denying that SGM, but the children should be taken out of the equation, even if the mother might need them to be with her. Their need to be emotionally and physically safe, or even alive should not be considered less important than keeping a mother with her children.

The needs of the mother should not condone the continuing abuse of her children, and yes, both are victims.