Men who destroy their families - help me understand

[missymisdemeanor]

I have NC for this. A young woman I worked with took her life a few weeks ago. The investigations are now complete and the Police have discovered that she was subject to long term sexual, verbal and emotional abuse from her father. There were thousands of abusive emails and text messages. She died in a very violent and horrific way and it is difficult to process the mindset she must have been in.

I work with children and I know so many families that have been ruined by men. So many women and children's lives destroyed. I feel so angry. For years I have had this funny quip where when someone says 'not all men are like that' (NAMALT) I reply 'you're right, but all the people like that are men' (APLTAM).

How can I make sense of the experiences of families I know that have been destroyed by men having affairs, being violent/aggressive/controlling, gambling/drink problems, abandoning the family to 'find themselves'? So much narcism and selfishness, entitlement, anger, vengeful hatred and destruction.

Please can someone recommend any reading material? My thinking is jumbled and I need to sort my head out. I work with many fantastic men, have a loving DH and fantastic DS who sometimes wonders aloud if I am sexist :( (but he does understand), maybe I am. I can't reconcile my anger. If any wise women are out there please help. I suspect it's my age - layers and layers of experience forming patterns in my brain over 4 decades. Any advice?

Please can PP repeatedly stating 'women do this too' start their own thread. This is not about women abusing their children. This thread is about men who destroy their families.

Most family annihilators are fathers.

Most physically abused children are abused by their mothers

Taken in isolation this is a bit misleading.

How about the severity of abuse? Do women kill as many children as men kill?

Also proximity. Taking 'time spent with child" into consideration.

If you looked only at samples where mothers and fathers spend equal time with a child - is the mother still more likely to physically abuse them than fathers?

I doubt it, considering the fact men perpetrate 95% of violent crimes.

Boys are often harder to look after as babies and are likely to be hit more and harder as children. This is a very good article (below) on their vulnerability in different ways but includes the propensity to violence. However all people who are abusive are in my opionion disturbed in some way. And it is true that most people who cause significant harm to others have been harmed themselves.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119278/

We didn't cover child murders Guardian, but a study in the US gives the rates as 43% of children killed by their own parent were killed by their mother and 57% by their father.

Dione I’m not in any way trying to say you’re wrong, I just find those stats interesting. When you say ‘kill’ did it include things like mothers falling asleep and smothering babies or was the study purely based on child deaths due to violence?

Here's the link.
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/07/07/health/filicide-parents-killing-kids-stats-trnd/index.html

That makes for grim reading

It's very sad that 2 out of the 5 main reasons identified relate to mental illness

People love to think that abuse is about nuture not nature because they fallaciously think that this way, there is 'someone' to blame and that they
therefore have protected their own children from becoming violent.

It's a way of self-comforting and trying to 'manage' a much more complex problem

Thanks Dione
I'd be interested stats on the motives (altruistic, psychotic, unwanted, accidental, revenge) according to sex.

I'd imagine altruism, psychosis and maybe unwanted would be higher in mothers, because of their extended proximity to the child, and then accidental and revenge to be higher in fathers, because it fits male pattern violence more.

my last post seemed to disappear so apologies if this posts twice.

bucking- read the article i posted from the bmj. It considers the complexity (and research) about both nature and nurture in this.

bucking I agree to some extent. With my own kids I am surprised how frequently I need to tell them that hitting - or any sort of violence is unacceptable and wrong. They didn't get 'taught' to hit.

But I do believe children can be taught strategies for managing emotions and violent impulses so that they don't hurt people as they grow up. But if you take your eye of the ball as a parent or go through a rough patch in life so that you aren't 'on top of things' it can all unravel pretty quickly and children start going off the rails.

It is tough to parent attentively and consistently enough to 'nurture' them out of impulsive behaviour.

I think I am in shock re the young woman death. I can't sleep, I can't eat, my thinking is very muddled. How could a father destroy his child so deliberately? This wasn't a one off 'red mist' this was systematic over 6 months. I haven't been sleeping. I feel I should have done more to help. I feel so angry with him.

I work with families and my experiences over the last year have included a bigamist, 3 men who have snatched their children and left their wives in terror, gambling addicts, violent alcoholics and a lot of DV. I am not a therapist.

My chest really hurts, my whole body aches, I can't process it all. I am sorry if I am being weak an d pitiful, I cannot cope atm and feel scared. I feel incredibly angry.

I am sorry. I have no one to talk to in RL and really apologise for being so muddled, confused and poor. I am not normally like this. Thank you for reading. Thank you for all your replies.

*ex wives

missy I reckon you should go on the Million Women Rise March - i think you'd find it very cathartic and enriching.

Missy I really really understand why you are feeling like this. I found a group that I found really supportive but then a man there got my email address somehow and has sent me a peculiar email with a X on the end. I now don't want to go back. I felt so safe and that I was around the opposite of what you describe in your op. Totally gutted.

Are there any women centres where you live?

I do think we should try to refocus the thread on OP and not on "women do it too".
I am generally scared of men. I am not of women. The skewed percentages will not change that for me and I doubt they will for the op. Real life speaks the loudest.

I have a lot of amazing women in my life - I am lucky in that regard. My BF's husband has been battering her eldest daughter, she has finally got the courts to listen and contact stopped, close friends - one subject to DV then total abandonment (XH went to South America when she left) and financial abuse, another friend's partner didn't want kids and his no beat her yes of course, but at 42 he left to fuck a 22 year old who had 2 kids in 3 years. It is hard. I cannot cope with it all. I am the only woman of 12 brothers - I grew up emerged and surrounded by masculinity. I know men better than woman. I dont know what I am asking for, I am so confused. Thanks for all your replies.

I second the suggestion of finding your local Womens Centre. they often have a library as well, and groups to join.
You sound like someone who feels they have been let down, and you are right. Men who act that way have broken all the expected social contracts.

I guess the question boils down to ''if you had the chance to do something entirely selfish, would you. Even if you hurt other people''.
You wouldn't, so you cant understand people that would.

If you’re working in a reasonably large organisation and dealing with these sorts of things as part of your job, do they have an Occupational Health Office, or a counselling service, or an Employee Assistance programme? You should be offered some help in processing all of this.

Also, you could just ring up the Samaritans and talk it through with them.

I am self employed I have no support. thanks for all you do, I rely on you all more than you know and am very grateful xx

OP, I can understand your anger. Much of my work is with survivors of DV and childhood abuse. Do you receive adequate supervision in your role?

Cross post. I see you are self employed. Do you have a supervisor?

I have no one, family and friend exhausted. Thank you for your support.

No supervisor - I am a sole trader - I love my job but this is hard.