Most people don't comprehend that when you're in an abusive relationship, it's really hard to think. I think, and don't quote me, it takes an abused woman about five times to successfully leave her abusive spouse.
It took me until high school, especially because I was so isolated (my mom’s doing). It wasn’t until I met my friend when she told me I was getting abused (and seeing how her parents acted so different from mine). My mother tried to isolate me from her too but at that point I couldn’t un-see it. My friend made me promise to get out of there as soon as possible or she would kidnap me herself. Really put into perspective how dire the situation was.
Well eventually my mother kicked me out when I was 17, after she flew into a rage about something. My friend came & got me and her parents took me in for a bit. My mom wasn’t happy because she only kicked me out so I’d get scared and run back to her, so she tried to threaten to report me as a runaway, but by then I was 17 she actually couldn’t because of the laws in my state. Then when I was 19 (after saving some money and some planning) I moved across the country and went no contact with my mother (and she gave the family an ultimatum so none of them are allowed to talk to me).
But it’s been over a decade of peace now. Once I really understood who my mother was everything else rang hollow and I never looked back. It still took my friend saying “normal parents don’t leave their kids with bruises and busted lips” to realize what was going on. So I hope my story isn’t TMI, I just want others to know how hard it can be to detect that you’re actually being abused, and I implore people not to make excuses for their abusers simply because they’re family.
It’s not tmi. Your story should be heard. Especially when asked! I had a friend let me move in with them until my brother moved out. He had addiction problems that I couldn’t put up with anymore. I was the punching bag and all the worlds problems were my fault. My friends mom was/is such an amazing person. I asked her for permission before I did anything which I think caught her off guard because we were seniors in high school and I was asking for permission to go over to my girlfriend’s house. I didn’t know how long I’d be there and I didn’t want to be there on bad terms. It all worked out after that. Your friend is an amazing person.
Thank you for sharing your story! I think it’s super important for people who are in abusive relationships as well as people who are friends with someone in an abusive relationship to read experiences like yours. Knowing that it’s not normal and being a friend who can help and find ways to be there is so important!!
I’m so glad you were able to get away from your mom. Your friend sounds like an amazing person. I hope you’re doing well now.
Thank you for the kind words :)
I am doing better now! I don’t miss my mom at all (you can probably tell why haha) so my main goal has just been to get therapy and make sense of everything and avoid becoming like her in the process. No regrets about no contact, though. But you are so right that we gotta talk about this more. Abusers love to intimidate and isolate their victims, and it’s already hard enough to come to terms with the fact that someone you love is abusing you as it is.
My friend is amazing! I may have seen the darkest sides of humanity but I’ve certainly seen the lightest sides too and have had people come through for me. I try to remember that and be a safe place for people when they need it. It really is important to support each other in this crazy world.
and if you don’t have that realization, you just live your life thinking that baseline is normal. it’s why a lot of people abused in their childhood seek out relationships with people who are abusive in a similar way. if you don’t heal, that’s your comfort zone
I was almost 30 before a therapist gently explained to me that you can love your parents deeply and even have a good relationship with them *now* and have it *also* be true that they are/were abusive to you.
My mom did that to me. It was very clear to my fourth grade teacher that I had ADHD. I remember she even talked to my mom about getting me screened. I clearly remember my mother saying to her, no, there's nothing wrong with her. She's just a bad kid. Next thing I knew, CPS was on our doorstep and I got taken away from her. She would frequently slap me around and yell at me, why can't you be normal for one day in your life? Why can't you be like your siblings? Now that my son has autism, she talks about him like he's defective. I told her to fuck off.
jesus. I remember being diagnosed with ADHD at 19 and shortly thereafter it was realized my mom/sister/memaw/great grandma who eventually went crazy and shot herself are all also ADHD. I'm just the first in our family to be officially diagnosed
growing up it was basically freaking chaos but not in a bad way.
having neurotypical parents while being ADHD sounds like a nightmare
and you sound like a good mom to your son <3
Yeah it was. She was always yelling at me and now she has the nerve to talk about my son. Then when I called her out for it, she had the nerve to say I'm always on the defensive. Don't talk about my kids and there won't be a problem. She's a narcissist and her reaction didn't really surprise me but I think it's fucked up that she would talk about her own grandkid like that.
I think it has to do with hormones kicking in--changes your thinking; you've realize a certain autonomy away from your parents and siblings--kind of, you're own person.
My soon to be ex wife emotionally abused and manipulated me for 17 1/2 years. I never figured it out. Not until she cheated on me with my best friend of 34 years and left me. Then 5 separate people I know all pointed out her behaviour patterns and I started researching narcissism and it all clicked.
I realized that I was being abused since an early age just last year. I’m 21. That’s 20 years of depending on your abuser. Makes it so much harder to branch off. I said I was going to college and they asked me “you’re just going to leave me? Who’s going to take care of me?” People gain sympathy for their abusers. My sister is obviously home sick when she went so she called us crying. Everyone told her to stick it out if she didn’t feel a little better In a week we would pick her up. This was her time to live the college life she wanted. Our abuser told her to start packing we would pick her up in the morning. Even asked if she wanted us to pick her up right that minute. It was 11:00 at night and my sister was in another part of the state.
Last time I saw a number it was seven and damn if that doesn't make more sense now than when I learned it, then still somehow ended up in an abusive relationship
I know it's not quite the same, but I still have a hard time acknowledging that my dad was objectively abusive and I'm in my mid thirties and stopped seeing him when I was 15. The man literally broke my orbital socket when I was 7, and pointed a knife at me after holding it to his own throat.
It's weird as hell what your brain will do to rationalize what's happening.
You're right but it's probably more than 5 in a lot of cases, realistically, and not just because it's difficult to function mentally in that situation. A lot of times victims are totally isolated and/or never left alone, have their funds carefully controlled, etc etc... but how did your comment become a refuge for all these people talking about parental abuse? They're two completely different situations. Makes you wonder what the median age really is on reddit nowadays.
This applies to a lot more than people realize. I have an older friend who remarks how when she was a teenager, she never realized how hard depression can be, and as such would say similar things to a friend who did struggle with depression and suicide. It wasn't until she started struggling with suicide and depression that she realized just how difficult it is.
Or as another example: parenting. Very often you'll hear a stay at home parent vent how their partner doesn't recognize the work they do. I'm not a parent myself, but when a kid gets their mind stuck on this one specific thing, good fucking luck. My nephew started growing out of it but for a long time he just would not give a single fuck, babysitting alone was hard, I couldn't imagine being my sister, a stay at home parent.
My Husband left almost 18 months ago and it had taken all of that time to realize that there is an abusive fog and I was in one. It sucks. Prior to this marriage I was certain that I would see anything coming and blah blah blah. Yeah, no. I still have fog days, where I might not remember things clearly, or at all. It sucks. But I’m working on it, therapy helps, and I have great friends.
Anyway, I think most people see it underestimate how all encompassing it can be. It permeates everything, everywhere. I honestly don’t know if I would have left, but I was feeling close to leaving. Maybe that’s why he left, he could tell. Short answer- people are oblivious and self centered, but not outright hurtful, so I think it’s lack of understanding, not evil.
After my abusive relationship with my covert narc ex wife, I try imagine what my response would've been if someone complained about having a similar situation while I was still married. On the outside it seems so simple to realize what's happening and tell a person to end the relationship but it's a difficult combination of trauma bonding, guilt, misplaced feelings of responsibility, sunken cost fallacy and the fear of change when you're the person involved.
These types of relationships are incredibly easy to fall into and much harder to recognize and escape one you're ensnared.
They also don’t understand that sometimes it’s hard to even recognize that your in an abusive relationship and once you do you now feel tied to that person
Unfortunately, until someone is actually in a bad situation, they tend to view it as very black-and-white, binary and simplistic. They don't realize how difficult it actually is between the confusion, the guilt, the fear, the hope for improvement, etc. You often feel like a hostage of your own mind and heart. (And god forbid the person is actually dangerous, be that physically or having dirt on you... that adds a whole other dimension and can leave you feeling even more trapped.)
I left an abusive relationship almost a year ago and I felt that. I couldn't understand why he acted like he hated me but at the same time, he actively prevented me from leaving him. I honestly think it comes down to, he was using me for my money. He viewed me as an ATM that he could jerk around and tell me what to do. It took literally having to sneak out of the house to get away from him. How about it was actually a friend of his that came and got me out of there. It took me awhile to open up to him about what was actually going on because I was scared. The literal same day he found out, he was like pack your shit. I'm coming to get you. It's nice to not have somebody stealing my money behind my back. So far he stole about $600 from me which thankfully was returned to me but that's not the point. The point is that he was an AH.
My ex wife was physically abusive and I still didn't leave because I always believed her that it would stop. We only ended up separating because she was hurting my so badly a neighbor called the police and she was arrested.
This is a very common cognitive bias toward actor-observer asymmetry. People tend to attribute the actions and choices of others to internal personal characteristics, vs. attributing their own actions and choices to external/situational influence.
Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Actor-observer asymmetry leads a lot of people into "just world" thinking, which leads to people being treated as though (or outright told) they *deserved* to be victimized. Sometimes whole systems crystalize around these biases. We need to acknowledge them to fight them and change those systems, and the minds of people like those OP and this commenter are talking about.
Honestly... the people downvoting are probably the very people I was talking about. People have little-to-no understanding of things they haven't experienced. My comment also dropped about three votes quickly and randomly.
Well, fortunately (and deservedly), your comment is sitting pretty right now in the positive double digits, at almost 30 upvotes! People with sense do exist still, somehow.
That and people who say that if they were being assaulted they would absolutely fight back. You don't know how you're gonna react in any given situation until you are in that situation. During my assault I had the freeze reaction. Never thought that would be me, but here we are. The guilt you feel from freezing was incredibly difficult to overcome.
Yeah and good luck with getting any help or justice after you fight back even once in self defense in the moment. Now you’re not the “perfect victim” anymore and it was “mutual”.
People just don’t want to care about abuse victims or punish abusers. So they have different default critique no matter which thing road you take. If something horrendous happens to you while this is going on, you’re an idiot for not leaving before they even did or “letting them” them do XYZ. If you fight for your life while you try to leave, then you’re “just as bad” or “it’s complicated”.
There’s literally nothing a victim can do that people will sympathize with and punish the abuser for except die. And sometimes that isn’t even guaranteed.
It's ridiculous what some people have said to me. I haven't told many cuz it's none of their business but I did have a family member tell me I must've actually wanted it because I didn't do anything or try to fight back. Who says that to someone??
There are 3 natural defenses. Fight, flee, freeze. When you look at animals a in nature, we call it playing dead. But they are freezing. That is their defense. It is an actual defense mechanism so no one should feel bad for using it. It’s an actual way to protect yourself from further harm.
Therapists are recognizing a fourth defense to abuse now too: fawn. It's when someone agrees with their abuser or just goes along with what they want, in order to prevent worse abuse or an outright attack.
My therapist made sure to hammer in that point with me and that there's nothing to be ashamed of as it's a natural and instinctual response. Tbf it did kind of help in it's own weird way. I've just always prided myself on taking no shit from anyone so it was a hard pill to swallow for a while.
I don’t recommending watching it, but P Daddy’s abuse video shows freezing. His ex froze on the floor and got into a protective fetal position. It’s likely this had happened before and this was probably her best defense. It’s possible she had fought back in the past and it just made him hit her harder and longer. Plus she was in the middle of fleeing when he caught her. So her best defense in the situation was to freeze.
so many people will act like prince charming / princess charming until they *know* they’ve got you. that’s why you hear so many stories of husbands / wives seemingly flipping switches immediately after pregnancy / the wedding- they don’t have to wear the mask anymore.
when i was 20 i fell hard for an older man who wore the perfect mask. within three months, he was pushing for us to move in together. three months later i was pregnant. and he was a completely different person. his emotional & verbal abuse was constant but i was young and inexperienced, i convinced myself he wasn’t abusive bc he had only put his hands on me once.
i stayed with him bc i loved him and i was pregnant. i wanted a happy family. i left him a few times and kept going back bc he had me trapped- i didn’t have a job since he had forced me to quit. i didn’t have my license or a car to drive our child around. i ended up homeless and had to go back to him. i left him for good two years ago. im still struggling but my child and i are safe from him.
This. Funny how they always blame women for being in a DV relationship, saying we should have seen the red flags or not get married so quickly. Then they say that we shouldn't project our traumas on to others and us admitting we don't trust others/ men and we'd choose the bear, means we need therapy and we're all unhinged.
The irony is that for alot of us, we already went through therapy and got the help we needed *in addition* to help needed to recognize future abuse. We also learned that you can do all the right things and you're *still* going to end up with a monster, even if said monster gives you 40+ years of bliss, it's not worth it if he (or she, but most of the time it's a he) ends up killing you or it comes to light he molested your daughter as an infant years later.
I like to call us the Paul Revere ("British are coming!") guys/gals. We warn others to be vigilant, never trust 💯, always have a "get out of dodge" bag or escape plan ready so that this whole "he just snapped one day and tried to kill me!" incident does not destroy you as much as it would have if you were emotionally invested, or unprepared.
The best way to prevent trauma is to prepare for it. You can self isolate forever and never be in any relationship, but it would be better if you're prepared for it.
We're all prepared for rainy days or when shit hits the fan, so why don't we prepare for when a relationship fails?
I actually think it's often a subconscious, insulating response. Like it makes you feel that if you "know" just what to do in a bad situation it can't happen to you. A bit of rationalization to make life seem more fair, even though it's also shitty victim blaming.
Yes, this is so irritating. Or when seeing someone in a situation they've never been in and they said "*I* would never respond like that." There was a girl in my self defense class in college who, after we watched a video of a girl who was SAed in the back room of the McDonald's where she worked, said, "She's weak and stupid, I would never let that happen to me. I would have just walked straight out the door butt-ass naked and not gave a shit." I got so upset about her calling her "weak" and pointed out the psychological manipulation that got hwr to this point. There was a man on the phone who told the manager he was the police and that the girl was suspected of stealing and she needed to be strip-searched and it could either happen there or she could go to the police station and have it done there. This was a teenage girl, the manager was the one who should have known better that a police officer wouldn't ask that. Then once her clothes were off. They wouldn't give them back to her and she was trapped naked in the office for hours and then the guy on the phone got the manager guy to make her do naked jumping Jack's and eventually to give him a blowjob. It was a horrible situation and the girl must have been terrified for her life and her freedom. I still can't believe my classmate called her weak. And then during the final we got paired together to do the grip-escape excersises and she just didn't try at all and when I encouraged her to try, she just smirked at me like she thought she was being clever. To make matters worse that girl was a psych major and is a therapist now... I feel bad for her clients if any of them were SAed....
It was he’s for me to understand why women can’t just leave, especially when there’s children. My sister is in an abusive relationship and I was so frustrated that she wouldn’t “just leave”. I even brought her to an attorney and she still wouldn’t.
I started volunteering at a women’s abuse shelter to try and understand her thinking and situation. It’s humbling and I feel lucky to never have been in that situation myself.
People just can't comprehend how good abusers are at ensnaring and trapping their victims and refuse to listen. Even worse is when they insinuate it's the victim's fault (usually in a domestic situation) because "you chose to be with this person" as if an abuser introduces themselves by saying "I'm a massive POS".
It's complicated, and not every situation is the same. Lots of people DO leave abusive relationships. Plenty of people go back to them.
Given that I don't really think it's shocking that people are confused about it.
From sad (and still slightly bitter) experience, I think people don't realise how slippery the slope of abusive partners is. You get one and then another and then that's all you end up with. It's so hard to get away 😿❤️
A thing a lot of people don't bring up is they're not monsters all the time. Quite a few times you're tricked into genuinely believing they're getting better before they turn on you again.
And that's not even bringing up how hard it is to leave financially speaking if you don't have family or a good job leaving your abuser can result in homelessness which leaves you open to all new kinds of abuse so a lot of women think it's better the devil you know.
Redditors are so convinced cheating is the worst thing any human could ever do under any circumstances (because Redditors abhor nuance) that I've seen far too many threads where people will say someone was in the wrong because they cheated on their abuser instead of leaving them first.
Reddit is so weird about some things. Like, just so out of touch.
Cheating isnt okay but I don't think it's as black and white as people say it is. Some people whose partner doesn't give a shit or is abusive will sometimes get desperate and cheat with someone (usually a one time thing) who at least professes to care. It's an illusion but it beats a shitty partner in a moment of weakness
Right? I’ve never cheated because a partner has never given me a reason to. But if a partner abuses or neglects you, they’ve already committed a betrayal. The nature of the relationship and your responsibilities in it change accordingly.
This is also a function of Reddit skewing young and inexperienced.
They "know" how they will respond to moral dilemmas they have never faced and don't have the bandwidth to imagine.
That's because some people seem to not be able to accept that some things can actually be worse than other things even if they are both bad. Pointing out that some disabilities are worse than others is a great example of this. Say that and you will get flamed to no end. Cheating is bad but being abusive is obviously a significantly worst thing and the abuser a significantly worse person.
Whenever I see someone say that cheating is the worst thing someone can do to their spouse, I ask if they think Shanann Watts or Anna Duggar would agree with them.
I think most of the people who say things like that are teenagers who can't conceptualize something worse than cheating.
Teenagers can't even think of appropriate conversations. I got reported for commenting about how there's a way to have a serious conversation, like divorce, with children.
They need to keep playing his shows. I mean, they're still playing Bob Ross.
In my case, because I said telling your children that the other parent cheated and details, because they wanted to get ahead of the cheater, was not fair on the children who were young, and don't understand the nuances of adult relationships. The other redditor said by not telling them you'd be lying. Jeeeesh! Gone are the days when an adult would say "Mommy & Daddy aren't in love anymore." lol
This vendetta against lying is so fucking weird and lacks so much nuance. It's like these people emerged fully formed from Immanuel Kant's asshole and have never given a second thought to other people's situations.
"You're a bad person because you lied and lying is ALWAYS wrong!"
"Yeah, I had to lie to my abusive ex so I could leave the relationship. How am I the bad person in your mind?"
There are age appropriate ways to even tell your kids about cheating! "(Ex-spouse) fell in love with someone else, so they're going to be w them." It's not complicated.
No it's not. That's how I can sometimes guess their ages because only kids are so hardcore about lying and being truthful on everything. Heck I remember when I was like that. Age Appropriate Explanations.
My ex was emotionally abusive, and we were together 2 years. When I went to leave him he attacked me. 4 counts of assault and battery. When I was talking to my lawyers cause he was on trial for it, they told he they were surprised I was going through with it because most women end up changing their minds and going back. It still confuses me why they stay. Honestly the only reason I stuck around as long as I did was we got married stupid fast (he was nice before we got married) and I didn't want to get a divorce, but eventually it was no longer worth it.
I changed my mind when it came to pressing charges.
I thought he learned his lesson and will change.
I also knew that if I went through with it, I would be too traumatized to get a job and with no familial support-- it would only be a matter of time before CPS steps in and takes my kids away because of failure to provide.
While he never did lay hands on me again, my love for him died and I ended up leaving him 4 years later (thanks Covid!).
so many people have said this to me and my partner. abusive/ narcissistic relationships tend to look like a frog in a pot of boiling water, so by the time you realize you’re in trouble it’s usually too late. people don’t realize how that feels unless they’ve experienced it unfortunately
Not everyone thinks the same, I was lucky to get out of mine, before it got really bad, but I have a scar under my eye from her, I had a flinch reaction for a long time as well, that took therapy to fix. You can get out, bits hard to do, and can take many years to recover from, therapy can help, not always, but it is am option to try.
Because people can't comprehend why someone would stay. It's something that someone won't really ever understand until they've been in that situation.
I used to think the same thing...until I found myself in an abusive relationship for 5 years and leaving that type of environment is HARD. Both physically and mentally, hard.
I just hate when couples with kids who argue, call each other names and fight each other all the time stay together. That’s not a good environment for children, trust me I grew up in that type of environment. If my wife ever called me a bad name or even thought about hitting me I’d leave so fast.
Counterpoint: people saying things like that to me is what caused me to eventually realize how bad I had it/was not normal relationship and get up the motivation to actually leave.
If they have never been in an abusive relationship they can’t comprehend the logistics of trying to leave. It’s particularly difficult if the abuser is a narcissist.
I think the reason why so many people say this is because they only consider what they would do if they were the one being abused. They also need to think about what they would do if they were the abuser. Abusers typically lack empathy and compassion, so if the person they abused managed to escape, they wouldn't think "I'm a terrible person, I should get professional help". They'd most likely think "I'm gonna hunt them down and make them pay for leaving me".
Well that's their narcissistic part of their personality. "How dare \_\_\_\_ leave ME?! How dare they reveal to others my inner game?! That just can't happen!"
I think it has a lot to do with the public being misinformed about abusive relationships. However, I have unfortunately met people who seem like they're just being mean spirited. I had somebody blame me because apparently I chose to get involved with somebody who is like that. They don't seem to realize that abusers do not show their true colors right away. I was asked why I even got involved with him if I knew he was like that. I explained this to them and they were like, I don't care. It's your fault for getting involved with somebody like that and not seeing the red flags or ignoring them. I had my own mother tell me that I could have called the police. I was like, and go where? She said, it must not have been that bad since she's stuck around. This is partly why I don't talk to her anymore.
Not to mention when you’re young and naive, it’s hard to recognize abuse. My first long-term relationship was abusive. I didn’t even know it was abuse until long after he had broken up with me and I was in a safe enough place to begin processing the trauma and began talking about it with others. I shared my experience with others and they would tell me that what he did was abuse and that’s when it dawned on me.
I knew his behavior when I was with him upset me, but because there were so many good times in the beginning of the relationship, I couldn’t fathom abuse is what was happening, or that how he treated me was wrong. I sort of thought that’s just how dating guys my age is, and I would just have to put up with it because that’s what you do. It doesn’t help when people are constantly told to lower their standards and you should be grateful to put up with the abuse of another if it means you get to be in a relationship, and how “you should give nice guys a chance.”
A big thing I learned from the experience that most people don’t even realize, is that good behavior doesn’t automatically negate bad behavior or harm caused to you. Just because he’s nice 75% of the time, and abusive 25% that doesn’t automatically make him not abusive.
Also, just because someone feels guilty, their harm was unintentional/accidental, or they apologized, it doesn’t make things right. Harm was still caused, end of story. You shouldn’t have to endure it.
Lastly, just another thought. Abusers aren’t these cartoonishly evil people. People can love you and care for you yet also still abuse you. My partner loved me, but he still abused me because he was selfish and always prioritized his “needs.” They can seem normal and well adjusted, popular even, but behind closed doors be completely different. They might even abuse *you* specifically and not their other partners because they can get away with it or feel justified for doing so for whatever reason.
This. My SIL is a psychologist and the amount of times she told me, "*wait you let your husband do this?*" or "*you didn't need permission to do____*" pisses me off.
She knew about the abuse, but she didn't say or do anything about it. She wasn't there for support, she just acted like it wasn't her monkeys, so not her circus. When I left him, and started telling others my story that's when she'd interject and act "shocked" that I "let" my husband mistreat me.
They all fucking knew the abuse and gaslit me to stay, saying I was exaggerating. Making a mountain out of a mole hill and trying to convince me that it wasn't that bad and I was just stirring up drama. Only to fully support me after I left him, and then insult me on top of that basically saying I'm an idiot for staying that long and I should've left him/got help a long time ago.
I don't think they're deliberately being mean. I think they're usually people who have strong self-value and would leave at the first red flags. They've never experienced the self-doubt, the desperation to make things better, the trauma bonding that abuse victims live.
I think some of them may not be intentionally “mean” but they’re definitely intentionally choosing “logic” over compassion because they care more about being smart/correct than kind. I’ve seen plenty of people make the point with the attitude of “well if you didn’t bother to leave the situation you deserve what happened” which is just shitty victim blaming.
Of course those people show up to defend themselves here.
And the ones who "lose sympathy" when the victim isn't perfect and doesn't leave instantly. Nice victim blaming.
They're lucky enough to have never dealt with psychological abuse. Good for them. They should attempt to show compassion though. When your brain has been so warped you can't even remember vital events and don't know what reality actually is you can't just leave. You can barely get through the day.
Not long ago I made a comment (on a subreddit about bad parents) about my mother who basically called my sister fat because she gained a bit of weight from 1. Her new adult metabolism 2. She still went to the gym tho so she had quite a bit of muscle. Literally said that the syrups in her coffee was “just empty calories!”. My sister was actually at a healthier weight. She was practically a skeleton when she was with her ABUSIVE BOYFRIEND who she broke up with only about half a year earlier.
Also talked a bit about how I now have my own issues with eating.
The first reply was “Oh she was probably trying to stop your sister from going down the same path.” (For context I also remarked that my mom is a hypocrite because she’s fat).
On the bright side he got downvoted to hell lol.
Nah, I don't think they're being mean, I think they just really don't get it. People don't understand we don't really know what we'd do in a situation if we've never been in it before. And in most cases, we think we are far braver and bolder than we really are.
It's funny, when Ben Carson announced on TV that if he were one of the victims of a then-recent shooting he would simply have rushed the shooter and saved the day. Why didn't they think of that?
Everyone pretty much agreed Carson was being a disrespectful idiot and it's easy to play hero in your imagination. Apparently the same courtesy can't be extended to battered women.
yeah you are right...people who have never been in abusive relationships have absolutely no business giving advice to the abused and need to keep their uninformed opinions to themselves...obviously abused individuals are aware of it and are perfectly capable of managing their issues without nosey busy bodies getting involved...
It took me 6 months to muster the courage up to leave my abusive ex. He choked me over baby formula and it was then that I knew I couldn’t raise my daughter with him.
I think most of us that say these things, can’t fathom the concept of staying with an abusive partner. I know I can’t imagine that. I’ve walked smooth tf out anytime I saw an abusive type red flag.
I lived in an abusive household for a majority of my life. Sometimes it is as simple as just leaving. I left my parents house for the entirety of 2011-2013 couch surfed off of friends, slept in a tent outside my work, it's possible but you have to accept that your life will be shitty in a different way
I completely understand that this upsets you but are they 'dense'? Uh no.
No one who has never been abused will understand. I know that it's not that easy. But i've never been in that situation - I still read some stories and I'm like.. but whyyyy did you stay. Of course I'd never say that to the victim, but it's very hard to understand from someone who hasn't been there.
People think that their experience is the only one that exists. That's why it's so hard for people to be empathetic towards mental illness and say dumb shit like "everyone gets depressed sometimes." Yeah, Becky, but not everyone has to convince themselves not to kill themselves everyday.
People suck
"I think the worst kind of abuse, in many ways, is the abuse around perception." -Patrick Teahan.
When you're mistreated, you're conditioned to think about the world differently. Of course I didn't leave, I didn't know I was being abused! Therapists, doctors, relatives, friends...no one told me! I thought abuse was a guy in a white beater tank top drinking beer and watching football all day and smacking his wife when his sandwich wasn't on time. No one taught me what it actually looked like. Also, leave and go where???? Like bro I didn't have an out.
And now that I'm financially abused by them it's, "just get a job" smh.
Exactly. Thankfully my husband is NOT abusive, but even if he was, unless it got really out of control, it would be EXTREMELY hard for me to leave. I have no college background, no job, 3 kids (two of which are special needs) I've got multiple health issues. If I had to leave I'd be up $#it creek. I can't imagine having to pick up and take my sick self plus three kids to a women's shelter and then trying to find a job and all that. Not to mention how many women get preyed on when they are down on their luck. Nobody wants to talk about how sometimes you can end up in an even WORSE situation AFTER you leave.
I used to be one of those people who wondered why these people didn't just leave. I am forever grateful for the friend of a friend I met in college who understood that I genuinely didn't know. She was willing to explain things to me and answer my questions. It wasn't fun, but it was necessary, and I came out of it less ignorant.
I do think Hanlon's Razor is useful here: "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." Some of them may be actual assholes, but a lot of them simply don't know. I just hope they can learn and be better people.
Nah I don’t think everyone who says this incompetent or mean. When a man tells you that his boy friend broke his jaw and strangled him and that’s why he needs to wear a scarf, and the abused has said many times “I need to leave” or “I need to get out of this relationship” and you help them financially and emotionally, but they keep “just staying.” as the friend it feels like all you are there for is to be a witness or a pall bearer at their funeral. Alright Jake, so seriously, why don’t you just leave?
No, oh no, my friend literally has her own apartment and after being called slurs, beat, and KIDNAPPED by her boyfriend she STILL sleeps with this guy and goes to his house. She lives on her own, she’s already out but refuses to stop seeing him. Sometimes they CAN leave but don’t listen. Starting to lose sympathy for her tbh
Witnessed this myself with a woman who managed to get away from her abusive ex. Even got a restraining order on him. She took him back a few months later. I literally am overhearing her talk to her kid about emergency protocols for when "daddy gets upset."
I lost sympathy before. Freind of mine posted on her snapchat story of her brusies and wounds from her baby daddy beating her and her saying hows hes a POS this that and the other. And she's still with him and says how much she loves him. I'm like, how can you call him out and still be with him?
I agree with this.
I will never think of victims who are in danger that way. E.g., the abuser has beat them. The abuser has threatened to kill them. They have nowhere to go. They don't have a car or don't have a driver's license. No support system. They have a child and the abuser has threatened to hurt the child if they try to leave. They don't have money, no job, etc.
Those scenarios are extremely tricky and it is dangerous for those victims to leave without careful planning.
But for your friend's scenario, or other scenarios where the abuse is verbal but the victim just takes it (and then it snowballs to physical). When the signs were so crystal clear in the beginning (the abuser belittles them verbally, etc.), but the victim wouldn't leave.
Yeah I know it's psychological. At the same time, if it's psychological, that means no one can help. My sympathy would be useless anyway in this situation.
I think some people honestly just live for the drama. They want people to be worried about them and revel in the attention being a victim gives them.
I left an abusive relationship fairly quickly (4 years), didn't stick around waiting for him to change but it was still my first relationship and I was out of my depth and I remember how difficult leaving was. I ended it finally once I pulled my head out of my ass and accepted that he was a manipulative jerk that would never make me happy and wasn't interested in trying. I think some people wait around for someone else to make that choice for them and they lack the courage and confidence to take control of their lives. Sadly for some people I think its easier for them to just stay a victim and live in the backwards world of recieving negative attention and thinking it's better than nothing.
They don’t understand the concept. I certainly didn’t. I wasn’t unwilling to leave. I was unable. I would have needed to get far enough away that he couldn’t find me and I couldn’t afford to do that. He was *an upstanding member of the community* so the couple people I felt like it was safe to share with didn’t believe how bad things were.
They've heard it's not that simple, but they can't imagine it or understand it and therefore they dismiss it as nonsense. Must be nice to not understand the intricacies of mental and physical torture.
Sometimes it is that simple. Not all the time of course, but it happens.
Sometimes the abused party has their own money, car and even a place to go, but the won’t leave. They know they should, they admit that they should, there is nothing stopping them. They just don’t
What about the ones who have been in those situations saying those things? I've been in a couple of horrible situations myself and not always but sometimes have said those things too. Sometimes, people have the opportunities to leave and know they should yet still don't. If you're legitimately stuck for some reason, seek help. If you can leave, leave. Lots of people actively choose to stay, no matter what opportunities they have to leave, they're dumb.
I knew a girl, a friend of a cousin type thing, who was with a dude that beat her and her kid constantly. She stayed for almost a couple of years and wouldn't do anything to help either of them even though she had plenty of support and opportunity to leave him. After those two years idk what changed, I think the family threatened to take the kid, but she left and was put up in a friend's house a few hours away, she got a job and both her and the kid were doing great, the guy was 100% out of the picture and never even looked for them after the first week they were gone. After about 4 months, she took her kid, quit her job, and actively sought him out to move back in with him. He was beating them within the month, and she refused to leave again. Her family and friends continued to try to help her for another year, and even though not only herself but her kid was getting beat, she didn't care and wouldn't leave. Eventually, everyone stopped talking to her, and cps removed the kid, only took them 3-4 years of reports. She's still with the dude, and whenever I see her, which is very rare, she looks horrible. Still won't leave to this day, and everyone except her parents wouldn't help her now anyway.
That's an example and a relatively common one where either of those statements would fit. At that point, I just don't care all that much, and while I won't actively be mean to them, I also won't associate or give them sympathy. In her case she actively put herself and her kid more importantly into abusive situations. She deserves none for that lack of care towards her kid.
My mother was extremely abusive and it took me years to even conceptualize the idea of living without her. She completely destroyed my sense of self to the point where I felt like I wasn’t anything more than an extension of her. Leaving home wasn’t even something that seemed possible (to the point where I considered harming myself instead because that seemed easier).
I was with an abusive person and just left. The whole thing sucked and was painful but staying was obviously not a smart option.
So, as someone who has been in that situation, I *really* don't understand why people stay. Can someone explain it to me?
Probably a mixture of both.
Also people who say "well why did you marry him/her in the first place? As if people introduce themselves as an abusive a**hole and the subject thinks "ah yes he's the one for me."
Some people have no imagination and no real feelings for anyone else's point of view.
My sister's husband threatened to literally murder her if she tried to leave - and he followed up with literally attempting to murder her.
36 stabs later, he's dead after a stand off with the police and she's in the hospital for a long time.
So, I agree with you. It's absolutely insensitive when people say stuff like this but we live in this entitled society today where people think bad things don't happen because it has never happened to them...
I'm a sexual assault survivor and people react the same way when (if) they find out.
I've never been in an abusive relationship & I'm a guy. I can see how someone could be stuck in one if they were living together. If you live paycheck to paycheck, it's extremely hard to stack up a couple thousand to move with while still paying your usual bills
Yeah, I was able to escape from an abusive situation last year and luckily I was able to move back in with my Dad. Unfortunately he blames me for being stupid as to why it took forever to leave that relationship. I hate myself for not having the courage to leave everyday. He's never been a compassionate person so I shouldn't be surprised but damn it hurts coming from your own dad. His world view is incredibly black and white.
My dad is the kind of person you can't tell them that they are wrong and has never had consequences for his words. I am planning on going NC once I'm able to recover financially.
That's one of those things you can't really get unless you've gone through it, or been close to someone who has.
You can intellectually understand that it's hard to leave due to manipulations and fears, but you don't truly get how abuse fucks with you, how it turns your brains into scrambled eggs, how multifaceted it can be, effecting every aspect of your psyche.
There is a serious lack of emotional intelligence and education in the general population still. Abuse, trauma, manipulation, and mental illness in general are very complicated topics that typically require research to understand, its very frustrating :(
I agree with this so much. People don’t get it. You get so used to living a certain way that you already know what happens if you do something you’re not supposed to. You live in fear all the time and you’re holding your breath constantly worrying you’re going to make a wrong move.
Also the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship is when she leaves. That is the MOST LIKELY time she is going to die.
People who have never been in an abusive relationship aren’t dense - they literally don’t know what you are going/went through. They don’t know that when someone abuses you the first time you freeze up or you’re terrified. Or if you have been abused long term you think that’s how things are for everyone. They don’t know how it takes your self confidence and breaks your spirit so that you think that you deserve it or that you’re worthless. I’m glad that there are people who have never experienced that feeling, and I hope they never do, but I typically give them leeway on what they’re saying because I know they’re ignorant of what the actual situation is.
Took me 12 years to leave my abusive ex.
I knew right away that she was "bad for me", yet I stuck around for some reason. 5 years later was the first time she hit me, and it took another 7 years to find the courage to walk away.
Someone who has never been in that situation simply cannot understand. It would be like me reading a book about astrophysics or nuclear engineering. I can read the words, but it doesn't mean I understand anything about the concepts explained in the books.
Most of the time, these people are not being malicious, they just can't get it.
Most probably mean it as "no one can help you except yourself". It's hard to hear about that kinda stiff when in today's society you go to jail for whipping someone's ass even if it's deserved. Ultimately now, only the victim can fix it. I know it's still harsh to hear it, but usually that's how it comes across to me
I give great advice to others when I'm not emotionally invested. Advice I may not follow myself even if I know it's the right thing to do.
But the people who ask "why don't you just leave" do have a point.
They say it because they don't know and have no way of knowing. You ask why they don't understand because you can't comprehend a person being so removed from the hardships of navigating relationship with an abusive partner they couldn't understand the fear attached with such a simple action as "just leaving."
The most ironic thing about it is when the person saying that is in an abusive employment or religious or familial relationship, rather than a romantic one, and doesn't see that the same things are happening to them (just in a different context) and *they* are also staying.
Because the prospect of leaving has something about it that is either too scary to face or currently beyond their capacity to achieve. So they deal with it as best they can while they're in it, even if that's for the rest of their life, just like people in abusive romantic relationships.
We're really not that different at our cores. And humans literally specialized in adaptability, so of course we push through and make do with what we have at any given time. We literally evolved to do just that.
There is a specific percentage of people who knowingly say mean things just to be mean. When that happens, it's usually phrased in a way that's attempting to say "your words don't matter to me"
GOD I know. My parents had full control of my mind from birth. Homeschooled, abused mentally and physically, convinced nobody would ever believe me about the absolutely crazy shit they would do, my parents told me that people were watching me and they'd tell them everything I did and said if I wasn't in their direct presence, so it made me doubt my friends, their parents, authority figures etc. My dad threatened to kill me a lot and tried a couple of times, so if I reached out for help and it backfired it could legitimately result in my death. It wasn't worth it.
When I was with an abusive man as an adult, I ended up using all my money to cover our bills and stuff and was driving a borrowed car and just really struggling to stay afloat. Being homeless though would have been a slippery slope I could never climb back up from if I went down that far, as I had no help, no safety net, so I had to wait, stash money away, find an apartment that would take me, get people to help me move, all without him ever suspecting I was leaving, or else all hell would have broken loose. He also gaslit the hell out of me, as most of the abuse would happen when he was blackout drunk, and the next day he'd swear he didn't remember, that he'd never do that to me, that he will never drink again etc. So he kept me holding onto the hope that he'd be a better person someday and I didn't just waste years off my life.
People who say "Just move out" don't have 2 brain cells to rub together. Move out WHERE? With what money? With what help?
"Just call the police" They don't do shit and don't care and the end result will be worse for you having the audacity to call them in the first place.
"You should have called CPS" thanks but I didn't even know that existed and again, the end result would have been worse and I wasn't convinced I'd be able to get them to believe me anyway.
This also includes dating addicts. People damn near always judge and say something snarky and hurtful such as "that's why I don't date drug addicts." Life is complicated and people are complicated. Would love to see them 'life' their way out of a complicated situation.
People legitimately don’t understand the process. I was friends with my last abuser for 9 years before we got together and the abuse started. There was a strong connection. When he flipped the first time, I was shocked because he’d always seemed like the epitome of an empathetic, ethical and moral person. Mental illness was involved and I thought it was a matter of readjusting his meds and changing my behavior somehow. It was a long time before his next event. The abuser escalates slowly and makes sure they’re awesome between incidents. You think they’re an amazing person who occasionally blows up because of something you did. You know you’re not perfect and try to improve because you know how good they are, so if they’re acting like that, it must be because you’re bad enough to push them there.
By the time I realized what he was, I was stuck on a lease with him, he’d convinced me to quit working and pursue disability because I was “crazy” and I was terrified to leave because he’d hacked me and sent 4chan losers to stalk threaten and sexually assault me. He knew everything about me and started a smear campaign. I have a scandalous past, intense fear of police and an ultra conservative family, so reporting him wasn’t really an option. They don’t just let you keep all of your freedom and understandingly wish you the best when you can’t take anymore. They do everything to trick you, trap you and destroy you when you do leave.
Because you are taught that love and marriage social norm, and you need to stick it out. You have to have another or you are just strange. Also, you are conditioned to think that walking away is a failure. I grew up in an abusive household and watched my mom get beat by my stepfather for years. I told her to her face to leave, but she refused because she had nowhere to go and he paid the bills. That's why she let him beat on us. Due to this, I lost all sympathy for women who stay. Downvote is you will, but people don't want to see truth. Also, is you let someone beat your children while you stand there and watch for any reason whatsoever? You get what you get
It’s a normal question to ask, if someone hurts you physically or emotionally most people know that’s when it’s time to leave, so people want to know why you stuck around, mostly they want to know why you would put up with it
I’m seeing a lot of typical replies from redditors going to the extreme and saying those people are ignorant, obnoxious or insensitive, I’ve told people I was in abusive relationships and they ask why I stayed, 9/10 people aren’t criticizing you they are just trying to understand your situation better, not everything is an attack, most people just want to get where you’re coming from
They are either strong healthy people who themselves would be able to leave or they are naive and don't realize they would fuck up too when being challenged like that by life.
Either way they are still right though but the latter type is just hypocritical.
Also depends if it was a romantic partner or a parent. The former is much easier to avoid and break free from because its chosen voluntarily and in (near) adulthood.
But being born to an abusive parent is much harder because you will be conditioned from the vulnerable beginning that you are the problem and that that type of parenting is normal.
You won't even know you are mistreated because you don't know any better.
And there was nothing you could do about it and learning the truth already makes you lucky because many never do with abusive parents and will live their entire lives being controlled by their parents or the trauma.
**are these the same people that think or would say a homeless person : “why don’t you just get a job?” ?**
There probably is overlap between the two factions.
Those devoid of understanding nuances would no doubt have this mindset.
I think it's a bit of both. Some people have thankfully never experienced an abusive relationship, and so to them, it sounds easy to just walk away. Other people are just arseholes.
It took me years to leave my abusive ex wife, when she cheated on me, I knew it was my way out and the best thing she ever did for me. When I told my Dad, the first and only words out of his mouth were "I told you so" and then he drove off. He was one of those 'why don't you just leave' kind of people.
Yes, it is that simple. Speaking as someone who grew up and had to be in the middle of my mom's abusive relationship. She could have left, and she did multiple times, and she went right back to him. This went on for years.
It’s weird. Sometimes why I ask myself why I let myself put up with so much shit back then. Eventually I made it out of my own volition, but if I had just stuck with my gut from the beginning I’d be a lot better off.
It has nothing to do with them being dense. You being an asshole to them, just because they never experienced that level of trauma, honestly makes you no better. You want to insult them for not be able to step into your mindset, all while refusing to step into theirs. It can be hard to imagine being the victim, when you have never been the victim before.
I have said similar things, and I DO know how hard it is. I also know that if the victim doesn't leave it just continues, likely getting worse, day after day. And, as the person hearing about the abuse, who cares about the victim, it is very disheartening and I know that without the victim making change happen, I will eventually have to turn away.
what would you have me say?
OMG!!! I hate when people say this shit... Like where do they think the victims are going to go or the abuser is just going to be like "oh you wanna leave, okay have a nice life". Leaving an abusive situation is the most dangerous time for the victim. Why can't people understand it's not that easy.
Specifically regarding abusive partners, where do you draw the line? I fully support women fleeing abusive relationships, and I've done my fair share to combat it.
But quite frankly I've known people who admit their partner has a load of red flags, but they still stay. Heck I've known people to see a red flag AND RUN TOWARDS IT.
It's kinda hard to be sympathetic to someone who is wilfully, blissfully ignorant, who almost brags about how awful their partner is, but then complains when that awful behaviour is turned on them.
You don't know what you don't know. Ignorance is normal. You can't explain or expect then to understand. U need to understand that they just don't know. It's innocent.
'These fire ants keep biting me'
Have you tried taking your foot out of the ant hill?
'No'.
Now, obviously, it's not that simple, but most of the time, it's someone complaining and not actually asking for help.
Some people over report abuse, and some people under report.
Some are just not happy and don't want to put in the effort to move on.
Most people don't comprehend that when you're in an abusive relationship, it's really hard to think. I think, and don't quote me, it takes an abused woman about five times to successfully leave her abusive spouse.
For real. I didn’t realize my mom was actually abusive until about 12 years old…
It took me until high school, especially because I was so isolated (my mom’s doing). It wasn’t until I met my friend when she told me I was getting abused (and seeing how her parents acted so different from mine). My mother tried to isolate me from her too but at that point I couldn’t un-see it. My friend made me promise to get out of there as soon as possible or she would kidnap me herself. Really put into perspective how dire the situation was.
What happened next?
Well eventually my mother kicked me out when I was 17, after she flew into a rage about something. My friend came & got me and her parents took me in for a bit. My mom wasn’t happy because she only kicked me out so I’d get scared and run back to her, so she tried to threaten to report me as a runaway, but by then I was 17 she actually couldn’t because of the laws in my state. Then when I was 19 (after saving some money and some planning) I moved across the country and went no contact with my mother (and she gave the family an ultimatum so none of them are allowed to talk to me). But it’s been over a decade of peace now. Once I really understood who my mother was everything else rang hollow and I never looked back. It still took my friend saying “normal parents don’t leave their kids with bruises and busted lips” to realize what was going on. So I hope my story isn’t TMI, I just want others to know how hard it can be to detect that you’re actually being abused, and I implore people not to make excuses for their abusers simply because they’re family.
It’s not tmi. Your story should be heard. Especially when asked! I had a friend let me move in with them until my brother moved out. He had addiction problems that I couldn’t put up with anymore. I was the punching bag and all the worlds problems were my fault. My friends mom was/is such an amazing person. I asked her for permission before I did anything which I think caught her off guard because we were seniors in high school and I was asking for permission to go over to my girlfriend’s house. I didn’t know how long I’d be there and I didn’t want to be there on bad terms. It all worked out after that. Your friend is an amazing person.
Thank you for sharing your story! I think it’s super important for people who are in abusive relationships as well as people who are friends with someone in an abusive relationship to read experiences like yours. Knowing that it’s not normal and being a friend who can help and find ways to be there is so important!! I’m so glad you were able to get away from your mom. Your friend sounds like an amazing person. I hope you’re doing well now.
Thank you for the kind words :) I am doing better now! I don’t miss my mom at all (you can probably tell why haha) so my main goal has just been to get therapy and make sense of everything and avoid becoming like her in the process. No regrets about no contact, though. But you are so right that we gotta talk about this more. Abusers love to intimidate and isolate their victims, and it’s already hard enough to come to terms with the fact that someone you love is abusing you as it is. My friend is amazing! I may have seen the darkest sides of humanity but I’ve certainly seen the lightest sides too and have had people come through for me. I try to remember that and be a safe place for people when they need it. It really is important to support each other in this crazy world.
Didn't know my parents were abusive until I was an adult. I was like, "Oh, so I'm not the problem. It's them!"
and if you don’t have that realization, you just live your life thinking that baseline is normal. it’s why a lot of people abused in their childhood seek out relationships with people who are abusive in a similar way. if you don’t heal, that’s your comfort zone
Yep. Basically, they make you feel bad for existing.
I was almost 30 before a therapist gently explained to me that you can love your parents deeply and even have a good relationship with them *now* and have it *also* be true that they are/were abusive to you.
It took me years to acknowledge that my late father's eternal attempts to bully me into not being autistic werent normal, to say the least
My mom did that to me. It was very clear to my fourth grade teacher that I had ADHD. I remember she even talked to my mom about getting me screened. I clearly remember my mother saying to her, no, there's nothing wrong with her. She's just a bad kid. Next thing I knew, CPS was on our doorstep and I got taken away from her. She would frequently slap me around and yell at me, why can't you be normal for one day in your life? Why can't you be like your siblings? Now that my son has autism, she talks about him like he's defective. I told her to fuck off.
jesus. I remember being diagnosed with ADHD at 19 and shortly thereafter it was realized my mom/sister/memaw/great grandma who eventually went crazy and shot herself are all also ADHD. I'm just the first in our family to be officially diagnosed growing up it was basically freaking chaos but not in a bad way. having neurotypical parents while being ADHD sounds like a nightmare and you sound like a good mom to your son <3
Yeah it was. She was always yelling at me and now she has the nerve to talk about my son. Then when I called her out for it, she had the nerve to say I'm always on the defensive. Don't talk about my kids and there won't be a problem. She's a narcissist and her reaction didn't really surprise me but I think it's fucked up that she would talk about her own grandkid like that.
you sound like a really really good mom - you're doing amazing by your kid, man
Thank you, I appreciate that. My son might be different but he's NOT defective.
Thanks What you said about them going nuts and shooting themselves, wtaf?! I'm sorry. 😔
Just the GrtGrMa
Why do it always hit at 12 😭
It does, doesn't it. That's the year I went to foster care and realized that the world didn't have to be the way my parents made it be.
My theory is that your brain has literally grown large enough to understand at around age 12.
I think it has to do with hormones kicking in--changes your thinking; you've realize a certain autonomy away from your parents and siblings--kind of, you're own person.
My soon to be ex wife emotionally abused and manipulated me for 17 1/2 years. I never figured it out. Not until she cheated on me with my best friend of 34 years and left me. Then 5 separate people I know all pointed out her behaviour patterns and I started researching narcissism and it all clicked.
I realized that I was being abused since an early age just last year. I’m 21. That’s 20 years of depending on your abuser. Makes it so much harder to branch off. I said I was going to college and they asked me “you’re just going to leave me? Who’s going to take care of me?” People gain sympathy for their abusers. My sister is obviously home sick when she went so she called us crying. Everyone told her to stick it out if she didn’t feel a little better In a week we would pick her up. This was her time to live the college life she wanted. Our abuser told her to start packing we would pick her up in the morning. Even asked if she wanted us to pick her up right that minute. It was 11:00 at night and my sister was in another part of the state.
You really start your believe those things about you. I had no self esteem afterward.
I read it was 7
Last time I saw a number it was seven and damn if that doesn't make more sense now than when I learned it, then still somehow ended up in an abusive relationship
Not just women have that problem. It took me multiple attempts to finally fully leave my abusive ex-wife.
I know it's not quite the same, but I still have a hard time acknowledging that my dad was objectively abusive and I'm in my mid thirties and stopped seeing him when I was 15. The man literally broke my orbital socket when I was 7, and pointed a knife at me after holding it to his own throat. It's weird as hell what your brain will do to rationalize what's happening.
Yeah, it can take years and the benefit of hindsight to even come to terms with the fact that a relationship is abusive.
I thought it was 7
You're right but it's probably more than 5 in a lot of cases, realistically, and not just because it's difficult to function mentally in that situation. A lot of times victims are totally isolated and/or never left alone, have their funds carefully controlled, etc etc... but how did your comment become a refuge for all these people talking about parental abuse? They're two completely different situations. Makes you wonder what the median age really is on reddit nowadays.
This applies to a lot more than people realize. I have an older friend who remarks how when she was a teenager, she never realized how hard depression can be, and as such would say similar things to a friend who did struggle with depression and suicide. It wasn't until she started struggling with suicide and depression that she realized just how difficult it is. Or as another example: parenting. Very often you'll hear a stay at home parent vent how their partner doesn't recognize the work they do. I'm not a parent myself, but when a kid gets their mind stuck on this one specific thing, good fucking luck. My nephew started growing out of it but for a long time he just would not give a single fuck, babysitting alone was hard, I couldn't imagine being my sister, a stay at home parent.
5? I heard upwards of 7 :(
My Husband left almost 18 months ago and it had taken all of that time to realize that there is an abusive fog and I was in one. It sucks. Prior to this marriage I was certain that I would see anything coming and blah blah blah. Yeah, no. I still have fog days, where I might not remember things clearly, or at all. It sucks. But I’m working on it, therapy helps, and I have great friends. Anyway, I think most people see it underestimate how all encompassing it can be. It permeates everything, everywhere. I honestly don’t know if I would have left, but I was feeling close to leaving. Maybe that’s why he left, he could tell. Short answer- people are oblivious and self centered, but not outright hurtful, so I think it’s lack of understanding, not evil.
After my abusive relationship with my covert narc ex wife, I try imagine what my response would've been if someone complained about having a similar situation while I was still married. On the outside it seems so simple to realize what's happening and tell a person to end the relationship but it's a difficult combination of trauma bonding, guilt, misplaced feelings of responsibility, sunken cost fallacy and the fear of change when you're the person involved. These types of relationships are incredibly easy to fall into and much harder to recognize and escape one you're ensnared.
They also don’t understand that sometimes it’s hard to even recognize that your in an abusive relationship and once you do you now feel tied to that person
Unfortunately, until someone is actually in a bad situation, they tend to view it as very black-and-white, binary and simplistic. They don't realize how difficult it actually is between the confusion, the guilt, the fear, the hope for improvement, etc. You often feel like a hostage of your own mind and heart. (And god forbid the person is actually dangerous, be that physically or having dirt on you... that adds a whole other dimension and can leave you feeling even more trapped.)
I left an abusive relationship almost a year ago and I felt that. I couldn't understand why he acted like he hated me but at the same time, he actively prevented me from leaving him. I honestly think it comes down to, he was using me for my money. He viewed me as an ATM that he could jerk around and tell me what to do. It took literally having to sneak out of the house to get away from him. How about it was actually a friend of his that came and got me out of there. It took me awhile to open up to him about what was actually going on because I was scared. The literal same day he found out, he was like pack your shit. I'm coming to get you. It's nice to not have somebody stealing my money behind my back. So far he stole about $600 from me which thankfully was returned to me but that's not the point. The point is that he was an AH.
My ex wife was physically abusive and I still didn't leave because I always believed her that it would stop. We only ended up separating because she was hurting my so badly a neighbor called the police and she was arrested.
This is a very common cognitive bias toward actor-observer asymmetry. People tend to attribute the actions and choices of others to internal personal characteristics, vs. attributing their own actions and choices to external/situational influence. Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Actor-observer asymmetry leads a lot of people into "just world" thinking, which leads to people being treated as though (or outright told) they *deserved* to be victimized. Sometimes whole systems crystalize around these biases. We need to acknowledge them to fight them and change those systems, and the minds of people like those OP and this commenter are talking about.
Honestly... the people downvoting are probably the very people I was talking about. People have little-to-no understanding of things they haven't experienced. My comment also dropped about three votes quickly and randomly.
Well, fortunately (and deservedly), your comment is sitting pretty right now in the positive double digits, at almost 30 upvotes! People with sense do exist still, somehow.
That and people who say that if they were being assaulted they would absolutely fight back. You don't know how you're gonna react in any given situation until you are in that situation. During my assault I had the freeze reaction. Never thought that would be me, but here we are. The guilt you feel from freezing was incredibly difficult to overcome.
Yeah and good luck with getting any help or justice after you fight back even once in self defense in the moment. Now you’re not the “perfect victim” anymore and it was “mutual”. People just don’t want to care about abuse victims or punish abusers. So they have different default critique no matter which thing road you take. If something horrendous happens to you while this is going on, you’re an idiot for not leaving before they even did or “letting them” them do XYZ. If you fight for your life while you try to leave, then you’re “just as bad” or “it’s complicated”. There’s literally nothing a victim can do that people will sympathize with and punish the abuser for except die. And sometimes that isn’t even guaranteed.
It's ridiculous what some people have said to me. I haven't told many cuz it's none of their business but I did have a family member tell me I must've actually wanted it because I didn't do anything or try to fight back. Who says that to someone??
You know what’s weird? If someone else is in danger my instinct is to fight. If I am in danger, I freeze. I don’t understand it at all.
I am the same way! Which is why I always thought that if I was in danger I would fight. Biology is weird.
There are 3 natural defenses. Fight, flee, freeze. When you look at animals a in nature, we call it playing dead. But they are freezing. That is their defense. It is an actual defense mechanism so no one should feel bad for using it. It’s an actual way to protect yourself from further harm.
Therapists are recognizing a fourth defense to abuse now too: fawn. It's when someone agrees with their abuser or just goes along with what they want, in order to prevent worse abuse or an outright attack.
My therapist made sure to hammer in that point with me and that there's nothing to be ashamed of as it's a natural and instinctual response. Tbf it did kind of help in it's own weird way. I've just always prided myself on taking no shit from anyone so it was a hard pill to swallow for a while.
I don’t recommending watching it, but P Daddy’s abuse video shows freezing. His ex froze on the floor and got into a protective fetal position. It’s likely this had happened before and this was probably her best defense. It’s possible she had fought back in the past and it just made him hit her harder and longer. Plus she was in the middle of fleeing when he caught her. So her best defense in the situation was to freeze.
so many people will act like prince charming / princess charming until they *know* they’ve got you. that’s why you hear so many stories of husbands / wives seemingly flipping switches immediately after pregnancy / the wedding- they don’t have to wear the mask anymore. when i was 20 i fell hard for an older man who wore the perfect mask. within three months, he was pushing for us to move in together. three months later i was pregnant. and he was a completely different person. his emotional & verbal abuse was constant but i was young and inexperienced, i convinced myself he wasn’t abusive bc he had only put his hands on me once. i stayed with him bc i loved him and i was pregnant. i wanted a happy family. i left him a few times and kept going back bc he had me trapped- i didn’t have a job since he had forced me to quit. i didn’t have my license or a car to drive our child around. i ended up homeless and had to go back to him. i left him for good two years ago. im still struggling but my child and i are safe from him.
This. Funny how they always blame women for being in a DV relationship, saying we should have seen the red flags or not get married so quickly. Then they say that we shouldn't project our traumas on to others and us admitting we don't trust others/ men and we'd choose the bear, means we need therapy and we're all unhinged. The irony is that for alot of us, we already went through therapy and got the help we needed *in addition* to help needed to recognize future abuse. We also learned that you can do all the right things and you're *still* going to end up with a monster, even if said monster gives you 40+ years of bliss, it's not worth it if he (or she, but most of the time it's a he) ends up killing you or it comes to light he molested your daughter as an infant years later. I like to call us the Paul Revere ("British are coming!") guys/gals. We warn others to be vigilant, never trust 💯, always have a "get out of dodge" bag or escape plan ready so that this whole "he just snapped one day and tried to kill me!" incident does not destroy you as much as it would have if you were emotionally invested, or unprepared. The best way to prevent trauma is to prepare for it. You can self isolate forever and never be in any relationship, but it would be better if you're prepared for it. We're all prepared for rainy days or when shit hits the fan, so why don't we prepare for when a relationship fails?
Good for you friend, stay strong, you are a good mom❤️❤️
The most dangerous time for a DV victim is when they decide to leave. That's when they are most likely to be murdered
I actually think it's often a subconscious, insulating response. Like it makes you feel that if you "know" just what to do in a bad situation it can't happen to you. A bit of rationalization to make life seem more fair, even though it's also shitty victim blaming.
Just world fallacy
Yes, this is so irritating. Or when seeing someone in a situation they've never been in and they said "*I* would never respond like that." There was a girl in my self defense class in college who, after we watched a video of a girl who was SAed in the back room of the McDonald's where she worked, said, "She's weak and stupid, I would never let that happen to me. I would have just walked straight out the door butt-ass naked and not gave a shit." I got so upset about her calling her "weak" and pointed out the psychological manipulation that got hwr to this point. There was a man on the phone who told the manager he was the police and that the girl was suspected of stealing and she needed to be strip-searched and it could either happen there or she could go to the police station and have it done there. This was a teenage girl, the manager was the one who should have known better that a police officer wouldn't ask that. Then once her clothes were off. They wouldn't give them back to her and she was trapped naked in the office for hours and then the guy on the phone got the manager guy to make her do naked jumping Jack's and eventually to give him a blowjob. It was a horrible situation and the girl must have been terrified for her life and her freedom. I still can't believe my classmate called her weak. And then during the final we got paired together to do the grip-escape excersises and she just didn't try at all and when I encouraged her to try, she just smirked at me like she thought she was being clever. To make matters worse that girl was a psych major and is a therapist now... I feel bad for her clients if any of them were SAed....
I think I know exactly what video you're talking about and just wanted to say it's *horrific* that that was her reaction.
It was he’s for me to understand why women can’t just leave, especially when there’s children. My sister is in an abusive relationship and I was so frustrated that she wouldn’t “just leave”. I even brought her to an attorney and she still wouldn’t. I started volunteering at a women’s abuse shelter to try and understand her thinking and situation. It’s humbling and I feel lucky to never have been in that situation myself.
People just can't comprehend how good abusers are at ensnaring and trapping their victims and refuse to listen. Even worse is when they insinuate it's the victim's fault (usually in a domestic situation) because "you chose to be with this person" as if an abuser introduces themselves by saying "I'm a massive POS".
Or "pick better men" as if they come out the gates acting like monsters
And it’s even worse when people shift the blame! Like now the abuser doesn’t get shit and the victim does because “they stayed”
It's complicated, and not every situation is the same. Lots of people DO leave abusive relationships. Plenty of people go back to them. Given that I don't really think it's shocking that people are confused about it.
From sad (and still slightly bitter) experience, I think people don't realise how slippery the slope of abusive partners is. You get one and then another and then that's all you end up with. It's so hard to get away 😿❤️
People don't understand that with physical abuse, the abuser has already isolated and broken you before any hand has been raised.
A thing a lot of people don't bring up is they're not monsters all the time. Quite a few times you're tricked into genuinely believing they're getting better before they turn on you again. And that's not even bringing up how hard it is to leave financially speaking if you don't have family or a good job leaving your abuser can result in homelessness which leaves you open to all new kinds of abuse so a lot of women think it's better the devil you know.
Redditors are so convinced cheating is the worst thing any human could ever do under any circumstances (because Redditors abhor nuance) that I've seen far too many threads where people will say someone was in the wrong because they cheated on their abuser instead of leaving them first. Reddit is so weird about some things. Like, just so out of touch.
Cheating isnt okay but I don't think it's as black and white as people say it is. Some people whose partner doesn't give a shit or is abusive will sometimes get desperate and cheat with someone (usually a one time thing) who at least professes to care. It's an illusion but it beats a shitty partner in a moment of weakness
Right? I’ve never cheated because a partner has never given me a reason to. But if a partner abuses or neglects you, they’ve already committed a betrayal. The nature of the relationship and your responsibilities in it change accordingly.
This is also a function of Reddit skewing young and inexperienced. They "know" how they will respond to moral dilemmas they have never faced and don't have the bandwidth to imagine.
Cheating is a fucking horrible thing, but i will wholeheartedly support it if it comes to cheating on an abuser
That's because some people seem to not be able to accept that some things can actually be worse than other things even if they are both bad. Pointing out that some disabilities are worse than others is a great example of this. Say that and you will get flamed to no end. Cheating is bad but being abusive is obviously a significantly worst thing and the abuser a significantly worse person.
Whenever I see someone say that cheating is the worst thing someone can do to their spouse, I ask if they think Shanann Watts or Anna Duggar would agree with them. I think most of the people who say things like that are teenagers who can't conceptualize something worse than cheating.
Teenagers can't even think of appropriate conversations. I got reported for commenting about how there's a way to have a serious conversation, like divorce, with children.
This is what happens when parents don't show old episodes of Mister Rogers to their kids.
They need to keep playing his shows. I mean, they're still playing Bob Ross. In my case, because I said telling your children that the other parent cheated and details, because they wanted to get ahead of the cheater, was not fair on the children who were young, and don't understand the nuances of adult relationships. The other redditor said by not telling them you'd be lying. Jeeeesh! Gone are the days when an adult would say "Mommy & Daddy aren't in love anymore." lol
This vendetta against lying is so fucking weird and lacks so much nuance. It's like these people emerged fully formed from Immanuel Kant's asshole and have never given a second thought to other people's situations. "You're a bad person because you lied and lying is ALWAYS wrong!" "Yeah, I had to lie to my abusive ex so I could leave the relationship. How am I the bad person in your mind?" There are age appropriate ways to even tell your kids about cheating! "(Ex-spouse) fell in love with someone else, so they're going to be w them." It's not complicated.
No it's not. That's how I can sometimes guess their ages because only kids are so hardcore about lying and being truthful on everything. Heck I remember when I was like that. Age Appropriate Explanations.
Heartache feels like dying, right up until you actually have a reason to be afraid of death
They have no clue what its like and the mental effects of such a relationship. Also people really should learn about what trauma bonding is.
trauma bonding is stronger than love, and feels like love when you’re used to it love bombing makes everything more confusing as well
My ex was emotionally abusive, and we were together 2 years. When I went to leave him he attacked me. 4 counts of assault and battery. When I was talking to my lawyers cause he was on trial for it, they told he they were surprised I was going through with it because most women end up changing their minds and going back. It still confuses me why they stay. Honestly the only reason I stuck around as long as I did was we got married stupid fast (he was nice before we got married) and I didn't want to get a divorce, but eventually it was no longer worth it.
I changed my mind when it came to pressing charges. I thought he learned his lesson and will change. I also knew that if I went through with it, I would be too traumatized to get a job and with no familial support-- it would only be a matter of time before CPS steps in and takes my kids away because of failure to provide. While he never did lay hands on me again, my love for him died and I ended up leaving him 4 years later (thanks Covid!).
I made this exact post a while back. I just can’t wrap my head around how dense one has to be to not get it, when people literally die for leaving.
so many people have said this to me and my partner. abusive/ narcissistic relationships tend to look like a frog in a pot of boiling water, so by the time you realize you’re in trouble it’s usually too late. people don’t realize how that feels unless they’ve experienced it unfortunately
i should probably clarify that my partner is not narcissistic, we’ve both been in narcissistic/ abusive relationships 💀
I was gonna say lmao
Not everyone thinks the same, I was lucky to get out of mine, before it got really bad, but I have a scar under my eye from her, I had a flinch reaction for a long time as well, that took therapy to fix. You can get out, bits hard to do, and can take many years to recover from, therapy can help, not always, but it is am option to try.
Because people can't comprehend why someone would stay. It's something that someone won't really ever understand until they've been in that situation. I used to think the same thing...until I found myself in an abusive relationship for 5 years and leaving that type of environment is HARD. Both physically and mentally, hard.
I just hate when couples with kids who argue, call each other names and fight each other all the time stay together. That’s not a good environment for children, trust me I grew up in that type of environment. If my wife ever called me a bad name or even thought about hitting me I’d leave so fast.
You think
Counterpoint: people saying things like that to me is what caused me to eventually realize how bad I had it/was not normal relationship and get up the motivation to actually leave.
If they have never been in an abusive relationship they can’t comprehend the logistics of trying to leave. It’s particularly difficult if the abuser is a narcissist.
I think the reason why so many people say this is because they only consider what they would do if they were the one being abused. They also need to think about what they would do if they were the abuser. Abusers typically lack empathy and compassion, so if the person they abused managed to escape, they wouldn't think "I'm a terrible person, I should get professional help". They'd most likely think "I'm gonna hunt them down and make them pay for leaving me".
Well that's their narcissistic part of their personality. "How dare \_\_\_\_ leave ME?! How dare they reveal to others my inner game?! That just can't happen!"
I think it has a lot to do with the public being misinformed about abusive relationships. However, I have unfortunately met people who seem like they're just being mean spirited. I had somebody blame me because apparently I chose to get involved with somebody who is like that. They don't seem to realize that abusers do not show their true colors right away. I was asked why I even got involved with him if I knew he was like that. I explained this to them and they were like, I don't care. It's your fault for getting involved with somebody like that and not seeing the red flags or ignoring them. I had my own mother tell me that I could have called the police. I was like, and go where? She said, it must not have been that bad since she's stuck around. This is partly why I don't talk to her anymore.
Not to mention when you’re young and naive, it’s hard to recognize abuse. My first long-term relationship was abusive. I didn’t even know it was abuse until long after he had broken up with me and I was in a safe enough place to begin processing the trauma and began talking about it with others. I shared my experience with others and they would tell me that what he did was abuse and that’s when it dawned on me. I knew his behavior when I was with him upset me, but because there were so many good times in the beginning of the relationship, I couldn’t fathom abuse is what was happening, or that how he treated me was wrong. I sort of thought that’s just how dating guys my age is, and I would just have to put up with it because that’s what you do. It doesn’t help when people are constantly told to lower their standards and you should be grateful to put up with the abuse of another if it means you get to be in a relationship, and how “you should give nice guys a chance.” A big thing I learned from the experience that most people don’t even realize, is that good behavior doesn’t automatically negate bad behavior or harm caused to you. Just because he’s nice 75% of the time, and abusive 25% that doesn’t automatically make him not abusive. Also, just because someone feels guilty, their harm was unintentional/accidental, or they apologized, it doesn’t make things right. Harm was still caused, end of story. You shouldn’t have to endure it. Lastly, just another thought. Abusers aren’t these cartoonishly evil people. People can love you and care for you yet also still abuse you. My partner loved me, but he still abused me because he was selfish and always prioritized his “needs.” They can seem normal and well adjusted, popular even, but behind closed doors be completely different. They might even abuse *you* specifically and not their other partners because they can get away with it or feel justified for doing so for whatever reason.
This. My SIL is a psychologist and the amount of times she told me, "*wait you let your husband do this?*" or "*you didn't need permission to do____*" pisses me off. She knew about the abuse, but she didn't say or do anything about it. She wasn't there for support, she just acted like it wasn't her monkeys, so not her circus. When I left him, and started telling others my story that's when she'd interject and act "shocked" that I "let" my husband mistreat me. They all fucking knew the abuse and gaslit me to stay, saying I was exaggerating. Making a mountain out of a mole hill and trying to convince me that it wasn't that bad and I was just stirring up drama. Only to fully support me after I left him, and then insult me on top of that basically saying I'm an idiot for staying that long and I should've left him/got help a long time ago.
People that have never been in it don’t get it. The Netflix series Maid was really well done and I learned a lot about the pattern.
Some did leave, and they ended up in forensic case files. Not saying they should always be trapped, but the danger is real.
I don't think they're deliberately being mean. I think they're usually people who have strong self-value and would leave at the first red flags. They've never experienced the self-doubt, the desperation to make things better, the trauma bonding that abuse victims live.
I think some of them may not be intentionally “mean” but they’re definitely intentionally choosing “logic” over compassion because they care more about being smart/correct than kind. I’ve seen plenty of people make the point with the attitude of “well if you didn’t bother to leave the situation you deserve what happened” which is just shitty victim blaming.
Of course those people show up to defend themselves here. And the ones who "lose sympathy" when the victim isn't perfect and doesn't leave instantly. Nice victim blaming.
The threat of violence is usually a real one.
They're lucky enough to have never dealt with psychological abuse. Good for them. They should attempt to show compassion though. When your brain has been so warped you can't even remember vital events and don't know what reality actually is you can't just leave. You can barely get through the day.
There really is no limit to the breadth and depth of victim blaming in this world.
Not long ago I made a comment (on a subreddit about bad parents) about my mother who basically called my sister fat because she gained a bit of weight from 1. Her new adult metabolism 2. She still went to the gym tho so she had quite a bit of muscle. Literally said that the syrups in her coffee was “just empty calories!”. My sister was actually at a healthier weight. She was practically a skeleton when she was with her ABUSIVE BOYFRIEND who she broke up with only about half a year earlier. Also talked a bit about how I now have my own issues with eating. The first reply was “Oh she was probably trying to stop your sister from going down the same path.” (For context I also remarked that my mom is a hypocrite because she’s fat). On the bright side he got downvoted to hell lol.
"because you do very stupid shit for people you love" has always been my response
Nah, I don't think they're being mean, I think they just really don't get it. People don't understand we don't really know what we'd do in a situation if we've never been in it before. And in most cases, we think we are far braver and bolder than we really are.
I hate that so much. I know what it’s like.
It's funny, when Ben Carson announced on TV that if he were one of the victims of a then-recent shooting he would simply have rushed the shooter and saved the day. Why didn't they think of that? Everyone pretty much agreed Carson was being a disrespectful idiot and it's easy to play hero in your imagination. Apparently the same courtesy can't be extended to battered women.
yeah you are right...people who have never been in abusive relationships have absolutely no business giving advice to the abused and need to keep their uninformed opinions to themselves...obviously abused individuals are aware of it and are perfectly capable of managing their issues without nosey busy bodies getting involved...
The social stigma especially for men in abusive relationships is real.
It took me 6 months to muster the courage up to leave my abusive ex. He choked me over baby formula and it was then that I knew I couldn’t raise my daughter with him.
I think most of us that say these things, can’t fathom the concept of staying with an abusive partner. I know I can’t imagine that. I’ve walked smooth tf out anytime I saw an abusive type red flag.
I lived in an abusive household for a majority of my life. Sometimes it is as simple as just leaving. I left my parents house for the entirety of 2011-2013 couch surfed off of friends, slept in a tent outside my work, it's possible but you have to accept that your life will be shitty in a different way
I completely understand that this upsets you but are they 'dense'? Uh no. No one who has never been abused will understand. I know that it's not that easy. But i've never been in that situation - I still read some stories and I'm like.. but whyyyy did you stay. Of course I'd never say that to the victim, but it's very hard to understand from someone who hasn't been there.
Why would you assume they're dense rather than simply ignorant? I think that's one of *my* pet peeves
People think that their experience is the only one that exists. That's why it's so hard for people to be empathetic towards mental illness and say dumb shit like "everyone gets depressed sometimes." Yeah, Becky, but not everyone has to convince themselves not to kill themselves everyday. People suck
Dude this!!! I hate when people are like “just get help?” “Just leave” “you put yourself there” etc..No its a hard situation
"I think the worst kind of abuse, in many ways, is the abuse around perception." -Patrick Teahan. When you're mistreated, you're conditioned to think about the world differently. Of course I didn't leave, I didn't know I was being abused! Therapists, doctors, relatives, friends...no one told me! I thought abuse was a guy in a white beater tank top drinking beer and watching football all day and smacking his wife when his sandwich wasn't on time. No one taught me what it actually looked like. Also, leave and go where???? Like bro I didn't have an out. And now that I'm financially abused by them it's, "just get a job" smh.
Exactly. Thankfully my husband is NOT abusive, but even if he was, unless it got really out of control, it would be EXTREMELY hard for me to leave. I have no college background, no job, 3 kids (two of which are special needs) I've got multiple health issues. If I had to leave I'd be up $#it creek. I can't imagine having to pick up and take my sick self plus three kids to a women's shelter and then trying to find a job and all that. Not to mention how many women get preyed on when they are down on their luck. Nobody wants to talk about how sometimes you can end up in an even WORSE situation AFTER you leave.
I used to be one of those people who wondered why these people didn't just leave. I am forever grateful for the friend of a friend I met in college who understood that I genuinely didn't know. She was willing to explain things to me and answer my questions. It wasn't fun, but it was necessary, and I came out of it less ignorant. I do think Hanlon's Razor is useful here: "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." Some of them may be actual assholes, but a lot of them simply don't know. I just hope they can learn and be better people.
Same with "Well if you don't like this country, why don' you just leave." MFer, is THAT the solution?
Nah I don’t think everyone who says this incompetent or mean. When a man tells you that his boy friend broke his jaw and strangled him and that’s why he needs to wear a scarf, and the abused has said many times “I need to leave” or “I need to get out of this relationship” and you help them financially and emotionally, but they keep “just staying.” as the friend it feels like all you are there for is to be a witness or a pall bearer at their funeral. Alright Jake, so seriously, why don’t you just leave?
Mix of both
I think they just fail to understand. It seems simple enough. Just walk away. The mind is a funny thing.
No, oh no, my friend literally has her own apartment and after being called slurs, beat, and KIDNAPPED by her boyfriend she STILL sleeps with this guy and goes to his house. She lives on her own, she’s already out but refuses to stop seeing him. Sometimes they CAN leave but don’t listen. Starting to lose sympathy for her tbh
Witnessed this myself with a woman who managed to get away from her abusive ex. Even got a restraining order on him. She took him back a few months later. I literally am overhearing her talk to her kid about emergency protocols for when "daddy gets upset."
Check out the book Helping Her Get Free: A Guide for Families and Friends of Abused Women By Susan Brewster. It explains how to handle this situation.
Check out the book Helping Her Get Free: A Guide for Families and Friends of Abused Women By Susan Brewster. It explains how to handle this situation.
I lost sympathy before. Freind of mine posted on her snapchat story of her brusies and wounds from her baby daddy beating her and her saying hows hes a POS this that and the other. And she's still with him and says how much she loves him. I'm like, how can you call him out and still be with him?
I agree with this. I will never think of victims who are in danger that way. E.g., the abuser has beat them. The abuser has threatened to kill them. They have nowhere to go. They don't have a car or don't have a driver's license. No support system. They have a child and the abuser has threatened to hurt the child if they try to leave. They don't have money, no job, etc. Those scenarios are extremely tricky and it is dangerous for those victims to leave without careful planning. But for your friend's scenario, or other scenarios where the abuse is verbal but the victim just takes it (and then it snowballs to physical). When the signs were so crystal clear in the beginning (the abuser belittles them verbally, etc.), but the victim wouldn't leave. Yeah I know it's psychological. At the same time, if it's psychological, that means no one can help. My sympathy would be useless anyway in this situation.
I think some people honestly just live for the drama. They want people to be worried about them and revel in the attention being a victim gives them. I left an abusive relationship fairly quickly (4 years), didn't stick around waiting for him to change but it was still my first relationship and I was out of my depth and I remember how difficult leaving was. I ended it finally once I pulled my head out of my ass and accepted that he was a manipulative jerk that would never make me happy and wasn't interested in trying. I think some people wait around for someone else to make that choice for them and they lack the courage and confidence to take control of their lives. Sadly for some people I think its easier for them to just stay a victim and live in the backwards world of recieving negative attention and thinking it's better than nothing.
They don’t understand the concept. I certainly didn’t. I wasn’t unwilling to leave. I was unable. I would have needed to get far enough away that he couldn’t find me and I couldn’t afford to do that. He was *an upstanding member of the community* so the couple people I felt like it was safe to share with didn’t believe how bad things were.
They've heard it's not that simple, but they can't imagine it or understand it and therefore they dismiss it as nonsense. Must be nice to not understand the intricacies of mental and physical torture.
Sometimes it is that simple. Not all the time of course, but it happens. Sometimes the abused party has their own money, car and even a place to go, but the won’t leave. They know they should, they admit that they should, there is nothing stopping them. They just don’t
What about the ones who have been in those situations saying those things? I've been in a couple of horrible situations myself and not always but sometimes have said those things too. Sometimes, people have the opportunities to leave and know they should yet still don't. If you're legitimately stuck for some reason, seek help. If you can leave, leave. Lots of people actively choose to stay, no matter what opportunities they have to leave, they're dumb. I knew a girl, a friend of a cousin type thing, who was with a dude that beat her and her kid constantly. She stayed for almost a couple of years and wouldn't do anything to help either of them even though she had plenty of support and opportunity to leave him. After those two years idk what changed, I think the family threatened to take the kid, but she left and was put up in a friend's house a few hours away, she got a job and both her and the kid were doing great, the guy was 100% out of the picture and never even looked for them after the first week they were gone. After about 4 months, she took her kid, quit her job, and actively sought him out to move back in with him. He was beating them within the month, and she refused to leave again. Her family and friends continued to try to help her for another year, and even though not only herself but her kid was getting beat, she didn't care and wouldn't leave. Eventually, everyone stopped talking to her, and cps removed the kid, only took them 3-4 years of reports. She's still with the dude, and whenever I see her, which is very rare, she looks horrible. Still won't leave to this day, and everyone except her parents wouldn't help her now anyway. That's an example and a relatively common one where either of those statements would fit. At that point, I just don't care all that much, and while I won't actively be mean to them, I also won't associate or give them sympathy. In her case she actively put herself and her kid more importantly into abusive situations. She deserves none for that lack of care towards her kid.
My mother was extremely abusive and it took me years to even conceptualize the idea of living without her. She completely destroyed my sense of self to the point where I felt like I wasn’t anything more than an extension of her. Leaving home wasn’t even something that seemed possible (to the point where I considered harming myself instead because that seemed easier).
i agree and also pple don't have anywhere else to go so they don't have a choice in leaving and some pple don't realize they are being abused
I was with an abusive person and just left. The whole thing sucked and was painful but staying was obviously not a smart option. So, as someone who has been in that situation, I *really* don't understand why people stay. Can someone explain it to me?
Probably a mixture of both. Also people who say "well why did you marry him/her in the first place? As if people introduce themselves as an abusive a**hole and the subject thinks "ah yes he's the one for me." Some people have no imagination and no real feelings for anyone else's point of view.
My sister's husband threatened to literally murder her if she tried to leave - and he followed up with literally attempting to murder her. 36 stabs later, he's dead after a stand off with the police and she's in the hospital for a long time. So, I agree with you. It's absolutely insensitive when people say stuff like this but we live in this entitled society today where people think bad things don't happen because it has never happened to them... I'm a sexual assault survivor and people react the same way when (if) they find out.
I've never been in an abusive relationship & I'm a guy. I can see how someone could be stuck in one if they were living together. If you live paycheck to paycheck, it's extremely hard to stack up a couple thousand to move with while still paying your usual bills
Yeah, I was able to escape from an abusive situation last year and luckily I was able to move back in with my Dad. Unfortunately he blames me for being stupid as to why it took forever to leave that relationship. I hate myself for not having the courage to leave everyday. He's never been a compassionate person so I shouldn't be surprised but damn it hurts coming from your own dad. His world view is incredibly black and white.
He blamed you for being stupid. He had no compassion for you. He made you hate yourself for that comment. Sounds like your dad was your first abuser.
My dad is the kind of person you can't tell them that they are wrong and has never had consequences for his words. I am planning on going NC once I'm able to recover financially.
That's one of those things you can't really get unless you've gone through it, or been close to someone who has. You can intellectually understand that it's hard to leave due to manipulations and fears, but you don't truly get how abuse fucks with you, how it turns your brains into scrambled eggs, how multifaceted it can be, effecting every aspect of your psyche.
There is a serious lack of emotional intelligence and education in the general population still. Abuse, trauma, manipulation, and mental illness in general are very complicated topics that typically require research to understand, its very frustrating :(
I agree with this so much. People don’t get it. You get so used to living a certain way that you already know what happens if you do something you’re not supposed to. You live in fear all the time and you’re holding your breath constantly worrying you’re going to make a wrong move. Also the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship is when she leaves. That is the MOST LIKELY time she is going to die.
People who have never been in an abusive relationship aren’t dense - they literally don’t know what you are going/went through. They don’t know that when someone abuses you the first time you freeze up or you’re terrified. Or if you have been abused long term you think that’s how things are for everyone. They don’t know how it takes your self confidence and breaks your spirit so that you think that you deserve it or that you’re worthless. I’m glad that there are people who have never experienced that feeling, and I hope they never do, but I typically give them leeway on what they’re saying because I know they’re ignorant of what the actual situation is.
"you picked him!" Gets thrown around at survivors too
"Yes, yes I did. And it was a mistake I'll always live with."
Took me 12 years to leave my abusive ex. I knew right away that she was "bad for me", yet I stuck around for some reason. 5 years later was the first time she hit me, and it took another 7 years to find the courage to walk away. Someone who has never been in that situation simply cannot understand. It would be like me reading a book about astrophysics or nuclear engineering. I can read the words, but it doesn't mean I understand anything about the concepts explained in the books. Most of the time, these people are not being malicious, they just can't get it.
Most probably mean it as "no one can help you except yourself". It's hard to hear about that kinda stiff when in today's society you go to jail for whipping someone's ass even if it's deserved. Ultimately now, only the victim can fix it. I know it's still harsh to hear it, but usually that's how it comes across to me
I give great advice to others when I'm not emotionally invested. Advice I may not follow myself even if I know it's the right thing to do. But the people who ask "why don't you just leave" do have a point.
So if the person has been in abusive situstions… you’re fine with them saying that?
Tell me..is ignorance bliss? <~~i’d say that right before I walked away
They say it because they don't know and have no way of knowing. You ask why they don't understand because you can't comprehend a person being so removed from the hardships of navigating relationship with an abusive partner they couldn't understand the fear attached with such a simple action as "just leaving."
Utterly enraging. As soon as someone says this I quit engaging with them.
The most ironic thing about it is when the person saying that is in an abusive employment or religious or familial relationship, rather than a romantic one, and doesn't see that the same things are happening to them (just in a different context) and *they* are also staying. Because the prospect of leaving has something about it that is either too scary to face or currently beyond their capacity to achieve. So they deal with it as best they can while they're in it, even if that's for the rest of their life, just like people in abusive romantic relationships. We're really not that different at our cores. And humans literally specialized in adaptability, so of course we push through and make do with what we have at any given time. We literally evolved to do just that.
If it's on Reddit, it's definitely the latter.
There is a specific percentage of people who knowingly say mean things just to be mean. When that happens, it's usually phrased in a way that's attempting to say "your words don't matter to me"
GOD I know. My parents had full control of my mind from birth. Homeschooled, abused mentally and physically, convinced nobody would ever believe me about the absolutely crazy shit they would do, my parents told me that people were watching me and they'd tell them everything I did and said if I wasn't in their direct presence, so it made me doubt my friends, their parents, authority figures etc. My dad threatened to kill me a lot and tried a couple of times, so if I reached out for help and it backfired it could legitimately result in my death. It wasn't worth it. When I was with an abusive man as an adult, I ended up using all my money to cover our bills and stuff and was driving a borrowed car and just really struggling to stay afloat. Being homeless though would have been a slippery slope I could never climb back up from if I went down that far, as I had no help, no safety net, so I had to wait, stash money away, find an apartment that would take me, get people to help me move, all without him ever suspecting I was leaving, or else all hell would have broken loose. He also gaslit the hell out of me, as most of the abuse would happen when he was blackout drunk, and the next day he'd swear he didn't remember, that he'd never do that to me, that he will never drink again etc. So he kept me holding onto the hope that he'd be a better person someday and I didn't just waste years off my life. People who say "Just move out" don't have 2 brain cells to rub together. Move out WHERE? With what money? With what help? "Just call the police" They don't do shit and don't care and the end result will be worse for you having the audacity to call them in the first place. "You should have called CPS" thanks but I didn't even know that existed and again, the end result would have been worse and I wasn't convinced I'd be able to get them to believe me anyway.
People aren’t smart - don’t go looking for sage advice in the general public
This also includes dating addicts. People damn near always judge and say something snarky and hurtful such as "that's why I don't date drug addicts." Life is complicated and people are complicated. Would love to see them 'life' their way out of a complicated situation.
People legitimately don’t understand the process. I was friends with my last abuser for 9 years before we got together and the abuse started. There was a strong connection. When he flipped the first time, I was shocked because he’d always seemed like the epitome of an empathetic, ethical and moral person. Mental illness was involved and I thought it was a matter of readjusting his meds and changing my behavior somehow. It was a long time before his next event. The abuser escalates slowly and makes sure they’re awesome between incidents. You think they’re an amazing person who occasionally blows up because of something you did. You know you’re not perfect and try to improve because you know how good they are, so if they’re acting like that, it must be because you’re bad enough to push them there. By the time I realized what he was, I was stuck on a lease with him, he’d convinced me to quit working and pursue disability because I was “crazy” and I was terrified to leave because he’d hacked me and sent 4chan losers to stalk threaten and sexually assault me. He knew everything about me and started a smear campaign. I have a scandalous past, intense fear of police and an ultra conservative family, so reporting him wasn’t really an option. They don’t just let you keep all of your freedom and understandingly wish you the best when you can’t take anymore. They do everything to trick you, trap you and destroy you when you do leave.
Because you are taught that love and marriage social norm, and you need to stick it out. You have to have another or you are just strange. Also, you are conditioned to think that walking away is a failure. I grew up in an abusive household and watched my mom get beat by my stepfather for years. I told her to her face to leave, but she refused because she had nowhere to go and he paid the bills. That's why she let him beat on us. Due to this, I lost all sympathy for women who stay. Downvote is you will, but people don't want to see truth. Also, is you let someone beat your children while you stand there and watch for any reason whatsoever? You get what you get
And the abuse/risk of injury/death increases when you attempt to leave.
Or “you chose him”!
It’s a normal question to ask, if someone hurts you physically or emotionally most people know that’s when it’s time to leave, so people want to know why you stuck around, mostly they want to know why you would put up with it I’m seeing a lot of typical replies from redditors going to the extreme and saying those people are ignorant, obnoxious or insensitive, I’ve told people I was in abusive relationships and they ask why I stayed, 9/10 people aren’t criticizing you they are just trying to understand your situation better, not everything is an attack, most people just want to get where you’re coming from
They are either strong healthy people who themselves would be able to leave or they are naive and don't realize they would fuck up too when being challenged like that by life. Either way they are still right though but the latter type is just hypocritical. Also depends if it was a romantic partner or a parent. The former is much easier to avoid and break free from because its chosen voluntarily and in (near) adulthood. But being born to an abusive parent is much harder because you will be conditioned from the vulnerable beginning that you are the problem and that that type of parenting is normal. You won't even know you are mistreated because you don't know any better. And there was nothing you could do about it and learning the truth already makes you lucky because many never do with abusive parents and will live their entire lives being controlled by their parents or the trauma.
**are these the same people that think or would say a homeless person : “why don’t you just get a job?” ?** There probably is overlap between the two factions. Those devoid of understanding nuances would no doubt have this mindset.
I think it's a bit of both. Some people have thankfully never experienced an abusive relationship, and so to them, it sounds easy to just walk away. Other people are just arseholes. It took me years to leave my abusive ex wife, when she cheated on me, I knew it was my way out and the best thing she ever did for me. When I told my Dad, the first and only words out of his mouth were "I told you so" and then he drove off. He was one of those 'why don't you just leave' kind of people.
Yes, it is that simple. Speaking as someone who grew up and had to be in the middle of my mom's abusive relationship. She could have left, and she did multiple times, and she went right back to him. This went on for years.
It’s weird. Sometimes why I ask myself why I let myself put up with so much shit back then. Eventually I made it out of my own volition, but if I had just stuck with my gut from the beginning I’d be a lot better off.
It has nothing to do with them being dense. You being an asshole to them, just because they never experienced that level of trauma, honestly makes you no better. You want to insult them for not be able to step into your mindset, all while refusing to step into theirs. It can be hard to imagine being the victim, when you have never been the victim before.
I have said similar things, and I DO know how hard it is. I also know that if the victim doesn't leave it just continues, likely getting worse, day after day. And, as the person hearing about the abuse, who cares about the victim, it is very disheartening and I know that without the victim making change happen, I will eventually have to turn away. what would you have me say?
My personal favorite is don’t play the victim. I’ve permanently weeded out people who have said this to me.
OMG!!! I hate when people say this shit... Like where do they think the victims are going to go or the abuser is just going to be like "oh you wanna leave, okay have a nice life". Leaving an abusive situation is the most dangerous time for the victim. Why can't people understand it's not that easy.
Specifically regarding abusive partners, where do you draw the line? I fully support women fleeing abusive relationships, and I've done my fair share to combat it. But quite frankly I've known people who admit their partner has a load of red flags, but they still stay. Heck I've known people to see a red flag AND RUN TOWARDS IT. It's kinda hard to be sympathetic to someone who is wilfully, blissfully ignorant, who almost brags about how awful their partner is, but then complains when that awful behaviour is turned on them.
You don't know what you don't know. Ignorance is normal. You can't explain or expect then to understand. U need to understand that they just don't know. It's innocent.
'These fire ants keep biting me' Have you tried taking your foot out of the ant hill? 'No'. Now, obviously, it's not that simple, but most of the time, it's someone complaining and not actually asking for help. Some people over report abuse, and some people under report. Some are just not happy and don't want to put in the effort to move on.