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Haven't read the whole article because it requires registration but I can well believe the headline and the first few paragraphs.
It's a lot easier for men like this to get away with it. This is exactly the scenario I grew up with (short of the actual killing bit). Middle-class "nice" family. My dad was always a bit weird but basically high functioning. Had an OK job, sociable hobbies, friends. Sometimes got into trouble being a bit antisocial but never went to prison. Behind closed doors very violent and out of control, my mum was often bruised, beaten, kicked. He raped her in my earshot. And yet as far as she was concerned this wasn't "real" domestic violence because.... actually I don't really know. Because she never ended up in hospital was one explanation I heard. Or because we were a nice middle class family with 2 cars and overseas holidays ever year. My dad actually explained to me once when I was a child, when I asked him why he did it, he explained that he didn't really hit her. No, it was just a "gesture". (his exact words). If he had really hit her then she would be in hospital. Thanks Daddy, you're so considerate. Never mind all the coersion and gaslighting and emotional abuse, locking her out of the house, throwing her out of the car, telling her how worthless she was. Telling US how worthless she was. Similar verbal and emotional abuse towards me and my sibling but because he didn't hit us (very much) it didn't count.
My and my sibling had to keep it all hushed up because, and I quote, "other people won't understand" (i.e. they will recognise it as the abuse it really is and maybe even do something to help).
When my mum told her middle-class friends they tried to help my her but she didn't want to be helped (she is still with him now) and those friends (understandably?) couldn't stay friends with her and listen to her describing the abuse while refusing to be helped to leave him. I am in the same situation now. I have had to ask her not to tell me all the things he does to her because despite my pleading she willl not leave him, will not come and live with me, will not help herself, and I don't think it is fair for her to expect me to give her emotional support to help her stay with him.
I don't know how much those middle class people knew about me and my sibling. My mum will have swore blind that we were completely unaffected so maybe they believed that, or maybe they just didn't want to help us. I don't know.
IronicWolf [OP]February 23, 2022
What a horrible situation. Would your mum be willing to speak to a women’s organisation? Just talk.
I know sometimes it’s hard for parents to take advice or help from their children - I often have this problem with mum which I sometimes get round by getting somebody else to tell her the exact same thing. She won’t listen to me but the third man in the tinned goods aisle in a supermarket is a reliable source!
TortoisemouseFebruary 23, 2022
Thank you, it's really kind of you to reply.
I think it's too late, or maybe it never would have worked because fundamentally she does not want to leave him. She's approaching 80. I spent many years of my life, from teenage onwards, trying to get her to leave. I made sure she had an emergency bag under her bed in case she wanted to make a quick getaway if he got violent. I told her to come to me, or to make sure a friend closer by could put her up. She did a few times go to the friend with her emergency bag. But she always went back. She used to pick me up from University at the end of term wearing dark glasses to hide a black eye. She has seen counsellors, therapist, marriage counsellors (as a couple and apart) but she just wants people to support her in staying with him. When counsellors ask her about leaving him, she stops seeing them. I guess it's co-dependency. He needs her to be his punchbag. She needs to be needed. He's a toddler in a big male body, and she feeds off his attachment to her. Maybe? I don't know. She sometimes talks about the things she'll be able to do when he dies and he isn't controlling her life anymore. It's really sad.
I don't understand it and I don't think I'll ever understand it. Neither of them can acknowledge the effect on me and my sibling, not even my mum. They think we had a golden childhood because we were a middle class family. That's why this article really jumped out at me, thank you for posting it.
Anyway, sorry to dump this and thank you for listening.
IronicWolf [OP]February 24, 2022
‘she just wants people to support her in staying with him’
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with that remark. The situation with my mum is different - she divorced my father when I was a baby and has remained single ever since. However, she is one of those people who like to complain but will not lift a finger to help themselves. I used to drive myself mad trying to get her to do something useful but there was always a reason not to do it. I got very stressed. But eventually I’ve come to realise that if she does not want to improve her situation, then that’s her choice. I’m here to help if she wants but I can’t force it on her.
There are some people who just adore the ‘martyr’ role: they build their entire identity around being this person who undeservedly gets treated badly and everyone around them needs to feel sorry for them and do things for them.
There are actually a few good psychology books about this sort of phenomenon. Eric Berne’s Games People Play and What Do You Say After You’ve Said Hello? were very enlightening to me. The gist is that many people insist on playing certain roles in a life drama and will seek to create that situation even if the dramatis personae change. It’s mainly unconscious and a sign of psychological dysfunction. Until they decide to become emotionally healthy they will resist all attempts by other people at getting them to change the script.
TortoisemouseFebruary 24, 2022
OMG IronicWolf this is extremely enlightening.
I kind of understand my dad (or, I just think he is mentally ill/an asshole depending on how I'm feeling). But my mum has been a complete mystery to me... UNTIL NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
This is the first explanation that has ever made sense in my entire life [lightbulb emoji].
There are some people who just adore the ‘martyr’ role: they build their entire identity around being this person who undeservedly gets treated badly and everyone around them needs to feel sorry for them and do things for them.
This is it. She absolutely is in the role of "martyr" and has built her entire identity around it and seems to feed off feeling sorry for herself and having other people feel sorry for her (until they get sick of it). It's like a weird kind of narcissism.
HOWEVER (and I know you would agree) this does not in any way excuse the way my dad treats her. His violence and abusiveness are his responsibility and his alone. Plus I also believe there is an element of socialisation and learned helplessness to my mother's role. This is not to excuse her from failing to do the right thing by her children (I can never overlook that, especially my sibling who was more physically abused by my dad than I was). It is part of her schtick that she took all the shit to "spare us", which is not at all how it played in reality. But I still don't hold her responsible for my dad.
I can't thank you enough IronicWolf and I'll certainly take a look at those books you mention.
IronicWolf [OP]February 24, 2022
Nothing excuses violence and abuse but abusers have an uncanny knack of knowing who is a good target.
Learned helplessness is definitely a thing and it can be very difficult for people outside a situation to get their heads around. But it’s simply when someone (and it happens in animals) has been in a terrible situation for a long time with very few options in a way just basically gives up and shuts down: the only possibility that the person can imagine is the situation and nothing more.
TortoisemouseFebruary 24, 2022
So sad, right?
My mum grew up witnessing her own father's violence towards her mother (my grandmother). She was used by her mother as a human shield when under attack. (My mum then replicated that situation using me.) Weirdly, though, my grandmother divorced my grandfather when my mother was still young and my grandma never took any shit like that from another man again (my grandma was baddass. A narcissist, but a badass one). So my mother did see there was a way out. Somehow she has never seen that as an option for herself, but I guess by then she was too attached to the martyr role which no doubt started in childhood.
Anyway, it's all much too complicated to go into on a forum, I just am grateful to you for this exchange. Thank you sister.
Gender abolition is a life or death fight for women. Don't let anyone try to tell you it doesn't matter that much. This is the biggest fight for a safe and civil society that there is. Women's rights truly are human rights.