Seniors, Have You Ever Been In An Abusive Relationship?

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

Endlessly Groovin'
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There are many shows on television which speak about relationships that are abusive, either physically, mentally or both. I'm amazed at how some people tolerate the mistreatment, and stay in the relationship. Lots of times, in the case of women being abused, they stay because they're afraid to leave. They fear that the husband/boyfriend will hunt them down and beat them up, or even kill them (and rightfully so).

Some people stay together for "the sake of the kids". They don't want to leave because they want the children to have both parents in the home. I disagree with this logic, as the children can't be positively affected by witnessing swearing, name-calling, physical violence, and parents who disrespect each other in everyday life. In fact, they will likely ape the behavior and become abusers or victims themselves.

Women aren't always the victims. I knew someone years ago from work whose daughter beat up and verbally abused her husband. He said that the husband never called the police, because he knew they would suspect he was the one at fault. He said that he tried talking to his daughter about stopping the behavior, but he had no influence. Personally, since he seemed to be an aggressive and dominant individual himself, I figured that she may just have had some of his personality in her through heredity.

When I was a teen, I was in a relationship with a guy that was very controlling and physically abusive. I soon ended the relationship, as I knew forgiving was not going to end the abuse. I was lucky to get out of it with no serious injuries or long-term effects. I can only advise others to do the same.

In my opinion, I don't think any of us were put on this earth to please another. If it happens to work out that way, it's just wonderful...like my 40 year relationship with my husband. BUT, if things aren't working out, and either party is unhappy with the other, I think they should split on friendly (or unfriendly) terms and each go on their merry way. Too many fish in the sea, to be stuck walking on eggshells and worrying about if somebody is going to be in a bad mood and take it out on you. Being alone is another option, and not a bad one either.

What do you think? Anyone have a volatile relationship like that? Do you know anyone who's victim/abuser in such a relationship? How do you feel it should be handled?
 

I was in one for a short time, it was mental abuse but i was strong enough to be able to walk away, went back a few times until i finally made a list of pros & cons he lost, i enjoyed telling him i was too good for him and walked out. Some poor women aren't able to do that, my daughter was a victim of physical abuse twice, the second time he almost killed her, we got there in time to stop him, all he got was a $2000.00 fine, we found out after he had bashed every girl he went out with, i hope he got what he deserved.
 
That is so sad to hear Jilly, such an unfortunate circumstance. Thank goodness your daughter didn't lose her life, sometimes it's just a matter of seconds with a choke-hold too tight or too long, etc. It would be nice to be able to see and evaluate previous relationships of those we're interested in, that would be very telling to be sure. Of course some women would say, that's the way he was with her, things will be different with us. The $2,000 fine is just a slap on the wrist, IMO, and will likely not change his future assaults. :(
 

He got off light because his solicitor said he has joined AA, not the case he was stone cold sober and had all the windows nailed shut so she couldn't get out, plus as he was getting up early he went to bed for a short time before she got home from work at 11pm, i hope he met his maker as his parents even were scared of him.
 
No, never personally, from observation of others who were, I took extreme measures to make sure I didn't get into one. Any bloke who put forward his opinion on how or where things should go that amounted to more than a vague suggestion got the bum's rush.
Guess I just never was a team player.

ramble on family 'relationship'
My family life was not violently abusive by any stretch but I can see where it may have easily led that way.
Dad was emotionally 14 all his life, raised the eldest doted on boy with 3 younger sisters to boss around, which he did ruthlessly. He didn't bash them or anything, but had a hair trigger temper and threw whatever was handy at them, broke their dollies and bossed them in every aspect of their daily lives.
Their father died when Dad was in his teens and he was head of the family from then on. And loved it.
He was a good lookin' lad and Mum's usual bullsh*t defense mechanisms crumbled and so it goes.

After they were married his sisters tipped Mum off about his temper tantrums. They didn't tell her earlier because they just wanted him married and out of the house. (Women are devious like that, think it's been mentioned. )

The turning point happened long before I was born, just a few months into the marriage.
Mum was the eldest girl raised with 3 younger brothers to boss around. Her father worked away from home and her mother was never a well woman so Mum was head of that household too.
Also lovin' it! She was still bossing her brothers when they were in their 70s and long married to other bosses!

So there they were, my parents, the Terrible Twins, with exactly the same backgrounds. Both bossy and both hiding the fact.
Sorry I missed the first confrontation. I only got it all 2nd hand decades later from my 'big brothers'/uncles. siiiigh.

It appears some big decision was pending and Dad pulled his fist back to enforce his opinion and Mum told him make it a goodun as it was the only one he'd ever land.

The realization hit him then that her two brothers who were boarding with them to help pay the mortgage were standing right behind him.

As is usual with petty bullies his ego collapsed like a house of cards and he never tried that again. He just sulked for the rest of his life.
And she danced around in his mind while he did it. It was already a strange kind of relationship by the time I made an appearance.

The bully was still in him and while he largely ignored me until I was in my early teens when he started a little habit expected from a 14 yo bully with a girl to pick on of punching me lightly on the arm when we we watching TV. After a couple of bruises I realized this was getting past playful and told him he could stop doing that as of now. He didn't, so I landed one on the bridge of his nose. Seems I inherited the Irish temper from him so fair enough right?
It was the one and only I ever landed on either of them but was good enough get the message across to never mess with me physically again. Neither ever did, Mum 'lost' the cane she used on me too.

I was the bad guy for a few weeks but the bruises stopped and he went down another notch on the totem pole of domestic heirarchy.
The Uncles had moved out by then (which is why he thought it was safe to start bullying me, he was never game to take Mum on) so there were just the 3 of us, and Mum and I battled for the Alpha position for the next 50 years. It was a draw!

She got a free domestic slave and I learnt how to stay non-violently sane despite the best efforts of a master mindgamer.
Win/win? ... maybe not, but at least I never gave her the excuse to cut me out of inheriting the house. That was all she ever saw our 'relationship' as, a bribe situation. Familial affections didn't enter into the equation, we were strangers who didn't particularly like each other for our entire lives together. (I've since learned she was a textbook Narcissist, wish I'd understood that sooner, I'd have known what monster it was that I was really fighting, but that's how things go...sometimes you're just too close to see things clearly.) To her mind that house was her trump card, but I was already worth twice what she was and also had another house I owned but she never really understood that, so I played along and teased her with it. She wasn't the only baaad girl in that odd 'relationship.'

It wasn't until quite recently that I finally deduced that the primary reason I never walked out on her was that it would appear that she had won the mind war, and I was never going to let her beat me at it. (Now I have to work out what kind of 'ist' I am. Not a Narcissist though, my wardrobe proves that. )
Up until that epiphany I kidded myself that I was doing the dutiful daughter thing for her, but in reality, I think something much deeper and darker was driving it. We discover all kinds of things about ourselves when we look into things brutally honestly.

So relationships are complicated, that one was not particularly abusive but potentially so. Other than the little punching episode the physical 'abuse' by way of sometimes well deserved hidings with a cane came from Mum, not Dad. It was a mentally abusive minefield though, also female driven, and judging by the blissfully serene childhoods some seem to have experienced I guess at least mildly dysfunctional.

This all went on with no outward signs that we weren't the perfectly normal suburban family everyone else pretended to be, do we ever know what's really going on in relationships?
But whatever it was it was sure an education!

Goes some way in explaining why I stayed cynically single doesn't it?
... and somewhere out there is a man who is extremely lucky that I did. :lofl:


Avoidance advice to those women prone to get into abusive relationships? Don't be such romantic schmucks!
 
Good that you were strong enough even as a teen to put your foot down Di, and put a stop to that 'passive aggressive' abuse with the arm punching...kudos! There was a gal at work, that would come in with black eyes every now and then, she was very inconspicuous in hiding them with wearing sunglasses all day indoors, lol. She had a live in boyfriend that put her in her place fairly often. She was an aggressive hot-head herself, so many people, including myself, figured that she provoked most of them, or was the first to start swinging. Honestly, I'm against any physical violence, I don't think anyone has the right to hit another, unless it's in self-defense...not just anger, or having a bad day.
 
Strangely enough while I had my Dad's temper I only ever took it out on inanimate objects. Waste paper baskets would levitate across the room occasionally, but I never physically attacked anyone. A few hopeful Lotharios in the storeroom got close quarters jabs to the ribs but I don't think that counts really. I can understand how people go postal, even sympathise in some cases, but luckily never lost it that way myself. Self preservation trumped temper tantrum apparently.
 
I am relationship challenged but thank my lucky stars I never got involved with anyone like Jilli describes her daughter did:( Jilli I can't imagine what you went thru, knowing your daughter was trapped in a situation like that even for a short time:(

Hit me once, shame on you -- hit me twice, shame on me<---that did happen once, when the man had waaaaay too much to drink and no matter how I tried to avoid him (at three in the morning) I still got my face broke. He was a professional with a lot to lose if I filed charges (I told the hospital ER my horse swung his head and hit me) and it was something he had never done before. The deal we cut, was he would move out of the house, sell it to me for what was owed on it and pay all the closing costs:)

And I never looked back, no matter how many times he professed his sorrow.

I've had an eventful life -- no need to wonder why I am such a callous witch and don't have time or the patience for game-playing:black_eyed:
 
Oh Jilli your poor daughter and TWH wowzer, what an awful ordeal.

When I was a little girl I remember my dad telling me if anybody ever hit me to hit them back! one time a neighbor bully pushed me and I punched him in the face.

Years ago an old boyfriend of mine had to take care of his mom's place while she was out of town, I made a surprise visit! Opps! he had another woman there. E-gads, I beat him with my purse, unmercifully too! and he just cowered, that is to his credit I suppose that he didn't fight back. I must say I was so furious he was lucky there was not a baseball bat handy. And the funny thing was he was such a jerk anyway, I should have thanked him. I was well rid of that jack-wagon. That was the one and only time I blew my cork.

So I have never been in that situation, and I do wonder how women stay with abusive men. Or the other way round, when my husband was working in the the woods one of the guys he rode in the Crummy with, his wife beat him and he was always turning up with bruises.
 
Yes she has had it tough, she still has trouble with her wrists as he bent them right back,the moron is lucky he jumped the fence when we arrived as god knows what my late hubby would have done to him, he was shaking with rage. She is only 5' and both guys were 6'2
But it has made her stronger just like you, sorry to hear about your problem but you were obviously strong enough to work through it, it's a terrible thing to go through, funny you say about the game playing etc my daughter is like that now too.
 
This jerk tried to win her back with flowers and a teddy bear, how dare he the mongrel.
I had a girlfriend that got bashed every week for years and he would come back the next day and apologise and she believed him until he nearly killed her and she realised she had to leave, she had 2 very young kids too.
I can't understand why women stay with a man that bashes them, maybe they are so petrified of him and what he would do if she left, or she just thought it was a normal thing that happened in a marriage.
I would be like you OH i would be worried i would lose control and really hurt them, just as well there was no bat around, but i don't think he would have hit you if he was cowering, luckily.
I have been lucky in my choice of men except for the one who mentally abused me but i didn't put up with it for too long though, my late husband was a gentle placid man.Miss him heaps.
 
I can understand why people stay; they lose all self-esteem, feel it is their fault; have no-where to go, and no money.
I am lucky; it never happened to me, but I believe that I am strong and independent enough not to allow it to.
mental battering wears a person down so much...
 
I suspect that a lot of women may stay in these relationships for financial reasons. Maybe they feel they have no way of supporting themselves (and the children?) if they leave. Maybe more networks are needed to provide these women with job training, practical informatiion, etc. along with emotional support?

(Do we really need to revive two ancient threads on the same subject?)
 
I was in several relationships where there was either or both or all of physical, mental and emotional abuse. It still effects me.
 
I've never been in one and I'd like to say that there's no way I would stay in one, but since I haven't experienced one I don't have the answer to that.

In the case of physical abuse, it's a lot easier to make up one's mind to take oneself out of the situation. Mental abuse, though, can be so subtle and can creep up on one. Take "gaslighting", for instance. You have to be able to recognize that you're being gaslighted in order to decide to get out.

Another factor: if a woman grew up in an abusive household, perhaps she sees it as "normal".
 
I grew up in an extremely abusive family where my step father was both physically and emotionally abusive of everyone, all 8 kids and my mother. Everyone got "the stick" but for some reason I never understood, I got the worst of it. Perhaps it was because I was the oldest and the only child of mom's previous marriage.

I remember a story my great-grandmother told me when I was in my teens. She told me that when I was not quite 2 years old she had it out with my mom regarding the bruises all over my body. When great grandmother, said to my mom, "Just look at the bruises on that baby. If he (my future step-father) will do that to Rickey now, before you even marry Bill (my step-father), then God help the both of you if you marry him". According to gran-ma, my mom replied, "But I love Bill (step-father)".

To this very day I still can't understand the bizarre thinking behind that. What makes a woman chose a physically abusive man over her own child?

In this particular case, mom had a steady job as a clerk in a department store, and by all accounts she was able to support the both of us. So, money could not be a factor.

The beatings continued and resulted in broken bones until I finally left home for good at age 15 and lived on the streets.

I once, many, many years later confronted mom and she broke down crying. I felt like a heel for making mom cry and I let her off the hook. I never got an answer from her. "Why, mom. Why"
 
It is my firm conviction that the great mass of the population cares much more about animal abuse than they do about the abuse of people.

Think about this: during the last month, how many TV ads have you seen about the abuse of animals and how many have you seen about the abuse of children ? Where I live, I see a dozen or more ads re: abuse of animals every week. I have NEVER seen one, not one ad about abuse of children.

What does that say about our society and us as humans ?
 
News by its very nature is often biased and ratings based. I would not conclude that the prevalence of anti abuse animal ads pointed to a popular indifference where child abuse is concerned. There are far more laws on the books, and intervention possibities available to protect children rather than animals. During my practice, I have seen greater visibility and more stringent care/prevention/intervention policies put in place to protect children. When I was young, it was a taboo subject, virtually an abuser’s heaven.
 
Shalimar said:
News by its very nature is often biased and ratings based. I would not conclude that the prevalence of anti abuse animal ads pointed to a popular indifference where child abuse is concerned. There are far more laws on the books, and intervention possibities available to protect children rather than animals. During my practice, I have seen greater visibility and more stringent care/prevention/intervention policies put in place to protect children. When I was young, it was a taboo subject, virtually an abuser’s heaven.
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What you say is true. However, I'm taking about child abuse awareness ads on TV. In this super wealthy county we can afford to flood the airwaves with anti-abuse ads. Yet I have NEVER seen one . NOT ONE SINGLE CHILD ABUSE AWARNESS AD.

As an adult, people told me they DID know about the abuse. I don't even begin to understand why they didn't intervene.

Did you know that the very first prosecution of a child abuse case in America (Chicago ? I have long since forgotten the year), had to be tried under animal abuse laws ? Why ? Because there were NO child abuse laws on the books.
 

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