Has anyone here who's in love with and standing by a man who's hurt them done any independent research into domestic abuse? I feel that's very important because it can give you a better understanding of and insite into why your man has treated you the way he has.

I don't believe he treated you badly because "he wanted to" but instead because of something much deeper within him that points in the direction of "he couldn't help it." I believe that's why after the fact, some domestic abusers have expressed they're sorry and that it won't happen again. I believe it wasn't really him who hurt you, but instead a something in him that makes him behave that way. It's so deep that him making sincere promises to stop is just not enough to make it stop.

Are you guys doing any research, or, are you basically just going with the flow and living on the hope of his word? DV is not our issue -- ours is addiction, I've been doing my research since 1998 and am still learning and sharing what I learn with my husband because that helps him to better understand himself and why he's done/does the things he has/have.

Your researching and sharing with him could be a gateway to him sincerely and seriously wanting to get the professional help that he needs. Our men are not rejects, our men are victims of their past because no child escapes childhood unscarred. Know that, since you have chosen to stick by him, you can help your man [not to be confused with "fix your man"]. But that it cannot be done by your drowing him with "I love you's" and catering to his sincere promises. I honestly do believe that by your gaining knowledge from research and bringing those learnings to him that it's possible you may be able to influence him to do what he must to get himself restored.

I am not an expert or close to it on this subject so I hope that no one gets offended on my speaking on a territory that I have no personal knowledge of. My objective here is to share that because research has done ALOT for me and mines, that it's possible it could also do ALOT for you and yours as well.

I totally respect you having the educational research drive to find out what is going on with your husband...as a Research Scientist and Engineer I totally understand but actually in Undergraduate I did a research paper on Domestic violence and alot of the information I found did explian why it can occur, but the thousands of papers (the paper was worked on over the whole school year) showed the horrible cycle that occurs when mothers stay with these husbands/boyfriends. The children that see this usually have the abusive relationship in the future...which from your thread I assume he had a abusive childhood or saw the same thing. There was also a huge connection between the woman who stayed and self esteem. The question is it better to stay and help or leave so that your children will not become the same thing? I hope your research has helped you and your man...because from most of the research I have read were very scary in the statisitcs.

. . . which from your thread I assume he had a abusive childhood or saw the same thing.
Thanks for responding iver, but I think you may have misunderstood me somewhere along the line to have come to that assumption being I said DV (domestic violence) is not my husband's issue. Unless your assumption is his issue (addiction) arose out of abuse? It didn't though but more out of issues of abandonment though he was loved -- just not in the way that he wanted to be.

. . . The question is it better to stay and help or leave so that your children will not become the same thing?
Personally, I believe they should leave, they should not be doing the bid with him, they should not be marrying him on the bid, which is the same thing that friends and family plus other PTOers have encouraged them to do.

However, because some not only nevertheless stay and lovingly do the bid with him but also even marry their abuser when she is the victim of his crime, the bigger question that inspired me to start this thread is "so what do you then tell that select group of women who choose to not follow the words of the wise but who instead choose to lovingly stand by him?"

Based on that question, my thinking is since she is staying anyway why not spend some of the bidding time constructively by way of educating herself through independent research. It's my thinking that that select group of women are living on hope, and what my thread is about is, in line with the objective of the site, "to support what the members want though I may not agree with what she wants because it is her life."

Am I making sense to anyone here? Because if not, do let me know.

. . . I hope your research has helped you and your man...because from most of the research I have read were very scary in the statisitcs.
As stated in my opening post, it has helped me tremendously, and, it has also helped my husband alot because through what I've learned and shared with him, he's learned alot about himself and why he's done the things he's done. What he's learned is how to identify and handle his own red flags, rather than just waving them and carrying on the way he's done in the past because he did not know his own red flags.

Incidently, my husband's issue being addiction, the statistics of male addicts in their 40's turning their life around and living the rest of their lives relapse free is very scary also. I'm living on hope too my sister.

I am sooo happy that it has helped you and as with most things in life we have all lived in hope! Good luck and I love that you have gone the same route I have and tried to learn things instead of just covering it up....

You're welcome but you're gonna have to do me one because I just noticed something -- you're gonna have to take the word "Stupid" off of where you have it beside your avator because I do not like that, and I'm serious. That has GOTS TO GO!!

I have to chuckle because I have so been here! I researched and researched- in fact I still am researching and I have been divorced for over 10 years! I want to learn from my mistakes and not pass them on to my children. The problem that I encountered was that the other person has to truly be receptive to the information and have a genuine interest in permanent change. I have found that the profession of sorrow is just for the benefit of making up and keeping you in the situation and not really a heartfelt realization of the need to change their behavior. Usually the abuser sees you as the problem not themselves- look what YOU made me do, how could YOU be so stupid, YOU, YOU, YOU. They seldom see themselves as the problem. So as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. I packed in a ton of information, but it didn't do any good because he never saw that he had a problem. I have no control over people, places or things. The only person I have control over is myself so I changed the one person I had control over- me. All the information did me a world of good and it got me and my children out of a horrible situation.

Future of children (http://www.futureofchildren.org/pubs-info2825/pubs-info.htm?doc_id=70473)

Domestic violence is a serious issue. One that should not be made fun of or taken lightly. Research is a good thing. But it can also be used to find answers we "want" to find and not what we "need" to know. The effects of domestic violence on children is huge!!

Domestic violence and children (http://nccanch.acf.hhs.gov/pubs/factsheets/domesticviolence.cfm)

HeSo - you're so sweet to hope that research will make it better! But unless the mindset of both the victim and abuser has changed, it's like buying bullets for a gun without a firing pin. All the info in the world, all the good-will in the world, will not change an abuser; and we know how hard it is to get someone to leave an abuser.
Iver is right - the current statistics are abysmal: from what I've found so far, only about 20% stick through a full course of treatment, and of those 20% only about 15% do not go back to abusing. That's a resounding failure in terms of numbers - out of 100 abusers you get ONE to TWO who won't do it again.
From what I've gathered so far, the empathy *gene* has been deleted from them, if it was there to begin with. There is no capacity to sorrow over doing damage to someone else, no ability to understand that one's own perceptions and needs are NOT the center of the world, combined with something close to paranoia (not clinical paranoia, but the result looks sufficiently similar).
Doing that research is exactly what kept me from going back, but the counseling is what is armoring me against making a new, similar choice. Both are wise to have - this is what it is, and this is how not to go there again.

. . . I packed in a ton of information, but it didn't do any good because he never saw that he had a problem. . . . All the information did me a world of good and it got me and my children out of a horrible situation.
I'm not sure if you guys are getting what I've said here because it sounds to me like some of you are thinking something other than what I've expressed. The research is NOT FOR HIM -- IT IS FOR THE WOMAN. The way I see it, it's just something else in this world for her to educate herself on especially if she is living a life that includes abuse, she does not understand the abuse, and she does not want to leave. The best that could come out of her independent study is her realizing from what she's learned from the books that her man is not going to change. That her staying with him hoping he will will not do the trick.

But because I would not ever tell anyone to not have hope, I know that some women in this situation do have hope. In line with the hope that she has, she can share her learnings with her man. But not with the hope that it will fix him, but with the hope that something may click in his head making him want to try and help himself.

But all in all, it is not for him -- it is for her.

bunny, the research you've done WAS supposed to do you a world of good, and that's the purpose of this thread -- to suggest it because I believe it could do any woman the same -- a world of good because what she walks away with is a knowledge that she did not have when she walked in; a knowledge that could save her life, a knowlege that could one day help her to help a friend who's dealing with the same issue.

ooops! double post.

HeSo - you're so sweet to hope that research will make it better!
Thanks nim, but that's not my point -- that it will make it better. My point is THAT IT WILL MAKE THE WOMAN SMARTER, because reading is knowledge and knowledge is power!!

I understand, but *smart* is not a prerequisite for avoiding or escaping an abusive relationship. We had a member here who, with all the information in the world - from Stockholm syndrome to Lundy Bancroft to all the info on the board, still couldn't manage to leave. She had a college degree, but she also had holes in her soul that he filled, something she recognized down beyond the intellect or information.

From what I've gathered, the best way to make either an abuser or a victim is to give them a narcissistic parent. My therapist said one thing to me that was more valuable than all the other info I've gathered - "Have you ever thought that you have mistaken the longing for love for love itself?" That lit up my brain! That was the one piece of ammo I needed, the thing that explained the effect my mother had on me and the button that those as narcissistic as she could invariably push.

The best resource I have READ is "Why Does He Do That?" Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft
The other experts are the women at Domestic Violence Centers all over the Nation.
A woman generally stays with a man who abuses/has abused her is known as the "battered woman syndrome." The question we really should be asking is "Why do men abuse women?"
To become educated on that issue and to understand it is to help to stop domestic violence. To speak out against men who abuse in public and NOT let them get away with it and to stand by women who have been their victims to become survivors is also the answer.
Abusive men are made, not born. It is not about anger, it is only about power and control, and our society perpetuates men staying that way through images and subliminal messages from the media and partriarchal viewpoints that have too long been the status quo.

Blessings,
Marsha

OH, P.S. I lived with a dangerous sociopathic husband who tried to kill me, who tried to kill his first wife, and who in fact DID kill his fiance by throwing her over a 4th floor balcony to her death. Becoming educated on domestic violence DID help me tremendously...because then I understood what had been going on...and only then, could I get the courage to get out, which I did. And now he is in prison again for violating parole by violating the Order of Protection. His butt truly needs to be in prison for the rest of his life, so he won't get out and ever try to find me and hurt me again, or anyone else for that matter. Bless you all...

Marsha

Marsha,

Thankfully you had the courage to "get out" before you became another statistic in the morgue.

Welcome to the DV forum.

It took me 12 long years to get away from my ex husband .I was abused pysically and mentally all those years .It took me that long the courage to leave and stay gone .I would genarally go back to him thinking things were my fault blaming my self for our problems.I discoverd that i could in fact make it on my own ,god would take care of me in many ways i could not see at the time .I have been gone now for 2 years ..i now have freedon to live .

you al have been very helpful in your discussions on doing research. I also have done the research, but me being me have fallen on to the old adage of "Living on Hope" On a recent visit to my husband who is incarcerated for "person crimes" yet again he was angry because I had arrived late. I soon put him into check or what I felt was the right place to put him in saying if he was going to cop the attitude I'd just leave. It didn't really really registered to him the way I wanted it to I know it didn't but he soon had manipulated the issue and covered it up, and like so many times before I HAD ALLOWED IT TO HAPPEN and yes several times I would question myself has to why I kept running back into that same situation when I am an educated person and if it were a friend going through this I would tell her to run like the wind. It is going to make them more educated it is going to be of assisantance to them I am not saying any of you are wrong. I am saying when the victum makes that stand and until they do there really is nothing any of their friends can do except HOPE. Let me share with you a bit about me and you will see what I mean and again this is not to say research does not work or is not helpful in anyway. I had been living with my now husband for a little over a year. I knew about his past as at one point he dated my ex husbands niece(he is 9 years younger then me) and at that time had you put me in a room alone with him one of us was not going to be walking out of it. He has had many periods of incarceration all stemming from violence against women. I knew all of this and I

I did all the research in the world after I left my ex. I just couldn't get closure until I understood why why why. Then finally I stumbled on the book by Lundy Bancroft which gave me my closure. I finally understood completely and got some piece in my soul.

This is very simple - it's much simpler than I ever imagined. I went trough the "he had a shitty childhood" to the "it's the alcoholism" to the "he just can't control himself" or whatever. The simple truth is that they feel they have the holy RIGHT to control their "loved" ones. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not about how badly they feel inside, because they don't feel bad, not even when crying on your shoulder about how sorry they are.

And one more thing. Those men who go to marriage counselling with their abused wife only get better at the abuse, get better at hiding it. That's even more dangerous than doing nothing.

Read Lundy Bancroft - he explains the whole thing. He has worked with abusive men for decades and understands their minds more than anyone else in the world.

Best wishes,
Rox

I was with someone for 16 years whose mom was a narcissist. It sure messed him up. He was a terrible husband (though only very verbally and emotionally abusive) and a lousy dad. He contines in the latter with our two daughters, basically only having involvement with them at HIS convenience, NOT theirs or mine. He pays for their college, but rarely has time to see them whatsoever, as he is also a workaholic with two full-time, high level jobs. We wrote our own divorce agreement, and he CHOSE the custody and visitation schedule he wanted, then proceeded to ignore it for the 11 years it was in effect, just spending time with the girls when he felt like it. If i try to talk to him about this or about money, he goes completely psycho on me and screams verbal abuse at me. Here's the best part of all, his second full-time job is as an Episcopalian minister, where part of his job is to give marriage and parenting advice to his congregation... During the time we were married, i learned a lot about how being raised by a narcissist affects one. We both have post graduate degrees, and we talked a lot about it and about his upbringing and how his mom's behavior affected him in the past and continued to affect him. But in the end, he did absolutely nothing with any of the information, just continues to be who he is and live how he wants. So, like someone else said here, you can research and understand the heck out of the situation, but if the person doesn't want to change, he won't. My understanding WHY he is the way he is only kept me hanging in there longer hoping he'd change, I think. So knowledge is power, but it doesn't solve the problem, that's for sure.

please help, i have researched again & again and can find no help, with anything to do with this entire domestic violence situation. I am ready to
have a breakdown. I have nothing to help me, and nothing much to live for. As I have no children under the age of 18, there is nothing available to me. I have no money no place to live and noone seems to care.


pleade help.

I wonder if my husband might hurt me again when he gets out? I had him put in prison once before for domestic abuse. Please don't take that the wrong way because I just want some insight to what other women in my situation deal with in there day to day thoughts, feelings, and fears! My man took a plea deal on a murder charge and swears he didn't do it and I'm feeling a lot of mixed and confused feelings so I want some insight in how to deal with what is going on in my heart & mind!

please help, i have researched again & again and can find no help, with anything to do with this entire domestic violence situation. I am ready to
have a breakdown. I have nothing to help me, and nothing much to live for. As I have no children under the age of 18, there is nothing available to me. I have no money no place to live and noone seems to care.


pleade help.I don't understand why you can not find someone to help you. The domestic violence shelters don't base there help on age or # of children. Its a safe haven for abused people- women, children, elderly and sometimes even men. Don't give up looking for help keep calling and asking questions at your local shelter- if they don't have room then have them help you contact a neighboring town. Please don't give up because I'm sure you actually do have alot to live for, you just need that time out and away from whats hurting you to see it. My thoughts and prayers are with you. sam

Hi Suebee77OK. The local police department here in Texas put me in contact with a Domestic Abuse Center. Try the Police Department they would be more then happy to help you

suebe--girl we are here for you, most of all of us has been in your situation, and a majority of us are out of that now. We can help you, there are lots of resources in the community to help you. What town do you live in? WE can help you locate the correct numbers to call. You can do this, you ahve the strength to do this. Hold you head up high and know that you are worth everything in the world. Ask God to give you the strength that you need. Please let us know how you are doing. We are here to listen and offer support. You can do this!!!

thanks everyone for your concern, however what I need is a place to lay my head at night until i can get a job and a paycheck. I'm in orange county california, and believe I've contacted every available center within a 50 mile radius, and there is nothing available for a woman with no children, only if she is in immediate danger, Your information is not correct. PLEASE help!!!!

We lived in Cali. for a short time. I know if you go down to your local welfare office they will give you what is known as 'general relief' thats money and a voucher for a place to stay maybe just a few weeks but it will help you. If you tell your worker your situation they might be able to help you more. sam

This is the first time I have posted in this forum but I have strong feelings about abuse towards women. I am living proof that if you want to get out you can. Love is not being emotionally and physically abused. Love is not being alienated from family and friends. Love is not getting your self esteem lowered so bad that you think you are nothing.

I will say this like my mother once told me I did not put you with him and I am not telling you to leave, but one day you will look in the mirror and think you have had enough and leave.

All it took for me was one hit in the face. I took some clothes but leave all materialistic things (car, furniture, etc) I took my son and my pride and hit the road not knowing what I was going to do next. But with the help of my mom I came back stronger and my son was raised to respect women. Love and believe in yourself and you can make it.

Take Care
Joshsstepmom:thumbsup: