AIBU to still feel unsafe and want to tell someone?

[Puffinsandcoffee]

My husband has done some things to me /around me in recent years that weren't great. Nothing really terrible - not hitting or SA - but stuff that has made me definitely a bit scared of him.

It's been well over a year since he's done anything like that.

I just have two questions I thought maybe someone on here would have experience of this stuff and could answer.

One is, when did you find that you felt safe and comfortable around your husband again? Is it normal that I don't? Every time he swears or slams a door or something I get scared, and then scared he'll notice I'm scared, because he would get annoyed by that because he just wants us to move on from the stuff that happened. The world cup is stressing me out because he keeps jolting out of his chair and shouting and swearing at the TV!

The other question is, is it really vindictive that I want to tell someone in real life? I obviously won't. He'd be so hurt and really angry, because it's such an injustice to who he is in general. But there was total secrecy in my family about my dad's additions and abuses and I think because of that, having to not tell anyone about the stuff my husband has done is making me feel worse, like as if it's all happening again even though it's not.

Just to pre-empt some stuff that might come up

• I have posted about this stuff before. I spoke to Women's Aid because of replies. I don't mind my other posts being referred to but please don't "catch me out" with stuff from them. Mumsnet is the only place I can have these "conversations" and I'm not trying to be defensive or in denial or anything like that.
• I am getting therapy for cPTSD which I have from other stuff mostly childhood stuff.
• I haven't gone into detail about what he did because I don't think it's relevant but I will if it is.
• I won't be leaving him. I can't even if I wanted to but I don't want to.

I didn't put a poll as it's not really an either/ or but just - is this all normal and will pass, or am I damaging my relationship by not moving on from it?

You absolutely don't need to involve the police no matter what happens. That doesn't have to be a factor in what you decide to do. Police weren't involved in my DV issues.

@Dery thank you for your post. on this though,
It is sad that your community's morals and principles mean that violence is reasonably accepted (including male on female violence) and divorce is out of the question. Women are so extremely vulnerable in that kind of set up.
Divorce is out of the question for me. It does happen in my community though I'd say at very low rates. And I wouldn't say that male violence against women is reasonably accepted. It happens, for sure, but almost always behind closed doors, same as for British people.

HI Puffin - thank you for the correction. Sorry for misunderstanding the position.

I work with victims of domestic abuse and domestic violence. We have had women in groups who are still in their marriages and who are from the type of community I believe you are from. The situation presents unique but not impossible challenges.

One lady sat through some of the first session and then said she thought she was in the wrong group. We pursuaded her to stay. By the end of the first session we asked her what she thought now. She said: Oh yes, I realise now I am in the right place. She completed the whole course.

She was in her 60s and had only just realised that how her husband behaved was not right. She was attempting to divorce him after her children had grown up. She spoke about the challenges she faced because of her background. She regretted not leaving sooner and the impact it had ultimately had on her children.

It is hard, but you know what, she realised that she deserved to feel safe. She deserved to be in her home and not be treading on eggshells wondering what might set him off again.

Love is respect and safety and stability. Being stuck in hypervigilance mode is not love. Being blamed because you want to feel safe is not love. Being trapped because you can't seek help or advice due to outing your husband, isn't love. It is control. It is wielding power.

You deserve better.

Your husband is not a good father. A father who abuses his children's mother is never a good father.

Let's reframe it - if your daughter married a man and had children, and while the children were asleep, he treated your daughter - the mother of the children - like that. Would you say he was a good dad?

Don't set the bar so low for yourself. Don't set the bar so low for your children.

For whatever reason, your husband has an issue with power and control. The statistics for changing that are pretty dire. Even if he did all the work to try and change such as a perpetratror programme - and that desire would need to come from him - your body/your gut/your nervous system and brain would never be able to switch off the hypervigilance again.

I would suggest speaking to your local domestic abuse organisation, if it is safe to do so, and asking them what support they offer women who are still in the abusive relationship.

One thing that concerns me is whether your husband was drawn to you on some level because you are from the community you are from. In some ways being a female from that community meant you were vulnerable to men from your own community - knowing you are forever trapped with them - but in some ways also to males from outside the community as well who may have expected certain behaviours from you or that you'd accept/put up with certain behaviours from them. There are many communities where marriage is for life. Where divorce is frowned upon. Where 'airing your dirty laundry' is seen as unacceptable and generally I think the average person has some idea about which communities are like this.

My situation was different, but I became trapped with someone from a different community. His community is also suspicious of the police, believe that involving authorities in anything makes you a traitor, and you don't seek outside help even from friends as it's airing your dirty laundry. There was also a normalisation of a certain level of violence/aggression within the community and within the home.

I had things that made me vulnerable - I come from a sheltered and religious background. I grew up with 'the man is the head of the household'. Also, that divorce is a no-no and you do anything to avoid that. So you stick by your partner/husband and try whatever you can to help fix them and heal them etc. It caused me to find it incredibly difficult to extricate myself from the abusive situation I ended up in. I felt so much confusion and as if I was betraying people. So I have empathy for the situation you find yourself in and the turmoil it is causing you.

Of course. That’s awful, but people here are trying to help, and if they said “you have nothing to worry about” that would put you in more danger potentially, not less, as you wouldn’t be aware of it.

I have been thinking about what advice I could give that takes into account that leaving is not an option.

Could you suggest that you would like couples therapy, putting it on yourself that you need help with feeling like a nervous wreck? Not that I think it’s your fault, or that I think you’re the one with the problem - but to take the responsibility to get him in the door. What would he say?

Another thing is, if he has threatened to leave you over something so small as telling someone the truth about an event in your life, what would your family say if he really left you?

Thank you for your post. I don't think my husband would have been drawn to me out of ideas about what women from my community are like. Maybe, but I think he prob was coming from a position of ignorance rather than opportunism: like, he knew pretty much nothing about us, just, for better or worse, fancied me and now here we are.

Definitely "airing dirty laundry" is a huge objection I'd have to saying anything to anyone. Not entirely sure what I should feel about that, but I do feel like it's absolutely not ok to discuss problems in my marriage with anyone except him. He actually doesn't agree, in general - he says he wouldn't mind me telling friends if we had a fight or whatever. Obv doesn't want people knowing about punching the walls and stuff, but not an objection to the principle, just to specific details.

If he left me, they'd assume it was my fault. But they would think less of him for leaving me for any reason except cheating on him I think. Tbh I suspect I could hit him and they'd think - why would you leave her, just hit her back. They'd definitely not be happy with him if he left me.

We did do couples counselling for a while. It really helped us understand the dissociation I do and its effects on both of us. I think he'd be fine to do it again. Whether he'd be fine telling the counsellor about the stuff I've said here, I doubt, but maybe.

But he hasn’t taken accountability @Puffinsandcoffee , because he gets angry when you are afraid and has threatened to leave if you tell anyone about his behavior. Saying sorry is not taking accountability.

I was and remain very worried about you but I am incredibly frustrated you seem to be justifying his behaviour. Good people don’t behave this way, abuse is never justified- end of.

This!

Tbh I suspect I could hit him and they'd think - why would you leave her, just hit her back.

• this is a bit different imo. A woman hitting a man is bad but generally men are much stronger and can inflict much worse physical damage.

OP if one of your daughters was in your exact position what advice would you give her?

I will say, more widely, I think there are dangers to giving police harassment and prejudice as an excuse for DV and family violence.

Jews in Tsarist Russia and Poland and African Americans in Jim Crow South are only two of many groups who have suffered violent & state sanctioned abuse. I do not think that in recent decades Travellers in England faced this kind of violence, and even if they had, many Jews and African Americans did not respond by turning their violence on their families.

OP, would you say your family follow an 'honour culture'? With the good and the bad elements of that?

More info on what honour culture is :

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Culture of Honor
Edited by:Roy F. Baumeister & Kathleen D. Vohs
In:Encyclopedia of Social Psychology
Chapter DOI:doi.org/10.4135/9781412956253.n128

A culture of honor is a culture in which a person (usually a man) feels obliged to protect his or her reputation by answering insults, affronts, and threats, oftentimes through the use of violence. Cultures of honor have been independently invented many times across the world. Three well-known examples of cultures of honor include cultures of honor in parts of the Middle East, the southern United States, and innercity neighborhoods (of the United States and elsewhere) that are controlled by gangs.

Cultures of honor can vary in many ways. Some stress female chastity to an extreme degree, whereas others do not. Some have strong norms for hospitality and politeness toward strangers, whereas others actively encourage aggression against outsiders. What all cultures of honor share, however, is the central importance placed on insult and threat and the necessity of responding to them with violence or the threat of violence.

Insults and threats take on great meaning in cultures of honor, because of the environments in which cultures of honor develop. Such cultures develop in environments where there is no central authority (such as the state) that can offer effective protection to its citizens. In such a situation, a person has to let it be known that he will protect himself, his family, and his property. Insults and affronts are important because they act as probes, establishing who can do what to whom. A person who responds with violence over “small” matters (e.g., an insult or an argument over a small amount of money) can effectively establish himself as one who is not to be messed with on larger matters. Thus, an effective response to an insult can deter future attacks, when the stakes may be much higher.

Many violent incidents in cultures of honor center on what might be considered a trivial incident to outsiders. Such matters are not trivial to the people in the argument, however, because people are defending (or establishing) their reputations. What is really at stake is something of far greater importance than a one-dollar debt owed or a record on the jukebox.

In cultures of honor, reputation is highly tied up with masculinity. A telling anecdote from Hodding Carter's book Southern Legacy (1950) concerned a 1930s Louisiana court case, in which Carter served as a juror. The facts of the matter were clear. The defendant lived near a gas station and had been pestered for some time by workers there. One day, the man had had enough and opened fire on the workers, killing one person and wounding two others. As Carter tells it, the case seemed open and shut, and so Carter began discussions in the jury room by offering up the obvious (to him) verdict of guilty. The other 11 jurors had very different ideas about the obvious verdict, however, and they strongly and unanimously favored acquittal. Fellow jurors explained to Carter that the man couldn't be guilty—what kind of man wouldn't have shot the others? An elder juror later told Carter that a man can't be jailed for standing up for his rights. In cultures of honor everywhere, traditional masculinity is a virtue that has to be defended.

I’m sorry to have to say, your family don’t sound at all supportive. Why would they blame you? Is that why you’ve been blaming yourself? Because that’s what everyone always does?

You said if your daughter came to you with this problem (as an adult) you would tell her that you’d support her in anything she wanted to do. Why don’t your family do this? If they truly are so unsupportive, I’m struggling to see why you would be so wounded to lose them.

If he left me, they'd assume it was my fault.

• if they love and support you so much, why would they assume it was your fault?

What might happen is maybe nothing - much the same as for women who are raped and go to the police - or maybe community justice, which could take many forms. That would mostly be an internal thing, but not necessarily.

Thank you. Can I ask a little more? I understand if not.

• so if someone from outside the community sexually assaulted or murdered someone from in the community, they might receive community justice from your community? Or usually not?

Can I ask how community justice tends to be carried out?

' I could imagine that if I said, over and over, that I was scared and so were our kids - ok - yeah, I could imagine they'd say, ok, you did what you felt you needed to do.'- that is more reassuring to hear. However, this requires the abuse to reach a pretty high pitch, and abuse can become dangerous flare up quickly without necessarily a long buildup.

'If I reported him to the police for kicking a door - I mean, it's just absolutely unthinkable. I'd lose their good opinion for ever.'

• You don't need to involve the police..I personally think you should focus on your own safety first and not think about involving the police if that will cause a lot of worry. However, if you leave, you should ensure you are safe, and the police are one agency who should be able to help protect you. I understand you have reason to distrust them though. 💐

I understand your family's opinion is hugely important but your physical & emotional safety must be THE top priority. What you have said about your family does not convince me that they are good judges of this.

If they truly are so unsupportive, I’m struggling to see why you would be so wounded to lose them

• a person can still love family members who treat then badly. OP seems to be very close to her family and it's difficult to contemplate losing people you rely so much on, even if they treat you badly ..

You don't come across as any of those things. You're in a really hard situation and you're trying to figure it out. 🫂Starting thus thread was brave in itself.

the chaos and volatility is from my side.-

Are you sure? What are your husband's family like? Was his upbringing stable?

Abusers can come from stable households, too.

. I may be misreading his behaviour through the lens of my own culture, when many of you who I assume are white British are saying this is wayyy outside the bounds of normal for a White British man

• is this kind of behaviour normal in your community ?

If so, that still doesn't make it alright.

'divorce out of the question.'

• hypothetically, would you still say this if he physically hurt you? Or physically hurt your kids? Or they were afraid of him?

In my specific case I feel quite sure that leaving would be much, much worse than staying. I absolutely agree that for many / most women, leaving would be the right thing to do and I don't want anyone to read this and think that because I don't want to leave, similar behaviour from their own partner is ok. I know it's not. But I'm in an unusual position.

• so here, you say you know his behaviour is NOT ok.

Essentially, is the main reason you're staying due to your family's attitudes? Is that the 'unusual position' you mean?

Or something else?

Yes, in some contexts violence can be. But violence and intimidation of wives and female partners isn't heroic...

Sorry, I hadn't seen this. This is good to read.

Therefore, if your husband did hit you, surely your family would disapprove? Would they try to get him to stop?

, if they were under the kind of stress my husband has been under over the years.

• why has he been under this stress? Do you mean due to problems with your family?

If true, I still don't think that's an excuse.

Why does your husband have so much contact with your family if they upset him so much? Can't you visit them on your own?

Violence against who? The police? People who have hurt your community?

It definitely seems institutions have badly let your community down.

'A woman in my family who was attacked by her BF (strangulation), I did think maybe should have told the police just to get it recorded what he did,'

• can I ask how the community reacted to this? Did the bf get community justice?

'I think nothing would have happened and police showing up would have just made her more vulnerable in the aftermath of that'- why do you say the police would have made her more vulnerable?

I understand why you fear the police. But being in a position where you can't consider calling them is dangerous too.

I understand you're in your 40s if I calculate right? Isn't it possible police attitudes to your community have changed at least somewhat since the 1990s?