This is my first post here (if it goes up, I am not sure if you can post if you haven't been assigned a flair yet?) but I am really curious what you guys think, especially the older women here.
I know it is selfish, but I really wish there was more conversation on how keeping an abusive scrote in your house effects your children. My stepfather (who thankfully is no longer in my life) pretty much ruined my childhood. He psychologically would put me down every single day, diminish my accomplishments, assign me every possible flaw in existence- and he also witnessed my suicide attempt at 13 and continued to abuse me. Asshole saw a child meaning to DIE and continued to make my life a living hell.

While he was awful to my mother too and has done her so much harm, I wish that instead of focusing to go through it herself, she instead looked at ME and decided /I/ shouldn't go through it. Because no matter how abusers entrap their victims, she was the one who physically could break up and throw his things outside. I was a child, I had no power to kick him out, I had no CHOICE about him being in the house, yet I had to endure him and I had no way to defend myself. She did- she chose not to.

The only thing the experience has left me with (besides a bucketload of trauma and an ED) is firm knowledge that I will never keep a man around who doesn't treat me right. If he raises his voice once, he'll be told to keep it quiet. If he raises his voice twice, that is the last time he'll ever talk to me.