Why staying in a toxic relationship makes you NV (lower than LV) when you have children

Some-Air9442 · 2021-10-19T12:48:18+00:00

Men who beat women and kids should themselves be beaten and thrown in prison.

hushpuppyebt · 2021-10-19T15:22:10+00:00

My mom left my dad because his mask slipped the moment I hit puberty and she probably started preparing to leave the first time he slut-shamed me, because she bounced with us daughters so quick my little sister doesn’t even remember the bullshit.

idestroythingsfora- · 2021-10-19T08:52:10+00:00

This this this this this. What you're saying here is the reason I had such an awful love-hate relationship with my mom, who always tried to make up for my dad's abuse by being very supportive and loving but never tried to leave. It was only when I confronted her with the truth that he'll never get better (I literally sent her a pdf of Why Does He Do That lol), and when she acknowledged it and started trying to leave, that our relationship got better. It's only after we started living separately from him that we truly became close without any lingering resentment, after she acknowledged the harm my siblings and I were receiving by her staying with him and fixed it. I get that she was pressured by everyone around her to stay, but it's only after she stopped caring about their opinions and put our lives first that she started being completely fair to us.

pineberriesarecool · 2021-10-19T06:11:40+00:00

My mother chose to stay married to an unemployed emotionally-abusive alcoholic because she feared being alone. He would make sexist and racist jokes, call me derogatory names when I annoyed him, and threw things at me in fits of anger when I was a child.

When I was 14 I begged her to leave him, he was a compulsive hoarder and made the living situation unbearable. My mother would sleep with my sister and I because my dad snored so loudly (he was morbidly obese).

Never did she consider she was choosing a man who didn’t love her over her own children. My father certainly didn’t love me, and given my mothers choices, I sometimes doubt that she loves me to.

While I love my mother, I will never be able to totally forgive her for tolerating such a pathetic and abusive man despite there being plenty of opportunities to leave.

I will forever bear the trauma of my fathers actions. While having divorced parents is difficult, I know I would have been much better off without my father.

So ladies, when vetting a partner, consider how good of a father he will be. Know that if you choose to stay with an abuser, you children will bear the biggest burden of it.

I understand that someone woman are not in a position to leave, but if you are and you don’t take it, your children might not ever be able to forgive you.

My mother had the opportunity to leave given this man was literally leaching off of her, but she chose not to.

She chose him over me.

Educational_Pool_635 · 2021-10-19T08:13:23+00:00

I'll probably be downvoted for this but it doesn't make it any less true ; if you are letting your child be in an abusive environment then you are the problem too. Your issues, preferences and standards mean nothing if your child is being abused and I will forever hold both the enabler and the abuser equally responsible. It is difficult when you are in an abusive situation but you shouldn't just stand by hoping for someone to come rescue you.

nothingt0say · 2021-10-19T13:08:34+00:00

My mother was born in the 50s there was NO SOCIAL SUPPORT for women at all. I am the age of many of your mothers now. This woman has had her value STOLEN from her. I could not bring a child into this world. I am sorry my generation has not done better by you all.

Edit: I would not bring a child. Have used birth control. If this had existed when I was young maybe I would have found a HVM to breed with...

ChickaDeeD33 · 2021-10-19T17:13:01+00:00

This one makes me pretty uncomfortable. I feel like it's almost, if not all the way crossing the line into victim blaming.

There is a vast power and control imbalance in toxic and abusive relationships, and there is a reason that they are incredibly difficult to leave. There is more often than not underlying issues that the mother struggles with and that the father is taking advantage of. Yes, it is horrible and a struggle and I thank goodness every day that I managed to escape mine by the time my girl was 8, but it did take me that long and I already shame myself for it enough without the rest of the world thinking less of me for not gaining back the power that HE stripped from me any sooner than that. I feel that's a little unfair. It's a lot less of an actual choice than people make it out to be. That may just be my personal experience and wounded feelings speaking. I just feel for these women who are also victims of misogyny and toxic masculinity bearing the responsibility for the actions of the men around them because they don't have the power or knowledge or ability to do something about it.

I do also feel for their children (and mine) who have to suffer through the trauma of being raised in such a household, and all of the negative teachings and unhelpful coping mechanisms that they will have to unlearn. Both my daughter and I have and will continue to need much therapy for the years I "chose" to stay with her father, but I know that none of that was really my fault and I don't think that it decreases (or at the time decreased) my value as a human being. At the time I needed help, not judgement.

All that said, I wouldn't say this daughter was an a-hole for calling out this double standard either. Hopefully her bluntness will eventually be the wake-up call her mother needs to come over to FDS land. Lol.

elf_lavellan · 2021-10-19T09:37:04+00:00

My mother chosed willing to stay with a physical and emotionally abusive monster and he also had anger issues, he would also hit me for the smallest things and call me names .The beatings were the worst cause he would beat me until blood came out of my nose but, my mother chose to still stay with him .When he cheated on her and I told her she was more destroyed over the fact that he cheated on her then over the fact that I found out or over the fact that he abused me and it wasn't the first time he cheated on her I knew he cheated on her multiple times, when I told her she didn't belive me. And the irony of it she would have forgave him for the cheating 2 if he came back and did not go with the other woman.Then when I was 14 my mother found this drunk and she got in a relationship with him, she was at work one day and he was extremely drunk and he tried to rape me he came in my room and I remember him specifically saying "aren't you going to give me something? "while rubbing my shoulders ,I panicked cause I felt something was not right and I stood up slowly I told him to wait a second ran out of my room straight outside in my slippers, I waited for my mom outside to come home in the cold when she came home and I told her everything she said I was lying ,I could not believe it, my own mother would side with him instead of her own child.I understood from that moment that I am completely alone and I had no one to help me.So when I was 21, I desperately wanted to leave not only the house but the country 2 I finally had the chance to leave and I took it my mother of course upset ,crying begging me not to leave I thank myself everyday for not listening to her and leaving.Yes ,I know it's cowardly to just to get up and leave but the fact that I'm so far away from my "family" now made me heal in a way cause I know they are not able to hurt me anymore,not my mother or father and yes the drunk that stayed with my mother he died some accident at his first job or something,karma I guess.And yes I do speak with my mother but I never call her first she usually calls me and we chat. So please ladies remember do not be desperate like my mother and accept any low life that waltzed into your life and certainly do not marry them your children will suffer.

drowsypillowprincess · 2021-10-19T17:54:52+00:00

I struggle with this. Women are already expected to be babysitters of men’s rage and behavior. And so often when a man abuses a child, the focus is on the mother, as if she alone had the power to stop him, and because she didn’t, the abuse is solely her fault (because isn’t it just in the nature of men to hurt? The woman should have done her moral duty to calm him down, I guess).

I think that’s what gives me pause: women are not keepers of men.

Of course hold women accountable for their actions or inactions, but not to the point where we lose sight of the systemic issue: men feel entitled to hurt women and children, and society too often blames women for the uncheck violence of men.

proudpine · 2021-10-19T11:59:05+00:00

The problem is that most states in the US currently award custody 50/50 physical custody unless there is proof of some EGREGIOUS abuse. Which means the kids are with the abuser with no protection from the other parent 50% of the time. Many women stay for this reason. Know this before judging. We need to work together to change laws.

ello-motto · 2021-10-19T10:03:14+00:00

"You must have no had no self-respect for marrying him."

Wow. This sentence. It's so true on so many layers and applicable in so many other areas. How many times have we put up with shitty people, family members or environments?

Ladies, in all situations, we must remember our self-respect comes first and foremost. Leave any situation where this is clearly being tested.

PollyannaPenny · 2021-10-19T11:15:24+00:00

I had parents who stayed in a toxic marriage and never attempted counseling, separation, or anything to mitigate their constant fighting. Its horrible and I desperately wish either one of them had had the courage to just end the marriage when it got that bad.

VelvetKnuckleduster · 2021-10-19T09:13:31+00:00

Yes, my mother had a boyfriend (not even our father) who hit and emotionally abused my siblings and I in front of her and she still stayed with him for years. Even though I'm older now and I understand the complexities of abusive relationships much better, I still feel like the needs of the children in that situation override the needs of the mother because they're victims too and don't have the choice to try to escape.

You're responsible for your kids. You're supposed to endeavour to do what's best for them and if you choose to keep them in an abusive environment, you're failing them. You're failing to look out for their best interests and you're failing to put them first. If that's an unpopular take, I'm not sorry.

ComedyCaviar · 2021-10-19T12:04:53+00:00

I remember this. It must be hard to hear this from your child's mouth

cinderella_rising · 2021-10-19T05:53:58+00:00

It’s easy to judge women who stay in abusive relationships—but this does more harm than good. While I hope that the mother is able to summon the strength to leave someday—it’s incredibly difficult to combat the emotional & self esteem issues that arise from fear and control after years of abuse.

Denigrating the mother does her no good. While her daughter is correct and I hope they all get away from the abuser, harshly judging the victim of abuse as outsiders is antithetical to helping the situation. The blame belongs squarely on the abuser.

BasketLow8411 · 2021-10-20T04:06:45+00:00

This is a tough one. I’m glad some of the comments have mentioned how it’s difficult sometimes for women to leave. Here’s the deal…I stayed in an abusive relationship for a while. First of all, I believed for a while that maybe by talking with him and modeling good behavior I could bring him along (yeah, I know…but I know better now). Second, and more importantly, I have a step daughter. A step daughter who I could not bear to leave because he was emotionally abusing her the most, and if I left I’d have no say over her anymore, no rights, no way to protect her. I stayed for years because of her. And now that I’ve left and she’s almost an adult, she is staying with me. Mostly also because he finally snapped and physically assaulted one of my younger daughters. That’s the moment I left, after twelve years of marriage. So… I get what you are saying. But I beat myself up all the time for not doing more to protect her and hearing your words about how NV I am because I didn’t leave…well if I had left earlier she would be with him permanently and who knows what her life would be now. Thankfully I finally left when I could but a lot of the time the “choice” to leave is something almost impossible to achieve.

Edited to add: a mother’s WORST fear when she’s in an abusive relationship is sharing parenting time with her abuser. Especially if he has never been obviously abusive to the children, the courts will likely decide to give parents shared custody. So think about it. You are in a situation where your husband is emotionally or physically abusing you but at least you are there to try and protect/keep an eye on your kids all of the time. Suddenly when you leave you have no control over what he’s doing with them for maybe up to half of their lives when they are growing up. This is a huge reality that mothers divorcing abusers go through. I worried every day and night for the entire time until my divorce was finalized and the children are with me 90% of the time and supervised by a professional when they are with him. Not every abusive situation has parenting time like that—mine is absolutely ideal and only that way because I have PROOF of him physically assaulting our child. So—what kind of damage are you then inflicting on your children to be ALONE with the abuser?? You see, it’s really not that simple most of the time.

anne-goldy · 2021-10-19T12:34:17+00:00

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I wanted to post about a similar topic as a kid of a pick me mom and a narcissistic father. My mom would straight up complain about him for years and suddenly start enabling his behaviour as soon as I stand up for myself and cut the bullshit. Nearly all of my mental issues come from the environment I grew up in , currently in process of moving out. I was suicidal with severe anxiety for almost 10 years and thanks to my wonderful therapist I am able to finally give meet my emotional needs and take care of myself, learn how love myself, while not letting anyone walk over me ever again.

asocialsocialite · 2021-10-19T16:22:18+00:00

I read that thread. Mom's a huge pick-me. She was just happy that her dirtbag frat-bro boyfriend decided to become her dirtbag husband and goddess know what the fuck she may have done or gave up to marry this guy.

She's raising her daughters to have the same non-existent standards that she has and to put up with the amounts of abuse that she has just so that she can say that she has a man. Honestly, she puts me in the mindframe of either a libfem who married a piece of shit and ended up voting in pieces of shit to appease her husband or the one that was always highkey shitting on other women.

FDS is fucking necessary.

Equal-Ear2312 · 2021-10-19T15:06:21+00:00

there are women who choose a relationship at any cost because they have very low self esteem and because they have succumbed to society's dictatum that women are nothing if they are not married or have children.

i pity them but women like these are oftentimes dangerous, not in and of themselves (though they could be) but because they would throw under the bus their own kids who are innocent and 100% dependent on their care and their father's care. they choose NVM man over their kids.

this is a relationship at any cost. not much to analyze there.

BarbwireBoots · 2021-10-19T16:35:15+00:00

DV is complicated (regarding leaving), but in my opinion, people also have children too quickly with each other and often flagrantly, with no thought about what it means to bring a consciousness upon this earth.

The minute a relationship sours, the man cheats or abuses, or if it is shown that a singular child is too much of a stressor on the relationship’s health, I 100% judge the woman for deciding to have more children with that same man. Yes, I know access to birth control and abortion is a problem. Yes, I know that less economically privileged communities are impacted differently. But please, let us not miss the forest for the trees. I’m not willing to lay the onus of abused wives and children on a certain tax bracket. There is far too much evidence of lower-middle, middle-class and upper-middle-class abuse to blame it all on that. (I am in America and direct my commentary towards American culture.)

Perhaps my opinion is too cut and dry for some. I will direct my concern to the helpless child every single time an issue like this is discussed. The structure of our system benefits men at women‘s expense, but women make themselves more vulnerable when they are beholden to that economic structure by having a child or more than one without the financial means to be independent. I’m not saying that’s right, it’s just the way it is.

While I have sympathy for abused women as I was once one myself, it never once occurred to me to entertain the idea of having a child with any of my abusers. Or a LVM who presented as HV. Or a man who might have lovebombed me but was otherwise a deadbeat hobo. Or made me feel uncertain about how he felt about me, keeping me on eggshells.

We live and we learn. We know more than we did in the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, and even ‘00s, so I’m not saying that making mistakes is an unforgivable sin. But if someone has a child and subjects that child to regular domestic trauma that can in any way be avoided, you can bet I’m going to judge the hell out of that person.

lightcobaltblue · 2021-10-19T15:50:03+00:00

Yes, that's really true. I have a mother like this and I thought I made progress by going 50/50 with guys and being "sex positive", following a more "feminist" approach. Eventually my relationships became abusive and the cycle repeated itself. Still struggling to overcome this but I'm well under way.

bonghits4jess · 2021-10-19T23:21:33+00:00

Having my child was the only thing that convinced me to leave my abuser and led me to take action. I was subjected to so much trauma thanks to my mom letting shitty men stay in her life. I thought I had escaped my narc dads verbal abuse and palpable shame he felt toward his fat nerdy daughter by moving with my mom, but instead I was just molested by my stepdad me all through my tween/teen year. my mom didnt do anything about it, even when she caught him watching me take a shower. I was forced to lock my door at night, only allowed to shower at certain times, i was not allowed to wear shorts or walk around braless. My mom had all these rules that I was not allowed to sleep over my girlfriends houses because what the men in their homes could do and I was repeatedly sexually assaulted in my own home. He was still allowed to live there for quite some time before he actually left. I was forced to keep quiet about this so that I wouldn’t traumatize my brother with the knowledge that his dad is a fucking creep. I haven’t lived at home for years now and I still don’t feel comfortable being fully undressed. I dissociate during sex every time. I love my mom despite this cause she is the only person in my life who is there for me through thick and thin, but I have a very hard time reconciling how she could do this to me. I could never confront her because she will deny this all happened. I still carry all of this within me and I’m only now realizing it’s manifested itself in the form of a sex and food addiction that I’m trying very hard to break.

When I realized my child’s father was just the same as mine, I knew I would be the worst kind of mother if I stayed. I couldn’t put my son through everything I went through. I would rather struggle as a single mom forever and know that I saved him from mental and physical abuse. I’m trying so hard to work on myself everyday so my son has a mother he’s proud of and the cycle of childhood trauma and abuse ends with me.

hexriot2001 · 2021-10-20T01:47:59+00:00

I truly believe that whether you're child free or not, it is our responsibility as women to protect children. The fact is men do not protect us or kids and men are responsible for much of the violence against all of us. As the adults, we have to advocate for the kids because they are not fully developed and therefore incapable. Any woman who allows abuse to occur towards a child or in their presence does become NV.

randomgirl34861 · 2021-10-19T17:44:03+00:00

I agree. If you leave children in that kind of situation, you are worse than the man. We can ramble on and on about equality all we want, but at the end of the day… we are not equal. We know that if mom doesn’t care for the kids, they probably aren’t getting cared for. We all know men who think nothing of letting babies sit in dirty diapers and leaving small children unattended. It’s not fair, but it’s how it is. When you bring a child into the world, there’s a good chance you’ll be required to meet their needs on your own. Men will never care about a child to the extent that women do. (Sure, there’s a few amazing single dads out there but they’re the exception to the rule). You and that child shared a body for 9 months. It’s a connection that’s beyond words that men will never understand.

The day my mom decided to leave my dad was when he threw her against a wall, beat her and then I came over saying mommy, mommy! are you okay? Prior to that moment, she still had hope that maybe things would get better. He wasn’t beating me, so she thought maybe I didn’t know what was going on. But in that moment she knew that I knew something was very wrong and something had to change. Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been if she stayed. I know it would be some form of hell on earth.

t3ddi · 2021-10-20T03:50:15+00:00

If the abuser has a choice, then so do we. It would be regressive to believe otherwise. Women are capable of complex thought and choice. We aren't helpless. And we play a part in our own victimology after a certain point of realization. Source: Gift of Fear. Also, when a child is involved, you are now responsible for their safety. That need trumps yours, everytime. And if it doesn't, you are 100% guilty of neglect. No excuses to hide behind.

hiraethsidhartha · 2021-10-20T08:49:37+00:00

A friend of mine was in an abusive relationship with a man with two little children. He didn't beat the children but he was horrific to her. She left and ended up in atleast 7 womens refuges. Everytime she ended up in a new place he managed to find her. Honestly it was awful. She couldn't tell any of her family where she was because she just managed to keep finding her. Even after she didn't speak to family / told nobody where she was. He still managed to do it. Honestly I think in the end he was just searching womens refuges and going around all of them. These were 100s of miles away from where she originally lived with him.

Sometimes women feel that by staying they are protecting their children from greater harm. Where I'm from a father can have a history of stalking and DV and still be allowed to have access to their kids.

The concept of the wholeness of the nuclear family trumps the protection of children and women, regardless of whether the man is dangerous or not. Luckily, I know a lot of abusive men who do not attempt contact until the children are teenagers. By which point they want nothing to do with them anyway.

My mother left my alcoholic father when I was a teenager and my younger siblings were 6 / 5. I feel that my younger siblings didn't have to deal with the same level of being a child of an alcoholic and a very stressed out mum as I did, but they are now coping with the cognitive dissonance of not seeing their dad as he truly is (because we have protected them from that) and their suffering exists now not from what they've seen, but all the things they didn't see but know exist.

My mother is great and had me really young and we're from a poor area and she had literally 0 social support when she left. I don't hold animosity towards her for going back to him when I was younger. It is complicated. It is hard.

Professional-Pea-317 · 2021-10-19T21:46:59+00:00

It makes you lower then a LV periodt. I'm x10 better staying away from NV men now.

Title	Why staying in a toxic relationship makes you NV (lower than LV) when you have children
Author	Marigold-ink
Upvotes	452
Comments	82
Date	October 19, 2021 4:49 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/qb486l/why_staying_in_a_toxic_relationship_makes_you_nv/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/why-staying-in-a-toxic-relationship-makes-you-nv.1078702 https://theredarchive.com/post/1078702

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