There's a lot on the TL this week with folk feeling defeated, saying they tried to help someone in a partner/domestic violence situation and "it didn't work because they went back to the person who beats them".
So let's talk about that.
#16Days
#WhatICanDo
/Thread

The first thing is, it is never about you. And your "failed" attempt. And it will never be.
Ever.
Ever.
It is always about the person who is the primary recipient of harm.
They know the abuser, themselves, their relationship, their situation and context, way better than you do.

At any one point in time please remember the abused party is straddling several impossible things at once.
The first is that the abuser has worked HARD to limit their life, income, possibilities, so that they have very little choice and options. Abusers do this ON PURPOSE.

My friend's neighbour once came to ask her for money for sanitary supplies. Her husband, who beats her so loud her screams ring through the neighbourhood, bought a brand new car from the showroom the same week his wife had nothing in the house.
This is real life for many.

The second impossibility has part A & B.
Part A: often the abuser is SO CHARMING that nobody believes they could ever, so the abused person sounds like a liar.
Part B: often the abuser is SO FEARED/INFLUENTIAL, that everyone may know he is an abuser, but nobody knows what to do.

The third impossibility is this, and it makes no sense and at the same time makes all the sense in the world.
This abuser can often tell the person they are harming "you are my only hope. Don't leave. I am a monster. You are the only one who can save me."
What then?

If the abused party could have one wish, they would choose their partner, just without the abuse. They love/care about their partner.
They just want the abuse to stop. They don't want to leave their partner.
What then?

There's a lot of other stuff. Families get pulled into the fray when people side with the abuser by blaming the victim for "provoking". Sometimes the abuser is pays fees and fixing roofs, so families feel forced to turn a blind eye to the violence of their provider.

Then society are trash. Between religion and culture, people work hard to excuse the abuser and make demands of the abused to forgive, to reconcile, to submit, to accede to demands.
We all know these demands are gendered. So I'm not going to explain DV/IPV stats/evidence.

Who asks abusers why they abuse?
Who demands that the abusers stop?
No wonder abused people feel and operate as though they are utterly alone. It is because they ARE.
They are because we show them every day that we'd rather focus on the abuser's power instead of on them.

Everyone sees "power" and thinks I mean the VIP abuser who is Christian Grey without consent.
Having the option of slapping a woman in public and people worry way more about your future than her welfare, is power.
Having people say "men are just like that", is power.

People listen to harm and say "we can't interfere with bedroom affairs", actually meaning "We can't ask a man what he is doing in his home". It's power.
The police interfere EVERYWHERE else someone is being assaulted but periodically draw the line at bedrooms.
That is power.

So the reason people who try to interrupt domestic violence struggle is because it is and has always been about power and power never cedes easily.
But every time we do something, we remind the abused party that there is someone who sees them, cares, notices they are hurting.

Please understand: it is a universe of pain and futilities, what the abused person is living in.
The abuser has worked hard to be the centre of that universe. Even thinking how survival looks away from that can be too hard. Because they know their universe and their abuser.

Sometimes they will even sabotage attempts to break them out. Sometimes they will show the abuser who tried to help them and you become a new enemy. Some abusers will even try to harm the people who try to help their partner.
All these are possibilities.

Here's what doesn't help, at all:
Judgement.
Saying "I would never allow that to happen to me" because these things happen to people we cannot imagine them happening to.
Keeping abusive friends.
Saying "gents, we must do better" on social media.
Empty thoughts and prayers.

It's also not useful to say "just leave and we will figure it out." Does that mean rent? How the person gets a job? How thry educate their children alone? This is another reason why people often can drop DV charges, because abusers cannot breadwin from jail.

Also the gendered stigma of failed relationships. Even women who are not abused face it. Imagine it doubled when everyone knows your shame. Some stick it out because even staying with an abusive, violent man has more social dignity than being alone.
It's WILD.
SOCIETY IS TRASH.

What do we do, then?
I have no words for abusers, because it is always a choice. They are choosing it.
But the abused people would not have chosen those circumstances, that hurt, that violence, that oppression, had they known. So my words are for folk who want to support them.

There are no formulas fam.
You do what you can, when you can, how you can.
All you do is make the abused realise they are seen and heard and you are there. Don't endanger yourself without a plan and a strategy. But do what you can. What does that mean?
Only you can know that.

Sometimes it is smiling at her at the shop. Sometimes it is ignoring her when she asks you to because her partner will slap her for acknowledging a friendly face in public.
Sometimes it is making her tea when he is away, like my mom did for her neighbour when she was in uni.

Sometimes it is having spare money or supplies. Being a customer of hers. Sometimes it is being a listening ear (and for this you need your own trained support system too because none of us know how to handle these situations). It can be anything.

Sometimes it is calling the police when the screams start again. Sometimes it is being a safe haven for the kids in that home. Sometimes it is leaving the friend you have loved for 10 years because he beats his wife and never speaking to him again.

Sometimes it is knowing that if your friend is LGBT identifying and being beaten by their partner, their layers of secrecy and hurt run even deeper, beyond words. Sometimes it is supporting a straight man who is the one being abused and harmed.

Sometimes it is not listening to the music made by abusers, not doing things to profit known abusers, not even thinking the words "we must listen to both sides of the story".
Sometimes it is pressuring your legal reps to do better as regards DV and IPV law and legal process.

We can all find a thing, and we can all do a thing, because even if we don't know someone who is being harmed, we contribute actively to a society where they will remain harmed and where their abuser will get away with abusing them, unless we are resisting this constantly.

So even if the abused goes back, your attempt is NEVER a failure: you serve as a reminder that a world exists where pain is not the order of the day.
That is always good in this cruel world that is more cruel to victims of abuse.
So do what you can, how you can.
Always.
/Fin

PS. I look forward to discussions by men re. the role of masculinity in abuse, detailing what "we need to do better gents" actually means practically to victims of abuse and to roles as/relationships with abusers, other than being the NotAllMen equivalent of Thoughts And Prayers

PPS
Also, keep the whisper network alive. If you know of an abuser in a situation where people need to know, find ways to drop that info. Even slivers of light in the dark are light. And so many abusers thrive in secrecy.
What to do is another thing. But people must know first.

PPPS If you can do, be, say, more, without danger to yourself (because of what use are you running headlong alone into a situation where someone has drawn the equivalent of a loaded gun?), then do, be and say more.
Do more because you really can do more, when you can.