Addicts / Abusers and women

It's one of lifes little mysteries alright, but it does happen over and over. I can't wrap my head around it either, some sort of warped mothering instinct or something, who knows.

If my daughter brought home some junkie, I wouldn't even try to talk her out of it because you're 100% bound to fail. I would however have a little private talk with him and make him see the sense in dumping her for his own wellbeing!

A social pressure to "stand by your man".  People will condemn a woman for being too picky and this is an extension of that.

professore wrote: »

If that's true, why don't they pick a fat unpopular nerd? Not buying it.

They do pick fat nerds.  You asked why they picked addicts and abusers.  Fat nerds can be addicts and abusers as well.

Can't speak about addiction but I've worked in domestic violence support and most of the people I dealt with felt trapped. I don't think any of them enjoyed the abuse. It's easy to say leave but where do you go when you've no money and youre terrified. Most domestic related murders happen when the victim leaves.

I see it with my own parents, both in their late 60's now. My dad is an alcohol addict. He has been in a serious denial about it since I can remember.

He is a narcissistic arsehole of the highest order, yet my mother still stays with him to this day to our frustration.

Down through the years he has;

Been arrested twice for drink driving....within the same month in the early 80's. She did nothing.
Has thrown a punch at my mother during a drunken argument when we were kids around the same time. Still nothing.

Left the home without notice, when my brother was an infant, and moved to England after he got a government grant ostensibly to set up a business but spent it on a drinking sabbatical in England. He effectively abandoned the family with 3 kids aged 6, 4 and 4 weeks old. He came home after 9 months, when the funds had run out and pretended like nothing happened. Still my Mother took him back.

He fell asleep while badly hungover, while supposed to be minding my brother, aged 2, in 1986 who managed to open the front door and managed to walk to our Aunt's house just over a mile away. It's a miracle nothing bad happened. We live in a suburb.

He has fallen out with his entire family over the years. He has 6 brothers and 1 sister who love him as a brother but simply have no time for him. He is regarded as a nuisance who has to be tolerated by my mother's family, avoided where possible.

Has lost countless jobs through the years, through indifference, by falling out with people there, by being unreliable, by showing up late, hungover etc.

In 1993, he asked me for a 'loan' of £20 after I made my confirmation, aged 12, which I refused. He had no cash and was planning to go to the pub. I was 12 and knew exactly what he wanted it for.

In 1997, he was involved in the setting up and coaching of an underage soccer team and on a trip to England was drinking and had to be sent home by the Committee. He was supervising children while pissed as a fart and they needed to do what needed to be done.

He still regularly drove through the years while pissed drunk and thankfully never hurt or killed anybody.
Has been arrested twice for drunk and disorderly behaviour and spent the night in jail in the early 00's

Whenever he had a sizeable amount of cash, he would go on two week benders that would involve staying until closing time and getting up early, driving the car to the early morning pubs and wash, rinse repeat until the money was gone.

He has gotten violent with me on numerous occasions when I called him out on his drinking, he has thrown punches at me and I've thrown punches back purely because of his drinking and the trouble it has caused.

After another serious bender in 1996, he committed himself to a psychiatric ward in Cork (St Anne's). He stayed for 4 days until they realized there was actually nothing wrong with him mentally. In hindsight, it was pure deflection from him, he claimed he was being driven mental by my mother. If anyone asked questions so to speak, he could blame my mother. And not his drinking addiction. Still nothing changed. Still she stayed by his side despite appeals from us as teenagers to do herself a favor and get rid of him.

In 1999, after winning a settlement of £12,000 spent 7 months drunk every day until the money ran out. The country was going through a building boom, he was a qualified, talented welder and he was instead in the boozer. Work was beneath him.

In 2003, pissed on whiskey, after he tried to take a swing with a golf club at my younger brother, 19 at the time, who had angrily spoken out against his drinking. I literally had to throw him out of the front door and slam it shut on him.

In 2004, Christmas Day, he had been drinking daily for a month beforehand, we weren't talking, it was a toxic atmosphere and we went to visit relatives graves as we usually did, we came home to find a fire was lighting in the backyard. He drunkenly claimed it must have been arson, but we knew it was him. And it was his way of getting attention. The fire was next to the oil tank and if we hadn't spotted it who knows what might have happened.

Christmas Day 2006, pissed on Whiskey, I had to restrain him from driving around to look for an open garage or shop for more booze and had to hide his keys, he passed out asleep soon after thankfully.

He has a litany of empty naggins of whiskey and vodka badly hidden around the house.

He again moved out of home in 2009, complaining that our mother was driving him mental and stayed in a dingy bedsit for 6 months, but returned reluctantly because our mother was frightened living on her own. He has ever since effectively been a lodger in the home. He contributes nothing to the upkeep of the house, bills etc. He is constantly abusive towards her, shouting at her and belittling her as being stupid.

He has twice been drunkenly abusive towards my wife before and while she was pregnant at family events. We nearly came to blows......again.

He has most recently, last October, been in a scuffle with Iarnrod Eireann staff in Heuston Station and had to be restrained and escorted off the train after giving racist abuse towards a Polish security guard after he had drunkenly jumped the queue and jumped over a barrier to board the train. He spent the night in a cell to sleep off the drink.

And despite all that. It is my mother who has brainwashed us against him. She has the problem with drink. We have the problem, not him. In a pure contradiction, while he claims my mother is thick stupid, she still has the intelligence and cunning to manipulate 3 grown men. Pointing this out to him makes him hit the roof. He knows I am intolerant of his behavior, that I understand his manipulation and abuse, he knows I wipe the floor with him and he threatens violence when called out.

In his deluded head, he isn't an alcoholic. He is just being a social drinker, and likes a drink. It would make you laugh if it weren't so serious. Yet, people would think butter wouldn't melt, that he's a lovely man unaware of the toxic reality. Before Christmas, he said he was going to slit my mother's throat as she was driving him mental. He was completely sober. She is on anti-depressants for the past number of years over him, again pointing this out to him merely results in shouting and roaring from him.

He's not laughing now. He is now in very serious trouble, more below. And yet my mother will still stay with him. He at the age of 69 now realizes what he wants to do with his life. He wants to be a football scout. He paid the bones of a thousand euro for a course certificate from England. On New Years Eve, he was complaining about the heating being turned off by my mother. He'd have it on all day if he could, but he doesn't hand over a penny. He left the house the following day, in a huff to stay to stay with a drinking buddy. He was driving, and he bought a bottle of whiskey. He rang me, drunk, to inform me he was going about a divorce. We would need to talk to my mother and arrange a nursing home for her as she was gone crazy. He was on the brink of killing her the night before he said. I called him out, read him the riot act about his behaviour and he hit the roof, cursing and insulting me. I was a blue shirt preacher, an idiot and a stupid muppet etc. I recorded the message if required by the guards, he makes a threat 8 times.

Later that night he drove, he rang my brother and said he was going to end it all by driving into the local cemetery wall. He wanted to be buried there after crashing. He was looking for attention, later he was caught at a check point, arrested for drink driving and charged. A doctor was called to take blood samples and urine. His reading was presumably through the roof. He being a belligerent arsehole must have been a nightmare to deal with. Later he claimed he'd been assaulted by the guards, he conveniently got amnesia about what happened that night. He started complaining about his ribs, called himself an ambulance and got seen to. Nothing wrong with him.

He is continually blaming my mother for instigating it. He blames her, he blames his drinking buddy for letting him drive, he blames the guards for beating him up. Everyone else to blame but himself. He told my mother he cried. A manipulative prick to the end. He knows his driving days and his scouting are now over. With any luck he will be off the road for number of years. And it's his own fault.

He warned my mother she'd better be gone if he get's charged, yet another threat. She stayed with me for a few nights to get away. While collecting her he was confronted, warned that if he threatened her again he would be reported to the Guards. He arrogantly told me to fcuk off, that his threat was a promise, that my mother was a liar, that he was a goddamn genius and would beat all of us up and down when it came to intelligence. I could have throttled him there and then to be honest. My telling him it was certainly a genius move to drive drunk, and he wouldn't long be seeing the consequences drove him nuts. My mother pushed me out of the house. She said she didn't want me implicated by getting violent with him. I recorded it on my phone, he doesn't know he was previously recorded.

When I dropped my mother back home, he saw us there and was as quiet as a mouse. I left and the next day, he feigned surprise that she was back, he must now be pretending to have early onset dementia. And he said he had so much peace when she was away that he'd even written a song!

And yet still she will live with him, still she will put up with it, her confidence to stand up for herself stripped away over years of abuse. Nothing will ever change despite all of the above. No matter how many variations of telling her that he is toxic, and toxic people need to be dealt with by not dealing with them it is never sufficient. We've pleaded with her to get a divorce. She won't. Nothing more we can do to our continued frustrations. She has been threatened by him and won't even take it seriously. It just boggles the mind why she endures it.

eviltwin wrote: »

Can't speak about addiction but I've worked in domestic violence support and most of the people I dealt with felt trapped. I don't think any of them enjoyed the abuse. It's easy to say leave but where do you go when you've no money and youre terrified. Most domestic related murders happen when the victim leaves.

the issue is how does it go that far? I know abusers can be superficially charming etc. but I find it hard to believe that in a lot of cases they can keep a perfect mask before the couple are financially or otherwise connected.?

Abusers and addicts are more emotionally manipulative, they make their victim feel needed.

Men are also equally likely to be in abusive relationships so I wouldn't think it's only a problem women have.

Another thing that needs to mentioned is that a lot of women don't see it as that bad, necessarily.  It's not even a case of what they are willing to handle, but what they can handle.  Valoren's post was a perfect example.

seamus wrote: »

There are probably as many people of both sexes living with a partner who is suffering an addiction or who is emotionally or physically abusive.

The notion of being able to "fix" the other goes both ways, it's not just a silly woman's ideal - the victim stills sees flashes of the person they fell in love with and believe that with time they can back to where they were.

I have to respectfully disagree. In my experience, men are much less likely to tolerate addiction or abusive tendencies in women. It's not even that women are less likely to have these tendencies (though I could argue they don't) but that they avoid this much more than women, generally speaking.

In my experience abusers tend to be good at keeping the other party on the hook. Whether it’s promises to change, swearing undying love, threats they they can’t live without them, whatever, they find the hook and hang on. I’d a friend many years ago who had tried many times to leave his abusive girlfriend. Every time she’d self harm and threaten suicide knowing he wouldn’t leave her in that spot. The sad thing was we all knew she would be unlikely to actually do it, I think he did too, but he wouldn’t take the risk. This was in spite of him being in a very toxic (for him) relationship, but self preservation simply wasn’t high enough up his priorities and that was the hook she used. Ultimately it meant he could be controlled, and once someone is controlled they won’t make sensible choices.

More generally there’s also a significant number of cases where both parties actually have similar problems.