http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... kdown.html

I'm glad that this article goes on to describe more about what the abuse can involve and shows the subject is much more serious than husbands shouting at wives. The headline must have been written by someone who didn't know what the article is really about.
People who have written to lawyers and the media describing domestic abuse, including emotional and verbal, and the seriousness of it, and have been totally ignored in the past, must feel relieved that the subject is being brought out into the open now. It is all too late for some who suffered some years ago, but hopefully new laws will help to protect others.

I think the headline should be more reflective of the article so that readers will be encouraged to read the contents, and not mock because of the headline. They don't know, if they are lucky, how much need there could be for protection. I'd like to speak to the person who wrote a useless and misleading heading and put that person wise. What is the point of an informative article with such an uninformed headline?

Goodness knows how the genuine cases are proved. A man I knew who deserved locking up for his psychological abuse ruled the house by fear and intimidation, yet could appear very reasonable whenever the authorities were involved.

I am tempted to say, 'Tell me about it' !.

I heard someone say on T.V. yesterday that the signs of physical violence are obvious but implied not so much with other kinds of abuse. I presumed that she was saying that there are no obvious outward signs shown by people who have been subjected to other kinds of abuse. If she did mean that, she hasn't had experience of meeting or speaking to anyone (perhaps on the phone) who has suffered from any kind of abuse. If she had, she would have seen or heard for herself signs of distress when those people have tried talking about it. The first sign would be doubt that the listener would believe or understand. That, in itself, makes it hard to talk about. What is the point of going through it all if not to be believed or understood at the end of it. And so, it takes courage to talk it through and relive when the very memory weakens a person to the point of a shaking mess.

I remember posting on here when I was pleased when noticing that LBH had actually acknowledged that emotional abuse was harmful to children (without looking it up, I can't remember how it was worded but it was something like that) and hopefully, now, adults will be included.

People who make others suffer by their ways of abuse, much of the time behind closed doors, should be recognised as having something to hide if complaints have been made about their abusive ways. More notice should be taken of the sufferers and some compassion shown because verbal abuse and emotional abuse can leave lifelong scars, no matter how much the person puts on a smile and brave face to try to cope.

If a person describes bad treatment, it must have happened and so should be taken seriously. Even assault in a marriage or whatever was described as a 'domestic' years ago and therefore no action taken. How much a person was expected to tolerate seems to have been unbelievable in more ways than one.

The only way certain newspapers brought out some 'domestic violence' in the not too distant past was concerning a certain well-known lady. Front page photos sold papers, but for the not well-known people some journalists would be aware of, there has not been any human concern or interest.

They should have taken notice of anyone, in my opinion, and maybe some good would have come from that a long time ago and without sensationalism, giving one already well-known person publicity she didn't really need.

And back to your point, Jon, yes, the abusive people can be charming and pull the wool over the eyes of those in authority. Hopefully, in the future if any kind of abuse is regarded as a crime, there will be more awareness that they could be being fooled.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... kdown.html
The shear hypocrisy behind these proposals is staggering. Who are the major criticisers of peoples' weight and appearance? It is the government and the media. Who engages in routine controlling behaviour over all of us, and seeks to compel us to conform to a politically correct behaviour pattern? It is government and the media? Who permits violent and pornographic psychological programming material into our homes through TV, films and extremely violent computer games? It is government and the media? And above all, who is constantly attacking normal stable marriage while encouraging infidelity, permissiveness, perversion and quickie divorces? It is government and the media. School children as young as five today are being subjected to this process in the schools.

Stable marriage, normal families, normal and traditional masculine and feminine roles have been under a sustained attack to the point that the vast majority of people no longer know what is 'normal' any more. And violence and violent language has become the new standard for obtaining selfish fulfilment.

We have been programmed to become violent, abusive, totally selfish, and unloving. Instant gratification is the new politically correct dogma. There are pop songs broadcast all over the media that shout such lyrics as “I want it, and I want it NOW!”

Just open any page of the online version of the Daily Mail and the right-hand side consists of an endless portrayal of the media's version of perfect celebrity bodies and selfish life-styles. The very page of this DM article has dozens of perfect bodies and life-styles down the right-hand side.

I suspect that one of the reasons behind this constant degrading of our minds through psychological warfare waged against us is to breakup family relationships and provide government with yet more reasons to enter into our private lives to spy on us and control fully us. It is another example of a dialectic process in action; which is: form the political solution, then create the problem, wait for the people call for a solution to the problem, then impose the original political 'solution'.

As for the emotional abuse of children; the reports on extreme violence and paedophilia by high-ranking and influential people that are now circulating in the media should make Theresa May and the whole of Parliament apoplectic with justified outrage that these things have not been properly investigated and dealt with.

Let's not forget abused husbands/male partners ...
http://www.hiddenhurt.co.uk/male_victim ... lence.html

Things have changed a lot since the early 70's but it does look as if certain professions at that time could line their pockets with money asked to be paid by unfortunate people who turned to them for help and protection, and at times, didn't get that help. Those working in a legal capacity apparently had no Code of Conduct and there was no place for complaints until a Complaints Bureau was set up possibly in the middle 70's. The people working there were from the same profession and I found that they could not see anything from any point of view other than their own no matter what they were told. Maybe it was different for others, but that is what I found, as said. This situation continued, referring matters to an Ombudsman who would make a final decision which usually ended up with feeling there was no where else to go and would have to give up.
If complainants had been taken more seriously in those days, things could have been worked on to improve instead of causing more distress on those who were already distressed by abuse.

Also, when you think of the terrible crimes these days, many on children who have been the innocent victims of marriage breakups, those things should never have happened if separation and divorce had been handled differently then.

I don't believe that what I went through, and my children too, was to do with influence by the media
but was the behaviour of someone who liked power over me, especially, and seemed to get satisfaction out of seeing me broken-down by his actions and words. It was not quarrelling where two people were at it, hammer and tongs. To be completely brow-beaten means that there is no ability to stick up for oneself, think straight and have any mental strength left. Feelings of worthlessness and no more spirit are the results and should be recognisable by onlookers and authorities. All this came from part of his own character which I had not criticised or even wanted to see in him as my husband and I hate to even have to recognise it now even though he is no longer in this world.

I agree that the way some of the media comes across now can be so influential that controlling behaviour by abusive partners can be exacerbated, especially if people don't match up to what is thought to be the way to look and dress.

A daughter of mine has gone through similar experiences to what you describe. She eventually divorced her husband for the safety of her children and herself. I would add, that none of officialdom was any use at all in helping with the problems. In fact, officialdom became a very real threat to her children.

Verbal onslaughts, hyper-criticism, violent language, sexual perversion, and physical violence against the home, the children and the wife were all perpetrated by the husband. I could produce a catalogue of outrageous behaviour but that is not necessary here.

When they married, my daughter was unaware of the kind of traits that eventually took over and wrecked her home, her marriage, and severely traumatised the children of the marriage. When she became pregnant with the first child the acute signs of selfishness within the husband first became noticeable; and became increasingly worse as the needs of the child became more significant.

I remember seeing early behavioural signs within the husband that set alarm bells ringing in my head. The signs began with what eventually became an addiction to violent computer games and strong alcohol . Videos of female pop artists presenting sensual displays also took on a significant importance in the husband's very private life. He was spending endless hours locked in his own computer room and effectively reduced his wife, my daughter, to a computer widow. Violence, extreme foul language, and explicitly sexual computer images seemed to have become the mainstay of the man's life. Eventually he insisted on living out the kind of behaviour he was watching on the screen for rea,l against his wife and children, behaviour patterns that he had ingested from months and years in his computer room.

One of the husband's demands was to try and force his wife to dress as provocatively as his idols in the films and videos he was watching. He was attempting to play-out his fantasies with a wife who was not that way inclined – and then the physical violence took over.

My daughter deliberately lost all contact with her wider family for about four years while the situation in her home and marriage was seriously degenerating. I now know that the extreme fear she was living through made her too ashamed and scared to meet with her own wider and natural family because she had been made to feel guilty for what she was living through.

So, I think I can understand to some degree what you have been through Marion.

I also strongly believe that external influences, such as pop music and associated videos, violent and sexual films, videos, and computer games all do have a very serious effect on some people. I would go as far as to say that none of us are totally immune to the effects of a diet consisting of violence, sexual presentations and war games. I believe they are intended to have a destructive moral effect on us – and I believe they do. These things are in fact part of Communist/Marxist dogma for destroying our society. We become desensitised to varying degrees. With some people the desensitisation is so complete that violence and pervasion become the new norm. There are now a lot of men who have zero respect for any women; and sadly, women are increasingly exhibiting very strong signs that they have lost all respect for themselves. Drunken, violent, and over-sexualised hooligans on a Friday night in many towns across the land bear testimony to this fact. When the Spice Girls were part of the pop scene I remember seeing very young, what should have been innocent girls, dressed and imitating their Spice Girl idols. So I do believe that visual and violent 'arts' do influence our behaviour. The whole of the media must carry a lot of the responsibility and guilt for the current situation - as do successive governments for permitting this material to be readily available as 'entertainment'.

This isn't a new problem, it has been ongoing since the beginning of the 'swinging sixties' and the rise of the 'permissive society'. Now we have reached the point where unnatural behaviour is deliberatly taught in the schools, and contraceptives are handed out to school children as though they are sweets. Sadly, the genie is now right out of the bottle, and there is no way it is going back in again.

Westonman

Thankyou for relating what must have been a terrible time to go through. I still haven't absorbed it all because, on top of me thinking and talking about my own experiences, it is all so shocking and mind-blowing to know the nature of other kinds of abuse people have suffered or maybe still suffering. I know that it is quite exhausting emotionally to try to put into words what, for best part of the time, we have to shut away in a part of our mind, but the upset we feel and are unable cannot talk about is always there as scars or hurting emotional wounds.

I can't write off what you have described and the issue of abuse to people and the after-effects is something that everyone should consider important because they would never know if they, themselves, or a family member or friend may go through something which really needs understanding.

I remember when I was music-teaching, a little girl was absolutely loving the way I was teaching her with the added imagination of childlike examples. I was visiting her house to give lessons but one day, the little girl's mother told me she didn't want her daughter to learn any more because she would prefer
The Spice Girls.
The little girl said, 'No, Mummy, I like my lessons and I want to learn the way Marian is teaching me.'
But her mother insisted and although she saw her daughter in tears it was the last music lesson she had with me. I came away thinking that her childlike innocence was being taken away by her own mother who wanted to replace a Disney kind of world with pop music and the image of girls like The Spice Girls.
Then, I went to another house where I was surprised to find the child I was going to give a lesson to was in another room watching quite a shockingly violent video. Not surprisingly, he was unprepared to be able to concentrate on his music and so that was the end of his lessons too.
It was all quite unbelievable but they are two examples how young children were being influenced by more adult parts of life.
I can't help wondering what trouble I would have been in with those parents if I had tried to teach their children in a more adult way, treating them more like older teenagers or adults.

Maybe the children should have been allowed to cling on to childhood while they were actually still children as there was plenty of time for them to discover the realities later.

As soon as my own children were having to live with their father instead of me, (due to a form of chicanery, I was told some years later) they had their world changed from sweetness, imagination and kindness and it was hard for me to be an onlooker, not being able to do anything about the harsh reality of undeserved severity their lives suddenly became part of. I, as their mother, had to witness this and go through being ignored or described as over-anxious by those people I tried to get to understand and could have helped remove the children from such an upsetting situation and give them back their mother. I hate to have to say it but I think that those people were allowing abuse of my children to continue and they were aware of many reasons, too much to describe here.

Like the little girl being stopped from having her piano lessons to concentrate on The Spice Girls, my children were suddenly thrown into an adult world being pushed from here to there for different people trying to look after them and their children's toys and a small camping gas container being given to them to burn on a bonfire. Toys were replaced by adult records, games of Monopoly and playing card games as if adults. They were allowed to see horror films and one had nightmares after seeing the Towering Inferno. He was so young that I was not believed that he had seen it but somehow he had and could describe it to me and the fear also.
I know now, but found out too late, that the part of my statement I had made out to try to have my children restored to me, and which included the bonfire had been somehow left out and so the court was not informed to have to deal with it. There had been witnesses and I saw the remains of the fire which could have had horrifying results because of petrol in a car nearby. The incident led me to go to the NSPCC but the delays preparing for the court-hearing must have given time for my statement to have lost some pages and so non-protection of my children was allowed to continue.

I live with these memories, pushed into the back of my mind, but now, because of the issues of abuse Teresa May is working on, I am getting vivid flash-backs and reminders of my shock and distress of how such things could have happened and allowed to continue.
It must be the same for your daughter, you and many other people who had no law to rely on in days gone by and leaving them to live with experiences of different kinds of abuse, but equally distressing.

This is why I still think that the headline I referred to is wrong and making 'domestic abuse' look like something to be mocked. I think it should have been changed to reflect the seriousness of the subject.

P.S. Regarding my previous post above, I don't know how the part of my statement regarding the outdoor fire
was omitted. The NSPCC told me to go to a solicitor immediately which I did. The witnesses who wanted to speak were not asked and so the subject was not raised even though it had been so important.

(This is explaining in answer to the question being put to me after I posted. Thankyou, therefore, for the interest shown).

Marian,
I don't know the full details of your case, and believe me, I am not inquiring or asking for any more details. I will say though, that some of the extreme unpleasantness you and your children have endured is a very close reflection of the trauma that my daughter and her children, my grandchildren, have, and are currently experiencing.

When the whole process of divorce, child custody, and the well-being of the children began I must confess to having an extreme naivety where the 'authorities' were concerned. I naturally believed that the authorities would be on the side of justice, protection, and the well-being of children. Five years later I now believe that the authorities' first concern is to cause as much distress and trauma as possible to young children and any defenceless parent, particularly a vulnerable mother. And if there is the slightest possibility of the children being taken into care then I believe the authorities will take that option because there is serious money to be made out of children by the authorities.

I know it sounds extreme and incredible, but I now believe the primary purpose of any official authority that is any way related to family and domestic issues, is the breakup of the family unit. In fact there are lawyers out there who appear to make a very rich living out of the misery of those less fortunate than themselves. The concept of justice to some of these lawyers seems be a minor inconvenience that is best forgotten. For this reason I have very serious misgivings over Mrs May's latest proposals to legislate for 'psychological abuse' of domestic spouses and partners. I see it as yet another excuse for authorities and 'experts' to intrude even further into our private lives.

As I previously indicated, if Mrs May is so concerned for the health and well-being of children and families then the current claims/revelations of paedophilia and child sex abuse by high-ranking influential people and authorities should be Mrs May's priority – not looking for more reasons to intrude into private family affairs. Unfortunately, Mrs May appears to be stalling over investigating paedophilia and the elite.