Joat42 wrote:I have helped people out of abusive relationships, and I know how they would react if they had read your post in the context you gave:
I've been there quite a few times myself Joat. Went so far as putting up a woman and her three kids for almost a year and a half while I was fresh out of college. It strained my own relationship too, to the point of breaking. I lost that gf. But I'd do it all over again.
I also know how the many women I've been involved with who've found themselves in this predicament would react to what I said as well.
As humans, we have all experienced the ugly side of marriage. Either our own, our parents, our friends or our associates. Or simply seen it on the street or while innocently shopping in a market while going about our daily lives, because confrontation can crop up anywhere.
These are ugly truths for certain, but pointing these truths out is hardly in bad taste. Many women would love for man - and his legal system - to put a finger on and get a handle on it. It is certainly a man's world, and his laws aren't exactly geared to protect the innocent, helpless and abused wives. Are they? This is changing thank God, albeit much too slowly, witnessed by the fairly recent laws that now require an automatic 24hr incarceration for assault on a spouse.
A woman must be armed with certain truths so she can learn to protect herself. There are certain dos and don'ts while in an abusive relationship. Sugar coating it is not helping the victims. They need truth, as well as, understanding. The law can't do much to the idiot until she's maimed or dead. (The GA can't do much to the Mandarins until many Beowulfans and more are dead. Revenge is little consolation to the dead and gone.)
Many women who have gone through the ordeal hold support groups for other women who are just beginning the journey. . . or considering it. They tell them the very same things I have shared in this forum. And they sure as hell don't sugar coat it. THESE ARE TOOLS FOR SURVIVAL. Know your enemy. Know the psychology of the human element driving his insanity.
A woman can't just choose to leave an abusive relationship and not properly prepare for it. Leaving an abusive relationship is like preparing to go on a long vacation that calls for lots of packing and planning. The woman can't simply leave if she has children. She must think of their safety too. Beowulf had children to protect - her citizens. The husband has rights as well. They aren't automatically stripped because he is abusive. It is illegal for a woman to simply run with a husband's kids. She must follow through with formalities to get out of a marriage, and in the interim she is still charged with carrying on her wifely duties, because she is still his wife. Beowulf has to suffer these same formalities by holding a referendum. That is why it was once prudent to be counseled before marriage. It is a serious commitment. And Beowulf will still be held accountable to the implied responsibilities they had to their own founding. Certainly as far as the League is concerned.
Consider that a woman has to remain in the home of an abusive husband while she goes through legal motions to divorce him. All the while having to endure continuing to sleep with him while his anger builds up to what he knows is inevitable divorce. The intimacy becomes more and more brutal. It becomes a weapon to be used against her. And the intimacy is his right. He has a right to what has now become a weapon to punish her. There's a gray area existing around the idea that a man can't be charged for raping his own wife. Unbelievable, but true.
Under these circumstances, do you believe it is prudent for a woman to make things worse on herself by sleeping around and throwing it in the face of this very abusive man? Do you think that it is prudent to poke the gorilla or prod the hornets nest on the way out the door? Every opportunity she gets?
cthia wrote:Some wives are guilty of making the same mistakes that Beowulf did. She proceeds to file for divorce on the grounds that it is her right. But her best friend warns her that it isn't about rights. "It is about what you know the kind of man you married expects out of you and what he will do when he finds out. He's gonna kill you!"
Joat42 wrote:You start with laying the blame on the victim and then you are more or less arguing that it's better to stay in an abusive relationship rather than take a chance and leave it. That's why I find your analogy poor and tasteless. You then go and post that you are proud of your analogy - bleah.
No Joat. I really place no blame at all, because it isn't about blame, or faults. It is about sensibilities and discretion and handling the situation properly, in consideration for your own safety. This charge is directed to those women who knowingly poke and prod the abusive firecracker. You do not sleep around in the face of your abusive husband. You do not date other men in the face of your abusive husband. You do not flaunt your new beau, or the gifts of which he has showered upon you, in front of your abusive husband. You shouldn't do these things even if he isn't abusive. And all before the divorce is final??? You might even want to consider NOT doing so even after the divorce is final. He's still a loaded weapon of mass destruction.
Beowulf did all of those things.
I simply said that karma is a MF!
Perhaps you don't understand karma.
Even in the face of all of this, nobody deserves what could happen. Neither did Beowulf. But an abusive, scorned spouse or person is hardly concerned with what you think you might deserve.
At one of these support groups one woman said. . .
"If you don't want to become a victim, at least act like it!"
.