THIS IS AN AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT, AND MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. (00:00:01): I had my partner removed from my house by police after his third physical attack.

(00:00:05): but the first in which my baby was in my arms.

(00:00:08): I naively thought the abuse would end that night, but it only escalated.

(00:00:13): Since the separation,

(00:00:14): my child's father has broken my front door when I refused to let him back into my house,

(00:00:18): has threatened suicide by cop if I call for help,

(00:00:21): has threatened to have both of my kids put into the system by making false reports

(00:00:24): to child services,

(00:00:26): and has attempted to drug me with a sedative at a coffee shop knowing I would be

(00:00:29): driving home with our infant in the backseat.

(00:00:32): I've disclosed the abuse to therapists, police, my friends and family.

(00:00:36): I have completed a danger assessment with a trained domestic violence worker and

(00:00:39): scored the highest level of risk,

(00:00:41): extreme danger.

(00:00:43): The questionnaire stated that I was in need of urgent safety measures.

(00:00:47): He tells me every time we speak that he has nothing left to lose,

(00:00:50): nothing to live for,

(00:00:51): and that he holds me entirely responsible for his dismal circumstances.

(00:00:55): He drinks.

(00:00:56): He is chronically unemployed.

(00:00:58): I have been certain at times that he was preparing to kill me, my children and himself.

(00:01:03): So I sought a protective order and the order was denied because the judge felt my

(00:01:07): fears were based on nothing but quote suspicions and opinions about this man's personality.

(00:01:12): I think the trauma of being ignored and left unprotected has actually been one of

(00:01:16): my greatest in this entire ordeal.

(00:01:19): I don't know how I am supposed to serve this man with court papers seeking custody

(00:01:22): and supervision for his parenting time when I know I may not survive that day.

(00:01:43): yet I have very little choice as I need to protect my child from his violence.

(00:01:48): My own outreach worker told me she felt my best course of action would be to flee,

(00:01:52): to move far away and never look back.

(00:01:55): I am a college professor with a home that I own,

(00:01:57): a promising career ahead of me,

(00:01:59): and an older child in school with friends and activities they adore.

(00:02:03): I will not be surrendering that good life I built for myself and my children to this man."

(00:02:08): All I can do is hope that he doesn't choose to end it as I take back the control he

(00:02:12): seized from me in what should have been the most beautiful season of our lives.

(00:02:17): Hi, I'm Zahn Valines, a writer and feminist activist, and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

(00:02:23): Today, I am here with Dr. Emma Katz.

(00:02:26): Hi, Dr. Katz.

(00:02:29): Hi.

(00:02:29): And I'm so excited to talk to her today because she's going to speak to so many of

(00:02:35): the issues that I talk about.

(00:02:38): Dr.

(00:02:38): Emma Katz is a researcher in domestic violence and coercive control whose work has

(00:02:43): helped shape legislation and professional practice globally.

(00:02:46): Her book, Coercive Control in Children's and Mothers' Lives, is widely acclaimed.

(00:02:52): Emma also brings her research to the public in an accessible and influential way on

(00:02:56): her Substack,

(00:02:57): Decoding Coercive Control with Dr.

(00:02:59): Emma Katz,

(00:03:00): which is read by thousands of people in more than 90 countries across the world.

(00:03:04): You can read it at dremmakatz.substack.com.

(00:03:10): Emma's research has illuminated children's experiences of coercive control,

(00:03:14): which had previously remained largely invisible.

(00:03:17): She argues that children are affected by many forms of abuse inherent to coercive control,

(00:03:22): including the breaking down of close relationships with loved ones,

(00:03:26): deprivation of resources,

(00:03:27): constrained behavior,

(00:03:28): and isolation from the outside world.

(00:03:31): Her research has been described as pioneering work that will change how we

(00:03:35): understand and respond to children's experience of domestic abuse.

(00:03:39): And I'm just so grateful to have her here today because I think one of the most

(00:03:43): common things we hear in activism is,

(00:03:46): well,

(00:03:47): he's a shitty husband,

(00:03:48): but he's actually a really good dad.

(00:03:51): And I think that Dr. Katz's work shows that to abuse a child's mother is to abuse a child.

(00:03:58): So I'm just I'm so glad to have you today.

(00:04:00): And we're going to get started with the basics.

(00:04:03): What is coercive control?

(00:04:06): Thanks so much for having me.

(00:04:08): It's great to be able to share my insights with you and with your listeners.

(00:04:14): Oh, that vignette at the beginning.

(00:04:15): My heart was breaking for that mum.

(00:04:18): It's appalling.

(00:04:20): And when she said that the worst thing was being...

(00:04:24): One of the worst things was the way that the court disbelieved.

(00:04:27): There's a term for that.

(00:04:28): It's called institutional betrayal.

(00:04:30): And it is really traumatizing.

(00:04:33): And that's that's well recognized within researchers who look into this sort of vile kind of trauma.

(00:04:42): So.

(00:04:44): You asked what is coercive control.

(00:04:46): So I'll give it you in a nutshell and then I'll go into a little bit more detail.

(00:04:50): In a nutshell,

(00:04:51): coercive control involves situations where somebody subjects another person to

(00:04:57): persistent and wide ranging controlling behavior over a long period of time.

(00:05:04): taking away their freedom and autonomy.

(00:05:07): And they make it clear that standing up for themselves will be punished.

(00:05:12): So very much a do what I say or else situation.

(00:05:18): So that's the nutshell.

(00:05:19): To go into a bit more detail,

(00:05:21): the punishment for not doing what the perpetrator wants can take many different forms.

(00:05:28): It might be

(00:05:29): violence it might be beating you up but it might not be that but it will definitely

(00:05:33): be something that the abuser knows that the victim and survivor dreads and will go

(00:05:38): a long way to avoid things like hurting loved ones coercing the victim survivor

(00:05:44): into sexual activity that they don't want to be doing economically abusing them so

(00:05:49): perhaps taking their money or dragging them through court post separation to drain

(00:05:54): their money or as in the story you told at the beginning it might be

(00:06:00): making these threats to kill,

(00:06:02): making it very clear that the perpetrator is willing to go to the point of death

(00:06:08): and thereby keeping the victim survivor in a state of terror with those threats.

(00:06:15): So perpetrators, by repeatedly punishing a victim survivor for noncompliance,

(00:06:22): What the perpetrator wants,

(00:06:24): what they intend is to demoralize and terrorize the victim survivor into a state of

(00:06:32): permanent subjugation,

(00:06:35): permanent kind of servitude,

(00:06:37): terror,

(00:06:39): turning them into a kind of puppet on a string like figure who the perpetrator can

(00:06:43): get whatever they want from.

(00:06:46): And the perpetrator is motivated by their deeply held and really harmful belief that

(00:06:54): that they are entitled to control others in a way that strips them of their normal

(00:07:00): rights and liberties and not just any others but usually their girlfriend,

(00:07:05): their wife,

(00:07:05): their children and they're motivated by this deeply held and harmful drive that

(00:07:12): they have to get control over the people in their family and maintain that control

(00:07:16): for as long as they want it.

(00:07:20): So perpetrators, they want their victims, their targets' lives to be all under their control.

(00:07:26): But at the same time, the perpetrator wants a lot of freedom for themselves.

(00:07:30): So they'll impose a thousand rules on their partner or their child,

(00:07:35): but they won't stick to any rules themselves.

(00:07:37): So there's a great imbalance there.

(00:07:40): And I also want to say that coercive control can often be mistaken for a lot of different things.

(00:07:47): But it's not about love.

(00:07:50): People aren't behaving this way because they're madly in love.

(00:07:53): It's not about lost tempers because perpetrators can control their temper when it suits them.

(00:07:59): It's not about anger problems because, again, the perpetrator can control their anger when it suits them.

(00:08:06): And it's not about drug or alcohol misuse,

(00:08:08): although that might be going on in the situation,

(00:08:11): but it's not what's causing the abusive behaviour.

(00:08:14): It might make it worse, but it's not the root cause.

(00:08:18): Like I say,

(00:08:18): the root cause,

(00:08:20): the real root cause,

(00:08:21): is that perpetrators believe they're entitled to do this and they're highly

(00:08:25): motivated to do it.

(00:08:27): They want to exploit their target and get control of their life.

(00:08:31): And this intersects so well with what you so brilliantly talk about in Liberating Motherhood,

(00:08:37): the unequal division of labour in the home.

(00:08:40): One thing that perpetrators of coercive control want is to be able to exploit the

(00:08:44): domestic labour of their mother.

(00:08:47): their partner, and I'm putting partner in inverted quote marks because it's not a partnership.

(00:08:52): It's like a sustained, prolonged assault.

(00:08:56): But yeah,

(00:08:57): they want,

(00:08:58): so one of the things that they want,

(00:08:59): one of the many things they want is to exploit domestic labour by putting the

(00:09:04): partner in a situation where they're scared to not do all the domestic labour

(00:09:08): because the perpetrator will have such a negative reaction if they don't.

(00:09:12): But it also goes much wider than that as well.

(00:09:16): That's a lot.

(00:09:17): That's really helpful.

(00:09:19): One thing that I really appreciate you saying is that this isn't happening because

(00:09:24): of an anger management problem.

(00:09:25): It's not happening because of passion.

(00:09:27): It's not happening because of all of these reasons that we use to dismiss it.

(00:09:31): And I found in my own work that we seem to have this idea that if there's a reason

(00:09:36): that it is happening,

(00:09:37): that then we have to work on the reason it's happening rather than the actual behavior.

(00:09:42): So if he...

(00:09:45): is an alcoholic,

(00:09:45): for example,

(00:09:46): well,

(00:09:46): we need to get him to alcohol treatment rather than addressing the fact that this

(00:09:51): is someone who's abusing someone when they're drinking.

(00:09:54): So I really appreciate you addressing that.

(00:09:56): But I'm also hoping you can speak a little more to why these causes are not the

(00:10:03): real cause and what you think the root cause is of

(00:10:08): these men who feel compelled to control others?

(00:10:11): Why is this so widespread and perhaps even normal in heterosexual relationships?

(00:10:19): That's a really good question.

(00:10:21): I don't have all the answers to that because I feel like I would need to have five

(00:10:25): more PhDs than I actually do to really have a handle on that why.

(00:10:30): It's a huge question.

(00:10:32): But I think one thing I can say is that we see a lot more men perpetrating coercive

(00:10:37): control than women do.

(00:10:39): There are women coercive control perpetrators out there,

(00:10:42): but they are much rarer and they're much more likely to go so far as to kill their partners.

(00:10:49): That's far less likely in the case with the woman perpetrator.

(00:10:52): And killing is the ultimate act of control for these perpetrators.

(00:10:56): It's not a loss of control.

(00:10:57): It's not that they snapped.

(00:10:59): It's the ultimate act of control for them.

(00:11:03): So one of the reasons why we see this imbalance,

(00:11:05): where it's the vast majority of coercive control perpetrators are men,

(00:11:10): I think,

(00:11:11): is because of the level of entitlement that our society gives to men to behave in

(00:11:18): these ways.

(00:11:18): And the fact that it's pretty normalized for men to have a certain level of control

(00:11:24): and power over their family.

(00:11:28): So the idea that a man is the head of the household,

(00:11:32): for a lot of people,

(00:11:32): that is still the way they think.

(00:11:34): And even if they don't think that now,

(00:11:36): it was only a couple of generations ago that that would have been the way things

(00:11:40): were thought about in their family.

(00:11:43): And we see male power and control really normalized in our culture to a far greater

(00:11:48): extent than female power and control is,

(00:11:51): where women have power and control.

(00:11:53): It makes people uncomfortable.

(00:11:54): It's seen as a problem.

(00:11:56): People often really,

(00:11:58): really struggle with that,

(00:11:59): whether it's a female politician or a boss or a wife who's perhaps earning more

(00:12:05): than her husband.

(00:12:07): So I think our cultures have really set up the situation where we're going to see a lot of men

(00:12:15): taking this power and control that they've been told is rightfully theirs and

(00:12:21): taking it to quite an extreme place.

(00:12:24): So for some men, they'll take their ideas about entitlement

(00:12:29): To a certain extent, and there'll be really bad husbands because of that.

(00:12:34): But for some,

(00:12:35): they'll take it to such an extreme place that they become a full-blown coercive

(00:12:40): control perpetrator.

(00:12:42): And they're really at the extreme end of the spectrum of...

(00:12:48): of controlling behavior and of absolutely being the most terrible,

(00:12:52): terrible person to be in a relationship with.

(00:12:54): And again,

(00:12:55): I use this relationship in inverted commas because it's not even a relationship,

(00:12:58): but it was disguised as that at the beginning.

(00:13:02): So yeah,

(00:13:02): I would say that that's one major element of why male perpetrators are so much more

(00:13:11): common than female perpetrators.

(00:13:13): But, um, as to the rest of it, like, um, you know, why some men are not others.

(00:13:18): Um,

(00:13:19): I think that everyone has a kind of unique set of circumstances and,

(00:13:24): and people respond to the messages they get from their cultures to different extents.

(00:13:30): And some people reject the messages they get from their cultures while others fully embrace them.

(00:13:35): So for example,

(00:13:36): a vegan in a meat eating culture is rejecting the messages that they got about meat eating.

(00:13:41): And similarly,

(00:13:41): a man who's actively anti-sexist in a sexist culture is rejecting a lot of messages

(00:13:48): that he's getting from his culture.

(00:13:50): So why some men go down that route and others don't, I'm not too sure.

(00:13:55): But one thing I do feel is that it's not particularly helpful to put mental health

(00:14:00): labels on coercive controllers.

(00:14:05): So a lot of people are very drawn to explaining things

(00:14:10): a man's behaviour as narcissism or sociopathy or psychopathy,

(00:14:17): you know,

(00:14:17): to say he's a narcissist,

(00:14:18): he's a sociopath,

(00:14:19): he's a psychopath.

(00:14:21): And I can totally see why people find those labels helpful.

(00:14:25): But at the same time, I think it distracts, as you just said, from looking at the behavior.

(00:14:31): And I think if we just look at the behavior of what they're doing,

(00:14:34): that tells us more than enough that they're a despicable and dangerous person

(00:14:40): without worrying about what.

(00:14:43): you know, what particular label might apply to them.

(00:14:45): And also coercive control perpetrators are very, very predictable in their own right.

(00:14:52): It's like they've all read a very similar script.

(00:14:55): It's quite,

(00:14:56): you know,

(00:14:56): the way that they're going to escalate when they receive pushback is quite predictable.

(00:15:01): So, yeah,

(00:15:04): Yeah,

(00:15:04): again,

(00:15:04): I don't think we need a kind of label like narcissism to help us predict what

(00:15:07): they're going to do.

(00:15:08): I think we can do that very easily by looking at their behavior more directly.

(00:15:14): That's so interesting that you talk about them having a script because one of the

(00:15:18): most consistent pieces of feedback that I get from readers is that they thought it

(00:15:24): was just them.

(00:15:25): And they didn't know that so many women's partners were using this exact same language.

(00:15:32): And

(00:15:33): you know,

(00:15:33): women will email me questions and I can almost predict like what their husbands are

(00:15:38): going to say next based on what they're telling me.

(00:15:41): And the thing that I often tell women is it's,

(00:15:44): It's like this patriarchal,

(00:15:46): destructive,

(00:15:46): oppressive society has turned a lot of men into like not fully human people.

(00:15:51): They're just repeating these awful things that they've been taught without even questioning them.

(00:15:57): But you said something really interesting that I want to go back to that I've never

(00:16:00): heard anybody say before and now I'm going to latch on to it forever,

(00:16:04): which is that this is not really a relationship in the typical way.

(00:16:09): And I think that the way that most people conceive of this is that you have a relationship –

(00:16:15): And the abuse is layered on top.

(00:16:17): But I think you're right that in these dynamics,

(00:16:20): the abuse is integral to the dynamic and not separable from the relationship.

(00:16:26): So could you just speak a little more to that?

(00:16:27): Because I know so many women who think that they can cure their partners or who

(00:16:32): think that they have a good relationship under the abuse.

(00:16:35): But I think maybe they don't have a relationship at all under the abuse.

(00:16:40): I'm really glad you brought me back to that because I think that's such an important point.

(00:16:47): So yeah, I see this all the time as well.

(00:16:49): For example, people will say,

(00:16:51): the first time the abuse happened was the day they got married,

(00:16:54): or the first time the abuse happened was when she was pregnant.

(00:16:57): And I want to just say,

(00:17:00): I'm usually reading this in a newspaper piece or a magazine piece about domestic abuse,

(00:17:05): and I want to just say,

(00:17:06): whoa,

(00:17:07): are you really sure about that?

(00:17:08): Because what you probably mean is that was the first time where he did something

(00:17:14): that was so explicitly,

(00:17:16): obviously abusive that the victim felt...

(00:17:21): confident in saying that was an incident of abuse.

(00:17:25): Usually we're talking about that he hit her on that occasion,

(00:17:28): because that's often the thing that people wait for before they're willing to say

(00:17:34): this is abuse.

(00:17:36): But actually,

(00:17:38): The first thing that perpetrators do is they hook you into a relationship with them

(00:17:44): fast and really suck you in really hard because they know that they want to start

(00:17:51): controlling you.

(00:17:52): So they need to get you on board quickly and they need to get you on board very

(00:17:56): thoroughly so that they can start doing what they really want to do,

(00:17:59): which is controlling you.

(00:18:01): And so at the beginning,

(00:18:03): they're presenting as your dream come true,

(00:18:05): your prince charming,

(00:18:07): exactly what you needed at that moment in your life.

(00:18:11): And so many victim survivors say this.

(00:18:14): They say it was so great at the beginning.

(00:18:16): It was a whirlwind.

(00:18:17): He seemed like everything that I was looking for.

(00:18:19): And he was doing that on purpose right from the start.

(00:18:22): So that manipulation right at the beginning from the first text messages, from the first date was,

(00:18:29): That was the beginning of the abuse,

(00:18:31): not the first time that he that he hit you or was sexually coercive with you or

(00:18:36): called you a really vile,

(00:18:37): horrible name.

(00:18:39): And yeah, I think that what I say, what these what these kinds of men want to do is to.

(00:18:45): get you to think that they're in a relationship,

(00:18:48): get you to think that you're going to have a good future with them,

(00:18:51): get you heavily invested.

(00:18:53): And often this is on a very accelerated timescale.

(00:18:56): So, you know, they pursue you quite relentlessly.

(00:18:59): They sweep you off your feet.

(00:19:01): They'll have you pregnant and married to them much quicker than you would have

(00:19:05): perhaps done on your own timetable if they hadn't been rushing you.

(00:19:09): Or they'll move you in with them or move into your place quite quickly.

(00:19:12): And

(00:19:15): Once they've got you sufficiently on board,

(00:19:17): thinking that this is the relationship,

(00:19:19): this is the love of your life,

(00:19:21): and once they've got you sufficiently entrapped because you're tied to them

(00:19:24): financially through living together or legally through marriage or through having a

(00:19:31): pregnancy with them,

(00:19:31): a child with them,

(00:19:33): then they'll feel a lot freer to start introducing the control.

(00:19:39): And for the victim-survivor,

(00:19:41): yeah,

(00:19:41): it seems like this has come out of nowhere and it seems like this is not...

(00:19:45): what the relationship is really like because it just starts to creep in and it's

(00:19:50): not seemed to be like that before.

(00:19:53): But I'm afraid it was like that all along with the coercive controller.

(00:19:57): And we'll often find also that this wasn't the first time they'd coercively

(00:20:00): controlled someone and they have a long history of exes who they've done this to in

(00:20:05): one form or another.

(00:20:07): And so,

(00:20:07): yeah,

(00:20:08): I think if we look at it that way and we look at it as this sort of sustained

(00:20:14): manipulation and this sustained entrapment that the perpetrator worked on for

(00:20:19): months and years,

(00:20:21): it really can change our perspective on it.

(00:20:23): And I know it can be totally heartbreaking for a victim survivor to think about it that way.

(00:20:28): but also in some ways quite liberating because it never was this good thing.

(00:20:33): So they haven't lost this good thing because it never was that in the first place.

(00:20:38): But that brings with it so many different emotions.

(00:20:41): I'm really aware of that.

(00:20:42): But I do think it's important to be able to recognise the reality of what actually happened.

(00:20:47): Definitely.

(00:20:49): Yeah, the heartbreak is really resonant.

(00:20:52): I had a woman to me who I was talking to yesterday say, well, how do you know that he doesn't love me?

(00:20:59): How do you know that he never loved me?

(00:21:01): And I think that that's something that a lot of women really get stuck on is that

(00:21:06): they had this image of this beautiful,

(00:21:08): loving relationship.

(00:21:09): And it turns out that that was never real.

(00:21:10): And we culturally teach women to derive so much of their value from their

(00:21:15): relationships that then they conclude that

(00:21:17): you know, well, they have no value if this man didn't love them.

(00:21:21): And I just want to say to anyone who feels that,

(00:21:26): that you have so much worth just for being a human being and you are so worthy of love.

(00:21:32): And if this person who turned out to be,

(00:21:36): excuse my language,

(00:21:36): a total asshole didn't love you,

(00:21:38): that does not mean that you are not worthy of love and that you're not still worthy

(00:21:42): of love.

(00:21:42): I just want to put that into the conversation just for anyone who would benefit

(00:21:47): from hearing that right now.

(00:21:48): Yes.

(00:21:49): Well,

(00:21:49): and the other thing is that our culture has broken so many men in such a way that

(00:21:55): they are not capable of loving women.

(00:21:57): And I think that we have to accept that probably most women are going to have to be

(00:22:03): single or willing to be single to be healthy because there aren't

(00:22:06): enough healthy men and i think coming to terms with that can maybe be helpful

(00:22:12): coming to terms with the reality that you know there are other ways to get love

(00:22:16): from you know family from friends all of that um yes you know and from pets as well

(00:22:23): a wonderful source of love you can become a cat lady and and and that's that's

(00:22:27): lovely um or a dog lady or a dog i'm a frog lady i have like 19 frogs um

(00:22:35): it's it's oh wow yeah um I think the last number I gave my husband was that there

(00:22:40): were only 14 in the house so maybe we'll just say there are only 14 we've gotten

(00:22:44): five more that he didn't notice well that's really cool I've never met anyone who

(00:22:50): had 19 frogs or anything like that before yeah they're they're really cool I make

(00:22:54): these little like bioactive enclosures for them and they chirp and they do little

(00:22:58): froggy things they're they're just charming little pets and they don't you know

(00:23:02): they don't need anything which which I like um

(00:23:05): So you talked a lot about how a lot of people conceive of abuse as only physical.

(00:23:11): And I think that that's really critical.

(00:23:15): We think that it's fine as long as he's not hitting her.

(00:23:18): And something that I'm seeing more and more is this discourse around red flags, looking for red flags.

(00:23:25): And I think that can be helpful.

(00:23:27): But what I'm finding more and more is that a lot of the behaviors that people put

(00:23:32): on lists of red flags are

(00:23:33): are not red flags.

(00:23:35): They're abusive behaviors.

(00:23:36): And it's got me really thinking about how we have so heavily socialized women to

(00:23:43): accept so many layers of abuse that we don't recognize abuse when it's happening to

(00:23:50): us until it has accelerated to a really intense point.

(00:23:54): So I'm hoping you could speak a little bit to why abuse matters, even if it's not physical.

(00:24:01): And also,

(00:24:03): What kind of behaviors constitute abuse?

(00:24:06): I know that that can be tricky because, you know, we've all yelled at someone we love.

(00:24:09): And one time yelling is not necessarily abuse.

(00:24:13): But I think just generally telling people what to look for could be helpful.

(00:24:20): Absolutely.

(00:24:21): I think that it becomes abuse when somebody is behaving differently.

(00:24:29): in a way that is controlling and is taking away your choices and your freedom and

(00:24:35): treating your feelings and your needs as though they don't matter in a sustained way,

(00:24:40): you know,

(00:24:41): not just one incident of insensitivity in a sea of otherwise good behavior,

(00:24:46): but there's a pattern here.

(00:24:49): And also they're making it so confronting them and holding them accountable safely

(00:24:56): is impossible.

(00:24:57): And I think that's where we kind of take,

(00:25:00): where bad behavior turns into abusive behavior,

(00:25:03): where you can't confront the person safely because they're going to have such a

(00:25:08): negative reaction that it makes it just,

(00:25:12): you just feel like it's not worth trying to bring it up with them because you know

(00:25:16): from past experience that

(00:25:18): that they're going to have such a negative reaction that it's not worth it.

(00:25:22): And that negative reaction could be that they get violent with you,

(00:25:25): or it could be that they get nasty with your children.

(00:25:28): It is retaliation.

(00:25:29): Or it could be that they spend your money or spend their own money frivolously,

(00:25:35): recklessly,

(00:25:36): leaving the family in a really tight squeeze that month.

(00:25:40): They can't pay the rent or something because he's retaliated by gambling away the

(00:25:45): rent money,

(00:25:46): for example,

(00:25:46): or spending it on some

(00:25:48): expensive computer or something um it could be sexual coercion you know that you

(00:25:53): know that if you say no to to whatever he wants to do sexually that he's going to

(00:25:58): take it out on you by doing something even worse or doing it more violently um or

(00:26:03): again that he's going to hurt the kids in some way if if you're not complying and

(00:26:11): um so it's situations of coercive control are situations where

(00:26:16): The victim doesn't have genuine autonomy and choices because they've ended up

(00:26:21): having to filter everything that they're doing through this lens of how's he going

(00:26:26): to react to that?

(00:26:27): Is that going to make him happy?

(00:26:29): Is that going to make him angry?

(00:26:30): Is he going to be aware that I've done this and backlash against me for it?

(00:26:36): Can I perhaps get away with doing it without him noticing?

(00:26:40): And so you started to tiptoe around in your own life, you know, we call it walking on eggshells.

(00:26:46): But for some victims and survivors,

(00:26:48): it's more like tiptoeing around a load of landmines rather than eggshells,

(00:26:53): because the explosion when it goes off is so bad.

(00:26:55): So

(00:26:58): There's a lot of perpetrators out there who don't use physical violence because

(00:27:02): they're smart and they realise that using physical violence gives the game away.

(00:27:09): It's something that our culture...

(00:27:12): frowns upon more than it frowns upon other kinds of abuse it's something that

(00:27:16): you're that the perpetrator is more likely to get into trouble about than any other

(00:27:20): kind of abuse not that they're particularly likely to get into much trouble anyway

(00:27:25): because our you know police and justice response to perpetrators is so pathetic

(00:27:29): most of the time or a lot of the time um

(00:27:34): But they know that if they're going to get caught and punished for anything,

(00:27:37): it's going to be physical violence.

(00:27:39): And also that that is the one thing that some victims and survivors,

(00:27:45): you know,

(00:27:46): that might alert them to the fact that this is abusive.

(00:27:49): And it might tip them over the edge from thinking this is a bad marriage into

(00:27:55): thinking this is an abusive marriage.

(00:27:57): So they'll deliberately not use physical violence so that you don't reach that

(00:28:00): tipping point so that they can keep you captured and keep exploiting you and

(00:28:05): dominating and controlling you for longer and longer and longer.

(00:28:09): But perpetrators,

(00:28:10): you know,

(00:28:11): they aren't geniuses and sometimes they miscalculate and they they use a tactic to.

(00:28:17): in a way that does backfire on them because the victim survivor does start to

(00:28:23): really think this is unbearable and I'm going to start to look for a way out.

(00:28:33): Yeah, I think that the use of violence is really complicated.

(00:28:36): But most perpetrators will only use it when they think it's necessary.

(00:28:42): So often they will use it if they feel like their non-violent means of controlling

(00:28:46): you are starting to not work.

(00:28:49): And then it will escalate into physical violence to try and scare you back into compliance.

(00:28:53): Yeah.

(00:28:55): On the other hand,

(00:28:56): some perpetrators use physical violence really early and really frequently because

(00:28:59): they calculate that they've got the victim survivor sufficiently entrapped that

(00:29:04): they can get away with doing that.

(00:29:06): And that might be a victim survivor who,

(00:29:08): for whatever reason,

(00:29:09): is really going to struggle to leave them,

(00:29:10): perhaps financially,

(00:29:12): perhaps for religious and cultural reasons.

(00:29:14): So they feel like they've got enough of an advantage that they can use that

(00:29:18): physical violence really early and frequently.

(00:29:23): So it's very calculated.

(00:29:24): It's very strategic on the part of perpetrators.

(00:29:28): It's strategic.

(00:29:29): It's functional.

(00:29:29): They're really making decisions as smartly as they know how.

(00:29:35): And the smarter they are, the better they'll be at that.

(00:29:38): And you do end up with a lot of perpetrators who don't use physical violence at all,

(00:29:43): but find many,

(00:29:45): many,

(00:29:45): many other ways to absolutely abuse and control and decimate the life

(00:29:50): of the person who they say that they love.

(00:29:54): So one thing I want to talk about with identifying abuse is one thing that we have

(00:29:59): all seen is that sooner or later,

(00:30:02): the dominant group,

(00:30:03): whether that's men,

(00:30:04): whether that's white people,

(00:30:06): whether that's wealthy people,

(00:30:07): will co-opt the language of social justice.

(00:30:11): So I live in the deep south of the United States,

(00:30:13): and one thing we see constantly is white people claiming that they're a victim of

(00:30:18): reverse racism.

(00:30:20): And

(00:30:21): I also see men insisting that actually they're the abuse victim when their partners

(00:30:28): do very normal things like imposing boundaries or saying no to sex or asserting

(00:30:33): their needs.

(00:30:34): And I think that in these controlling dynamics, because they become kind of a cult of one,

(00:30:41): it becomes very easy for women to believe that maybe they are the abusive one.

(00:30:45): You know,

(00:30:45): they'll Google a checklist of abusive behaviors and they'll see one thing that they

(00:30:49): did one time on that list.

(00:30:52): Can you speak to how abusers often make their victims feel like they're the bad guys,

(00:30:57): like they deserve it,

(00:30:58): like they've caused it,

(00:31:00): and how that dynamic works and also what victim survivors might do to assess

(00:31:07): whether they're really the abusive one or whether they're just being manipulated?

(00:31:14): I think that this is a really common issue, as you say.

(00:31:19): So perpetrators are excellent at getting victims and survivors to think that everything is their fault.

(00:31:26): So they structure whole arguments and confrontations around getting the victim survivor to think that.

(00:31:32): So for example,

(00:31:34): the victim survivor wants to do something very normal and very reasonable and go

(00:31:38): and see their friend.

(00:31:39): And the perpetrator says, you know, how could you want to see your friend?

(00:31:43): I need you.

(00:31:44): I'm having a crisis.

(00:31:45): My life's really bad at the moment.

(00:31:47): I need you here.

(00:31:48): You're so selfish and horrible and mean to me for wanting to go and see your friend.

(00:31:52): Or...

(00:31:53): They might get really sulky and quiet and express their displeasure that way.

(00:31:57): Or they might say, you know, if you go out tonight, I'm going to think that you don't love me.

(00:32:02): You're proving that you don't love me because you're not prioritizing me.

(00:32:06): And the victim doesn't.

(00:32:11): they don't realise that the perpetrator is an abuser.

(00:32:14): They still think that this is someone who they love and who loves them.

(00:32:17): So they're like, oh my gosh, I've made my partner feel this way.

(00:32:20): I must be communicating something really badly to him to make him feel that I don't love him enough.

(00:32:27): This must be my fault that I've created a situation where he doesn't realise how much I love him.

(00:32:33): And so she'll take responsibility, she'll back down, she'll not go and see the friend.

(00:32:38): But the whole

(00:32:39): The point of that tactic was that perpetrators need victims and survivors isolated

(00:32:44): because it makes them easier to control.

(00:32:47): Because if you have people who you can check in with regularly,

(00:32:51): who love you and support you,

(00:32:52): you're getting an outside perspective on it,

(00:32:54): which is totally undermining the perpetrator's ability to manipulate you.

(00:32:59): So the outside perspectives need to be cut off as much as the perpetrator can

(00:33:04): manage to orchestrate that.

(00:33:06): But they've set the whole thing up in such a way that the victim survivor walks

(00:33:09): away from that thinking it's their fault.

(00:33:11): They didn't communicate how much they love the perpetrator.

(00:33:14): They were being selfish for wanting to abandon them in their hour of need for

(00:33:18): whatever pretext that the perpetrator makes.

(00:33:22): So the perpetrator does just set everything up to make the victim survivor feel that way.

(00:33:28): And also,

(00:33:28): again,

(00:33:29): we're living in a society where women are told from very,

(00:33:33): very early on in their lives that relationships take work.

(00:33:38): Women are the more mature ones, the more emotionally intelligent ones.

(00:33:42): They're the ones who've got to do this work of making the relationship work.

(00:33:47): because men are too incompetent and unable to express themselves.

(00:33:55): You know,

(00:33:55): bless them,

(00:33:56): we need to look after them,

(00:33:58): given this kind of horrible narrative around it,

(00:34:02): which obviously I'm deeply critical of.

(00:34:05): So when an abuse perpetrator starts to draw on that narrative,

(00:34:11): it's very,

(00:34:12): very easy for the woman to fall into thinking,

(00:34:14): This is a relationships take work issue.

(00:34:17): I'm going to make the concession,

(00:34:19): make the sacrifice,

(00:34:21): use my emotional intelligence to try and make him feel more loved,

(00:34:26): give him what he wants so he'll feel happier.

(00:34:29): That will make the relationship work.

(00:34:31): So society and the perpetrator are working hand in hand to get the woman thinking that way.

(00:34:36): it'd be so much harder for a woman to get a man thinking that way,

(00:34:39): to get him thinking it's all his fault,

(00:34:41): that he needs to make all these sacrifices,

(00:34:43): that he needs to do all that work,

(00:34:44): because that's not the narrative that men have grown up with.

(00:34:47): So it'd be so much more of a tough ask for a female perpetrator,

(00:34:51): which is why we don't see very many women attempting this amongst other reasons,

(00:34:56): but that's definitely part of it.

(00:34:59): So yeah, it's just awful for the victim survivor because they spend years thinking it's all their fault.

(00:35:04): And

(00:35:05): even after they've separated from the abuser,

(00:35:09): separation doesn't mean that you suddenly understand everything that went on.

(00:35:14): People tend to separate because they get to a point where staying together is in

(00:35:19): some way intolerable and separation becomes an urgent necessity.

(00:35:26): But that doesn't mean that they've necessarily figured out all the ways the abuser

(00:35:30): was manipulating their thinking.

(00:35:32): So even after they've

(00:35:33): perhaps divorce the guy five years they might still feel that they were in part

(00:35:36): responsible and it was kind of their fault um so yeah these things can can sit with

(00:35:44): women for such a long time and it's it's totally unfair um and yeah i think we need

(00:35:50): to really we need to really hold in our minds what is reasonable and what is

(00:35:55): unreasonable and you know it's it is reasonable for a

(00:36:03): And it's reasonable for her to wear what she wants to wear and to look the way she wants to look.

(00:36:08): That's an important part of any human being's identity.

(00:36:12): And it's not reasonable of a man to try and control how she looks,

(00:36:16): control who she sees,

(00:36:18): to monopolize all of her time and her effort and her energy.

(00:36:23): As you say really brilliantly in your work, it's stealing her life.

(00:36:27): And that's not fair.

(00:36:28): So...

(00:36:29): Yeah, I think that perpetrators will really try and twist what is fair and unfair.

(00:36:35): But I think women need to hold in their minds quite strongly their understanding of

(00:36:39): what is fair and unfair because it will help them to reject people's attempts to,

(00:36:48): as you say,

(00:36:48): turn this all around and make them seem like the unreasonable one.

(00:36:53): And also there's a term for this where perpetrators say that they're the victims.

(00:36:57): It's a term your listeners use

(00:36:58): might have heard of, it's called DARVO, D-A-R-V-O.

(00:37:03): So that's a tactic that perpetrators really commonly use.

(00:37:07): And the D is for deny.

(00:37:09): The perpetrator denies that they were abusive.

(00:37:12): And then the A is for attack.

(00:37:15): They attack the credibility of the victim survivor, the memories that she has.

(00:37:21): They tell her that what happened didn't happen or that she's remembering it wrong.

(00:37:26): And then they reverse victim and offender, the RVO.

(00:37:30): So they say, you were the perpetrator and I was the victim.

(00:37:34): So yeah, DARVO, it's so common that there's an acronym for it.

(00:37:39): I think that's really important for people to know.

(00:37:42): You talk about...

(00:37:44): kind of our entire society coercively controlling women in a way and how so much of

(00:37:48): our culture is built around keeping women in these relationships.

(00:37:51): And one thing that I wanted to add to that that I'm seeing more and more is how

(00:37:57): women's parents often conspire against them with their abusers to keep them in

(00:38:03): abusive relationships.

(00:38:04): And this is especially common in very religious areas or very conservative areas where

(00:38:11): And so it becomes she's not just trying to escape her husband, but an entire system.

(00:38:18): And leaving her husband maybe destroys all of her relationships.

(00:38:22): It's just unbearable what we force so many women needlessly to go through.

(00:38:28): So we know this is terrible for women.

(00:38:31): What happens when we bring a child into this mix?

(00:38:34): Tell me why.

(00:38:36): This whole, well, he might be a bad husband, but he's actually a good father is just ridiculous.

(00:38:43): It's really ridiculous.

(00:38:45): I have a sub stack on this that I wrote a couple of weeks ago,

(00:38:49): and it's one of my free posts so anyone can read it.

(00:38:52): And it's called 10 Reasons Why a Coercively Controlling Father is an Unfit Father.

(00:38:59): I think that's the title.

(00:39:00): It might be slightly different than that.

(00:39:01): I'm just trying to remember it off the top of my head.

(00:39:03): But if you go onto my sub stack and you have a look for that post,

(00:39:06): 10 Reasons Why,

(00:39:08): and it's one of my more recent posts.

(00:39:10): I think it came out in July of 2024.

(00:39:15): Have a look at that post because then I really break it down for you more

(00:39:18): articulately than I'm probably going to be able to do in the next two or three

(00:39:21): minutes here.

(00:39:22): But just for starters, so...

(00:39:26): the victim survivor is walking on eggshells slash landmines all day long.

(00:39:32): The kids are going to be walking on those same eggshells and landmines because they,

(00:39:37): the kids also know that there's a lot of things that they can't do that they better

(00:39:42): not do because it will cause an explosion in dad.

(00:39:46): Just as the,

(00:39:46): as the adult victim survivor knows that the kids know that too,

(00:39:51): because the father is,

(00:39:52): um,

(00:39:54): he is,

(00:39:56): he applies the same entitlement and expectations of control and domination to his

(00:40:02): relationships with his children as he does to his relationship with his partner,

(00:40:07): especially if he has this mentality of,

(00:40:09): I'm the head of the household,

(00:40:11): so I control everyone in the house,

(00:40:13): wife,

(00:40:13): children,

(00:40:14): pets.

(00:40:17): So the children are also living with really constrained behaviour.

(00:40:21): They're constantly trying to work out, you know,

(00:40:25): what does dad want from me right now?

(00:40:27): Does he want me to engage with him and seem to be having fun with him?

(00:40:30): Or does he want me to shut up,

(00:40:32): disappear,

(00:40:32): pretend I don't exist,

(00:40:33): pretend I have no needs and basically blend into the wallpaper?

(00:40:37): A lot of mothers talk about their children becoming very quiet,

(00:40:42): very withdrawn,

(00:40:43): having speech delays because speaking to a perpetrator is so high stakes and

(00:40:50): You don't know whether he's going to be happy or furious with what you've said.

(00:40:53): So some children have speech delays where they just don't speak at all because I'm

(00:40:58): guessing they're scared to take the risk of saying anything.

(00:41:02): And perpetrators will also use children to manipulate the situation.

(00:41:07): So they'll use children to punish the adult victim survivor.

(00:41:10): If she won't do what he wants, they'll be nasty to the children.

(00:41:14): He'll also put her in a situation where she feels isolated as a mother and feels like a terrible mother.

(00:41:20): And he'll do that by criticising her mothering to the children,

(00:41:23): making them lose respect for her,

(00:41:26): making them treat her like dirt and have no respect for her.

(00:41:30): And he'll encourage and reward them to do that.

(00:41:32): So he's really damaging their relationship with their one safe parent.

(00:41:37): And...

(00:41:39): And he'll often present himself as the goody.

(00:41:42): So he'll let the children,

(00:41:44): for example,

(00:41:45): not do their homework,

(00:41:46): not have a bath,

(00:41:47): not clean their teeth,

(00:41:48): not have a bedtime,

(00:41:50): eat as much junk food as they want.

(00:41:52): As they get older,

(00:41:53): he might let them,

(00:41:54): you know,

(00:41:56): have a lot of freedoms that are dangerous and inappropriate.

(00:42:01): He's not monitoring whether they're safe or not.

(00:42:04): But he presents that to them as him being the goody, the fun one.

(00:42:07): And then the poor mum is trying to get them to do their homework and clean their

(00:42:11): teeth and eat a healthy diet and go to bed at a reasonable time so they're not exhausted.

(00:42:16): And she's the baddie because she's unfun and a killjoy.

(00:42:19): And that's how he's presenting it to the children.

(00:42:21): So then she feels like she's a terrible mother,

(00:42:23): that she can't do anything right,

(00:42:25): that she's a bad person.

(00:42:26): She's demoralized.

(00:42:28): She feels like leaving is impossible because she wouldn't be able to handle the

(00:42:31): children without him because they're so disrespectful towards her.

(00:42:35): So some perpetrators,

(00:42:36): like I say,

(00:42:38): they appear like the goody to the children,

(00:42:41): but what they're doing is actually really nasty and insidious and damaging for the children.

(00:42:48): Other perpetrators are hostile and mean to their children and make their children

(00:42:52): feel very frightened to be around them.

(00:42:55): and punish their children very harshly.

(00:42:57): Some perpetrators do both and swing back and forth between those two modes in a

(00:43:02): very scary and unpredictable way.

(00:43:04): And like I say, if you're attacked, I mean a child's mother

(00:43:11): is the most important resource that that child is going to have throughout all of their childhood.

(00:43:17): In most relationships,

(00:43:20): not in absolutely all of them,

(00:43:21): but in most relationships,

(00:43:23): it's the mum who is the one who is looking after that child day to day to day,

(00:43:26): who knows what their favourite things are and what they dislike,

(00:43:29): who knows,

(00:43:30): you know,

(00:43:31): not only their birthdays,

(00:43:32): but all their friends' birthdays,

(00:43:35): is the one who is,

(00:43:36): you know,

(00:43:36): is doing so much of the work of

(00:43:39): making that child's childhood a good childhood.

(00:43:42): And for the father to attack that mother,

(00:43:45): to break her down,

(00:43:47): to try and make her feel rubbish and worthless and useless and to blame,

(00:43:53): is to do a huge,

(00:43:54): huge,

(00:43:55): huge disservice to that child.

(00:43:57): It's so damaging to their child.

(00:44:00): So,

(00:44:01): yeah,

(00:44:01): I would say those are some of the reasons why,

(00:44:03): you know,

(00:44:05): even if he's not hit the children or not hit the mother in front of the children,

(00:44:08): He's still an absolutely appalling father.

(00:44:11): And then also let's remember that he'll impoverish the mother and he'll impoverish

(00:44:17): her perhaps during the relationship,

(00:44:19): but also post-separation,

(00:44:21): perhaps by constantly dragging her through the courts.

(00:44:24): And then he's taking away her ability to provide for the children.

(00:44:27): And again,

(00:44:28): taking away the ability of the one person on the planet who probably most wants to

(00:44:32): provide for those children and enable them to get on in life,

(00:44:37): taking away her ability to do that so selfishly because he wants to keep punishing

(00:44:43): her and punishing her and punishing her.

(00:44:45): and and thereby he's punishing the children too and he doesn't care about that um

(00:44:50): and post separation um he'll continue his campaign of abuse against the mother very

(00:44:55): often again just he won't he won't let it go he won't let her go and he just keeps

(00:45:02): doing this to the children's mother throughout their childhood and into their

(00:45:05): teenage years and into their adulthood as well

(00:45:08): You know,

(00:45:08): while you're talking about this,

(00:45:09): I'm thinking of someone I know,

(00:45:12): like a friend of a friend who I've known since childhood.

(00:45:17): And this person in childhood was neurodivergent and had like learning disorders and a number of issues.

(00:45:24): And the mom was a really good advocate for the child,

(00:45:27): really like working hard to try to get the child on track.

(00:45:31): And the dad just undermined every effort the mom made.

(00:45:36): And when they finally got divorced,

(00:45:38): the dad worked for years and years and years to harm the mother and especially to

(00:45:44): align the child against the mother.

(00:45:46): And so what ended up happening is that this child did get aligned against the mother,

(00:45:51): moved in with the father.

(00:45:52): And you can predict what that looked like.

(00:45:54): It was a very

(00:45:56): both permissive and authoritarian environment where the father didn't really have

(00:46:00): rules except for when the child was an inconvenience to him and then would become

(00:46:05): abusive toward the child.

(00:46:07): And then the child becomes even more aligned to the father.

(00:46:10): This is a strange dynamic with child abuse where the child will say,

(00:46:15): oh,

(00:46:15): I'd be so much worse if my father wasn't abusing me.

(00:46:18): And what ultimately happened is that this child, of course, who had a number of challenges in

(00:46:24): spiraled and spiraled and spiraled while still,

(00:46:27): you know,

(00:46:27): worshiping their father and ended up in prison and,

(00:46:31): you know,

(00:46:32): is an adult now and someone I know.

(00:46:34): And I was talking to him the other day and he said,

(00:46:39): you know,

(00:46:39): I've really been thinking since I've been in prison,

(00:46:42): I think that my dad abused my mom and turned me against my mom.

(00:46:47): And that if that hadn't happened, I might've had a different life.

(00:46:51): And this is someone in their late 20s.

(00:46:54): and it's taken them this long to realize, and their mother is now dead.

(00:46:59): So, you know, there's no healing with the mother, and the damage has been done to the child.

(00:47:06): And I think that this is perhaps a more extreme case, but I think it's common.

(00:47:12): I think a lot of people think that if the father is abusing the mother,

(00:47:15): the children will take the side of the mother.

(00:47:17): And

(00:47:18): I do think they tend to when they're smaller and more vulnerable.

(00:47:22): But I think with older children,

(00:47:24): dad can become fun dad and dad can become access to resources and he'll weaponize that.

(00:47:30): And I see over and over again with women I counsel where the father has turned the

(00:47:35): children against the mother and in so doing also done such immense harm to the

(00:47:40): children because he's never turning them against the mother and then providing them

(00:47:44): a stable environment.

(00:47:46): he's turning them against her and then providing them with the completely chaotic,

(00:47:51): unsafe,

(00:47:52): unhealthy environment because they're not people to him.

(00:47:57): Yes, I think this does happen in a number of cases.

(00:48:01): I think that from my own research, there's a number of factors that feed into how the children react.

(00:48:11): I think that

(00:48:14): Firstly, how is the father treated the children?

(00:48:16): Because for children whose father is pretty unrelentingly hostile towards them,

(00:48:20): there's not much to attract them towards him.

(00:48:23): It's more the children who...

(00:48:26): who have a father who's sometimes horrible, but sometimes very permissive.

(00:48:31): And like we said, fun dad, the goodie.

(00:48:33): I think those children are more vulnerable to that kind of scenario you just outlined.

(00:48:38): I think also, to what extent is the abuse obvious to the children?

(00:48:44): Is he very obviously abusing the mother in front of the children?

(00:48:48): If he is, then that tends to make the children more scared of him and less wanting to be around him.

(00:48:54): And

(00:48:56): If he's not,

(00:48:57): if the abuse is not that obvious to them,

(00:48:59): then that tends to make it easier for him to manipulate them in the way you described.

(00:49:05): I also think to what extent is it his goal to turn the children against the mother?

(00:49:12): Because for some perpetrators, that is one of their main goals and they really go for it.

(00:49:17): For other perpetrators, they don't seem as interested in doing that for whatever reason in their minds.

(00:49:25): Some are more interested in doing that than others.

(00:49:27): So if he's really invested in turning them against the mother,

(00:49:30): he'll probably have some success with that because he's putting a lot of effort in.

(00:49:34): But if he's not that interested in doing that, it's less likely to happen.

(00:49:38): And then finally, to what extent has he broken the mother-child relationship?

(00:49:44): Some perpetrators, the impact of their abuse on the mother is so bad that

(00:49:50): because they've really succeeded in torturing the mother,

(00:49:54): that the mother can't emotionally connect with the children anymore.

(00:50:00): Mothers have described it to me as they were in a state where they were just

(00:50:03): surviving in robotic mode,

(00:50:06): that their emotions had shut down,

(00:50:08): that they were kind of dissociated.

(00:50:13): And also that mothers have described situations to me where they couldn't

(00:50:17): they weren't allowed to show their children any love.

(00:50:19): If they did, they were punished.

(00:50:21): They weren't allowed to play with them.

(00:50:22): They were barely allowed to talk to them.

(00:50:25): And they were not allowed to have any fun with them.

(00:50:27): And if they tried to have fun with their children, they were punished.

(00:50:31): So in those circumstances,

(00:50:33): again,

(00:50:33): the children are very vulnerable to the dad getting them to align with him because

(00:50:38): they can't connect with their mother.

(00:50:40): But in circumstances where the children are strongly emotionally connected to their mother, I think it

(00:50:45): that is more protective of the mother-child relationship.

(00:50:48): But this is never the mother's fault.

(00:50:50): It just depends on how the horrific abuse of the father is affecting her.

(00:50:54): But it's never her fault,

(00:50:56): however it's affecting her,

(00:50:58): because she's a survivor of something absolutely horrendous.

(00:51:02): So,

(00:51:02): yeah,

(00:51:03): I think in my research,

(00:51:04): certainly,

(00:51:05): those factors made a difference as to what direction the mother-child relationship

(00:51:09): and the father-child relationships took.

(00:51:12): But that might not apply universally.

(00:51:14): But that's what I found in the research that I've done.

(00:51:17): But it's not like I've talked to every person on the planet.

(00:51:20): So that might not be the case for everyone.

(00:51:22): No, I think that's helpful.

(00:51:24): And again,

(00:51:25): you know,

(00:51:25): I appreciate that you say that it's never the mother's fault because,

(00:51:29): you know,

(00:51:29): these circumstances are largely out of their control.

(00:51:31): But I do think that it's helpful for people in these situations to kind of understand

(00:51:37): what dynamics tend to get which results.

(00:51:39): So, you know, for people to know that a strong mother-child bond does matter.

(00:51:45): Because what I see with a lot of these men is they get really jealous of the bond.

(00:51:50): So they'll be really opposed to breastfeeding or to co-sleeping.

(00:51:54): And they really want to disrupt that bond early.

(00:51:57): And so I think it's helpful for women to hear, no, you're right.

(00:52:01): You should cultivate that bond.

(00:52:02): And not only is that bond natural,

(00:52:05): but it's protective for you and your child's relationship.

(00:52:09): So I think that's a good thing to hear.

(00:52:10): Oh, absolutely, yeah.

(00:52:12): If you can, cultivate that bond with everything that you've got, even if you have to do it in secret.

(00:52:20): You know, I mean, one mother who I spoke with, her son,

(00:52:24): her abusive partner wouldn't allow her to comfort her child when her child was trying to get to sleep.

(00:52:29): The child hated going to sleep alone,

(00:52:31): but he wouldn't allow her to go to the child to cuddle her to sleep.

(00:52:35): But what she'd do is she'd wait for him to go to sleep and she'd sneak out of bed and cuddle that child.

(00:52:41): And that kept their bond alive.

(00:52:44): And he wouldn't let her play with the child when he was at home.

(00:52:47): But when he left the house, she played with the child.

(00:52:50): And, you know, she sees those moments where he wasn't there to keep that bond going.

(00:52:57): And, yeah, you mentioned that they're really jealous of the bond early on, but also later on.

(00:53:03): So,

(00:53:03): for example,

(00:53:04): a girl who I interviewed for my research,

(00:53:08): because I've interviewed children as well as mothers,

(00:53:10): mostly older children,

(00:53:11): like 10 years old plus.

(00:53:14): But one girl I interviewed, she was talking about a time when she was about,

(00:53:19): seven to 11 years old.

(00:53:20): She said that the perpetrator,

(00:53:22): whenever she tried to spend time with her mum,

(00:53:25): whenever she tried to cuddle her mum or watch a movie with her mum,

(00:53:27): he would come in and,

(00:53:29): and disrupt them.

(00:53:30): And, and, and they couldn't do that.

(00:53:33): Um, and now that they'd separated from him, they were enjoying doing that again.

(00:53:36): Um, so yeah, it,

(00:53:40): if anyone is listening to this and and reflecting on their own circumstances you

(00:53:44): know what is going on there where he's trying to disrupt that bond is is really

(00:53:48): serious and and it could have lifelong impact so if you can hang on to that bond

(00:53:53): you know really do try but at the same time it's a situation that is so difficult

(00:53:58): because the mothers have been put in a situation of relative powerlessness um so

(00:54:04): they don't have a lot of options but

(00:54:07): but at the same time human beings are really great at looking at situations where

(00:54:10): they don't have a lot of options and working out how they can work their way around

(00:54:15): that in in the best possible way um and choose the option that's least bad i guess

(00:54:21): um all human beings do that i think when they're confronted with an unreasonable

(00:54:25): power structure they look for ways around it um that's

(00:54:30): Little ways, invisible ways.

(00:54:32): That's something humans can, I think, are universally quite good at.

(00:54:37): I also think that's really helpful advice because so many people in these

(00:54:42): relationships can't leave or can't leave right away.

(00:54:45): Or they have a co-parent who is truly dangerous to the child.

(00:54:51): I had this horrific story,

(00:54:53): a friend of a friend who,

(00:54:55): you know,

(00:54:55): divorced her abuser and it seemed like everything was going okay.

(00:55:00): But he was given visitation with their toddler and he left the toddler unattended

(00:55:04): in the bathtub and she drowned.

(00:55:07): And I tell this story to young women because I want young women to know how serious

(00:55:13): their relationship choices can be.

(00:55:15): And I also want people to understand that there are reasons women don't leave.

(00:55:21): And it's not because they're not smart or they're not thinking or they don't have enough feminism.

(00:55:28): You know, like you said, people make the choices they can and they kind of hope for the best.

(00:55:33): And very often they're,

(00:55:36): yeah,

(00:55:36): very often also women are,

(00:55:38): you know,

(00:55:39): they know that the structures are against them and they calculate that it might be

(00:55:43): better to stay while the children are very young,

(00:55:46): where at least they can protect the children to an extent,

(00:55:49): rather than ending up in a situation where the children are spending a lot of

(00:55:53): unsupervised time with a very dangerous father.

(00:55:56): Yeah.

(00:55:56): And so their staying is protective of the children as much as they,

(00:56:02): you know,

(00:56:03): that's their understanding of the situation is that they're staying to protect the child.

(00:56:07): And they may well be right.

(00:56:09): You know, that might really be the best decision.

(00:56:12): It may or it may not.

(00:56:13): We don't have crystal balls.

(00:56:14): We can't know how things would have worked out if we made different choices.

(00:56:17): But

(00:56:18): But yeah, for a lot of women, they're not staying because they're being foolish.

(00:56:23): They're staying because they've made a very informed, realistic decision.

(00:56:30): And they're actually far smarter about the risks that the perpetrator poses than

(00:56:35): the system is,

(00:56:37): as you said.

(00:56:38): as the story you told at the beginning illustrates,

(00:56:40): where the court couldn't see how dangerous this guy was.

(00:56:42): And by the way,

(00:56:43): that guy in that story at the beginning,

(00:56:45): where he was talking about killing her,

(00:56:47): talking about killing himself,

(00:56:48): saying that he had nothing to lose and blamed her entirely.

(00:56:51): That is so, so, so dangerous.

(00:56:54): He is really at the point where he could kill her.

(00:56:56): So...

(00:56:58): That is so scary.

(00:56:59): And I'm just infuriated with that court and that judge for not recognizing that.

(00:57:04): It's so infuriating.

(00:57:05): And I am seeing this last week with my readers,

(00:57:10): this has been kind of the week of readers reaching out to me with their protective

(00:57:13): order stories.

(00:57:15): And the circumstances in which these women have been denied protective orders are shocking.

(00:57:20): You know,

(00:57:20): X is stockpiling weapons and has,

(00:57:23): you know,

(00:57:24): brandished a weapon against her in front of their baby.

(00:57:26): And she's made out to be the alienator kind of stuff.

(00:57:31): So I want to talk about the courts a little bit because,

(00:57:37): you know,

(00:57:38): we do still have this idea of children as a resource and as property.

(00:57:44): And we have this cultural idea that,

(00:57:47): you know,

(00:57:47): well,

(00:57:47): children need a father and children do need a father if he's a good,

(00:57:51): decent,

(00:57:51): involved father.

(00:57:52): Children need as many loving adults as possible.

(00:57:56): But it seems that the idea that children need a father has supplanted the idea that children need safety.

(00:58:03): And we now think it's more important for them to spend time with a father than it is for them to be safe.

(00:58:08): Can you talk about that and talk about that?

(00:58:11): How that has happened and what we can do to counteract that.

(00:58:17): So I would say that this whole narrative that it's more important for children to

(00:58:21): have a father in any circumstances than to be safe is all part of the backlash

(00:58:28): against women's rights and feminism.

(00:58:31): And it's a narrative that's been very carefully developed.

(00:58:34): pushed and pushed by people who are supporting the conservative family,

(00:58:39): the family that is headed by a man and who are very against divorce because they

(00:58:45): want men to stay in charge of families.

(00:58:47): There is no social science basis.

(00:58:50): There's no research basis that.

(00:58:53): for this claim that it's better for a child to have an abusive father than no father.

(00:58:58): So what the research shows us is that children do badly in circumstances of parental conflict.

(00:59:07): And children do very badly in circumstances where one or both of their parents is an abuser.

(00:59:14): So on the other hand,

(00:59:16): children thrive in circumstances where there's no conflict,

(00:59:20): very little conflict,

(00:59:21): and

(00:59:23): they're in a peaceful, harmonious home.

(00:59:26): And if they're in that home with one adult or with two adults or with four adults,

(00:59:31): if it's harmonious and peaceful,

(00:59:33): they're going to thrive.

(00:59:33): It doesn't matter how many adults are in that home,

(00:59:36): whether it's just the mum,

(00:59:37): this is the mum and dad,

(00:59:38): the mum and dad and the grandparents or whatever.

(00:59:40): If it's a harmonious, peaceful home, they're going to thrive.

(00:59:43): But as soon as you put a child in a situation of conflict where the home is very conflictual,

(00:59:48): very,

(00:59:48): very stressful,

(00:59:49): they're not going to do well.

(00:59:51): And it's going to be much more of a struggle for them to do well.

(00:59:54): And as soon as you put the child in a home where there's an abuser,

(00:59:59): then they're really not going to do well.

(01:00:00): And we have so much evidence from social science and psychology showing the harm

(01:00:07): and the damage that abusers do to children when they're in proximity to them.

(01:00:15): Yeah,

(01:00:15): I think that because children whose parents have divorced have been exposed to a

(01:00:20): lot of conflict,

(01:00:22): and it's that conflict that's then,

(01:00:25): you know,

(01:00:27): then there's been the,

(01:00:28): you know,

(01:00:29): parents have tried to find,

(01:00:32): one or both of the parents have tried to dissolve the conflict by divorcing.

(01:00:35): Then, sure, we see those children struggle more afterwards, but it's not because their parents split up.

(01:00:40): It's because of all the conflict that they were exposed to.

(01:00:43): And the divorce is just part of the story of, you know, the conflict.

(01:00:48): The parents didn't want to stay in that conflict.

(01:00:49): One of them or both of them didn't want to stay in it.

(01:00:51): So they split up.

(01:00:53): But it's not the divorce that hurt the children.

(01:00:54): It's the conflict.

(01:00:56): because we also see children whose parents stayed married,

(01:00:58): but in a lot of conflict,

(01:01:00): having the same struggles.

(01:01:01): So it's the conflict.

(01:01:04): But situations of abuse are more serious than situations of conflict, because abuse is so serious.

(01:01:10): And we see that children are struggling in multiple domains of their life, you know, whether it's

(01:01:15): they're educationally cognitively emotionally behaviorally um that that they're

(01:01:22): struggling because they've been exposed to an abuser and that abuser has chosen to

(01:01:27): expose the child to their abuse and let's put that blame on the abuser never on the

(01:01:31): victim survivor parent because the victim survivor parent as we talked about never

(01:01:35): signed up to be abused they signed up for this good relationship with this person

(01:01:39): who seemed really nice and then they got entrapped um so so

(01:01:45): child who's grown up with an abuser that is because the abuser chose to be abusive

(01:01:49): around a child the abuser could have walked away they were the one with the power

(01:01:53): they could have stopped being abusive and if they couldn't stop they could have

(01:01:56): walked away to protect the child they never made those choices they were the ones

(01:02:00): who made the child grow up with abuse not the victim survivor parent but yeah so i

(01:02:06): think that um that people who who are um very

(01:02:12): wanting men to stay the head of the household and to retain power as head of the

(01:02:16): household have been very successful at putting this idea into our minds that

(01:02:20): divorce is bad for children,

(01:02:21): but it's not the divorce.

(01:02:23): It's the conflict or even worse, the abuse, not the divorce.

(01:02:28): Children who have parents who divorce amicably and who parent peacefully and

(01:02:33): harmoniously as two separate parents,

(01:02:35): again,

(01:02:35): we see them thriving.

(01:02:37): I think that's really helpful.

(01:02:39): for people to hear because what I hear from women all the time is that they don't

(01:02:43): want to break up their family and they don't want to make their child become a

(01:02:46): child of divorce because we have convinced women that this is the worst possible

(01:02:51): thing that they can do.

(01:02:53): So you talked about the fun dad and we all kind of know that trope,

(01:02:58): but there's also kind of like the fun husband who is really nice and romantic

(01:03:04): sometimes and

(01:03:05): And I hear from a lot of women.

(01:03:08): In fact,

(01:03:08): I would even say like the majority of people who contact me wanting to know if

(01:03:11): their relationship is abusive,

(01:03:13): they start their letter with something like,

(01:03:16): well,

(01:03:16): my relationship isn't like most of the relationships you talk about because he's

(01:03:20): nice some of the time or most of the time or usually.

(01:03:25): And the thing that I always tell them is that the niceness is part of the abuse.

(01:03:29): So can we talk about the myth that abusive men are never nice?

(01:03:35): Niceness is integral to keeping you entrapped with the abuser.

(01:03:39): So it's very unlikely unless somebody is incredibly unable to leave,

(01:03:46): again,

(01:03:46): for like financial reasons or religious reasons or cultural reasons.

(01:03:52): If people have any choice to leave,

(01:03:54): then if their abuser is being unrelentingly hostile to them,

(01:03:58): they're going to take that choice and leave.

(01:04:00): And they're going to escape or attempt to escape the controller.

(01:04:04): The controller doesn't want their control to end.

(01:04:07): They want to keep going with their control.

(01:04:08): They want to keep exploiting their partner.

(01:04:10): So they have to be nice sometimes.

(01:04:13): Again, put nice in inverted quote marks.

(01:04:15): Because otherwise,

(01:04:16): any woman who had any choice,

(01:04:18): faced with unrelenting hostility day in,

(01:04:20): day out,

(01:04:21): would be leaving.

(01:04:24): Like I say, unless there were some really major, major obstacles in her way that were stopping that.

(01:04:31): So...

(01:04:32): the niceness is absolutely integral.

(01:04:35): Almost all abusers go through periods of niceness,

(01:04:39): indulgence,

(01:04:40): gift-giving,

(01:04:42): romantic gestures,

(01:04:43): because in order to keep their abuse up and running and to keep being able to

(01:04:47): control and to keep being able to exploit,

(01:04:50): whether it's exploiting you sexually,

(01:04:52): physically through your domestic labour,

(01:04:54): emotionally through being a sort of emotional,

(01:04:59): through treating you as though you're

(01:05:02): You're his therapist and responsible for all of his problems.

(01:05:06): Just to keep exploiting you, they have to keep you entrapped.

(01:05:09): And to keep you entrapped,

(01:05:10): they have to alternate between making you feel rubbish and making you feel special.

(01:05:16): And they have to make you think that they're still the nice person that they

(01:05:22): presented themselves to be at the start of the relationship.

(01:05:24): They have to make you think that the abuse is aberrant and not the norm and is not

(01:05:30): what the relationship is really like.

(01:05:32): So, yeah, these times of being nice are absolutely to be expected.

(01:05:37): They're totally predictable.

(01:05:40): But as you said, they are all part of the abuse.

(01:05:45): And most abusers cannot keep up being nice for very long,

(01:05:51): and nor do they want to,

(01:05:52): because they need to keep you feeling good.

(01:05:57): though about yourself, feeling unconfident, feeling like you're to blame, that it's your fault.

(01:06:01): They need to keep you feeling scared and nervous and apprehensive of how they're

(01:06:05): going to react if you disobey them.

(01:06:07): So the niceness cannot be all the time because then you start to relax and assert

(01:06:12): yourself again and be it.

(01:06:13): start to behave like a human being wants to behave,

(01:06:16): you know,

(01:06:16): that you have rights and that you're an individual and you want to pursue your dreams.

(01:06:20): So they have to keep all that squashed down.

(01:06:22): So they can't be nice for long, but they have to be nice sometimes.

(01:06:25): Otherwise, unless there's something really in the way, you would leave them.

(01:06:30): So yeah, it's all part of the abuse.

(01:06:32): Well, I think that's really helpful and it's what people need to hear.

(01:06:35): So my last question for you is this podcast, I'm trying something new that if listeners like,

(01:06:43): we may keep doing, which is that, as you all know, I do an advice column.

(01:06:47): And I thought it would be interesting to pose an advice question to our guest about

(01:06:52): something that she's an expert on.

(01:06:54): So I asked readers what they would like to ask you about.

(01:06:58): And here was a question that I thought was compelling.

(01:07:01): So Emma and I are going to talk about this question and we'll see what she thinks.

(01:07:06): Here it is.

(01:07:08): My husband has been sexually abusive to me, along with emotional and

(01:07:12): He's an authoritarian father who has never hit our children,

(01:07:16): but who has engaged in a wide range of emotional and psychological violence.

(01:07:20): I hate him.

(01:07:21): I can see how my kids are growing to hate him too.

(01:07:24): I want to leave,

(01:07:25): but I know he may get 50-50 custody and will almost certainly get some custody

(01:07:30): because the courts do not care about children and women beyond treating them like property.

(01:07:34): I hate my life with him.

(01:07:35): I hate that I cannot provide my children a stable home.

(01:07:39): I am terrified of what will happen to them alone with him.

(01:07:42): but I know that I would at least be able to provide stability at my house if I got him out.

(01:07:46): Is it better for him to stay and to expose them to his constant abuse,

(01:07:53): or is it better for me to leave and expose them to part-time abuse but with no

(01:07:57): protection from me?

(01:07:58): Yeah.

(01:08:05): Yeah, that's really heavy.

(01:08:10): And I know it's a situation that so many mothers are in.

(01:08:16): It's tough.

(01:08:18): Yeah, it is.

(01:08:19): It's so tough.

(01:08:20): I think maybe start with a risk assessment.

(01:08:22): I think with really young children where there's a situation where he might

(01:08:27): endanger their life,

(01:08:29): leaving them in the bathtub,

(01:08:30): giving them an allergen,

(01:08:32): I think then we might have to lean more towards staying.

(01:08:35): I think with older children,

(01:08:38): then we have to look at factors like,

(01:08:40): you know,

(01:08:40): what are the dangers that they would face alone with him?

(01:08:43): And are those dangers offset by having stability at home?

(01:08:48): Because I don't know.

(01:08:49): I mean, I think there's great value in having at least part-time stability, don't you think?

(01:08:55): I do think.

(01:08:56): And again, from the women and the children who I've interviewed with for my research,

(01:09:02): In some circumstances,

(01:09:04): the children were doing really well when they were having to see their father sometime.

(01:09:12): But the stable and loving and calm and safe home that their mother was providing

(01:09:18): was doing them a lot of good.

(01:09:21): I think how much custody is an important point because I think 50-50 is an awful lot of time

(01:09:29): for children to spend with an abusive father alone.

(01:09:33): But if it was less than that,

(01:09:34): if it was more infrequent,

(01:09:37): then it would be more worth it and it would be more manageable for them.

(01:09:43): Yeah, the 50-50 thing, like that's tough.

(01:09:50): And I get up on my soapbox about this a little bit.

(01:09:53): One of the things that I tell women is don't take legal advice from someone who's trying to hurt you.

(01:09:58): You know,

(01:09:58): the fact that he tells you he's going to take the kids or that he's going to get

(01:10:01): 50-50 custody doesn't necessarily mean that he can.

(01:10:04): And the fact that,

(01:10:06): you know,

(01:10:07): somebody in a support group you're in had this happen to them in a different state

(01:10:10): or country doesn't mean it's what's going to happen to you.

(01:10:13): You know, we have lots of different – I was just going to say that.

(01:10:16): Yeah.

(01:10:17): Lots of different legal systems.

(01:10:18): Yeah.

(01:10:19): yes and one thing you you often say in in liberating motherhood is that speak to

(01:10:26): local lawyers because it varies by by state and and know you know the lawyers know

(01:10:34): what the judges in your area are like um so yeah i think that's really important

(01:10:40): advice um one thing i want to do

(01:10:43): is read you some quotes from mums and children who were living apart from perpetrators.

(01:10:48): Oh, yeah, that's great.

(01:10:49): And in some cases,

(01:10:51): the children were still occasionally seeing the perpetrator,

(01:10:55): but it wasn't 50-50 because I think 50-50 is really hard for the children.

(01:11:01): But in some of these cases,

(01:11:02): they were still occasionally seeing him,

(01:11:04): but they were mostly living in the safe and calm home with their mum.

(01:11:08): So this mum, she's talking about her teenage son, and his name is John.

(01:11:12): These are not real names,

(01:11:13): but these are the names I used in my book,

(01:11:16): Coercive Control in Children's and Mothers' Lives.

(01:11:19): And I'm drawing the quotes from my book.

(01:11:21): So the mum says, John, her teenage son, he was painting the bathroom.

(01:11:26): He never would have done that before.

(01:11:28): His dad wouldn't allow it.

(01:11:30): And he dropped the paint and he thought I was going to go mad because his dad would have gone mad.

(01:11:36): So I come along and he says, you're probably not going to ask me to paint anymore, are you?

(01:11:41): And I said, don't worry, John, I will.

(01:11:44): Things like that, that his dad would never have allowed him to do.

(01:11:46): And then John said to me the other day, mum, will you teach me how to make pastry?

(01:11:51): because he wants to learn.

(01:11:54): And again,

(01:11:54): he never would have dared to ask that when his dad was around,

(01:11:57): because he would have been mocked for it,

(01:11:59): or he would have been criticized if it had gone wrong.

(01:12:02): It never could have happened before.

(01:12:04): But now these new horizons and opportunities were opening up.

(01:12:10): And another quote I want to read for you is, so where the mum says,

(01:12:22): about her and the children and the life that they have together.

(01:12:25): And her children were occasionally seeing the father.

(01:12:27): She said, we just support each other.

(01:12:30): We support each other, her and her daughters through cuddles and cups of tea and chocolate.

(01:12:36): We put on a film and snuggle up together.

(01:12:38): We know we're going to be there for each other and we do help each other.

(01:12:42): And we just know that we love each other.

(01:12:43): And they, she,

(01:12:47): They had this really nice relationship now, and it had taken years to get to that point.

(01:12:53): That particular mum,

(01:12:54): who we just heard from just then,

(01:12:57): when she'd first separated from her abuser,

(01:12:59): her kids were quite young,

(01:13:01): and he was one of those abusers who sometimes was really nice to the kids and

(01:13:04): sometimes was really scary with them.

(01:13:06): And they hated her for taking him away.

(01:13:09): taking them away from him.

(01:13:11): And they were really angry with her for about two years.

(01:13:14): But when I interviewed them,

(01:13:15): it was several years later,

(01:13:17): and they developed these really warm,

(01:13:19): loving relationships with their mother over time.

(01:13:21): And she was just able to stick out the initial hating and just hang in there and be

(01:13:27): a good mother to them.

(01:13:29): And they eventually, they really adored her by the time that I interviewed with them.

(01:13:33): I've rarely heard teenagers who adored their mum so much as those girls did.

(01:13:39): And another mother said about her little son,

(01:13:42): she said,

(01:13:43): I feel like now I can show him how much I love him and how fun and interesting he

(01:13:48): is and take an interest in him without worrying that his dad will stop me.

(01:13:52): We play lots of games together now.

(01:13:54): I've taught myself to play with him.

(01:13:57): And she described how even if she could have played with him before,

(01:14:01): like she wouldn't have been physically stopped before.

(01:14:06): she said she was so ground down by it all that she didn't have the mental ability

(01:14:12): to play with her son when she was being coercively controlled because she said,

(01:14:17): I was so ground down.

(01:14:18): She said, I was like this sad little woman trapped in a house and it was just not possible for her.

(01:14:25): But now that she was free and she had a lot of time with her son,

(01:14:30): just the two of them,

(01:14:31): as she said,

(01:14:32): she taught herself to play with him

(01:14:34): She taught herself to show an interest in him.

(01:14:37): And she said with a lot of pride that he was now giving her feedback like,

(01:14:40): you're a great mum and I'm really lucky to have you as my mum.

(01:14:44): And these were things he'd never said to her before.

(01:14:47): And that was meaning a lot to her.

(01:14:50): And the children who I spoke to in these sorts of circumstances where things were

(01:14:55): good with their mums,

(01:14:56): they said things about their mum like,

(01:14:58): she's always there and she's kind and she helps me.

(01:15:02): My mum makes everything better.

(01:15:03): She's always there for me.

(01:15:05): She would do everything in her power to help me.

(01:15:07): And one teenage boy said, mum's the parent I can rely on.

(01:15:12): So like I say,

(01:15:13): these kids,

(01:15:14): some of them,

(01:15:14): they were still seeing their father,

(01:15:15): albeit not particularly often,

(01:15:18): but they and their mums had got these really lovely relationships now.

(01:15:22): Not in all cases, but I want to illustrate what is possible.

(01:15:27): In some circumstances,

(01:15:30): having really good,

(01:15:32): healthy,

(01:15:32): warm relationships with children post-separation is possible.

(01:15:36): It really is.

(01:15:37): I love that because,

(01:15:38): you know,

(01:15:39): there's so much doom and gloom in this world and there's so much fear,

(01:15:43): rightfully so,

(01:15:44): because at every level the system is not biased or is not biased in favor of

(01:15:49): protecting children.

(01:15:51): So I think people need to hear that there is hope,

(01:15:54): that there is a path,

(01:15:56): that you do not have to sacrifice your entire life at the altar of these abusive people.

(01:16:03): And I would add in my own surveys of women,

(01:16:08): the overwhelming majority of mothers got way more than 50-50 custody.

(01:16:15): Almost all of them,

(01:16:16): like literally like 99.98% say that they don't regret leaving,

(01:16:20): that their lives are better,

(01:16:21): that their children's lives are better.

(01:16:24): It can be really hard and I don't want to discount that.

(01:16:27): But I think that

(01:16:28): There's hope on the other side.

(01:16:30): And I think that people need to know that,

(01:16:32): you know,

(01:16:32): there are options and there are resources,

(01:16:34): not enough resources,

(01:16:35): but you can be resourceful.

(01:16:37): You know,

(01:16:38): if you've lived with an abuser,

(01:16:39): you've learned a lot to survive day to day and you can use that to survive your way out.

(01:16:45): And absolutely.

(01:16:46): And it's just reminded me of something that another mother said that her abuser did

(01:16:50): a lot of post-separation stalking.

(01:16:52): And she said that she'd initially worked with the charity to try and establish some,

(01:16:59): this was like a domestic violence charity,

(01:17:01): to try and establish some sense of,

(01:17:07): some psychological peace for herself.

(01:17:09): So he wasn't getting to her constantly.

(01:17:12): He was driving by her house.

(01:17:14): He was doing it to upset her.

(01:17:15): She was trying to work with the charity to get to a point where

(01:17:19): where it wasn't upsetting her the way he wanted it to.

(01:17:22): And she'd achieved that for a while.

(01:17:24): And then he'd done something else and it had kind of thrown her off course.

(01:17:27): And she got really, really upset and felt really bad again.

(01:17:30): Rightfully,

(01:17:31): because,

(01:17:31): you know,

(01:17:32): it's awful that women have to put up with this and they have to try and train

(01:17:35): themselves not to feel upset that they,

(01:17:38): you know,

(01:17:38): they're absolutely entitled to feel.

(01:17:40): But at the same time, they don't want their abusers to still have this power to rule their emotions.

(01:17:47): And she'd gone back to the charity and she'd done more work.

(01:17:50): And she got back to a place where she felt like she had some psychological peace again.

(01:17:56): She felt more in control as a mother again.

(01:17:59): And at the point in time where I spoke to her, he was not succeeding with upsetting her despite his...

(01:18:06): his stalking tactics, which I should point out were not terribly severe.

(01:18:11): I don't think she was scared that he was going to kill her or anything.

(01:18:14): I mean, if it was more severe, then I can see why you would be terrified about that night and day.

(01:18:20): But it was more at the level of he was trying to play these mind games just to keep her upset.

(01:18:26): And she talked as well about having better mother-child relationships.

(01:18:30): And she said, like,

(01:18:31): She said,

(01:18:32): I'm a lot more chilled out with the kids now and I can let things go more and,

(01:18:36): you know,

(01:18:36): I can have more fun with them as a mother.

(01:18:40): Before she said I was very sort of tense about everything.

(01:18:44): And she said, no, I have just learned to chill out a lot more with the kids.

(01:18:48): And she said that was really helping those mother-child relationships.

(01:18:53): So,

(01:18:53): yeah,

(01:18:53): I think that it is possible to get to a place where not everything that he does has

(01:19:00): the power to hurt you anymore in some circumstances.

(01:19:03): But it depends how severe what he's doing is.

(01:19:06): But I think for some people it is definitely possible.

(01:19:08): And, yeah, that's hopeful.

(01:19:11): Well, I appreciate that.

(01:19:13): And I'm so glad that I got to have you today, Dr. Emma Katz.

(01:19:16): So I will put links to all of Emma's work in the show notes.

(01:19:21): She has a great book.

(01:19:22): She has a great sub stack.

(01:19:24): She's just a mega super genius on these issues.

(01:19:27): And you should read everything she writes.

(01:19:30): So if you like the show, I hope you will share.

(01:19:34): I hope you will review.

(01:19:35): I hope you will comment.

(01:19:37): And we will be back in two weeks.