Going back to an abusive partner

Hi, my girlfriend and I recently broke up so that she could go back to her ex, we're still in contact and on relatively good terms. He was alcoholic, mentally abusive, and physically abusive. She has children with him, and wants to go back to him to try to have an unbroken family. They were separated for one year, he's been off the alcohol for 6 months, and has now convinced her that he won't be abusive again (he always used alcohol as an excuse for the abuse).

Has anyone been in the same or similar situation as her, and went back to an abusive ex?

Did it or didn't it work?
Did the abuse reoccur?
What advice would you give her?

The advice i would give you is to respect her choices and not try to change or advise her. If you want to help her, you can tell her that she can call you when she needs support or assistance.

Alcohol is a excuse abusers use, There is never a excuse to hit a woman, Like the saying goes a leopard does not change its spots, Its just a vicious cycle and they are in the honey moon stage, Has he had counseling, She needs to go to domestic violence counseling, He will probably abuse her again if he doesn't get help

From what I'm told, he's on medication to stop him drinking, not sure about therapy or counselling. I know she's had regular psychiatric appointments.

I wouldn't give her any advice. But here's my advice for you: Don't let her hang on to you, as her security blanket when things between her and him get rough - as they will. She needs to pick a relationship and commit to it. Keeping you, on the side, as her special confidant, would mean she's not really committing to being with him.

The best thing you can do is not hang around hoping she'll come back to you. She's just not that into you. She still loves him. That crap about wanting to have an unbroken family is just something she said to try and spare your feelings. She doesn't want to come out and tell you that she prefers him to you.

What you need to understand is that women are capable of staying in love, even after being abused. She's going back to him because she wants him.

Some abusive men have charisma. Some women get hooked on that charisma, despite the abuse. Some of them never get to where they can love a man just because he's a good guy. You'ld be smart to avoid women like that. They'll only use you.

I agree with Rose. There are some women that feel they need a husband to help with their Children. She may just have an old fashioned idea of family or feel that it is better for the kids.

I disagree with this and divorced my alcoholic ex-husband and never regretted it for a moment.

She is not to that point yet. She needs to get there on her own.

I agree that Bill's advice, while most honourable, may only encourage her to make a bad choice. Because after all, if it goes wrong, she still has you.

She should know she should not take the risk. Both because of the risk to her as to the risk to the relationship you are having. I would tell her very firmly that if she goes back to him, she should never call you if she ever gets into problems with him again. You don't want that drama.

And if that actually happens and she contacts you anyway, you still have the option to do something, depending on the details. Hopefully she does not takes you lightly and will believe you when you say this. So she knows she cannot count on it.

I think it's best to wish her luck and let her go. You shouldn't set yourself up in a love triangle with an abusive spouse. He might unleash on you. She has chosen him over you, for whatever her reasons. Let her go.

I would advise her to get and keep her own money; have an escape plan; the minute he starts again, leave and never go back; and recognize that the abuse she might be able to forgive will have scarred the children.

And for you? I'd give this advice. Allow her to come back to you once. Then if she pulls this again, say you're not going to allow yourself to be used as a cooling-off place.

We can not change other people, only ourself.

If I were you I'd move on and let her deal with her decision. And to answer your question, I have gone back to an abusive ex and on a drunken night he strangled me unconscious. I was in a neck brace for a week and haven't seen him in 4 years. I hope I never see him again and I'll be damned if I give another abuser the chance to hurt me. Even if they're drunk... That doesn't mean they won't eventually act out down the road sober. People like that are a ticking time bomb and only time will tell. But this relationship is really not your business and you should just let her go to figure it out herself.

It can take several attempts to leave an abusive relationship. It's more than frustrating for an outsider looking in to observe and watch. It must be heartbreaking for you?
Staying together for the kids is a complex topic and it's more difficult because of high societal pressure as much as many would say doesn't exist, it's there and insidious for any person considering leaving.
I agree that it's not true. Children living with alcoholism/addiction and a presumed personality disorder which I mention because of the abuse, aren't left unaffected. They might not be on the receiving end of the blows, but life in a hostile home cannot be healthy. Gosh, my teen, recently needed to note a key figure that was affected by their parent for a homework assignment. My son gravitated right to a celebrity whose father was also an alcoholic. I gasped to realize how much he identified with this famous person. My son was 7 when I divorced his father.

There is the burden of finances in leaving. There is the burden of the two parents at all cost societal pressure. There's logistics and more.

And as someone else pointed out, removing the alcohol alone might not resolve things. My ex is a miserable dry drunk, to be honest.

I think people can change if they really want to but they have to get the help needed to do so. And their actions need to show that they are changing. Words mean nothing. In my experience with an alcoholic, abusive--mentally and physically, husband he would say he had changed and I'd go back only to find that things always went back to the same way. I think your ex-girlfriend needs to put her children first and do what is in their best interest. I also don't think it is fair to keep you on a string while she figures out whether her husband will be better this go around. My heart hurts for the children being put through all of this.

Of course he can change. But he can try that with some one woman. Not the same one.
As for how many people actually do chance, I guess the number is low.

From my experiences my ex-husband never changed for a long period of time. I regret going back to him so many times. I believed his foolish lies and was only hurt worse each time. And the very worse part of it is that my children suffered from being in that type of environment. I'm older now and know better now. Only wish I would have knew better back then and wish I would have had a healthy support system to help guide me.

I fear for the outcome of this situation.

If you want to try to stop being physically abusive in a relationship, it is so much easier to do when that person is a different new person. If it is the same person, the same patterns of behavior have already been ingrained, and it would be hard to not follow them.

You have received some really good advice here. I would listen to it even if it's not easy advice to take emotionally. People make their choices like GF going back to her abusive ex. The choices we make either work or they don't & we have to deal with the consequences good or bad.

Don't waste your time waiting to see what the consequences end up being or hanging around to give her support from the side line to keep a door open for her. Commitment to go back needs to be commitment to make it work without an ex BF on the side line.

Get on with your life & don't wait around to see what the consequences might be. If it's her choice to go back to him, that means she still has feelings for him that she doesn't have for you.....good time to just make the break & leave it at that.

I participated in a program for victims of DV. In my case, it was not physical, but verbal/emotional. My level of distress was truly not severe, but I was invited into the program anyway. Though I did not consider my situation anything remotely like the situations of other participants, I availed myself of the opportunity to learn some things.

One of the things they stressed (and these were counselors who specialized in domestic abuse) was exactly what Talthybius just said in the post above. They said this is based on careful studies that have been done researching these homes. IF a man who has been physically abusive ever does change, it will almost never be for the woman he has a history of smacking around. If he changes, it will almost always be in the context of a new relationship.

An example of that is actor, Sean Connery. He had a history of battery against his first wife (according to her,) but not in the case of his current wife. See the link below for some insight into the mind of a batterer:



As Connery explains to Barbara Walters, he does not view hitting a woman as wrong, if the woman sufficiently provokes the man - like by being really annoying. Interesting mindset.

Some men truly believe that hitting their women is a male prerogative, like having the right to discipline their dogs. I think these men have an instinct for sensing whether or not a woman will tolerate being hit. Women do differ in their tolerance of violence in men.

I heard on a radio show that Nicole Simpson supposedly came home from her first encounter with O. J. wearing ripped clothing. He had gotten that aggressive with her right at the get-go. When a friend expressed concern, her response, supposedly, was that she didn't mind so much because she really liked O. J. There's another interesting mind set.

People gravitate toward each other for reasons. There is some kind of magnetism between the OP's former gf and her ex. It's not just about her wanting an intact family for her kids. Idealing, she'ld like to have her ex, despite his violence, and a spare guy on the side who can be the gentle comforter. A woman like that is trying to avoid making a necessary choice.

I was in a really bad domestic violence relationship, I was with my abuser for years and he always felt bad and said he would never do it again, I would take him back over and over again because I loved him, But loves does not hurt, The time I finally ended it with him was when, I told myself, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, For your sake move on and find another woman to be with, She is holding on to you so she can come back to you when he beats her again, And then he will beg her back with his tears saying he will never do it again and she will go back to him again, Trust me on this and what I am saying, I have been there, Its just a vicious cycle