Divorce Support Forums: sister stuck in abusive relationship with children

Get in touch with the domestic violence advocates in your local area and get educated on this. YOur sister needs a safety plan for how to leave her husband. Once you have a better understanding, ask for them to help you find thier counterpart in her current home state. THAT group will be the one she needs to be in touch with.

FInally, understand that this is her choice. She needs to take the steps and do what needs to be done. There is nothing you can do to force it. Recognize that it's quite possible that there are pieces of the story that you are missing... usually, when something sounds too good to be true or too scary to be true... it is. USUALLY, it's not as good or as bad as it sounds. SOMETIMES... VERY rarely, it's even better or even worse... but more often, it's not as good or not as bad. It's never exactly what you think... not being the one living right there. Almost no one in this world is entirely evil, and almost no one is entirely innocent, entirely a victim. Do not let yourself get pulled into a drama where things get exaggerated and twisted and defended without understanding this. Understand that it's quite possible that your sister may be reluctant to leave as she should, possibly BECAUSE she KNOWS that she is not ENTIRELY innocent... it's possible that she's hidden some part of this from her, or maybe she's exaggerated his fault... whichever it is... she wanted you to take sides... and now she knows you've taken sides so she's LESS likely to follwo your recommendations because she knows YOUR recommendations come from someone who may not konw the whole story. NOT that your recommendations are not good... but that SHE may have some lingering sense of guilt over not telling you something... somethign about herself, something about him... SOMETHING.

She could be right, that she's missed telling you some vital thing that SHOULD make you feel less polarized in her favor... but what often happens in a violent situation is that the woman (usually it's the woman who reports violence and gets help for being a victim, the men who are victims of violence tend to not support it)... what happens is the woman knows that she maybe exaggerated something, somewhere along the line... she has been told for years that SHE is responsible for the abuse he is doling out (that's an abuser's common tool, putting blame on the victim)... and she feels that maybe she is wrong and she wants to keep that private. She fears being judged for the things she has done wrong... and so she is reluctant to take action.

And the other part of this is a financial paralysis. For whatever reason, a truly victimized person seems to think that they'll be incapable of making things work if they leave. THEy seem to feel it's better to remain with an abusive, controlling jerk, than to have to figure out how to live in poverty. They envision financial disaster for themselves. They have a skewed idea of it... they either think thier abuser is rich and will withhold money from them (and he's not that rich so the only reason they'll be financially stressed is that EVERYONE in a divorce is financially stressed)... OR they KNOW thier abuser is rich and they somehow believe that means he will have the power to use this money to abuse them (not true, if they find proper legal help. Anyone married to a truly high earner will be able to find a lawyer to represent them because the lawyer knows the judges will make the rich one pay the poverty-striken one's legal fees... AND that there are standard ways for the property to be divided so that it's HIGHLY unlikely that she'll be destitute if such a situation was not fair in the end). BUT she needs to understand that she needs to never let finances decide that she should stay in an unsafe place or let her children witness violence. That needs to be the bottom line.

BUT be very careful of being too forceful in telling her what to do. SHE knows better about what the whole story is. She needs tons of support once she makes the decision, but let HER be the one to make it. IF it's truly a dangerous situation (assuming that your perception is closer to completely accurate than an exaggeration), then the most dangerous thing she can do is leave him. This is why she needs a safety plan. The leaving of a truly violent and obsessed spouse needs to be planned out in advance with the precision of a military action, and the domestic violence advocates will help you with this. She'll need a short term immediate safe place to flee to just in case there's a flare-up emergency. She'll need a financial resource, a way to communicate, a list of numbers and a list of resources. She needs her safety stuff to be stashed away in a place she can easily get it where he will not block her access to it.

If she's in immediate danger, many shelters will offer a cellphone that's recycled from donations (I always donate to this cause, all my old cellphones are being used for this purpose)... they will set them up to have chargers and access to the local police department at the touch of a button. All she needs is a place to hide the phone and charger that he doesn't inspect regularly. For some highly intrusive situations, a pastor or neighbor can be the place where she keeps her safety plan items.

She will want to find and copy all possible account inforamtion, social security numbers, id numbers, account numbers and amounts of retirement accounts, credit accounts, etc. She will need to expect accounts being closed to her if he has their numbers. It's good to have a separate account setup just in case she needs it. The people at the local DV shelter should be able to help her find this kidn of help.

THey will also know the intricacies of whether she can take her cildren from the house and under what conditions she can do this.

Please get her in touch with those people, and offer every kind of help she will need once she makes the decision to leave... but as I said... let HER be the one to make this decision.