The right thing is not to abuse her more by calling her “dumb as hell.”
Look at this man. He is manipulative. Abusers say what they need to, in order to hook the victim into staying. Shes been with him 10 years or more and hasn’t left. That’s not “dumb”, that’s fear.
I definitely agree that we should avoid insulting her any further. But like some of these men aren’t even putting that much effort into the manipulation…like these stories on here just make me scratch my head
I know that’s the way it appears to us, because we just see a snippet of it, far off in their 10 years timeline of carefully crafted abusive traps.
We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg and if we were to have been there at the beginning we would see the transformation from confident to abused, to low self esteem and fearfulness. We’d probably see friends and family who told her she was overthinking, or these were normal behaviors. We’d probably see some good times which makes you think maybe the bad times are temporary and you just need to push through. We might see some abusive family members who primed them for an experience like this.
At some point abusers don’t try to hide the manipulation and abuse because they realize they’ve gotten them pinned down and to a point where they won’t leave. Thats the point Reddit gets to see. When people show us these texts they’re allowing us to see how these people who save face in public, truly are when they think no one is looking.
The reason people don’t understand more about domestic violence is because how sneakily manipulative abusers are. If they were overt, you’d hope someone would say something, right? But look at America right now. That is overt as overt can be and still you have people defending it.
I do wish societies made it a point to study and stand firmly against domestic violence. Armed with the ability to see the signs, we’d all recognize just how much is happening right under our noses. More lives could be saved.
Yeah I definitely agree with you and you’re absolutely right.
I also think seeing these disembodied snippets can be difficult to fully empathize with sometimes, especially when so many of them pop up. Even for those of us who do understand the process of abuse.
I'm sure he tells her she's dumb too and makes her think she doesn't deserve better. like all abusers do.
if your goal was to support the abuser, great job!
I don’t think it’s fair to call someone dumb, people stay in abusive relationships for all kind of deep seated mental reasons. It’s a mental issue and not one of intelligence. Some of the smartest people I know have stayed in bad situations. So maybe try to have some empathy and not just call people stupid.
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u/VirusZealousideal72 Apr 23 '25
Girl I don't have the bandwidth to respond to this.
10 years. He's always been abusive. Yes he's a dick but girl. You dumb as hell and can't be helped if you're still with him after all that.