Seeing someone you love struggle in an abusive relationship can break anyone’s heart. Especially if they’re being abused in your own home.
It is perfectly understandable that you would want to protect your family from an abuser.
Redditor genepooldesign encountered this very issue with his daughter’s boyfriend. So he turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for moral judgment.
He asked:
“AITA for calling out my daughter’s abuser?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I’m a 50 year-old male. I live with my daughter, 25, and her ‘boyfriend’ is also here.”
“My daughter was in a relationship with him before, and it was very toxic, and the second time around is just as toxic. This morning, I woke up to him yelling at her for some stupid sh*t.”
“I walked over to her bedroom door and said loudly ‘stop yelling at her or we’re going to have an issue.'”
That didn’t stop him from yelling.
“Later in the day, he was yelling at her again telling her she needed to get rid of her cats because they’re dirty animals and not worth a sh*t. I confronted him directly that time, told him to stop yelling at her or take a walk outside with me so we could settle it.”
“I have made it clear to him that whether my daughter is 25 o 50 I’ll stand up for her no matter what. I just won’t allow anyone to treat her that way.”
“After the last bit of bullsh*t, my daughter accused me of eavesdropping on them. The fact of the matter is that in all instances, I was doing my thing, minding my business and his voice yelling at he was elevated to the volume that it sounded as if it was in the same room.”
“AITA?”
Redditors gave their opinions on the situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Most Redditors agreed OP was not the a**hole.
“NTA – if you can hear him yelling at her then it is your business. Your daughter sounds like she has some Stockholm syndrome going on there.”
“I would talk to your daughter and tell her that it it is not right for him to treat her like that – and anyone not a complete idiot would say she is being abused. I would also take him aside and tell him the next time he raises his voice you will flatten him.” ~ Kiwi_bri
“This is exactly what happened to me and part of why I stayed with my abuser for as long as I did. (Though it wasn’t anyone in my family that called me stupid, thankfully)”
“NTA, OP. You sound like a great dad, keep fighting for your daughter. She will appreciate it so much down the road when she gets better.” ~ mrscommandershepard
“I’m so sorry you went through this. My experience was watching a friend go through this, I tried so hard to be there for her, and frankly we were all teenagers and a lot of our (then) mutual friends told her she was being silly, misguided, etc, and it just blew up so fast and was so horrible to watch :(“ ~ Rice_Abject
Some shared their own experiences, and some red flags to look out for.
“I want to add that the victim thinking they deserve it gives them the illusion of power in the situation which everyone from the outside can see they clearly do not have; a victim who believes they deserve it can say ‘oh, well I will just stop antagonizing them when I don’t make their favorite meal/don’t have the house spotless because they messed it up while I was doing something else/get a call from a person of their gender who is not them/talk to my friends/change my hair/wear make-up.'”
“In reality, the victim has no power, because they are NOT the cause of the abuse, but they are told ‘I do this because you make me so ANGRY’ and the blame (and thus the responsibility for the situation) is placed on them.”
“Thinking they deserve it is not some martyry woe-is-me self important idea, it is them thinking that their actions can be punished even if their actions are fine.”
“Therefore, telling someone who thinks they deserve it and thus they have some control that they do NOT have control is very dangerous. It’s scary to understand just how vulnerable you are.”
“People fight you when you try and say ‘yo, he’s abusive’ ‘No he’s not! He loves me but sometimes I am so dumb and he cares for me even though I am lazy and stupid! Who else will love someone lazy and stupid like me?’ And they get angry at you because the other option is to believe you and they don’t have a loving relationship like they think they have.” ~ HavePlushieWillTalk
“When you think your abuser is the best you could ever do and you’d be lost without them (because they make sure that’s how you see it), life with them seems normal.” ~ koshka42
It’s hard to hear how many people have suffered through an abusive relationship.
“I never knew this. I’ve thought for years, that if I just didn’t start fights, or if I had just not engaged when he started one then it would have been different.”
“I mean it was my father so maybe it actually doesn’t apply here. But my mother would tell me Just ignore him, Don’t engage, Just walk away, etc. I’ve just always thought if I would have listened to her then I never would have started all of the problems.” ~ MrsBarneyFife
“No, it applies, I promise. And you are wrong, you could never have stopped his behavior because it wasn’t YOUR behavior, it was his.”
“If you shut up when he started at you, he would have gone off on you disrespecting him by ignoring him.”
“Your mother was using you as a meatshield so she was not the one being abused. She put the responsibility on you to control him so she would be safer. She was wrong to do it. You never had any control.” ~ HavePlushieWillTalk
If you know anyone who needs help you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline 800.799.SAFE (7233) or find them here.