By Diana Holbourn
Becky and Other Students Discuss Psychopaths, Wife Beaters, Lead Poisoning Scandals and Other Depressing Things, but Also Have a Laugh
Book four of the online Becky Bexley series. Chapter 4 continued.
This series accompanies the books about what Becky does at university and afterwards, which you can find out more about on my author website. (The online series is in draft form.)
The students decided to get some more food and drink.
When they'd sat down again, Jessica, the one who'd told them a week or so earlier about the fun she'd had on a forum with a man she'd called Psychopops, and how he'd then turned nasty and abusive, after which she'd written a mocking story about him for her own amusement, said she'd written another one about him after he'd been banned from the forum and she'd started missing being entertained by him the way she had been before he turned nasty. She said she'd decided to compensate for it by entertaining herself by writing funny stories about him. She asked the other students if they'd like to hear another one she wrote, and they said they would. She said, "OK, I'll tell you one. It starts off sounding a bit gross, but it gets amusing after a while. It goes:
"Here's some information that until now has been classified, in the top-secret archives.
"Psychopops was fond of going to nightclubs and starting fights, and then dragging unsuspecting women onto the dance floor and making them have sex with him right there and then, even though they would often be trodden on. He seemed to be so hyped up with adrenaline or drugs that he just didn't care about the pain being trodden on was causing him. The women often yelled out, but he couldn't hear what they were saying over the loud music, and interpreted the noise as cries of pleasure, which inflated his ego no end.
"One night, he was being abusive to a woman he'd decided was just about to be one of his conquests when her older brother saw them, and was angry, especially because Psychopops was harassing her physically. He marched up to them and kicked PSYCHOPOPS hard. Then he pulled him away from his sister, shouting. Then he kicked him again. PSYCHOPOPS thought that was a splendid opportunity for a fight, although he wasn't pleased at having been interrupted. But before he knew what was happening, the girl's brother called a few of his gangster friends over and they dragged PSYCHOPOPS away. They told him they were going to punish him. They managed to drag him home with them.
"A few of PSYCHOPOPS's kidnappers were about to go on an exotic holiday to a Pacific island, and decided to take him with them. They were hoping to kill or torture him somewhere far away from the public gaze where there were few people to question them, and then come home leaving him there, thousands of miles away, with no means of getting back. They forced him into a big crate and shut him in, having put tape over his mouth and handcuffed him. Then they posted him to the hotel they were going to stay at. They paid the postage with money they found in his pockets.
"When they were all there, they got PSYCHOPOPS out of the crate and told him what they planned to do. He was a bit weak from hunger and thirst, so he couldn't protest as much as he'd have liked to. A bridge had recently been built from one of the Pacific islands to another, and they suspended him underneath it, hanging him up by the thumbs with string they tied to the bridge. They told him that if he complained, they'd obligingly let him free. They'd cut the string, and he'd fall into the ocean where he'd probably be eaten by sharks. They left him there for two hours.
"He didn't protest that entire time. He was in agony, but he thought crying out or begging for help would make him look like a pathetic wimp, so he resisted the temptation. That was apart from the fact that he didn't want the gangsters to cut him free so he'd fall into the sea and be eaten by sharks.
"The middle of a busy public bridge was a foolish place to punish PSYCHOPOPS. Lots of people saw him, and were impressed by his bravery at suspending himself beneath a bridge above a sea of sharks. At least, they thought he must have arranged the whole thing himself, as some kind of daredevil stunt. The media were called, and a film crew and other journalists came to look. Soon word got round and there were lots of them. PSYCHOPOPS didn't tell them what was really happening, even though he would have been rescued if he'd called for help, but it would have been embarrassing to have admitted to what really happened, and his ego was flattered mightily at the thought that he was going to be on the news all over the place for performing an impressive daredevil stunt. His punishers also didn't admit to what they'd done, because it would have been considered a criminal offence. So they were willing for him to be treated as a celebrity who'd done an amazing daredevil stunt, and said they'd helped him. He got in a lot of the papers and all over the news all over the world.
"His arms hurt for days afterwards, and his thumbs for longer. But he wasn't about to tell anyone that. It would have damaged the image of the invincible brave daredevil he was cultivating.
"Journalists lined up to interview PSYCHOPOPS. There were news reports about him all over the world. He was hailed as a sensation. A film producer even asked him if he'd like to be a stunt man in his next film. PSYCHOPOPS would be expected to swim in a tank of piranha fish, hang from a cliff face by one hand as he held a briefcase said to contain the latest top-secret weapons technology design plans with the other, stroke the head of a venomous snake, and be dangled upside-down from a bridge over a railway line, only being hauled up seconds before a train hit him.
"PSYCHOPOPS knew he risked death, but he agreed to do the stunts, because he knew the admiration from fans who'd think he was a superhero would be worth the risk, especially the admiration from the female ones.
"He was admired. Even after he flew home, thousands of adoring fans flocked to look at him and get his autograph. Hundreds and hundreds were female, who didn't just want that. They'd heard about his amazing stunt of being suspended by his thumbs under a bridge for two hours without flinching, and thought he must have an amazing tolerance for pain, and incredible stamina and bravery. They wanted babies with his impressive pain tolerance, stamina and bravery genes; so they flocked to see him by the hundred to procreate with him.
"PSYCHOPOPS procreated and procreated for weeks and weeks on end, whenever he had a spare minute. He often procreated with several women a day. He'd never procreated so much in his life! He was having a wonderful time. He loved his life! Sometimes, he took several days off work, just so he could spend the whole day procreating. Women queued up to procreate with him.
"Word got around about how he'd used to have sex on the dance floors in nightclubs and how he hadn't flinched even when he was trodden on. Crowds of women admired him even more! What a daredevil, they thought, to have sex on a crowded dance floor! And what fantastic pain tolerance he must have if he carried on even when he was trodden on! Women marveled at what an amazing person he must be! They didn't realise his supposed conquests hadn't actually wanted to have sex with him. And it didn't occur to the ones who wanted his genes in their babies that if he really was that oblivious to pain, it would likely be dangerous, since part of his body could get injured and he wouldn't know, and it might get infected and be seriously damaged before he realised what was happening, and babies would not fare very well if they had those genes. They didn't think of that. They crowded to him in their hordes to get copies of his wondrous pain tolerance, stamina and bravery genes in the babies they were hoping to have with him.
"The women who wanted to procreate with him weren't all that intelligent. They had just accepted the idea that the reason he had stayed suspended under the bridge by his thumbs for two hours and didn't mind being trodden on in nightclubs was because of his tremendous stamina and pain tolerance. PSYCHOPOPS wasn't going to let anyone know the real reasons why he'd put up with those things. And he didn't care if the women who queued up to procreate with him weren't intelligent enough to see through his glorious image and wonder what had really been going on. As he'd say to any man who'd listen, he 'only wanted them for their pussies'.
"PSYCHOPOPS started to feel very proud of himself! He started feeling like a genius who was irresistible to women, as if he could make them all his sex slaves with just a look of his eyes. He felt superior to them and contemptuous of them because they fell for his phony image so easily, so he started mistreating them. He would say things to them like, 'Stand outside the door you dumb bitch, till I've fucked one of my other bits. Then I'll get to you', and, 'You need to come up to the standards I lay down for you and the thousands of other women who want to be fucked by me. Show me why I should consider you worthy, bitch'.
"Some were put off by that. He hadn't expected that; he thought he was so irresistible he could say what he wanted and they'd always come back for more. But some of them even contacted the radio station he said he worked at and told them what had happened, complaining. PSYCHOPOPS had told them he worked at a different radio station to the one he really worked at, so they wouldn't be able to contact him where he really worked. He loved to boast to them about working for a radio station, so they'd admire him even more than they already did, and then he'd feel even more proud of himself than he already did; but he told them he worked at another station instead of the one he really worked at; so that station got all the complaints.
"PSYCHOPOPS was procreating so much he was becoming sleep-deprived. So sometimes he couldn't think clearly any more. He'd told the lie about the radio station he worked at so often, he was sleep-deprived one day when he started thinking he really did work there. He stumbled bleary-eyed into that radio station to go to work. He was puzzled when they asked him what he was doing there. When they became sure of who he was, they laughed. They sat him down and got all the letters from the women he'd said abusive things to. Someone read them out loud, while the others sat around PSYCHOPOPS and roared with laughter at what the letters said, because they made him look like an idiotic hooligan. He was very embarrassed. He remembered he worked at the radio station he really did work at, and got up and stumbled hastily out of the other one, with roars of laughter echoing behind him.
"He didn't boast to the women about being a radio DJ after that. And he thought he'd better be nicer to them. More and more kept coming to see him, partly because some of them had husbands who thought of themselves as tough guys who wanted their sons to be as tough as them, or they wanted them to make them proud by going to war and helping to win glorious victories against other countries when they grew up. They actually ordered their wives to go and procreate with Psychopops. Most of their wives didn't mind, because they thought it would be a great opportunity to get away from their bullying husbands, and they liked the idea of procreating with a famous daredevil DJ.
"Sometimes the queue of women waiting to procreate with Psychopops stretched for miles. He was having a lovely time!
"He became so proud of himself he began to believe every woman in the world must want him. He thought he must have the skills to seduce any woman he wanted, and became convinced all women were already in love with him. Every one of them.
"Prince William and Kate Middleton went on holiday to a place near where PSYCHOPOPS lives, and he decided he'd like to meet them. He managed to get close to them one day when they were relaxing having a private picnic, far from the adoring crowds. He said to Kate Middleton, 'You can come up to my room afterwards and beg me to fuck you if you like, but since so many women want to do that already, you'll have to show me why you're worthy of my attentions.'
"Kate was shocked and told him to go away. He said, 'Don't play hard to get. I know you're in love with me. I can tell by the way you glanced at me when I came to sit beside you. Don't be coy now. You're just like millions of women who I turn into my bits every day with a lazy glance of my eyes. Come to my room soon, and if I consider you worthy, I'll fuck you just like you want to be fucked."
"Kate and William thought he was a nasty vulgar man, and assumed he must have a mental illness called erotomania, where people are convinced that certain people, often celebrities, are in love with them, even though there's no evidence for it, or they don't even know them. Kate said to one of her security staff, 'Get this nasty little man out of here!'
"The security man said to PSYCHOPOPS, 'Are you going to leave willingly, or am I going to have to eject you by force?'
"PSYCHOPOPS managed to realise that a story about him harassing members of the Royal Family and then being thrown out was one he didn't want all over the news. What would that do to his image! So he left voluntarily. He didn't mind much. He still had women queuing up for miles waiting for him to toy with them and give them a copy of his genes.
"PSYCHOPOPS has an exotic long name. He uses a short and snappy pseudonym on the radio and on forums. But his real name is Iamaliar Playerandsociopath. So all the poor children he's spawned will have the surname Playerandsociopath.
"PSYCHOPOPS procreated and procreated, and procreated some more! He procreated for weeks and weeks on end till he was tired out, until tales of his tremendous stamina and pain tolerance went out of the news. He'd never have believed it could happen, but he even started wanting a break from procreating by then. So he didn't mind when fans stopped coming to see him for the service.
"Since that time, hundreds and hundreds of babies have been born with PSYCHOPOPS's genes. I don't know how long it'll be before the parents of many of the poor little blighters decide to test out their pain tolerance and stamina by having the kids suspended under bridges by their thumbs or other such cruel things. Hopefully they won't do that. But if their children are disappointments, having no special pain resistance and bravery after all, they might want to bring them back to PSYCHOPOPS and leave them with him, saying his genes aren't that good after all. They might even demand compensation for the years they spent feeding the children and paying for other things for them, only to realise they'd been given goods that weren't up to the quality they'd been led to expect they'd be of. It may be that one day, PSYCHOPOPS will find himself surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of poor little children. I don't know how he'll cope.
"He might also find himself deluged in lawyer's letters demanding financial compensation for having dispensed lower-quality goods than were promised.
"Even worse for him, he might one day be hounded by hundreds and hundreds of men for dispensing lower-quality goods to their wives than they'd been led to believe he would. The men might be very angry.
"It seems PSYCHOPOPS may have predicted this already, because he seems to have gone into hiding. He'd be well advised to stay there till all the children he helped produce have grown up and can defend themselves against their parents' attempts to test their pain tolerance or dump them on his doorstep, and their parents' anger with him has cooled down."
The students smiled.
Then Naomi asked the others if they'd like to hear more about woman abusers, and they said they would. So she said,
"OK. The book I've been reading says wife beaters can sometimes be genuinely sorry for the things they do; but it doesn't help, because their beliefs about how they're entitled to be abusive and controlling, and the feelings that make them want to be, will soon rear their ugly heads and get strong enough again for them to want to do it again. They can be mulling them over even while they're thinking about how they shouldn't have been abusive. Besides, their feelings of remorse will very likely be far more to do with the fact that they've made themselves look bad in front of other people and damaged their own image of themselves than about how their partners were affected by what they did. Then they'll think of all the justifications they believe they have for having done it, and end up convincing themselves their partners were to blame for it and they were acting reasonably in the circumstances, so they stop feeling guilty.
"Sometimes, early in an abusive relationship, an abuser can seem to show strong emotion, crying about what they did and begging for forgiveness, putting themselves down, like by saying they don't know why their partner stays with them since she deserves so much better. But they soon get over it. By the time they've finished justifying their actions to themselves, like by convincing themselves their partners had no right to criticise them or challenge their control over them, they stop feeling bad, blaming their partners for everything that happened. And then they're happy to just forget the incident and move on, getting impatient and annoyed if their partners bring up their feelings about it after that, as if they expect it to be just as easy for their partners to move on from it as it is for them, and that they're being unreasonable if they don't, despite their partners having come off much worse than they did because they were on the receiving end.
"An abuser's show of strong emotions can be theatrical, even if he really is sorry for what he did, or at least sorry he let himself down by behaving the way he did. He can play up his emotions so they seem stronger than they really are to gain sympathy, since a woman he's just abused can feel so sorry for him her focus of attention is on comforting him rather than on what he's just done, and she can almost forget it while she's feeling caring and sympathetic towards him and wanting to soothe him. So his feelings become the centre of attention, not hers.
"She might spend time reassuring him that he isn't a terrible person like he says he is, and that she isn't going to leave him, and that she still loves him. She might even make excuses for him or lie about what's happened in front of any children they have because she doesn't want them to think badly of him, in case it makes him feel even worse. So he actually gets some benefits from his abuse, such as making his family more attentive to his needs, which is like a reward for doing it.
"An abuser's remorseful behaviour tends to fade over time, as abusers who felt bad at the beginning stop caring as they get used to abusing their partners, whose feelings get to matter to them less and less as time goes on; and the ones who put on strong displays of emotion at first feel less and less need to do so as they become more confident that their partners really won't leave them in spite of their abuse, and that they're fully under their control, so they don't need to bother putting on emotion and asking for forgiveness.
"Interestingly, the author of this book says it doesn't actually matter if an abuser's remorse is genuine or not, since his experience of counselling abusers has taught him that when it comes to changing their ways, there's no real difference between the ones who feel sorry for what they do and the ones who don't, since after all, the ones who do will be mostly feeling sorry for themselves and the way they're not living up to the image of themselves they'd like to have, rather than feeling sorry for their victims. In fact, he says some of the most self-centred ones are the ones who feel most sorry about what they did, - sorry about what it did to their image of themselves and other people's opinions of them, wanting to change, but only in a way that makes them better at controlling their partners without having to resort to abuse to do it, as if they could respect themselves a lot more if they did that.
"Some women at the beginning of relationships that are getting abusive but they don't know if they'll get worse decide to wait and see if they do before deciding whether to leave or not, assuming that if things do get worse, their feelings for their partners will diminish, so leaving them will be easier. But the author says thinking that way isn't advisable, because the longer a woman's with an abuser, and the nastier he gets, the harder it can be to leave him, for a few reasons, including that the longer he has to make her feel as if she's worthless and incompetent, the harder it'll be for her to believe she deserves anything better. And the more she's emotionally ground down by the abuse, the harder it'll be for her to muster up the energy and initiative she needs to leave him.
"Also, the more he's damaged her relationships with her friends and family, for instance by lying to them about things he claims she said about them, or lying to her about things they supposedly said about her, the harder it'll be for her to reach out for support from them to help her leave.
"Also, the longer an abuse victim's been living with an abuser's cycles of alternating between being kind and caring and abusive, the more she can be attached to him, because the good times when he isn't being abusive can feel especially good by comparison with the bad times, so the partner of an abuser can feel full of gratitude and relief and longing for the good times to last, which actually makes her feel closer to him and reliant on his favour. So she can do her best to please him.
"Likewise with children of abusers. They can feel a bond with their fathers, because when they're nice to them, it feels especially nice because it's such a contrast with the abusive periods. If someone from social services asks a child what they think of their father, they might say they feel close to him, so the person from social services might think there can't be much of a problem. Or a lot of children might say they don't want their fathers to go to prison but just for the abuse to stop, not realising that abusers don't often change, so if they carry on living with them, they'll continue to be in danger.
"But regardless of the fact that the partners of abusers can be reluctant to leave them, they can still get out, and there are support services available to help them if they reach out to them.
"The author says some women think an abuser will settle down and become more mature and responsible and caring if they have a baby with him, but it won't work. For instance, he'll still be as jealous as ever, accusing his partner of cheating on him, not convinced of her loyalty by the fact that she's raising a child with him; and it won't stop him cheating on her. So the author advises women in abusive relationships who don't have children not to have any with their abuser. He says it'll just make things more difficult, because a woman will be worried about what witnessing or experiencing abuse themselves might do to the children; and if she leaves him, she'll have all the worries about whether he'll seek custody of them. And she won't be able to get him out of her life for good if he has partial custody of them."
Naomi continued, "One thing that keeps abuse going is the rewards abusers get from it. One is the feeling of enjoyment in the power and control it gives them, that can put them on a high. Another one is that they'll always get their way if everyone in their families is too scared to stand up to them, such as if they never want to help with the housework and demand they have their dinner as soon as they get home from work, no matter how inconvenient it is for their wives, and everyone's too scared to object because of the big scene they know they'll make if they do. It also means they can spend more of their time doing just what they want to do instead of helping out or being mindful of the family's feelings, even if that means staying out all night gambling and sleeping around, since people are too scared to stand up to them.
"Another reward of abuse is that it gives the abuser relief from any angry feelings he's built up over the day if he takes his anger out on his partner.
"And he gets all his needs and wants catered for, being the centre of attention. He gets his wishes prioritised over the needs of the others in the family, because they think they'd better cater to him or they'll suffer for it, or they think that if only they can do enough to please him, he won't get angry and abusive; so they're often spending their time trying to satisfy and relax him, preoccupied with trying to work out how to do it better.
"An abuser normally won't want to change his ways, when it would mean losing those rewards of abuse.
"He'll get other rewards as well that he won't want to lose. One is deciding what the family money gets spent on, so it gets spent on the things he wants most, not on what's needed most. And if his wife would prefer to save a lot of it for future needs but he doesn't want to, he'll most likely get his way.
"And there are abusers who exploit their partners by persuading or coercing them to change the official ownership documents of their expensive precious possessions like their cars, or their bank accounts, so they're in the abusers' names or they share the ownership, and then an abuser can legally sell his partner's possessions if he wants and make money for himself that way. Or worse, because he controls more of his wife's assets or finances, such as if he's persuaded her to put a house she owned in his name, or in his name as well as hers, it'll be harder for her to leave him, since she might end up a whole lot poorer if she does, and will likely have more difficulty finding new accommodation, since he can keep more of what she used to own, or she can't legally prevent him from living in her house; and that might make things especially hard if she has children to care for. And the increased amount of money he'll have access to means he can threaten to hire a good lawyer to argue for his right to have custody of the children.
"Another reward abusers can get from their abuse is that their partners will give in to their demands about their careers, such as if some abusers don't want their wives to go on evening courses that would help them improve their career prospects because then they won't be around to cater for their needs while they're on them, or they won't have the chance to get more impressive-sounding careers than them that might make them jealous; or it means the abusers can do whatever they like to improve their own career prospects, such as staying out late to study several times a week, without having to worry about their partners' concerns about how they won't be around to help look after the children. Or they can find it easier to make the family uproot to a new part of the country because they think they can get better jobs there, regardless of the strain on their wives, such as finding the children new schools and some wives needing to leave their own jobs.
"Another reward some abusers can get is the approval of their friends and relatives, since a lot of them will have come from abusive households where the behaviour of their fathers will have given them their beliefs about how women ought to be treated, and they're likely to have chosen friends who believe the same things, so when they talk about having had to put their women in their places, or when they talk disrespectfully about women, they'll all give each other approval. Changing their attitudes towards abuse would mean giving up all that pleasurable approval from their friends and their relatives with abusive attitudes.
"And an abusive man can happily have double standards of behaviour, feeling free to put his wife down if she objects, so he can intimidate her into not complaining. The typical double standards abusers have are things like justifying having affairs by saying men have to get their needs met, but yelling at their wives or girlfriends in a frightening way for so much as looking at another man; or an abuser can call his wife or girlfriend hysterical if she shouts at him, while often yelling at her in an unhinged kind of way, and feeling justified for it.
"With so many rewards for abuse, it's no wonder so many abusers don't want to change, and don't ever change.
"The author of the book I got this stuff from advises abused women to ask themselves each time they have a nasty confrontation with their abusive partner what he must have gained by doing what he did, or what he could have been trying to gain.
"Not that an abuser would ever admit to it. An abuser will likely minimise his abuse by comparing himself to worse abusers to convince his partner his own abuse isn't all that bad, or justify it by criticising her own behaviour and saying he abused her because he just couldn't take it; and his partner can often come to believe him, especially because he'll likely ridicule her concerns about the abuse."
Naomi carried on, "The author of this book says it can be dangerous and difficult for abused wives to try to leave their husbands, because of the lengths they can go to to stop them. At first their husbands might try manipulation tactics to keep them, such as promising to change, reducing their drinking and joining Alcoholics Anonymous if they're alcoholics, apologising for their past behaviour, or trying to destroy their wives' confidence that they can make it on their own, by doing things such as trying to convince them they'd be lost without them and that no one else would want them, so they'd just end up lonely.
"They can also try to worry them by declaring that they'll commit suicide if they leave, or make them feel guilty by doing such things as complaining melancholically that they're abandoning them. Or they can worry them by doing such things as threatening to make sure they get custody of the children, or saying they'll kidnap them. And they can threaten that their wives or girlfriends will be made homeless because they're not going to move out; and they can have control over the finances, partly because they might have earlier persuaded their partners to put their bank accounts in their names, so they can't take the money out that they'll need. And if an abuser has been the main breadwinner because his partner has been looking after the children, she can worry about how she'll cope and care for them financially without him.
"Or abusers can try to be especially nice for a while to entice their partners to stay, such as by seeming especially caring or considerate, or doing things that make it seem as if they're changing for the better, such as by finally fixing something in the home that's been causing concern because it was a safety risk, or by finally getting a job when they couldn't be bothered before, or by allowing their partners a bit more freedom, such as by letting them go out with their friends sometimes without complaining.
"Or sometimes they can manipulate their partners by getting other people such as members of their partners' families to intercede with them for them, sounding as sincere as they can when they talk to them, and persuading them to urge their partners to give them another chance, and to tell them they've told them they're truly sorry for what they did. They can put on convincing displays of being upset about their partners leaving.
"Or they can worry their partners by behaving in self-destructive ways that give the impression that they must be really upset, such as by not eating for a while, or drinking more heavily than usual, or isolating themselves instead of going out with their friends like they normally do, or seeming to be too depressed to go to work.
"Or they can try to deprive their partners of sources of support, for instance by alienating their friends and families against them by telling them their partners said horrible things about them when they didn't really, or making up or embellishing stories about bad things they supposedly did, to put their friends and families off them or make them lose sympathy for them. It's harder for an abused wife to leave her husband if she doesn't think she'll be able to rely on the support of other people to help her in practical and emotional ways.
"Another tactic abusers can use is to start affairs, in the hope of making their partners jealous or angry, and stirring up feelings in them that make them upset about them being unfaithful when they're supposed to belong to them, in the hope that they'll want them back.
"Or they can spread confidential information about their partners to humiliate them, in retaliation for them wanting to leave.
"Or they can insist that they've already begun to change.
"Sometimes they'll assault anyone their partners start new relationships with, or people who are helping them break away from them.
"Or they can try to get their partners pregnant so they'll think they ought to stay with them, or physically or sexually assault them in revenge for wanting to leave. Or they can stalk them or vandalise their house or car once they've left. Or they can threaten to harm or kill them.
"An abuser will use a mixture of those techniques. Some will make it harder to leave them than others. Some will use contradictory techniques, for instance one day declaring that it should be obvious that they've changed, and then the next day phoning their partner up and threatening them with worse violence than they've ever known before if they don't go back to them. or they can declare true love for them, but when that manipulation tactic doesn't work, they can switch to using degrading insults, saying they don't care about them. It won't matter to an abuser that his tactics are contradictory, because he'll just be using whatever techniques he thinks might work to get his partner back under his control. He'll use whatever techniques have worked to control her in the past, both affection and threats, trying to hit on the one that works, maybe using each of them more intensely than ever if they're losing their effectiveness.
"Some women are persuaded to go back to their partners by their manipulation tactics and the hope that they really are changing, such as if they start therapy or make efforts to stop drinking, or if their apologies sound really sincere. But when an abuser feels confident again that he's got his partner under his control and that he's persuaded her not to leave him, he'll gradually go back to his old ways, making excuses for dropping the self-improvement techniques and services he started using, such as saying counselling's too expensive, or that he'll go back to doing a bit of drinking because he can handle a bit, and that kind of thing. Fairly soon, he'll be back to his same old ways.
"Abusers can deceive abuse counsellors as well as their wives and girlfriends into believing they really want to change, by blaming themselves for all the problems and acting as if they feel really guilty for them, when really they don't feel bad at all, and the rewards of abusing their partners feel so good that they don't have a real incentive to stop doing it, and they're intending to carry on even while they're making a show of feeling ashamed of their behaviour.
"And when an abuser makes a show of feeling sorry for what he's done and of really caring about the woman who's just left him in front of her friends and relatives, they can be so convinced by it that they can pressure her to go back to him, feeling sorry for him and telling her he deserves another chance, believing that he really does want to change, taken in by the show of emotion and sincerity the abuser can put on.
"But the author of the book I got all this information from says that when abusers put on a pathetic show of self-blame in his counselling programme and he asks them just what they did wrong, they'll hardly come up with anything, or they'll come out with things that make their partners look like the real culprits, such as saying they should have listened more when their partners shouted in insane rages instead of walking away. That proves that an abuser doesn't really believe he was at fault for his partner wanting to leave him, but he's just putting on a show of guilt in the hope of getting some benefit from it.
"The author says some psychologists think an abuser's behaviour when their partner wants to break up with them is driven by fear of abandonment, but that that's unlikely, since abusers who've chosen to break up with them themselves can be just as bullying to them afterwards as abusers who didn't want the separation; so it seems that a desire to keep control of them so they can continue to bully them is the main factor in their behaviour.
"The author says studies have found that an abuser's violence against his partner can get even worse after she's separated from him; and their children and her new boyfriend or other people close to her can also be at risk. Abusers can be more likely to murder their ex-partners or people their ex-partners care for after a break-up than they were before; and they can rape their ex-partners, partly to try to convey the message to them that their bodies still belong to them no matter what they think."
One of the group said, "That's horrible! I need some more comfort food now!"
They all decided they'd like some.
One of them smiled and said, "We're all going to get fat if we keep doing this! Oh well, never mind."
When they'd got some, one said, "You must have a cracking good memory to be able to tell us so much about this book you've been reading, Naomi! I couldn't do it! I even have trouble remembering little funny stories to tell friends and relatives when I think it would be nice to entertain them, to give us something to talk about."
Another one of the group grinned and quipped, "It's nice of you to want to entertain them anyway. Maybe they really ought to be hit with some depressing stuff about what abusers are like instead though, or something. Why not?"
The one who'd brought the subject of remembering things up smiled and said sarcastically, "That would go down well at a Christmas family gathering or something, wouldn't it. Yeah, maybe I ought to try it. Still, I think I'd prefer to tell them funny stories ... if I could actually remember any!"
Another one said, "I can remember a funny story. I made it up myself, the day after something annoying happened. I'll tell you the story in a minute. But I'll just explain why I made it up:
"There was this film on telly about some teenage girls having some kind of adventure in the wilderness in Australia, and in one scene they saw a snake, and were scared and jumped in a lake, without many clothes on. My brother looked up at that minute and said, 'Ooh, naked women!' I thought that was a bit yucky, since that bit of the film was about them being scared and jumping in the water for safety. I'd like to have said something; but I thought my dad would have a go at me if I did, since he seems to delight in the sight of scantily-clad women, but I'm pretty sure he'd object to me bringing up the subject. So I just gritted my teeth and fumed to myself, and everyone probably thought I was being antisocial for not talking.
"I was still annoyed about it the next morning, since I hadn't been able to get my feelings out of my system. So I decided to write a funny story to vent them instead. It goes:
"Billy Baggart was, on the face of it, a respectable and intelligent man. He had a wife and two young children, and a good job as an engineer working for an aircraft manufacturer. He had big responsibilities. People would come to him with plans for designs of new aircraft, and it was his responsibility to examine them, looking for flaws that would make the designs less safe or efficient than they should be, and advising them to change them in various ways if he found some.
"Unfortunately, the moment he saw a naked woman, either on the television, the beach, or anywhere else, the good sense that usually characterised his personality completely flew out the window, and what was in his trousers instantly took over, as if his brains went on freefall in response to certain triggers, and instantly ended up there with only one part working.
"Unfortunately for him, this made him easy prey for advertisers. All they had to do was advertise a car with a semi-nude woman draped over it, for instance, and Billy, like millions of other men who saw it, would be instantly captivated, giving the advert his full attention, whatever else he'd been doing at the time. Then he would put his normal good judgment aside and Want That Car! If he needed a new car at the time, instead of asking the salesman several complex questions about how it compared with other cars, as he would at work with aircraft if a man came up to him with a proposal for a new design, he would just feel drawn to the car, not understanding why, but just telling himself and those around him he had a gut feeling that that was the right car to buy.
"He drank a bit more than was good for him. Advertisers didn't have to use clever tricks to sell things to men like him. All an advertiser had to do was to advertise alcohol being served to a man by a scantily-clad woman, and the name of the beverage was implanted in Billy's brain and he'd feel mysteriously drawn to that brand next time he was shopping. The adverts would keep him buying that brand again and again, unless an advert for another kind of booze competed with the first one, which had other scantily-clad women dancing around or something, at which point he would get That brand implanted in his brain, and without really knowing why, he would pick up that one instead in the supermarket when he was next there.
"One day on his birthday, he invited some fellow engineers home for a drink. One of them, Sam, noticed he'd just served them the brand of alcohol that had just been advertised on television with a group of men being served by scantily-clad waitresses. He also noticed there was a kind of rug on the floor that had recently been featured in a pop video with half-naked models writhing around on it. He wondered if there was a connection. When he saw they'd been given a kind of pizza that had again been advertised with pretty young women in revealing clothes serving holidaymakers with it, he began to feel sure there was. He began to hatch a plan, thinking that if Billy was that suggestible, he might be able to make it work to his advantage.
"Sam was responsible for designing new aircraft, and to his frustration, Billy had rejected his designs several times, always pointing out little ways they could be improved which Sam hardly thought were important. Again and again he'd had to go back and make moderations to them. He thought there might be a way to get the next one approved without the hassle.
"Sam had a sister who had a friend with very big boobs. She looked attractive, and often got stared at by men. He asked her if she'd do him a favour, saying he'd buy her a bottle of wine if she did. When she realised how much work was involved, she said she'd do it for a bottle of wine plus a box of chocolates. Sam thought it might be worth it.
"She didn't know a thing about engineering, but he taught her about his design plans.
"A few days later, Billy was sitting at his desk when an attractive-looking woman in a short skirt and a revealing top walked in. Billy couldn't take his eyes off her boobs! She told him she was the new design engineer's assistant and had brought the latest plans for the new aircraft, and would like to discuss them with him. He made an appointment with her for later that day. When she came back, his eyes were again instantly drawn to her boobs. She'd spent seven whole hours learning up technical details about aircraft design, and then more time reading and re-reading the notes she'd made that explained things so she didn't forget what things meant. Yet he didn't seem to want to get down to the discussion; his mind seemed to be elsewhere. But he did turn his attention to the plans when she started talking in what seemed a learned and technical way about them.
"They talked for ten minutes, with her struggling to understand the technical things he was saying, and him only barely concentrating, thoughts about how attractive she looked showing all that bare flesh constantly swimming through his brain distracting him.
"She'd hoped he'd agree to approve the designs right away; but instead, he realised he couldn't concentrate on them with her around, and eventually told her he'd think about them and get back to her in a few days.
"After she'd gone, Billy looked through the design plans. But he couldn't get thoughts of her boobs out of his head. Thoughts of tits, curves and bare flesh reeled through his brain as he tried to concentrate on the designs. Eventually he pushed the designs to the back of his desk in exasperation, thinking in a muddled way, 'These plans are all about boobs and curves! Not aircraft design! I can't possibly approve these!' Once again Sam's designs were rejected. His plan had failed.
"When later asked why he'd rejected the plans, Billy said the features were too bird-like for a big sturdy plane."
The students giggled.
But then the conversation got serious again, as Naomi said, "I'll tell you the rest of what I remember from this book I've been reading if you like."
The others agreed to hear it. So she said, "The author of this book says wife beaters don't abuse them because of psychological problems, but because of the values and beliefs they've come to hold about how they're entitled to do it, and entitled to expect their wives to live up to some perfect standard of obedience and to punish them if they don't, and entitled to bully and control them because they're their possessions to do what they like with.
"He says there are a number of reasons why they grow up to have those beliefs, including the way a lot of them picked them up from their abusive fathers, just accepting as true what they heard them say about their wives and women in general, such as that they're over-emotional, incompetent, and whatever other insults they've habitually used, which has given them the impression that they're superior to women.
"Another influence on boys who grow up to be wife beaters is the attitude of men and boys around them in their neighbourhoods. And their beliefs can be confirmed or made stronger by the kinds of books they read and the kind of television they watch, the kinds of jokes they hear, and even the kinds of toys they play with. Some environments are especially rife with wife abusers, because lots of people there have attitudes that devalue women and trumpet a man's right to dominate his wife, so lots of boys in those areas grow up imbibing those attitudes. A man's Personal preference for how badly he wants to abuse his wife, and the strength of the impressions he gets as a boy, will determine how bad an abuser he is, so some will be worse than others. And some boys growing up in abusive households will reject the attitudes of their fathers and other boys and men around them. But a lot of them will just pick them up without question.
"Children will start learning from their relatives at a very young age what's considered right and wrong and morally acceptable, and how men and women are expected by people to behave - at least according to them, which children will often assume is the way things really are. And the beliefs they've picked up will be reinforced by the kinds of pop songs they hear, - a lot of rap songs in particular have lyrics that are degrading to women, - and the kinds of videos they're encouraged to watch, and other things, including the leniency their fathers or abusive men they know can often be treated with by the legal system if they're arrested; some boys might come to believe abusing women can't be that bad if the authorities often let men they know pretty much get away with it. The legal system treats domestic violence more seriously than it used to; but still, it seems a lot of men get more severe prison sentences for attacks on strangers than they do for attacks on their wives; and a lot of men don't even get sentenced to prison for them.
"Some passages in religious texts have given men justification or excuses to beat their wives, and wife beaters who claim to follow those religions happily use them, and can influence their sons to believe they justify abuse. And they can even get their pastors, rabbis, imams and so on to back them up. There's a passage in the first book of the Bible that says a woman's husband will rule over her, and a couple in the New Testament that say wives should submit to husbands - although those do say a man should love his wife the way he loves his own body - so if he wouldn't abuse his own body, he shouldn't abuse his wife; but it seems abusive men and religious authority figures who back them up ignore that bit. The Koran even says men are allowed to beat their wives for disobedience. And the Bible has passages condemning divorce, which can bring disapproval on women from religious figures if they want to get out of abusive relationships.
"So some abusive men can feel more justified in what they do, and avoid the condemnation they really ought to be getting if they live in religious communities, which they especially ought to be getting from Christian clergymen, given there are a lot of instructions in the New Testament to be non-violent, which ought to be part of their teaching.
"And cultural attitudes might be shifting now, but a lot of men have grown up with the expectation that they'll find a wife who'll devote herself to making him happy, belonging to him and seeing to all his needs, while he'll be responsible for the running of the family. So some of those men will want to hit out if their expectations aren't met. And they'll often have imbibed the message that men are superior to women; for instance, if they're mocked as behaving like a girl at some point when they're growing up, they'll know it means they're being thought of as weak or soppy.
"Fellow teenagers can give a boy the impression that the thing girls are good for is giving sexual pleasure to men. Pornographic videos and websites and magazines can give boys the impression that women are there to be sexually used. Some music videos can give the impression that women find abusive controlling attitudes sexy, or that they're there to serve men's sexual appetites. And influences around a boy such as his father or the friends he chooses or the music he listens to can give him the idea that men have a right to punish their female partners for not complying with their wishes, with the aim of making sure they do what they're told in future.
"It seems that nearly half of all abusers grew up in homes where they had an abusive father or stepfather, where they would have often heard their fathers saying degrading things to their mothers, learning their beliefs and attitudes to women from what they witnessed. A lot of those father figures might never say that women should be obedient to their husbands or that controlling women is a good thing to do; but their sons will often pick those beliefs up from their behaviour.
"And they can learn from their fathers and the attitudes of some people in their surroundings that men aren't responsible for their actions, but they're provoked into them by women's behaviour, so they shouldn't blame themselves for being abusive.
"A boy's home life and cultural influences can have led him to believe he has the right to expect girls he gets into relationships with to dedicate their lives to him, not having needs and interests of their own that take their attention away from him sometimes, or that mean they might want him to help them sometimes. So when those boys don't get perfect service from their girlfriends, they feel cheated, so they believe they have the right to become angry and to bully their girlfriends into behaving the way they supposedly should.
"Boys can often grow up to be abusive because of the cultural influences around them, even if they haven't got abusive fathers or stepfathers to pick up attitudes from.
"So the author of this book I've read thinks it would be best if schools were to teach boys to critique the disrespectful attitudes towards women that they get from the influences around them, as well as teaching them respectful attitudes.
"Some men who've grown up in abusive homes actively oppose the abuse of women. So something must make a difference to the attitudes they picked up, and it shows that it's not inevitable that boys who grow up with abusive fathers will learn their ways and become abusive themselves.
"The author says that when some abusive men learn about how they were influenced by the culture around them though, they use it as yet another excuse for their abuse, when what they should really be doing is realising those influences were toxic and rejecting them, adopting a new way of thinking."
Naomi continued, "The author of the book I read says the men most likely to change as a result of abuser programmes are the ones who have the least selfish tendencies and show signs of having the most genuine empathy for their partners' feelings early on. And what really makes a difference as well is if an abuser's friends and relatives let him know they disapprove of what he does. Men are a lot less likely to change if their friends and relatives back them up and give them the impression they've got the right to do what they do.
"But the author says it's not always easy to predict who'll change; some of the men in his abuser programme who seemed to be making good progress in the first months went right back to their old abusive ways after a while, and some who at first seemed the most stubborn and slow to learn ended up making progress that lasted longer.
"He says the abusers least likely to change are the ones who are the most arrogant, and seem to think no one else's opinion matters except their own.
"He says the thing that helps most is if members of their own families and their friends refuse to take their side of the story and their excuses at face value, but ask questions to find out more about what really happened, such as exactly what the abuser did, and the exact details of what his partner did to supposedly provoke the abuse. And it helps if they criticise the men for the abuse, making it clear they don't think it's acceptable. If abusers keep getting that message from people whose opinions actually matter to them, as opposed to getting it from people they look down on like their partners, they can stop feeling so entitled to abuse them after a while.
"Another thing that helps change their ways is if their partners get strong support from their own families and friends, and any religious community they belong to, as well as the legal system if they need it. The more support an abuse victim gets and the more places it comes from, and the longer it lasts, the stronger and safer she'll feel, so the more unwilling she's likely to become over time to accept degrading behaviour.
"It's also best if an abuser's in a high-quality abuser programme for at least two years.
"But even if those things happen, whether he'll change or not depends on whether he actually wants to, and makes serious efforts to. No one can influence an abuser to change if he really doesn't want to.
"For women who haven't got a supportive family and friends, it can help them a lot if they can still find support somewhere, such as on a helpline for abuse victims.
"The author of this book says most abusers never change their ways; and for the minority who do, it takes a long long process of examining and abandoning their faulty beliefs about their right to be abusive, taking full responsibility for the abuse instead of carrying on blaming their partners for it, developing empathy for their partners' feelings so they care about them more, coming to think of them as equal with them and entitled to respect, and to have the same rights as they're entitled to themselves, and recognising them as being entitled to have help where they need or want it. They also need to become willing to listen to their partners' complaints, even if they hate being criticised or don't like the tone of voice they're being spoken to in. And they need to become willing to acknowledge the amount of harm they've done and to give up being abusive, despite the rewards they've been getting from it, such as having their needs and wants put first all the time by partners who want to avoid being abused or intimidated.
"The author says a lot of the men in his abuser programme go partway to doing those things, but give up when they realise changing in serious ways will involve too much sacrifice on their part, because they get too much out of being the way they are to want to. Some seem to be changing, but then just go right back to the way they were before. But there are men who do change.
"But he says abusers only change when the consequences of not doing so will be worse for them than the ways they'll lose out by changing will be, such as if they know their partners will leave them if they don't change, or they'll go to jail.
"Pleading or gently trying to persuade them to change doesn't work. Nor does trying to persuade them it'll be in their best interests to change, because the rewards they get from abuse will vastly outweigh any benefits they could get from stopping. For instance, having better relations with their partners and children might not seem appealing when controlling them feels so good. Only abusers who learn to genuinely care about the harmful effect they're having on their families change for good.
"The author says therapy tends not to help abusers change their ways, because it's about examining feelings and helping people improve their quality of life, when abusers need to be challenged and confronted about their beliefs and attitudes; so a good-quality abuser programme's what they need, one where the counsellors won't be taken in by their excuses, and any appearance they make of being willing to change, but they'll check up with their partners to find out what's really happening at home, and be willing to confront the abusers about all the beliefs they have that keep their abuse going.
"Abusers can be most likely to begin to genuinely consider changing if their friends and families and people connected to the courts all give them the message that abuse is wrong, and that the responsibility for changing lies solely with them, refusing to accept their excuses."
Naomi carried on, "It can be best if an abuse victim who wants to leave an abuser develops a plan first, involving options for where she can stay when she leaves, and how she's going to prevent him from contacting her again to the best of her ability once she's left, to make it less likely he'll be able to pressure her to come back, or threaten or assault her. And also it's best if she can work out a plan for how she'll work towards success or security in her life after she leaves, so she can see a way to take steps to make sure she can live an independent life, so she won't be so vulnerable to his confidence-destroying insistence that she won't be able to make it without him, if he does manage to contact her. It'll likely be best if she contacts an abuse hotline or a charity for abuse victims and asks for their advice.
"There are several steps an abused woman can take if she's still with her abusive partner but thinks she might need to leave in emergency, as well as steps an abuse victim who's already left can take to prevent her former partner from finding her and doing her damage.
"Steps an abuse victim still living with her partner can take to try to keep herself safer if she needs to leave in a hurry include planning more than one escape route she could take from the house if her partner gets violent, and somewhere she could stay overnight; hiding spare car keys and important documents such as her bank cards and birth certificates in a place where she could grab them quickly from and leave if she had to; trying to get out of risky places in an abusive situation, like the kitchen where there are sharp things such as knives an abuser could use to assault her with; setting up a PO box address with the post office so she can arrange to have mail she'd rather the abuser doesn't know about sent there and collect it from there instead of it going to her home address; deciding on a code word to use in person or over the phone if she needs emergency help but she doesn't want her abuser to know she's asking for it, and telling friends, relatives and children what it is, and how to respond if they hear it; opening a secret bank account with money in it that can be used if she needs to get out; keeping a working phone in a room with a door that locks so as to be more able to call for help in an emergency, and carrying a mobile phone; carrying something like pepper spray where it's legal to do so; staying away from drugs or alcohol to prevent her judgment from being impaired, and getting treatment for any addiction to such things she has; calling an abused women's helpline if necessary, and calling the police if she's in immediate danger.
"Then after an abused woman leaves her partner, there are more things she can do, including changing the locks on her doors if she's still living in her house and the abuser has a key; telling her neighbours about him and giving them his and his car's description or photo so they can warn her if they see him coming; doing the same with people at her workplace and telling them he's someone she doesn't want to see because he's a danger to her; letting teachers and other staff at her children's schools know about how he's a danger, and showing them a photo of him and any proof that he ought to be barred from the place, such as a copy of a restraining order she's taken out against him, in the hope that they'll challenge him if they see him; telling her children not to talk to the abuser and to get help if they see him; telling the local police about the risk he is to her, letting them know about past violence or threats he's made, and asking them if they have any special services to protect people like her; teaching her children how to call the emergency services; and varying her route to work and to other places she normally goes to, to make it harder for him to predict her movements and wait for her or follow her.
"And if she decides to take her abuser to court, she can ask if someone there can give her advice about staying safe while he's there with her. If she gets a restraining order against the abuser, she should keep a copy on her all the time, and leave other copies at home and in her car and workplace.
"People on an abuse helpline might come up with other ideas.
"It's best if abused women make plans for how to leave their abusers safely and to stay safer afterwards even if they're not currently thinking of leaving them, so they've got a ready-made plan if the time arises and they want to leave in a hurry.
"It's important that an abused woman doesn't tell her partner she's going to leave him till she's got her plan ready and she can tell him in a safe way, like after she's left and she can speak to him from a distance, somewhere where he won't be able to easily just come and find her. And then she should cut all contact with him.
"She might be tempted to get in touch with him again after that to find out what he's thinking and how he's feeling, so she can get an idea of whether she's in danger from him; but that in itself could well be dangerous, because he'll do his best to persuade her to go back to him, or he might sound sentimental or friendly and plead with her to see him one last time so he can say goodbye or talk things through, but then attack or even murder her in revenge for leaving if she does meet up with him. Or he might persuade her to go back to him, where she'll almost certainly carry on being abused, despite any promises he makes to change.
"A woman might sometimes long to go back to her abusive partner because of her memories of the good times or loneliness, or worries that she won't be able to cope on her own. But the longer she stays away, the more she's likely to realise that living without his abuse and control is a lot nicer than having to put up with it all the time. A lot of women give in to the temptation to go back to their abusers. But even if they don't succeed the first time they try staying away, they can succeed later on.
"When children are involved, an abused wife's plans to leave have to be that much more complicated, especially since the abuser might try to harm them or turn them against her in revenge, or seek custody of them. He'll likely have already turned them against her to a large extent, especially because all an abuser's put-downs of his wife's behaviour, such as calling her hysterical and irrational when she's upset about his behaviour, will often have convinced the children that she really is that way, so they'll have begun to think of her that way, and will maybe look down on her, especially her male children, who will often soak in and come to have the abuser's attitudes towards women in general.
"An abuser's behaviour might cause his partner to become anxious or depressed; but then he'll likely ridicule her for it, as if it's a character flaw rather than a result of his behaviour. And if her fraught state of mind results in her doing things such as snapping or yelling at the children a lot, her abuser, who can far easily snap out of his bad moods and become cheerful again than she can, since he wasn't the one on the receiving end of most of the abuse, might actually come to seem to them like the more reasonable parent most of the time because he's more often the cheerful one.
"And if her children are old enough to have soaked up his attitudes, they'll likely carry on ridiculing her and being disrespectful and disobedient to her after she leaves him, even if the abuser scolded them for insulting their mother while they were together. So there's an advantage in her leaving while they're still young, or before she even has children with an abuser. Well, there are actually several advantages of doing that, such as leaving before they have children together that he might seek custody of, even if he wasn't interested in them before, just to upset her.
"Abusers often try to get custody of their children, often not because they want to see them, but to get back at their mothers for leaving them. They can lie and lie to the courts, putting on a very convincing act, and giving the impression that they're actually pretty nice people. So an abuser can be persuasive when he claims such things as that the mother's an unfit parent who's just being vindictive by trying to keep his children away from him, and that she's just trying to turn them against him by telling them and the court lies about how abusive he was.
"And psychologists who make evaluations of his partner can come to the conclusion that the abuser's the most healthy one, because the effects on her of his abuse might well have left her in an emotional state that seems to confirm his claims that she's over-emotional and depressed.
"Sometimes judges, lawyers and police, as well as therapists and custody evaluators, even instinctively side with abusers and put their ex-partners who challenge their attitudes down harshly because they enjoy power and control over people, so they identify with abusers who do because they're like them in some ways, which is probably why they got jobs where they can have power and control over people.
"And abusers can tell them lies that make them seem like sympathetic characters who feel sorry for any trouble they caused but minimise it, not admitting to the worst things they did, and making up stories about how much they were provoked to justify it. They can poison even their victims' families against them by doing the same with them, even persuading them to speak up for them in child custody battles, by telling them malicious stories about their victims, making up details to make them look especially bad.
"So it's best if an abused woman with children who's leaving her partner gets as much evidence as she can of his abuse and his risk to the children before a child custody case even goes to court, so she can use it as evidence that she's the one who deserves the custody. For instance, if he sends her emails or texts or voicemails or leaves messages on her answering machine with threats, she should keep them to show the courts. And she should keep any photos she has of injuries and documentation of her abuse. And other things like that.
"If an abused woman manages to take her children with her when she leaves her abusive partner, she should ideally take their important documents too, such as their birth certificates and passports, so he can't refuse to give them to her afterwards.
"The author goes into more details about all this. And he gives lots of other useful information in this book. I'd say it's well worth reading."
The students thought that was interesting. After a little while, they began to chat more light-heartedly. Soon after that, they realised how late it was getting, and left to go their separate ways.
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