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I need some advice regarding domestic violence..?
Okay, sorry this is so long, but to give any kind of advice you'd need to know what actually happened I guess.. Please help..
It's my dad.. We (My mother, little brother (who is disabled), little sister and I) have put up with it for years, and it's not a constant thing, but happens. The only time he really talks to me is to be offensive. He verbally attacks us a lot, swearing and shouting, threatening. And sometimes physically too. Not so long ago he had his mother round, and was getting annoyed because she keeps repeating herself, and I can't remember what actually made him do this, but he chased my little sister across the room and tried to hit her, only my mum got in the way. He smacked her round the back so hard there was a mark for days, and at the time she actually kind of yelped, and couldn't move. She's a lot bigger than my sister, who's eight, and I swear that if he managed to hit her it could have broken her spine.
He went a step further today though. He pelted a remote across the room at my brother, who's very poorly at the moment. My mum saw the remote on the floor and asked what it was doing there, and he shouted. Then he got up to take a wrapper to the bin, which he doesn't normally do, and as he did, he had to walk past my sister who had been misbehaving earlier this morning but was now being perfectly fine. He lunged in toward her and thrust the wrapper in her face quite hard then walked off as she hit her head behind her and burst into tears after letting out a scream. In a raised voice I asked him why he did this and his response was 'I wanted to', and that 'it has nothing to do with you'. I left it at that because I didn't want to make things worse. When he came back in he saw that she was 'sulking' and picked up a pillow and smothered her face. The look on his face was so menacing. I managed to actually physically push him off of her (just about, I'm sixteen btw). The scary thing is, I don't think he would have stopped if I didn't push him off. He then looked at me and shouted that I'm 'not too f-cking old for a good hiding y'know' and looked as though he was about to punch me in the face. Whether he was going to or not I don't know, but he stopped himself, maybe because he saw the look on my face, I don't know.. But he sat back down, took another look at my sister and then smashed her in the face with a folded newspaper, then across the back of the head and then it flew out of his hand and hit her again. She was behaving leading up to this, it was only this morning that she wasn't, hours before. I screamed at him and followed my little sister who had ran off in shock literally screaming and crying her eyes out and tryed to calm her down, and all but him walked out the room too, to upstairs. My mum tried to busy herself by tidying things but was stressing out, and my sister was still crying and holding her head. She said that she couldn't actually breathe at all when he put the pillow over her head, and said that she was really scared and asked me what to do. That's the thing.. I have no idea. 'Dad' then left the house without a word and took the car with him, and he's not back yet. This was only two or so hours ago. My sister's okay, but my mum is still stressed. I asked her what would happen next, but she doesn't know either. She keeps saying that she's a bad mother and that she's let everyone down, and doesn't want to let us down by not doing something, but doesn't want to let him down because if she kicked him out there's no way he would survive on his own.
Which brings me back round to the question; what do I do? Do we do nothing, pretend it never happened, or should mother talk to him which will most definately turn into an agressive argument (and I'm worried that he'll hurt her again), or do I talk to someone or call someone or what? As I said, he's been verbally and physically aggressive many times before, but he's never tryed to actually smother anyone before. My mum doesn't like the idea of telling someone else, but surely something needs to be done? Please help? Any advice appreciated. Sorry this is so long.
He doesn't bring any income. He just spends money, on alcohol and tobacco. He's almost a chain smoker. My mum has really bad breathing issues which she and the GP believes is from the amount of second hand smoke she's had to breathe for the past few decades. I also have difficulty with my breathing, and it's generally worse when I'm in a room with him, and I don't know if it's linked or anything.
When he decides to go out to the pub he will get very drunk and that makes things a lot worse when he gets back. He constantly lashes out, aggressively belittles our family, mainly my mother..
He does have a bad back, and coughs up phlegm a lot now, maybe because of the amount of smoke? My mum thinks he does have an underlying health issuee, but still that's no excuse - something needs to be done.. I understand that can cause behavioural problems and sometimes a sense of need to take things out on those around you, or even for some kind of control, but still...
Although I know that there's got to be something there, I don't feel anything for my father in a positive way. I would feel I was lying to say that I loved him, just to clear that up. This doesn't mean I'm set against him and want him to leave, I just want the violence and belittling and petty comments on top of everything else (the smoke, even extraordinarily racist and homophobic comments which I can't stand) to stop, and I want what's best for my mother, but I fear even she doesn't know what that may be.
4 Answers
- FaZizzleLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
First of all, I am very sorry that you are in this situation.
Do you have a trusted adult you can tell? Even if you mom doesn't like the idea of telling anyone else, she's not going anything. She's not able to stop this. This is a lot for ANYONE to deal with, not to mention a teenager.
Talk to someone about your options. You need to get him out of the house. He has some VERY SERIOUS issues here that are damaging your family. Once you have your options, talk to your mom alone. Tell her that you can't just sit here and take this abuse. This abuse eventually WILL turn into something deadly. He isn't going to stop.
Explain what the options are and say that you want to take this to the police. If she tries to stop you (she will), stay firm. You are protecting her. Point out that he has abused his family for years - what makes her think she's going to stop? If you can't disagree or even talk with him, something has to change.
It's not that she's a bad mother - if she wants to redeem herself, ask her to step up and get him out of the house. Save HER CHILDREN from this situation.
- Paraiba BlueLv 71 decade ago
I'm an average old guy living in the USA. That's a tough situation because you say your family needs your Dad's income. You might try getting advice from a minister at church, or maybe there is a phone number there for abused children & spouses, that you can call to get advice from. Something is definitely wrong with your Dad, be it medical or
mental. Is he getting worse as time passes? Might he eventually kill someone? You do need to consider the possibilities, get advice from an abuse hot line if there is one there, I will tell you, my father, when he eventually died, was found to have a large brain tumor that had been growing for decades, doctor said it was size of a grapefruit. There was alot of violent arguments, physical, when we were growing up, shouting every single day, there were moments when someone could easily have been killed. Your father may have such a medical problem, or it could be mental, either way you MUST do something about him, he is dangerous. ********** I just read your details. Behavior like this gets progressively worse, often the spouse gets so used to it as time passes, that the spouse sort of accepts it as normal even as it grows worse and worse. I sure hope you do something before a tragedy happens.
- 1 decade ago
You most definitely need to do something. call a child welfare agency and speak with someone. explain the situation. your mom obviously loves you guys, but is also feeling indebted to your father whom as you said she feels can't survive out there on his own. well i say let him figure it out on his own. he will and you guys will be better off for it. when he is an older man and realizes his faults he will probably regret the way he treated you all but in themeantime you cannot just sit there and either hope there wont be a next time or wonder how bad the next time will be either.
they may either take you children away for a little while so that your mother can get soe badly needed counceling or they may even help your mother out getting started somewhere else with some sort of restraining order against your father. i know that you love your father and you should, but at the same time, he is not safe to be around and you have to save yourself and your siblings. it is a must. your mother is just to close to the forest to see the trees so to speak and she doesn't know what to do. she may even be nervous of going it alone with you kids and without your father around. you must go though away from him, one way or the other.
best of luck to you... i sooo hope that things work out for the best for you guys
- RoofingPrincessLv 71 decade ago
You call the police. NOW. This is escalating and it will only get worse.
If you can't bring yourself to call the police, can you at least call a domestic violence hotline? We have them here in the US (I'm guessing by a few phrases that you might be British) - do a quick Google search and see what you can find in your area.
This is NOT the way normal families operate. I think you know that. It will have long-term effects on how you and your siblings view relationships. It has to stop.
Source(s): domestic violence survivor
