Abused child. What to do?

salaam

the following is from another concerned person...

Start quote:
I am hoping to get some advice for a close relative of mine. To give you some background information, she has been married for around 10 years and has 3 boys. Her husband is the most psychologically deranged and twisted man I have ever come across in my life. He has many, many issues that I feel can only be resolved via professional help. To help you understand her situation I will relate some incidents off the top of my head...Please be warned that some of these incidents don't make for a comfortable read.

The husband's issues started showing through very early in the first weeks of marriage in the form of severe insecurities and jealousy. When he took his wife out and if she happened to accidentally look at a man or group of men by mistake in busy public places he would accuse her of "perverting" on them, of not loving him, of being a loose character and this rant would continue into a rainbow of false accusations and paranoid assumptions about her past. This went on for a while. He even took her to the doctors to check her virginity. [note: this was when they very first got married.] She was in total shock and felt utterly humiliated as he sat in the examination room with her for the whole ordeal asking the doctor questions. His reason for not taking her anywhere is that she is a pervert and oogles at men.

He regularly swears and curses with the most filthiest words at her parents, family and dead grand parents. He has created huge rifts between her and her family to the point where she no longer has anything to do with them. She only has ties with one of her sisters who her husband is now demonizing and and trying desperately to separate her from. Her husband has turned her sister into the bogey man and accuses her of creating all their marital problems. His emotional abuse is not just directed at his wife but to their eldest child who is around 9 now. He bears the brunt of most of it and if the husband can't provoke his wife or get a reaction from her, he will start attacking the kids, esp. the eldest to get a reaction. He verbally abuses this boy almost on a daily bases. Calling him a devil child, telling him everything is his fault, telling him he is skinny, weak, pathetic, swearing at him, comparing him to his younger sibling. He plays favorites openly with the intention of hurting the boy, so for example he will show affection to the younger child and buy only him treats and take him out, etc. This man will only interact with this child to torment and verbally abuse him, put him down or to dish out punishments. The abuse has got to a point where the child has had severe behavioral and anger problems for years. He has expressed on a couple of occasions that he wants run away and that he wants to kill himself. He has issues at school, he has no self-esteem or confidence and is always painted as the bad child. The child has no fear of punishment anymore as he feels he has nothing to loose. He now lashes out physically and verbally towards both parents, has no respect for either of them, swears at them, defies them etc. This has turned into a cycle of abuse, where father provokes him, child reacts and then child is demonized and punished for reacting. It's a real shame because when you scratch the surface, this boy is the most loving, sweet, considerate and gentle of creatures.

This man will rant on for hours, it is normal for him to start his 2-3 hour long rants at 1am, 2am in the night. He wakes the kids up, they cry out for him to stop so they can sleep. He distresses the whole family. If the baby cries due to teething or illness at night, he distresses the mother, blaming her for the kids crying and swearing and abusing her in the middle of the night. He tells his wife, she is a useless mother, he swears at her, accuses her of liking other men and this is ALL TAKING PLACE IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN. He goes a step further, to take the kids to the side when his wife has left the room and tells them that your mum is stealing the family money, she is a loose women, she is a witch, she is nasty and she likes other men. The kids are torn apart, confused and distressed. If his wife ignores him, he will follow her around the house, provoking her into a reaction. If she continues to ignore him, he will start verbally attacking the eldest child, humiliating, swearing at him and goading him for a response. When there is an argument, he will actively get the eldest child involved asking him his opinions when accusing and humiliating his mother.

A small incident can occur between the siblings which their father blows out of proportion and uses it as an excuse to attack and punish the eldest child. The eldest will get punished and humiliated before their father even asks what has happened. The said small incident will usually blows out into a huge verbal tirade of abuse towards the mother and eldest child and with the eldest child screaming, crying and running around the house throwing things, kicking/banging doors etc. When the boys reacts like this, his father goes onto "restrain" him and in the scuffle the child has hurt himself and/or his father has hurt him leaving marks on his skin. On occasions, in the past the father has physically hit the boy leaving marks. When one such incident happened, a teacher at school noticed the bruising and reported the incident to social services. Since then, the father no longer hits the child but has upped the emotional and verbal abuse. Their mother has to take them into the bathroom and deal with any incidents between the brothers with the door locked to try and prevent their father from unjustly punishing one child. While she does this, he stands outside, banging on the door, shouting and demanding to know whats going on. If the mother shows affection to her children he accuses her of spoiling them and tells her that this is the reason why the eldest is out of control. He demands that she punish the children by banning them from treats and computer time, etc. The middle child has recently also started showing signs of bad behavior due to the abuse he sees around him.

He has been putting pressure on her to work and contribute financially. This man lives in his fathers flat for free, his wife pays for the food shopping with her child benefit/tax credits and he only spends his own income on the gas and electric bill. The rest goes on designer items of clothing, gadgets and treats for himself and his social circle. He will not spend a penny on his family. In fact he demands money from his wife and measures her worth by the fact that she does not contribute therefore she does not deserve anything. She has a young child who has just started weaning, he has been pressurizing her for years to start a business and make money. There was no let up even when she was breast feeding her child. Most of the fights start off over money. He is so greedy that on the rare and desperate occasion where the wife has to ask him for a couple of pounds to get milk and bread from the shop, he will demand the change from her when she returns. He is desperate to take control off the money that she gets and in a bid to do this, he has upped his abuse. Because she will not give up the money, he abuses her even more. He restricts them from using the heating in the winter and tries to restrict them from using the electric. When he comes home from work, he will check the radiators to see if they are warm. The kids had a whole host of health problems when they were younger and I personally feel that this was due to them being in freezing cold rooms in the winter. In contrast, he will lavish on himself with designer tops and other treats. He pressurises his wife to save the money she gets and constantly terrorizes her demanding to see her statements and to know how much she has saved. He says he wants her to contribute towards a mortgage for a house and blames her solely for them not being able to have a house. He will tell the children, we do not have a house or garden for you to play in because your mum is greedy and spends all the money. In contrast he is in the process of buying a new car for no reason at all. He creates rifts and bad feelings between mother and children and cannot bear it when they get on and are all happy with each other.

He cannot tolerate the kids making any noise. He will not allow his eldest son to laugh. He humiliates the boy for laughing and for just being a kid and doing silly things that kids do. Just recently a whole day of fighting and abuse started because the boy laughed. He tells the boy you have a demon laugh, and was screaming like a freak at his eldest about laughing as if the boy just committed the biggest sin ever. The boy hardly smiles and is always full of guilt.

this guy is a sufi, he follows a bareilwi shaykh and has a circle of "religious" friends whom he tries to impress and who he spends all his time and a lot of his cash on treating. He will invite them into his home and demand his wife cook for them.He will go out after work and not come home till 1-2 am in the morning and tell his wife he is at a "khatam" organised by shaykh/shaykh's sons. Recently she found some extremely perversely shocking, images and videos on his phone from a couple of these "mureeds". They casually text about women as they oogle at them and size them up. Outwardly, he comes across as a meek, humble soft spoken kitten.

As mentioned, social services has been involved. The husbands sister has also put in a complaint about her brother complaining to social services that her brother is abusive towards his wife and children and the wife is too weak to leave. So social services has visited twice and both cases were investigated and closed as the wife covered up for her husband and gave assurances that everything is ok. SS told her that if there was abuse, they could remove him from the house untill she finds somewhere to stay. In the last visit from SS, the wife was also warned by the Social worker that this case is only being closed on assurances from her that the kids are safe from harm. The wife has tried twice to leave him, but it seems that when her husband starts to realise she may leave him, he gives his abuse a short break to reel her back in and she has fallen for it.

The rest of the husbands family have all buried their heads in the sand, telling them to sort it out amongst themselves. Her mother in law recently advised her to cut ties with her sister to help her husband back off her. They constantly tell her to be quiet and be patient. They all know what he is like, 2 of his siblings have cut ties with him and none of his family visits him. The wife and kids are isolated as a result from the family and left out of family meet ups and outings because of this man. This upsets the children a lot.

I can go on but i hope the above gives you a clear idea of the gravity of this situation. The wife regrets her decisions not to leave in the past and regrets turning away the help of SS and has now made intention to leave him this summer when she has saved some money and the weather is warmer. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if she changes her mind at the last minute as she naturally fears the upheaval of leaving and living alone. Also, she has gone through all the motions of leaving a couple of times already and changed her mind at the very last minute. I feel she is also mentally scarred and traumatised and to some extent she is in denial. Obviously I have tried to break it down to her and told her she is accountable by Allah for the welfare of her children and their protection is her responsibility.

The way I feel, looking on from the outside is that those kids need to get out of this situation NOW. A lot of damage has been done that will take years to recover from. She fears that after the SS warned her and she didn't come clean about her husband, they may take the kids away from her too. Her husband has clearly said that if she admits to the SS what he's been dong, he will tell them she is a bad mother so the kids will get taken off both of them. This guy is very controlling and an absolute bullying brute, targeting his weaker wife and children.

We are desperate to get these innocent kids out of this mess but due to our inexperience unsure of the best way to deal with this issue so as not to take the wrong step and do more damage than good. Please advise. Would really appreciate the advice of those more experienced in these matters. Sorry for the long post and JazakAllahu khaiaran for your time.

End quote

Bismillah

Victims of domestic abuse can suffer from what Psychologists term as Social anxiety disorder and panic disorder. It is sort of extreme phobia and fear of dealing with strangers in any capacity and an avoidance of any form of confrontation.

What this means in practical terms is that even trivial and minor issues become a major challenge for them they are overcome by extreme fear and an ability to cope with even frivolous problems. For example if someone suffering from this disorder receives a utility bill were they have been overcharged, they will rather pay the bill then go through the anxiety of phoning the utility company, or if they have purchased an item that turns out to be the wrong colour or size they will leave it lying in the closet and refuse to return it to the store, the very mention puts them into a state of anxiety. Refuse to claim welfare benefits, that they maybe entitled to because they feel anxious with dealing with a stranger and carrying on struggling financially, if the boiler breaksdown rather use a kettle to heat the water then face the anxiety of having to deal with a plumber etc.

And many of them would rather stay in an abusive relationship, because the alternative in their minds seems alot worse and more frightening, that is the nature of phobias an extreme and irrational fear.

The Mother in the above scenario if she were to leave the husband, would probably need at-least 2 years of hands on support in everything from filling out forms, to opening bank accounts and dealing with bureaucracy.

The problem is many people are willing to offer advice on how to deal with a situation. Hardly any willing to actually give the time and support. To give an example I have a relative who is clinically and grossly obese, and has been so for the best part of 3 decades, he said during the last 30 years hundreds of people have told him he needs to lose weight , friends, relatives, work colleagues and even complete strangers the more he would get told to lose weight the more depressed he would feel and to make himself feel better the more he would eat. In fact its got to the stage whenever he meets someone the first topic of conversation after exchanging greetings is "You need to lose weight" he stated that out all those hundreds of advisers only one person actually offered to do the diet with him and to attend the gym with him.

The Mother if she is cut of from her own family and has very few friends needs the assurance that she will get the full unlimited support she needs if she were to move out and the fear of and inability to cope on her own is perhaps the reason why she has been reluctant to do so thus far someone needs to give the mother that guarantee of support. Many women in abusive situations are told they should leave and once they do actually take that step, they are left to fend for themselves, the well wishers and advisers disappear. Or they offer support for a few weeks or months and suddenly they start seeing the persons constant need for support and assurance and they start seeing it as a burden.
"I have my own problems to deal with it" and slowly cut them off, which leads to other problems.

The real problem is we have been left with the example of the Sahabah, yet we fail to implement it in our lives. Syedinah Umar al Farooq رضي الله عنه during his caliphate, when he found a widow with no food and small children with nothing to eat, did not just give her the money to buy groceries, nor did he just purchase the groceries and have them delivered to her, he actually prepared the meal himself the Emperor of his time and he is meekly sitting on the ground with smoke blowing into his eyes from the fire and cooking a meal with his own hands. Us on the other hand give advice and nothing more.

Abused child. What to do?

Font Size

Font Weight