BellaOnline Forums Family Child Abuse Making Excuses for Abusers

Family members may make excuses for domestic violence, especially if this has been the status quo for generations. Learn why its important not to do this and the harm it can do to victims.

Making Exuses for Abusers

Excuses can also be a form of denial and letting the abuser off the hook. Please feel free to share your experiences with this.

In my experience, sometimes family members don't even want to admit that domestic violence occurred, even when you're telling them about the experience as an adult. They may try and straddle a neutral line by saying something like "I believe something happened." This happened to me as I tried to tell a family member about the violence I witnessed as a young child. Since it was their brother who committed the violence, you could kind of get the feeling they were on their brother's side. They even brought up the issue of "false memories" (normally applied in the context of sexual abuse) and how I may have thought I saw something that may or may not have occurred. It may be a lot to expect them to condemn their brother, but certainly if they wanted to stay neutral, they could have simply said they weren't there so how could they know what happened. That's my rant for today.

Thank you for sharing your story. I believe that when people claim they're not choosing a side and refuse to choose right over wrong, then they actually have chosen wrong over right. They just don't want to accept responsibility for their choice.

I'm sorry they accused you of false memories. While that is a real phenomenon, they used it as a silencing tool against you which is another device of denial on their part.