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Comment by caeril | Hacker News Reader

> Even when faced with violence and sexual abuse

This style of concern trolling drives me up the fucking wall, given what we know about abuse statistics.

Step-fathers and live-in boyfriends are several times more likely to commit sexual or physical abuse on the mother's children than biological fathers. [1][2]

If biodad is actually abusing the children, then yes, by all means, get out.

But if you're leaving a non-abusive dad in order to "find yourself", or because you're "just not happy", you are, statistically speaking, endangering your children, unless you accept a lifetime vow of celibacy.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2845296/ [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077559501006004001

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> This style of concern trolling drives me up the fraking wall,

It shouldn't because it isn't.

> given what we know about abuse statistics.

If marriages are safer for female spouses, I suggest it's because marriages have to compete with other relationships.

In my parents day (silent gen), marriage had little competition and were commonly a safe environment for abusers.

I personally witnessed mom in traction & my brothers broken. Most of her relatives/friends were mistreated by their husbands (possibly all but not everyone confided). Similar stores could be said by the children of that generation. And, my observations were far from unique. Family abuse was everywhere (victims confide in victims).

For my cousins' generation, many things are improved. eg:Their understanding of abuse. eg:The meaningful expectation for men to not mistreat their loved ones. eg:The expectation for men to support all obligations in a household (not just the ones they want).

Meanwhile, if we are more vocal about More Marriages than we are about better marriages, I suggest we have lost our way.

It didn't read to me as if the parent was talking about the abuse being done to the children but to the partner themselves, something that is far more common.

>If biodad is actually abusing the children, then yes, by all means, get out.

well kinda the point is that in the past you couldn't.

Do you think in a culture that does not allow for divorce that people would be accurately reporting abuse?

And how does one "get out" when that is not an option?

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