My cousin, Mary Babb, was murdered by her husband in January, 2007.  We found out afterwards that, even though she was terrified of him and what he might do to her, even though he had beaten and raped her, even though she was afraid he would take their son from her, SHE STILL LOVED HIM.  She really did, and believed he loved her as well.

In Michigan, where she died, my step-mother (her aunt) and her family worked with Rep. Bill Caul to pass Mary’s Law, which allows judges the discretion to order a GPS tracking device be placed on an abuser as a condition of bailing out of jail or with an order of protection.  It creates some safe zones around the victim—like her workplace or school and home—and if he violates the zone, sends her an alert via pager or cell phone, so she can have a plan.  Already Michigan is hopeful that the law is working—it will have been in place for a year this month.

I recently succeeded in getting the same legislation passed in Texas, with the help of the Women’s Shelter of South Texas in Corpus Christi, and thanks to Rep. Abel Herrero, who sponsored the bill and has been our champion all the way through the legislative process.  The good news is that this is a slowly growing movement in the US; Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts (the 1st state to pass this legislation), Oklahoma and now Texas have laws in place (there are more states; Texas is #13 to pass it).  Bills are progressing in California and Wisconsin (that I am sure of) and I learned this morning that New York introduced legislation very recently, and it is being debated.

So often women feel the justice system lets them down because the penalties for violating an order of protection are not very severe, and because—let’s face it—a piece of paper will NOT stop a bullet if your abuser is intent on killing or injuring you.  It would be an amazing step forward if wOw took up the cause!

"What you live through is what you know, and if you’re abused as a kid you will go on to be an abuser."

Like LC, I have somewhat extensive knowledge of domestic violence and abuse…and I have to say, sorry, but that is just a BS statement. Just because this was this woman’s experience, that does not make it true for everyone or even a majority! It depends on the victim; I’ve known a number of people who were abused in various ways (physically, emotionally and/or sexually), and a majority of them have used their own terrible experience to grow into kinder, more emphatic people — not abusers! That statement is absurd and offensive, as it assumes that we have no control over our own destinies, and that all abused people will end up being abusive. It is more offensive as many of the people I know are still scarred and struggling to put the pieces of their own lives together — but they’ll be the first to help someone or something in pain! As someone who greatly enjoys your words of wisdom, I’m disappointed that you saw fit to quote that without some sort of balance to that woman’s narrow perception, Margo, because it’s just not true.

There are as many reasons for someone to stay in an abusive relationship as there are abusive relationships.  It isn’t a black/white situation.

I agree with the poster who wrote ‘Abuse can be an insidious creature that slowly creeps up on you without you even realizing it until you find yourself in the middle of an abusive relationship and getting out is not always as easy as packing your bags and leaving, not when there are children involved or limited economic resources ‘

It’s too easy to be the frog in the pot of water.  Swimming around contentedly, thinking everything is fine until - - - Oh my heavens!  This water is boiling!!

I’ve seen it and heard it too often. I feel it partially mirrors the stages of grief.

Denial

"This isn’t the way s/he really is"

"I know the real person"

Bargaining

"It was my fault.  If I hadn’t …"

"Maybe if I was more … "

"Maybe if I did something differently"

Anger

Passive-Agressive

Confrontation (almost always makes it worse)

Sadness

Why is this happening to me?

Depression

Uncontrollable crying

feelings of hopelessness, etc

Ending in Acceptance?

Is this all there is?

Or Rejection?

I don’t have to put up with it.

It can take a long time to get to rejection.  After all, who wants to give up?  The thing that gets me is that the folks who care most about commitment are the ones who get hurt the most by these relationships. It’s not like you’re breaking up because they didn’t make enough money or got fat or you wanted to have sex with other people or they didn’t like skiing as much as you. The folks who will get a divorce for these reasons will have no problem getting out of an abusive relationship.  (and yes, these are all real-world examples). It’s the people who believe in commitment, who believe in ‘for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer’  who end up getting the raw end of the deal.

During the 1980’s, James Gilligan, a psychiatrist, was in charge of mental health services in the Massachusetts prisons, where he conducted thousands of therapeutic  consultations with homicidal inmates and repeated spouse/child abusers. He soon came to realize that they were especially likely to harm or kill or seriously abuse someone when they felt insulted or humiliated. What these men seemed to fear most were feelings of weakness and shame ––wasn’t Joni the one who used that word in the discussion above?–––the shame of being seen as inadequate or contemptible––and they struck back violently against anyone who set off those feelings, whether it was a sarcastic, unfaithful girlfriend or a rival drug dealer attempting to impinge on their turf. Many killers told Gilligan that the fear they saw in their victim’s eyes made them feel powerful and respected, reinforcing a "tough" self image and seeming to justify aggressive reactions to any sign of disrespect, however minor or unintended. 

Then there is the work of anthropologist, Ruth Benedict, who classified cultures as being preoccupied predominantly with, on the one hand, notions of honor and shame or, on the other, notions of pride and guilt. While guilt and shame have much in common, she argued, they have different implications for culture and behavior. Guilt, the sense that you have done something wrong and should feel bad about it whether others know or not, tends to lead to private turmoil. But shame implies awareness of the contempt of others, and therefore has potentially greater implications for relationships. Pride, like guilt, is an internal feeling of accomplishment, whereas a sense of honor, like shame, depends on the attitudes of others toward oneself.

In my work with troubled families I found parents that were abusive to their children had been abused in the same way by their parents––in a strange way by punishing their children they were punishing their parents––it’s called payback. "The delicious feeling"––as one parent described it––"of getting back at all the shit I was handed."