My wife brought her hot Latino friend home to spend the night.
Under any other circumstances this would have started my tail wagging. But she called at 3am from the interstate and told me to get the spare bedroom ready, “Lisa” was spending the night. Let me tell you that my wife and I have a good understanding of each other’s feelings. A few weeks ago I got her out of bed in the middle of the night to help me find a way to the
So when she calls in the middle of the night, I know to be ready for anything, and follow her lead.
Lisa and Caren got home about 30 minutes later, and I found out way more than I ever wanted to know: Lisa’s husband had been drinking and quite simply made his wife of 10 years and mother of his 3 children feel like shit. He was drunk, loud, verbally abusive and threatening. On the eve of her 30th birthday. She spent the night at our place because she’s afraid he’ll hit her. Again.
So Lisa spent the night with us, trying to contact her children by cell phone to see if they were all right. Since Caren had taken her out for her birthday, she had dressed in a nice skirt and blouse.
On her legs were sizeable bruises.
About the size of a fist, to be precise. I have had enough on me over the years in various martial arts to know what they look like.
Do you know what I had to do the next morning? You guessed it, sportsfans: I had to drive her back! Back to the lazy, abusive fuck who she shacked up with in the first place because he had a mullet, a greasy-assed smile and a red Barchetta. Maybe he had the Bon Jovi tape playing, I don’t know. But back she went.
I was livid. I couldn’t believe we were taking “Lisa” BACK to her house, and she was just going to march right back in there and take whatever he dished out. I couldn’t get my head around it, and I wanted to start screaming. Unfortunately, I pussed out and kept my head down and my mouth shut.
Sooo…What, am I guest starring on the Twilight Zone this week & didn’t know about it??
Why in God’s name isn’t she grabbing her kids, jumping back into the car and yelling “Punch it, Chewie”?!?! I’m just dumbstruck at how dumb people can be.
My main ‘problem’ (If you want to call it that) with battered women is while the women can leave any time they choose, the children have no choice whether or not they leave. They simply go where Mommy takes them. And I will bet you anything the Mother figure fails to heed the danger of the situation she is burdening her kids with.
I am tired to death of the standard “don’t be judgmental, don’t tell victims to leave, who are you to break up a home” line. And exactly what sort of a person watches a woman head into a danger with a child in tow and doesn’t try to stop her? I mean, if she said she was going into a burning building or swimming in an icy lake, I’d be evil incarnate not to try to stop her.
But when she says she wants to go back to a man who beats her, has threatened to kill her, the victim industry says that’s her choice, I should leave that decision up to her.
In other words, butt out curry boy, we don’t need your opinion.
Here’s a little something I feel everyone should bear in mind when dealing with someone suffering from what doctors call battered women's syndrome:
SHE WANTS TO GO INTO DEADLY PERIL. SHE IS DRAGGING HER HELPLESS CHILD WITH HER. THEREFORE, SHE IS INSANE. HER DESIRES ARE IRRELEVANT.
Oh, I know, I’m not a battered woman, I have no idea how it is. Look, if we’re supposed to not tolerate domestic violence, then that means not tolerating BOTH HALVES of the crime. There is another side, an often unconsidered side.
Caren and I ended up discussing this, and she bitched at me all the way home when I told her how I felt, pointing out to me that I am “breaking up families”.
My response was, “Damned right. Every chance I get.”
You see, in the south (where I’m from) battered and abused women are almost a cliché. Women are taught from adolescence that “violence = strength”. And every mother wants her child to marry a strong man, someone who fulfills the “Provider” role, that biblical head of the household thing. So they practically swoon at a man who knocks them around. And the ones who suspect that something isn’t right usually leapfrog from one bad relationship to another for umpteen YEARS before they get their heads screwed on straight. Boys are raised in a similar quality, I have been told many times growing up that a man needs to “have a firm hand” when dealing with women. They need to be “broken in”.
Yeah.
I feel sorry when I hear someone who has just moved from the backwoods of
When Caren and I finally got home, I wanted to know more about what I was dealing with. I had plenty of web time, Caren was so pissed that I probably wasn’t getting any nookie that night. Week. Maybe month, depending on how long she can hold out. Women certainly seem to be stronger than men in THIS regard.
*SIGH*
An online search led me to find a few statistics.
The average battered women leaves her husband SEVEN TIMES before she leaves for good.
SEVEN TIMES the child is uprooted from his home.
SEVEN TIMES the child is carelessly placed back into a volatile situation that will probably scar them emotionally for life.
SEVEN TIMES these women whine and bitch and moan about their ‘needs’ while the vacant eyes of their offspring can’t bring themselves to focus on another human being because they have been conditioned to withdraw from activity unless they hear a load noise.
Then you can see pure terror.
You think these women suffer?
Look, for just a moment, at the kids whose lives consist of turmoil, fear, confusion, and abuse that they have no control over. Look at the KIDS who are seriously lacking in role models and who, statistically speaking, will most likely grow up to abuse or be abused as a result.
Look at the kids who can be saved if only their mothers grew some balls.
They force their poor living choices on their innocent children and (In my eyes) that makes them just as guilty of abuse as their husbands. In fact, they are more to blame because they are aware of the fact that their current situation is unhealthy, yet they do nothing to stop it.
Unfortunately the current trend in the victim industry is to provide these women with what I laughingly call “adequate” VERBAL support…no matter ignorant, uneducated or irresponsible they may be. When a woman in a battered women’s shelter says, once again, “I want to go back,” it’s their job to look them in the eye and congratulate them on making a choice even if it’s obviously a poor one. Then you get the unmitigated thrill of hearing her hysterical child’s pleas for help, in the only way they know how: “Don’t make me go back! I’m scared of Daddy!” At this point, the mother usually says something ironically cruel, like, “Get in the car you little brat! Can’t you see you are making this hard for Mommy?”
YOU can cry me a river for THAT woman if you want too. Cry me a whole fucking lake.
You’re probably thinking I am some insane asshole right about now, someone who just doesn’t understand the value of the family unit, or has never had to deal with hard times and tough decisions. Especially since I am a man, and can’t see it from a woman’s perspective. Well, I know what fear is. I know what pain is. I know what a beating is, and I know what psychological abuse and physical damage is. And when I see it inflicted on an adult, especially on a woman, I am indignant, outraged and LOUD.
When I see it inflicted on a child, well…English is far too limited a tool to describe what I feel.
Murderous is close.
Do you think you know better than me? Try this: Every one of you who is sitting there spouting worthless rhetoric and taking umbrage to my article go volunteer at your local battered women’s shelter. I challenge you to look into the eyes of a 3 year old child who is denied the luxury of escape, or better yet a 14 year old who now thinks hurting people is ‘cool’ and then YOU find sympathy for the women who failed to teach him different and now it’s too damn late. I implore you to put your money where your mouth is, get off your high horse, and get your hands dirty. You may just learn something. And maybe that knowledge will make you a little frustrated and bitter. And maybe, JUST MAYBE, you’ll have to therapeutically cleanse yourself by putting all your misgivings on your blog in order to avoid having the bitterness seep into real life and thereby negatively affecting how you relate to other human beings.
Maybe.
Otherwise, just keep repeating to yourself "We live in a beautiful world. We live in a beautiful world- with kit-tens and pup-piiies, sun beams and flow-eers..."
Note: New Beginnings is a shelter for battered women with children located in
4 comments:
A friend told me about a tv show where there were these two couples fighting and the male was pushing the girl around.
A cop sees this and walks by.
A karate instructor sees this and steps in between the two couples.
The people behind the hidden camera asked the cop why didn't he do something? He's response was that if he intervened here things would be worse for the lady back at home when he's no longer present.
When the camera guys asked the karate instructor why he intervened he responded by saying that he could not allow such abusive behavior to go on.
I remember my high school and college days (keep in mind I'm a geek) how some girls preferred the bad boy.
(edited) I took a lot of stuff out. Sad that the average woman in an abusive relationship has to go through seven wake up calls.
What you have trouble understanding, Bobbe, is how somebody could allow such abuse to go on, and because you are somewhat pugnacious male who is willing to protect himself, you can't relate.
Simple, fight or flight. If you can't find, you run.
But it's not that simple. And yeah, bad boys draw girls like fire does a moth, but that's not the answer, either.
If you think of these women as you would somebody who had a chronic disease, something like say, lupus, say, you'd get closer to the idea of what truly low self-esteem does.
On some level, they think it is their fault, that they deserve it.
I made him mad, I should have known better.
On another level, violent hubby is the devil they know, and leaving him is the devil they don't. Where will I go? What will I do?
There are the kids, who need a daddy.
If we leave, he'll find us and he'll kill me.
Ladle a thick soup of tradition, social pressure, and an abuser who know how to work it -- I'm so sorry, I was drunk, it won't happen again, I swear! onto that, and what you wind up with is somebody for whom the idea of leaving is simply not a real option -- not until the fear of the abuser rises to a level that washes the rest of it away.
You don't understand because of who you are. I used to feel the same way, and it still is hard to make the connection sometimes, but at least now I can understand, even if I wonder at how an abuse woman cannot see it won't ever get better.
Having been the child in one of these relationships, I know how I turned out. Nothing at all like my stepfather. He was the reason I started MAs and the reason I changed my motivation for continuing, from one as a victim wanting to fight back to that of a protector.
Why the woman stay in these relationships varies form person to person. Luckily, my mother got stronger (before he permanently injured someone or worse) and has stayed out of an abusive relationship for the last 30 years. Some I know aren't as lucky or strong.
I understand. Sometimes. And then they are times when, like you, I don't understand and never will.
But I won't stop standing up when I see it happen.
My wife was pushed into these relationships out of wedlock by her family. She started lifting weights as she knew what it would come to. After the third trip to the hospital she left and never looked back. She now has come full circle and is certified in family therapy with a Masters in Clinical Psychology. And I've seen the effect that asshole father had on the son over the years too. My wife and I did all we could to mitigate that effect.
I also have a freind who grew up poor and severely abused. Hell, at 15 his father sent him on the bus to kick the ass of the bus driver who was groping his sister. And he did. Much more afraid of his father than the school or cops.
But now? He's on call to get to the battered women's shelter when they think one of the asshole husbands is coming around. He relishes it, but uses restraint.
And also, he spent several years as a daycare provider and you couldn't ask for a better child advocate.
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