Trigger warning for domestic abuse.
Holly Pervocracy, a contributor to NSWATM, discusses the reasons why people stay in abusive relationships– and it’s not because they’re weak or stupid. I’ve excerpted the most important bits, but you should really go to the link and read the whole thing.
1. “I don’t want to die.”
Her husband has told her that if she leaves he will kill her, and she believes this. (She may well be right.) The instant he gets a whiff of where she’s staying–and he probably will, at some point, from a well-meaning friend or through the legal system or by persistent stalking or random chance–he’s going to come there and he’s going to do something very, very bad to her. Staying with him may be horrible, but at least she gets to live. She believes that if she leaves, no one and nothing can protect her from his vengeance.
2. “I’ll die without her.”
He lives in his girlfriend’s apartment. He’s unemployed, or minimally employed, and has no education or good experience on his resume. He has no friends besides her. He’s gotten to the point where he doesn’t know how he’ll get food without her help, much less navigate all the challenges of life. And if he leaves her, he’ll be leaving everything–she’ll destroy any of his stuff that he leaves behind, stalk him so he can’t stay at the same job, and maybe even kill his pets. If he leaves her, he’s certain that he’ll end up living on the streets.
3. “He’ll die without me.”
Her boyfriend lives in her apartment. He’s unemployed, or minimally employed. He probably doesn’t know how to get food without her help, much less navigate all the challenges of life. He tells her he’d be homeless without her, maybe even kill himself if she left him. She just couldn’t stand to be responsible for something like that; even though he’s hurt her, it would cut her to the bone to know that she had ruined or killed him.
4.”What about the kids?”
Right now, she protects the kids from her husband. He may rage at her, but she shelters them from the worst of it and she makes sure they have the best home she can give them under the circumstances. If she leaves, she doubts she can get sole custody of the kids without visitation, much less get it immediately. And if the kids are alone with him, something very bad will happen. He’ll hurt them, or turn them against her, or take them away and she’ll never see them again. Maybe all three. Her kids are her life and she can’t bear to let something like that happen.
5. “I tried once, and it made things worse.”
This isn’t the first time. He did call the cops on his husband before, and he ran away that night. The cops didn’t find enough evidence, and when he came back to get his stuff, his husband was… tearfully apologetic, actually. Somehow he talked him into staying and not taking his stuff. The punishment came later–once he’d more or less committed to staying around–and it was horrible. But he’s afraid that if he tried to leave again, he’d go through the same cycle again.
6. “I reached out once, and was rebuffed.”
In a rare moment of courage, he–with shaking hands, summoning all his strength–told someone he thought he could trust what his wife was doing to him. They told him to think about her point of view for once, to not use big drastic words like “abuse,” and to take care of his own damn problems without airing his dirty laundry. He just knows that if he reaches out again, it’s going to be the same thing. He’s lucky she didn’t find out about that time and doubts if it’s worth taking the risk again.
7. “If I call the cops, I’ll be in trouble.”
She’s a prostitute. On the side, she sells drugs. She owns guns she shouldn’t have and lives in a place she shouldn’t be. Hell, she shouldn’t even be in this country. Her lifestyle is so far outside the law that any attention from the police is likely to get her thrown in jail–so she can’t very well tell the police that her girlfriend beats her.
8. “Run away? Call the cops? I can’t even get away with sneezing!”
Her boyfriend controls every second of her time and every inch she moves. Whenever they’re apart she has to call him and check in constantly; whenever she leaves the house she has to tell him where she’s going and how long and why; he doesn’t let her think without telling him about it and getting his approval. And he enforces this–reading her mail, listening to her phone conversations, showing up randomly at her work or when she’s with friends (if she’s allowed to have any). When she’s not allowed so small a rebellion as using the wrong word, really rebelling against him seems impossible. She figures he’d catch her if she even thought about trying.
9. “If it were so bad, someone would have done something.”
Everyone knows what’s going on in his life. His friends have seen his girlfriend hitting him; his parents have heard him say “I can’t do that, she won’t let me” about a million things; the neighbors have heard the screams and crashes when she explodes. He knows everyone knows already, and knows that they haven’t done anything even though they know. So, he figures, what difference would it make to tell them? Clearly they’ve already decided that this isn’t bad enough to call in the authorities over.
10. “It’s a joke to him, so it should be a joke to me.”
His boyfriend hits him and treats it like a joke, laughing uproariously and expecting his victim to laugh along. To make a big deal out of this kind of violence would just be humorless, and he’s got a sense of humor, doesn’t he? Even when the only punchline is “ha ha, you’re in pain!” And how do you go to the cops with a story like “he played a joke on me?” Cops don’t arrest people for jokes.
11. “I’m just terrified to hurt her feelings.”
Abuse has made her telepathic. Years of desperately trying to keep her girlfriend happy so bad things won’t happen have made her keenly aware of her girlfriend’s every fleeting emotion. Her girlfriend is a tiny bit moody and she rushes to coddle and comfort her; her girlfriend is a tiny bit happy and she just about throws a party for her. She’s so used to reading her girlfriend’s feelings and translating them into her own that she can’t stand to do something that would really hurt her girlfriend’s feelings. Just the thought of dealing with that much anger–when even a tiny amount of anger is a big deal in their house–is too terrifying to imagine.
12. “I’m so embarrassed I let him do this to me.”
He’s been abusing her for years. She doesn’t see herself as some cowed little victim; she’s a smart woman, an independent woman to all appearances, maybe even a declared feminist. So to come out now and say he’s been hurting her all along just feels stupid. Everyone’s going to ask “why did you stay with that jerk?” and she’s not going to have an answer. She tells everyone her relationship is wonderful and a paradon of communication and respect, and the longer she keeps up the charade, the harder it is to say not only “turns out I’m a cowed little victim” but “turns out I’m a cowed little victim and also a liar.”
13. “I’ve learned to live in her system.”
He knows all the rules by now. As long as he always treats his wife with the utmost politeness and gentleness, and always has dinner ready before she comes home, always is up for sex when she wants it, and always lets her make the decisions, things are okay. He actually feels pretty safe when he’s being “good.” So it doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with the relationship, because it goes great so long as he does as he’s supposed to.
14. “We’re outsiders; no one cares about our problems.”
They’re a lesbian couple, one of them is transgendered, and they’re kinky to boot. She’s had enough problems just explaining to the “authorities” that their relationship exists; how the hell is she supposed to convey that there’s something wrong with it? She’s internalized enough prejudice that she figures it’s sort of her own fault for being in such a strange relationship, and she doesn’t figure anyone cares that much about the troubles of a weirdo.
15. “After all he’s done for a jerk like me?”
Her husband has put up with so much from her. This isn’t #13; these were genuinely bad things. He helped her pay off the nasty credit card debt she was in. He stayed with her even after she got fired from her job and flunked out of school; he even bailed her out of jail when she really fucked up. Who could blame the guy if he loses his patience now and then? She figures she really is a very difficult person to live with, she deserves some punishment for all she’s screwed up, and she should be grateful that he’s kept her around at all. As he reminds her when she’s pushed him too far–who else would love her?
16. “She’s really nice… mostly.”
Her wife is super sweet and loving. She’s a flowers-and-chocolates romantic, a believer in true love and love at first sight, and she treats her just like a princess. Now and then, things get really tense in the relationship, and bad things happen. Really bad things. Her wife just doesn’t seem like herself and she explodes. But the apology is even sweeter and lovinger than before and things are good again. Maybe it was a one-off. Or a two-off. A three-off? Maybe this really is the last time and from now on she’ll just have the nice wife she fell in love with. She’s certainly being nice now, and how could you leave someone like that?
17. “It just isn’t done in our community.”
In her culture, the husband is the leader of the household and what he says, goes. He has the right to hit his wife if he feels it’s necessary. Divorce is a taboo. Good women don’t leave their husbands; good women make their husbands happy. She feels like going against her husband would be going against her entire culture, and she can’t bear to do that. The community wouldn’t support her and she’d feel like a traitor to her own people.
18. “Actually, I’m abusing her.”
When she explodes, she doesn’t tell her boyfriend “I hate you;” she tells him “you hate me.” She tells him that he’s hurting her, that she’s responding the way she is because she just can’t take his abuse any more, and he believes her. He’s trying desperately to treat her right, to treat her the way she deserves, and he just keeps fucking up. Often when she’s yelling he yells back–sometimes he even hits back–and that makes him more sure than ever that he’s the real abuser here.
19. “It’s not that bad.”
She firmly believes that real abuse is when they punch you–and her husband’s only slapped her with an open hand. Real abuse is when they beat you–and he only yells at her until she cries and then yells at her to stop crying. Real abuse is when they rape you–and he always makes her say “yes” before he has sex with her, no matter how little she wants it. She recognizes there’s something wrong in their relationship, but could never call it like, abuse abuse, and so she can’t react to it like it’s real abuse.
20. “This is how relationships work, isn’t it?”
Her parents’ relationship was a constant cycle of drama and violence. Her relationship with her parents was just as bad. Her high school boyfriend hit her and her college boyfriend made her have sex when she didn’t want it. She kinda figures everyone else’s relationship is just the same behind the scenes. All she worries about is how to make the best of an abusive relationship; while she knows it intellectually, she doesn’t believe deep down that a non-abusive relationship is possible, at least for her.
—
If any of these sound like you–even if they sound like you in a “yeah, but” sort of way–even if your partner never laid a finger on you physically, it was just some yelling–even if you’re a man and she’s a woman and it doesn’t work like that–even if you swear your situation isn’t abuse because–call this number:
1−800−799−SAFE(7233)
TTY: 1−800−787−3224
It’s the National Domestic Violence Hotline and they will talk to you. They are not going to call the cops on your partner (or you). They are not going to tell you that you have to leave your relationship. Calling them is not a commitment of any kind–you can always call them and decide to stay in your relationship after all. All they’re going to do is talk to you, give you an outside perspective from people who are trained to recognize and deal with abusive situations, and help you find resources for getting out of your situation if you decide that you want them.
The sentence you quoted is a false dichotomy (one common scenario for male abuse is both partners hitting each other equally), but other than that I see nothing wrong with it. It’s not victim blaming to say “if you are hit once in the process of terrorizing your wife/husband, you are not really a victim of domestic violence.”
And uh, arguments in the comments on mainstream feminist sites. I’ve seen someone claim in the comments on something on Feministe that men can’t be raped. Twice, and then the mods banned her for victim blaming.
trinity91: that particular Finally Feminism 101 link relies entirely on some fairly vicious gender-based double standards. Specifically, there are two prongs to its argument: firstly, that not quite as many men as women are seriously injured or killed as women and this is justification to ignore male victims totally, and secondly that the men must’ve done something to deserve it. For example, take this quote: “Men who beat their wives, who use emotional abuse and blackmail to control their wives, and are then hit or even harmed, cannot be considered battered men. A battered man is one who is physically… Read more »
@DMB — I kind of did that earlier today (with the semi-open thread), and unless we get our own hosting, we can’t move comments. We can open threads, though, and I encourage that (but will tend to defer to the OP of any given post to do that).
If we’re not allowed to bring up off-topic stuff on every post (which I agree is entirely reasonable), can we get posts we can move the off-topic stuff too? Open threads or something like that?
Hey Brian:
Are you a member of an organization whose sole credo is that women never lie about rape?
If so, come sign right up so you, to, can mess with police investigatory procedures.
Sounds like a great idea to me.
Here’s an idea: Why not have an outside police forensics expert come in and do this, rather than a political organization the members of whose board include the former Mayor now Governors wife?
“Oh my, oh my. Messing with aggressive questioning. Making sure two detectives don’t question an alleged victim – I guess they don’t like someone taking notes. Yeah Brian, this sounds real smart to me. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.” These sound like the best ideas so far to me! Aggressively questioning a victim of a traumatizing crime is stupid. Having your detectives gang up on a victim of a traumatizing crime is stupid. I mean, seriously outright idiotic, unless the whole point is to intimidate victims into not saying anything. Which I can’t really muster up the… Read more »
And here’s the original article that started it all:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-md-ci-rapes-20100519,0,5338041.story
The audit constituted one piece of the city’s rape-reporting overhaul. Police instituted new policies, making sure all sexual-assault reports were referred to a specialized unit and could not be dismissed on the scene. Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III also selected a new commander for the sex offense unit, sent detectives to training and obtained grant money to beef up investigations. A U.S. Senate subcommittee convened a hearing on the topic. But as of Nov. 1, with the changes in effect, rape reports were up 48 percent compared with the same time last year, police figures show. Those figures do not… Read more »
Brian:
I guess I’ll have to go pull the other articles up then. When I do you can apologize and talk about my more substantiative points. I really can’t believe you are ok with political reforms of criminal law investigations.
“My understanding from reading the other articles is they never found any wrong doing by Detectives”
It says right in the article they did. Did you read it?
“A year after The Baltimore Sun revealed that the city led the country in the number of rape reports discarded by detectives
…
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, however, responded to the newspaper’s report by ordering an audit covering 18 months. That review found that half the “unfounded” reports should have been classified as rapes or other sex offenses, and should have been investigated.”
Brian: You obviously didn’t read the article. The cases were sexual assault in general cases, not just rape. And it was being done by officers, NOT detectives. Alot of the cases never made it to the detectives. That was wrong, and I’m gld they changed that.Now, IF the detectives were unfounding cases they shouldn’t have, someone should be suing the city for civil rights violations and a Federal court should be supervising this. My understanding from reading the other articles is they never found any wrong doing by Detectives. So I want to know: A. Why did they reassign all… Read more »
Yeah “Family courts” need reformed.
It shouldn’t be easy to take a parents rights to see their kids away for more than a very temporary emergency time. Other than that, everyone should be entitled to a jury trial in a court of law for these kinds of proceedings and visitation should be strictly enforced.
“@Trinity91 “furthermore, since you have decided to be willfully ignorant” Please don’t resort to personal attacks, calling me willfully ignorant and then linking me to a site with a vested interest in misleading people on domestic violence. I will show you what Strauss and Gelles themselves have to say about the likes of FinallyFeminism 101 and the bottom of this post. “Rightsforall, when you have to sit through those proceedings as a child let me know. Parents don’t fight for custody in a way which suggests love. They fight for it in the same way they would fight over control… Read more »
By gum you’re right! If parents truley loved their children they’d give up on ever seeing them with narry more than a hit tip and a “fare-thee-well”. After all, it’s not like the tykes’ll miss them or anything. Permenant emotional and psychological scars from the severing of meaningful of bonds and the loss of one half of the love in their life?
Don’t. Make. Me. Laugh.
After all, physical and sexual abuse are the only sort of child abuse that are, you know… abuse abuse.
Oh, and hey, I can pull up links as well
http://www.oneinthree.com.au/
furthermore, since you have decided to be willfully ignorant
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/faq-but-doesnt-evidence-show-that-women-are-just-as-likely-to-batter-their-partners-as-men/
Rightsforall,
when you have to sit through those proceedings as a child let me know. Parents don’t fight for custody in a way which suggests love. They fight for it in the same way they would fight over control of the bank account. THAT IS TREATING CHILDREN LIKE PROPERTY.
“You’re saying that him saying ‘women can do X,Y,Z and that scares me’ is misogynist. ”
No, actually, which is why I didn’t quote the entire article. Though the whole thing is anti-feminist, the middle portions are not by themselves misogynist.
“However someone should figure out what’s going on with the FBI stats because they’re either too high or too low. ”
Keep saying you’re misinterpreting them. I’m not totally sure how, but I think clearly the 41% statistic is the most direct measurement and therefore the most likely to be correct.
Oh, and sorry about the derail.
BTW, you’re right that my speculation on this was unfounded, Brian. However someone should figure out what’s going on with the FBI stats because they’re either too high or too low.
Which is probably a good thing, I’ve had too much of a dose of ‘wtf’ for one day.
@ Brian “He abandons the idea that he’s only talking about a certain subset of women fairly fast.” So you have absolute knowledge of what he was thinking? (Plus he also clarified in the comments that he was not talking about all women.) “And besides that, since we’re far off topic, I’m just going to say your argument is a pure denial of common sense and leave it at that.” You’re saying that him saying ‘women can do X,Y,Z and that scares me’ is misogynist. I don’t see that as misogynist. The only point where he descended into misogyny IMHO… Read more »
“He also clarifies that he’s not talking about all women (and he’s married so I assume he must be.)”
Yes he is; a single disclaimer does not help. You need to actually hold up the disclaimer through the article. He abandons the idea that he’s only talking about a certain subset of women fairly fast.
And besides that, since we’re far off topic, I’m just going to say your argument is a pure denial of common sense and leave it at that.
I should say the developed world, not the ‘world.’
It’s also interesting that you didn’t see the misogyny that I did.
Do you know what I see Brian? I see a list of things that frighten him about women. A list of things that women are capable of doing. He also clarifies that he’s not talking about all women (and he’s married so I assume he must be.) There is a meme of toxic misandry in our culture and there are a *lot* of women who promote it. He is writing about these toxic women. ” Instead of seeing this as a wake-up call to divest themselves of their toxicity, they instead try to inhibit men from seeking wives unsullied by… Read more »
I agree that article was VAST GALLOPING MISOGYNY of the kind that ought to be mocked on Manboobz. Choice quotes; I’m going to leave them uncommented on because any comment would spoil the rich broth of fail: “Women have become so toxic, particularly American women, that they have themselves realised that they are increasingly being bypassed as wives in favour of brides from other non-western countries. Instead of seeing this as a wake-up call to divest themselves of their toxicity, they instead try to inhibit men from seeking wives unsullied by Feminism. Western women are at risk of making themselves… Read more »