Raising Awareness About Domestic Violence
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This topic contains 16 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by Dang Martin 7 years, 6 months ago.
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July 9, 2015 at 8:19 am #216
I was so happy to see the courage and strength of Ireland’s fitness blogger Emma Murphy as she bravely sent a message to women everywhere that domestic violence is not OK and should not be tolerated.
One of the things that has astounded me is that the Christian community doesn’t really care too much about this issue. At all. I’ll tell you personally for myself, as a Survivor, I’ve received more support from people who are not religious. Secular organizations and individuals, than anyone in the church. The church’s attitude towards domestic violence is that “the only Biblical grounds for divorce is adultery.” It’s total bullshit.
I’m really hoping that Emma’s bravery an story doesn’t get forgotten. I hope that her story will create a movement of women who will speak even louder and I hope that other women in the public sphere will be empowered to do the same thing. It’s laughable that her ex-boyfriend is saying that he didn’t hit her…bullshit. I cannot even believe he’s denying it….well yes I can. All men who are abusive deny it. No surprise there.
Not much to discuss other than I just wanted to give a big shout out to Emma and hope that others are equally inspired. I hope the trend will continue and that men who are hitting their wives will be men and face up to it and seek the help they need too. The one thing I can say with absolute certainty is the most men who abuse women were first victims themselves. That is the ugly part of domestic violence that is also being forgotten and not dealt with in any meaningful way. Men and boys need to be empowered to get help before they repeat the cycle. My own ex-husband was abused. He had it really bad. The last memory he has of his own father was him smacking him to the ground as a 5 year old boy like my son is now. Then he ran off and he never saw him again….
The thing is that we as a society can NEVER heal from the cycle of domestic violence if we are only offering support to women. I really think that men who have been abused need a separate place to go. And there needs to be a lot more education around the issue than there is. Simply telling women to leave – while it’s an amazing thing to do – doesn’t solve the problem.
I’m about 2 and a half years separated from my own domestic violence situation, and I’ll tell you, it doesn’t get easier and doesn’t go away just because we don’t live under the same roof anymore. He still sees our son, and is still involved in his life. I WANT him to be a part of his son’s life. But there’s limits. Just last weekend I had to pick him up early because my ex was in pain and his temper was getting the best of him. He now calls me when that happens, but it really affects me because if I make plans or create my own schedule counting on having certain time to myself and then get interrupted to go get out son because he’s not man enough to take care of his own kid, yah…it’s a problem.
The court system encourages both parents to be involved, but when one parent is harming their child, what do you do? Anyway…I could probably write several books on the topic. Ultimately I think it’s important that our world keep talking about this issue…I would really like to see men get the help they need so the cycle can finally be broken forever.
July 9, 2015 at 12:38 pm #222It’s interesting what you mentioned about the Christian community you were part of and how they did not really support you. I’ve encountered this sort of attitude before when people have very black and white views about, for example, marriage drummed into them. It’s sad that they can’t take a step back and actually respond to the individuals in the situation. Why favour the idea of marriage over the happiness of someone who is part of your community? I don’t get it.
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This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by
Simon Mathews.
July 9, 2015 at 11:23 pm #257All men who are abusive deny it
Men who aren’t abusive deny it too. I’d prefer to wait for the case to go through the courts before I make assumptions about the guy.
You are dead right about supporting men and boys out of the cycle of violence too. It won’t end unless and until we support everyone out of it and break all of the links in the chain.
For what it’s worth. My wife hit me once. It’s the only time either of us actually struck the other.
July 10, 2015 at 2:32 am #265@simon
In my experience, there are a lot of teaching within the Christian church that are based on assumptions. They assume that their audience is this white, middle class, well off family where the father works and the woman stays home with the children. All of the teaching is geared towards that audience. They also assume that you are BOTH “believers.” So it is assumed that the man and woman are already involved in a church, have deep roots within their community and that the church itself is functioning in an ethical manner. They assume that the man will be willing to “submit” to the church for council and that both people will work hard on repairing their marriage. The fact is that people like that are few and far between. So what the church advocates and reality are really two different things. The church lives in a world of fantasy that just simply doesn’t exist.July 10, 2015 at 3:33 am #268Yah let’s wait on the jury…I’m really curious to see his testimony on how pushing her resulted in a black eye. I’ve been pushed before and it’s resulted in other injuries, but never, EVER a black eye. Even if he did push her, it’s still physical abuse. Even if he just blocked her from leaving a room if she’s trying to get away from his verbal attacks, that’s physical abuse. It doesn’t ultimately matter. It’s wrong. Period.
You know what I’ve learned from these last 2 and a half years away from my situation…I look back on everything and I will be the first to admit that we both were at fault. I’m sure you’d agree that when your wife hit you, you were probably being an asshole. It doesn’t excuse her behavior AT ALL…because her hitting you is physical violence, even though she is a woman. What you have to look at is the overall dynamic of communication and understanding between the two of you.
I slapped my ex-husband once. So hard his ear was ringing for weeks. He could have called the police and had me arrested, but he didn’t. He never reported it. He just bitched and moaned about it for a long time. The reason I slapped him is that he was being abusive to our son. So I put my son in his car seat, closed the door, stepped away from the car where he couldn’t see us, and I let him have it. At this point we were already divorced. I look at that situation and I can honestly say that I deeply regret it. I became the very type of person I had tried to get away from. When we were married I was scared of him. I wouldn’t dare ever talk back to him. So in a way it was a victory to be able to stand up for myself, but I did it in a very wrong and very violent way.
So I don’t deny that there is usually fault on both sides. What I’ve learned in all of this time trying to heal is that domestic violence relationships are created when there is an unhealthy dynamic between BOTH people. Both people play a role in creating it and both people must be willing to work to change it. It doesn’t take the blame away from where its’s due. If a person hits, threats, intimidates, or emotionally/mentally attacks another person, regardless of gender, it is violence. The flip side of that is that in a marriage situation, if the woman stays and allows it to happen, and doesn’t stand up for herself, then there is no chance to heal.
If a relationship starts out as unhealthy to begin with it, it continues down a pattern of unhealthiness unless some catalyst happens to change that dynamic. If a woman never raises her voice in opposition when her husband calls her names, he will continue to do so. I’ll never forget when I first got married my husband started calling me names. It had NOT happened before we were married. But as soon as we walked down the aisle things changed. It hurt my feelings. I started to cry and told him I didn’t like it. He stopped. But other bad behavior started. I had known him for 4 years before we got married, so it’s not like we went into it like dumb teenagers. My point is that when we first met, unhealthiness started, and it continued…we are both responsible for letting that happen because I allowed it to happen too. I was not educated nor empowered as to what it means to have self-respect. That is based on the family I grew up in, and the city I grew up in. I was taught some very fucked up things at a young age, so I didn’t know better. When you know better you do better.
It’s never easy to separate from a marriage. There are places in this world that make it harder than others. If we were talking about women in the Middle East, the conversation is totally different compared to the United States for example. But my point still stands that it takes two people to make any relationship healthy or unhealthy. Empowering a woman to leave a bad relationship where she is being hurt is a great start, but it’s incomplete. It fails to look at the reason she ended up in that situation to begin with.
In my own situation, I can honestly say that my communication with my ex-husband has improved so much so that now when I call he sounds happy to hear from me, he has not been disrespectful to me in a while, and his treatment of our son continues to get better. I believe that this was because when I left him, I chose to stay engaged in communication with him. We do not have the courts all up in our business. I do the talking to him. It was very difficult for a long time, and we have had several instances where I was still living what seemed like an abusive situation when we were divorced. But now I’ve learned to communicate well with him. He has too. When something happens were we disagree, he tells me, “I don’t want to say anything rude to you. Let me think about it and we’ll discuss it later.” My response is, “Ok.” End of story. We take our space and reconvene about our son, and it works well because that time allows us both space to think on it. We haven’t had a major disagreement in months.
He is not involved with our son much. But he is still involved and that is what matters. When he starts to feel pain or sick, he doesn’t take care of him, because those are the times when his patience and temper are at their worst. He has a lot of time to himself that allows him to be able to give his attention to our son the 2-3 times a month that he sees him. So…quality vs quantity is key for us. He is still abusive to our son and he will never be perfect. But the good comes with the bad, and he is who he is. What’s important is that our son still gets a dad who says, “I love you” to him, and they do have special time together.
All this to say that there is hope for people who are separating from violent relationships. It takes a lot of humility to be able to admit your OWN part of the situation and be able to tell yourself, “even though I messed up with _______-, I am forgivable and I will forgive myself.” Likewise to be able to say, “I am angry at ______for hurting me in this way, and I will never forget it, but I will no longer allow it to hurt my present actions and decisions.” It’s a powerful thing to be able to say that YES…I am a Survivor of domestic violence. But my ex-husband is NOT a monster. He is NOT a bad person. He DOES have a LOT of AMAZING qualities. He is a GOOD person. He LOVES his son….but his behavior will only ever get as good as he wants for himself. That’s HIS choice. His choice to be that way means that I will not be with him because my standards are higher. My boundaries are firmer. I will not tolerate even the slightest bit of disrespect. Not from him or from anyone. That is the way it should be. That is the way it should have always been.
So we do in many ways have the best of both worlds. I am co-parenting with a man who is doing his best and I give him full credit for that. I respect his need for space and the fact that he is incapable of being the husband and father that I wanted him to be, but I accept him for the father that his has become, and am teaching my son to stand up for himself when dad acts a certain way. I am continuing to encourage the relationship between the two of them by choosing to live close by, and allow him the opportunity to be the dad he best knows how to be. I continue to be his sponsor here in the United States since that is what immigration requires of me, and I will continue to make sure that if he runs into tough times I will help him the best I can without giving into the boundaries that I’ve set for myself.
It’s sad to say that we will never get back together. Although we’ve become the healthiest we’ve ever been, we are not meant to be together. It would resurface all of the problems that led us to separate in the first place. People only change so much, and even if it’s a lot, sometimes a relationship gone bad is best left where you can manage it the best. What’s important is that our son sees us communicate in a healthy way. Healthier now than probably a lot of families. Although he doesn’t see us together a lot, he does see us together happy and civil and respectful to each other, and united in what we want for him.
What more could we ask for?
Financially it is difficult on me. It is difficult for any woman trying to be a single mother. I don’t have family/friend support the way Emma Murphy does. If I did my life would be a lot easier. I have a mentally ill mother, and all of my family and friends are in Albuquerque. The only family in this region is apathetic to my situation. I didn’t have family and friends to run to when I left him. So I ran to an ex-boyfriend who ended up being a rapist and an asshole. A lot had changed since our college days….so I made the mistake of looking for comfort in a man – the biggest mistake a girl could ever make. Even the men in this world who are the best of the best, are not going to save you from yourself. For a domestic violence perpetrator OR survivor to get better, it requires a good hard look in the mirror. I fell into the trap of thinking that I needed a man and that a man was going to rescue me. I had to rescue me. And even now as I am totally and utterly alone, I have to find it within myself to be OK. I have to create my own community of friends, but not rely on them to take care of me. I take care of me. That’s the only way it has to be.
Our culture needs to re-evaluate how to think and talk about domestic violence. Like I said I could write a book about this. If you skipped my lengthy response and skimmed to the bottom, the take away is this: Domestic violence needs to be a conversation we start to have as a world. Not just a nation – a world. And the focus needs to be about discussing WHY it happens, and HOW people can overcome it. I’m proud to be a living example of how a person can get out, and end up in an amicable relationship for the child’s sake. I got out the first time, and I never looked back. As tempting as it is to try to patch things up with my ex for financial stability, I refuse to do it. If I go back, it will happen again. If I stay like we are now, our son will have the best father he possibly can. The best mother too. I hope.
Here is a recent interview with Emma that is well worth watching:
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This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by
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July 12, 2015 at 11:39 pm #561Hi Belle,
That’s a long reply but I read it all.Regarding the black eye from a push: If you are falling and happen to hit your eye on a door handle or coffee table or something like that, I can see how it could cause a black eye.
I’m glad you are at a place where you can have good communication with your son’s father. I always thought my wife and I communicated well but now I think that was all superficial. We’re doing some counseling now and I think it’s helping us… There’s years of issues pent up, of which any physical abuse is just the tip of the iceberg in my opinion, and I’m struggling to get past them. I’m afraid you might be right, once a relationship breaks down like this, it may not be possible to put it back together.
July 13, 2015 at 1:54 pm #587Hello Belle
I’m glad to see that you don’t accept that double standard regarding female on male violence. However, without knowing the circumstances I’ll just say that I feel a person can be justified in using violence to defend themselves or their child from the same. Of course I don’t know whether that was the case here, but if so then don’t feel bad about yourself. I know that many forms of abusive do not involve physical violence, but can be nonetheless damaging. You and every other person who experiences this has my support and admiration for your strength.
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This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by
Mcc1789.
June 21, 2017 at 11:23 pm #3273Why favour the idea of marriage over the happiness of someone who is part of your community? I don’t get it.
Some will just say “God has His reasons”.
July 26, 2017 at 9:46 pm #3860Wow. It’s eerie looking back over these old threads
August 7, 2017 at 8:27 pm #4067Oh, I have an awareness about DV.
I remember in the 90s, when my now ex-wife was beating me. There were 19 DV shelters in the area, and none of them accepted men. There were loads of free legal services out there, but none of them would help me because of my gender.
I remember when I finally got sick of her beating me and dialed 911. Guess who went to jail for 3 days on $50,000 bond? Me.
I remember her figuring out that the system was rigged in her favor, and using it against me. One day, when I refused to give her money that I didn’t have, she waited until I went to work to call the police to say that I “yelled” at her. She thought the police would have a talk and scare me into doing her bidding. The officer wrote in the report, “Assailant verbally assaulted victim and fled.” No bias there.
The State pressed charges at me for DV offenses, when I did nothing. I was sentenced to one year of probation, 50 hours of community service, and one year of group therapy with “Alternatives To Violence,” a program run by Alyce LaViolette. She’s the “expert” who tried to paint Jodi Arias’ victim as a perpetrator, based on his gender, to excuse her murder of him. LaViolette is a Lesbian and certified man-hater.
I spent one year in this “therapy,” at two hours and $35 per week. They were condescending. They made it look like only men are responsible for DV, and that only men hit women, not the other way around.
I remember at the end, where they forced you to admit that you did something wrong in order to get your “graduation” papers for the judge. I said that, “I yelled at her, yelling is violent, and yelling is wrong.” The lie in that statement is that I did not yell at her.
We have horrible laws in the US that are based on VAWA, a program put together by Joe Biden, and The Duluth Model.
When I finally escaped the abuse, I had to do it without the help of any agency. If she ever hit me or threatened me, I could not call for help. When she pulled a knife on me, I had to get away from her. If I defended myself and she got just ONE scratch, I’d be in prison for a long time.
I remember dialing 911 during an episode where she found out where I lived and tired to break down the door. The first operator did not take it seriously and said “the little lady will just get tired and go away.” There’s NOTHING little about her. The second operator said, “Well, what do you want US to do about it? YOU MARRIED HER.” The third time, I had to say that I thought she had a gun. Some detectives and police showed up. I told them about my 911 experience, and they didn’t care. One detective called me a “pussy.”
I agree that Domestic Violence “awareness” is important. However, there’s a type of awareness that does NOT get mentioned. Although this thread is old, I figured that I should give it mention.
Our society treats women like children, as if they’re poor defenseless little things that cannot take care of themselves. Conversely, our society treats men like perpetrators who are guilty because of their gender. Men get treated as a disposable resource.
But talking about male victims of DV isn’t part of the agenda. Can’t feel sorry for men who are pussies, who need to “man up” and take charge of their household.
When spreading “awareness” in the future, maybe cover the side of the story that never gets told and is consistently ignored.
August 7, 2017 at 10:50 pm #4072Thank you for sharing what appears to have been a very personal story. It is true that men are subconsciously attributed to being the predator or aggressor, before even a word is spoken. I really appreciated being shown the inverse of the standard DV case. It seemed harder to understand in the abstract, probably because of that male=aggressor preconception thing. Thanks Dang 🙂
August 7, 2017 at 11:09 pm #4076I have heard a very similar story from someone else. The laws clearly need to be changed, along with the perception of how domestic violence works. However, it should not be assumed the OP was aware of this and neglected that fact. Many people simply are not. So it’s good that you raised awareness of it Dang.
P. S. I must say that LaViolette’s sexuality is irrelevant, however.
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This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by
Mcc1789.
August 8, 2017 at 11:00 pm #4082The truth is – in every DV relationship there is dysfunction on both sides. No one is ever 100% innocent. I look back now and realize some things about me that were and still are very fucked up. Had I already been a healthy person to begin with I would not have married the person I did. There were red flags ALL OVER our relationship from the start. Men who are abused are also abusive in some way. Women who are abused are also abusive. Every relationship is different as to the whole “Who is worse”….Some fights the woman is. Some fights the man is. My ex-husband to this day is still dangerous and abusive to me.
My point is – no one is 100% victim. I had to learn to stop playing the victim. Being a “victim” feeds the abuser and keeps the cycle going.
August 8, 2017 at 11:02 pm #4083I wrote this thread a couple of years ago and since then I’ve changed a LOT lol
August 8, 2017 at 11:57 pm #4084The truth is – in every DV relationship there is dysfunction on both sides. … My point is – no one is 100% victim. I had to learn to stop playing the victim. Being a “victim” feeds the abuser and keeps the cycle going.
That is true, and I had to learn my role in the situation. As a Codependent, driven by abuse that I suffered as a child, my goal was to control her feelings at all times, so that she never cried, never felt hurt, etc. My goal was to fix her, and to “rescue” her, even at the expense of my own feelings, my own sanity, etc.
Her drive came from her Borderline Personality Disorder, as a result of having an alcoholic father, as well as being sexually molested by her maternal grandfather for the first nine years of her life.
That said, the typical “awareness” about DV promotes the idea that women are victims. ALL women are victims. 100% victims, all of the time. They are incapable of defending themselves. Conversely, the men are ALL perpetrators, by definition, for they are male, they have testosterone, and they are inherently bad.
In the ATV “counseling” I had to take for a year, the focus was only on the men. So while I was going through this, she was getting NO help at all.
She denied having ANY mental health issues, at all. So far as she was concerned, I was the one who was crazy, and nothing was wrong with her. Yes, perfectly normal to hold a knife and watch someone sleep. Perfectly normal to call my employer and threaten suicide if I’m not allowed to go home. Perfectly normal to call the police and declare that I hit her, as punishment for not taking out the trash as quickly as she wanted.
At the end of the ATV “counseling,” Ms. LaViolette asked us what our plans were for the future. Since I had gotten my graduation papers, and closed my case after reporting to the judge [quarterly reporting for a year], I was free to tell her how I felt, which included some critique of her industry.
That is, “I’m leaving my wife, because I have come to learn that violence is ALWAYS wrong.” [Of course, I always knew this.] “While I have been here, working for two hours every week for a full year to improve myself, my wife has done absolutely NOTHING to improve herself. I am convinced that it takes two to have a sick situation like this. The bottom line is that I have gotten better, and she has not.”
Certainly, it was easy to point my finger at her abuse. Given the fact that SOCIETY does not acknowledge her abuse, and considers HER to be the victim, I felt justified in this. However, it wasn’t enough, and I had to take on the difficult task of pointing a finger at myself. I had to learn about Codependency, deal with my past, and even today I am still working on it.
But where did we end up after our split 20 years ago?
I took some time to myself before entering a very healthy relationship. We’ve recently celebrated our 18th anniversary together. No violence. No threats. No yelling. No hands raised. No sleeping on the couch. No getting thrown out in the middle of the night. No crazy phone calls. No alcohol or chemical abuse. It has been healthy.
As for her story, she spent 9 years chasing me, trying to get me back, stalking and threatening me. Eventually, her health started to become an issue [she’s older than me], so that slowed down. She met a guy who is a raging, violent alcoholic, who lost custody of his three children due to his drinking. I have seen bruises on her face and arms before. Our son told me some stories.
Not only do I know for a fact that he has been beating her regularly, but I know that she likes this. As sick as it sounds, it’s what her drunken daddy gave her when she was little, so it’s the only expression of “love” that she understands. Looking back to the times that she would hit me, scream at me, and press me, it is now painfully obvious that she WANTED me to hit her, and was angry and disappointed when I would not.
So yes, I know that it takes sickness from both sides. Certainly, a healthy man or woman would not just sit there and take it. And yet, I did. I made excuses for her; that the past few days have been good, so maybe the storm is over. I went into denial. I felt sorry for her. I wanted to rescue her.
I handed her the stick and stood there.
Unfortunately, in the discourse about “Domestic Violence Awareness,” this is NOT discussed. Instead, the talk is all about how evil men are, how women are helpless victims, and how we need to do more to punish men and protect women.
There is NO talk about how men are victims.
There is NO talk about how both people in these situations are sick.
As a result, and as evidenced in my ex-wife’s story, women get NO treatment. They’re free to remain sick, and then commence to seeking out another sick person for another sick relationship.
The “awareness” rhetoric is off-balance and off-point. This is the main issue that I am trying to raise. Domestic violence is horrible. Sadly, it won’t be stopped with these current approaches. Then again, people like Alyce LaViolette DO NOT want it to be stopped, for it would put people like her out of business.
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