Here Comes Treble: Don't Nourish Violence
"Leaving an abusive relationship takes courage and determination, but it is the only possible solution. An abusive person will not stop abusing his victim until the victim stops accepting the abuse...''
Isabel Bradley writes about domestic violence - "a topic that makes me want to take people and shake reason into them. I hope that by putting these thoughts on the Net I will perhaps, reach one person who will hear what I'm saying and take that first step.''
Why do people remain in abusive relationships? Is it a case of “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t?” Fear of the abusive partner’s retaliation should they leave? Worry about not being able to survive financially or emotionally on their own? Of “the children needing both parents…”? Or even, “I’m not so badly off, I’ve got a roof over my head, food on the table, clothes for me and my children… it could be so much worse.”
Usually, it’s a mixture of many or all of the above reasons. I know. I lived in an abusive marriage for too many years. When, with help and support from friends and family, I finally ended the marriage, the relief for all concerned was huge. Now, I listen with horror to the tales of others, mostly women, but also men, who fight the same battle, daily, in their own homes.
Recently I heard of a young, anorexic mother with an eighteen-month-old baby. Her husband regularly calls her the most unacceptable names in the most foul language. He owns a gun, with which he frequently threatens to shoot her and her baby. She won’t leave him, as she is afraid that, should she apply to the courts for a divorce, her husband will use her anorexia to gain custody of their child. That is, if he doesn’t shoot her first.
Perhaps the home where she grew to womanhood is where she learned to accept emotional abuse. Her father, the local preacher, told her that should her husband shoot her and her son, “God will forgive the young man because he doesn’t know what he is doing”. Her mother told her that the disgrace of a divorce was unacceptable, and she would pray for the young couple. Her brother, also a preacher, told her to pray for guidance.
Is there any hope that this young woman will break the cycle of violence which has shaped her life?
The second story is of a woman whose unemployed husband has a drinking problem. As do most alcoholics, he won’t acknowledge that he has a problem. He has persuaded himself that the problem is hers – and punishes her for it constantly. He taunts her, calls her all the nasty names he can think of, turns her occasional visit to the hairdresser into a crime that steals food from the table. During the evenings, while waiting for one of their sons to phone for a lift home after cricket or soccer practices, she sits quietly, not wanting to trigger his cutting criticism should she decide to knit or read. She seldom dares to ask him to drink less, or to mention that when he drives under the influence he endangers his family and everyone else on the road.
On Friday evenings, while her sons are at youth group at the local Catholic church, she prowls the shopping malls, desperate to avoid spending time at home with a drunk husband, or alone waiting for him to stagger in and start arguing. He questions her every move, where she’s been and why, until she believes it’s her fault he hasn’t got a job, that their sons question his behaviour…
She won’t consider leaving him. She’s Catholic. Her marriage vows are more important than her happiness or her safety. She wishes her husband would be caught and jailed for drunken driving. She has even found herself wishing that he was dead.
Women – and men – who live with such constant abuse come to believe that they are responsible for the dreadful things that happen in their lives. The first step away from victim-hood is the realisation that everyone is only responsible for their own actions.
Leaving an abusive relationship takes courage and determination, but it is the only possible solution. An abusive person will not stop abusing his victim until the victim stops accepting the abuse – and moves away from it.
Abusing another person, physically or emotionally, is as much an addiction as alcoholism. Abuse, whether perpetrated in words or deeds, is violence. It is never acceptable. Violence feeds on violence, leading to a break-down of society where rape is the norm, and human life has no value.
If you are living in a relationship or a marriage in which verbal or physical violence is the norm, where a kind word or deed is surprising – end the relationship. While you remain a victim, you allow the perpetrator to perpetuate the habit of violence. You have a responsibility to search deep in your soul for courage, to take control of your life and live from now on in dignity and peace.
Once you are free of the violence, tell the world of your experience. By doing so, you will help to break the cycle of violence by ensuring that the person who abused you has to acknowledge the intolerable nature of their abusive behaviour. Sooner, rather than later, they must be persuaded to seek professional help in taking control, accepting responsibility for their actions and ensuring that they don’t repeat them in their next relationship.
Until next week, “here comes Treble”.
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