Domestic Abuse is a difficult problem to solve

Nov. 30, 2011 _ My ex-husband has been abusing me in one form or another for nearly 20 years. Within that period was a 10-year period of physical abuse, but the emotional abuse has been on-going and in many ways, much more painful.

We aren’t poor, stupid or friendless. We are “normal” people, who have “made it.”

But, we are not normal.

We have each made a place in this world that includes good jobs, wealth, children, homes, cars, friends and family, and so on. But, that doesn’t change that my life, the lives of my children and I suspect my ex-husband’s life will never been normal.

I live with an almost daily ache that can permeate everything in my life if I let it. In the wee hours of the morning, I can suddenly wake from horrible dreams that involved my ex screaming at me or worse. I rarely get back to sleep after one of those dream as the voice in my head relives some of the more frightening incidents. Sometimes when I am making parenting decisions, I consider how my volatile and jealous ex will react if he knew what I was doing. Sometime my children withhold information from their father because they fear his temper.

I can fall into a depression thinking about my own stupidity that I married this man in the first place or that it seems I will never be free of his abuse, lies and manipulations.

I worry about how he is treating my children and the effect that his mental unhealthiness will have on their minds and hearts as they grow up. I worry that my youngest will get hit by his Dad and I won’t be around to protect them.

Some days I am giddy with happiness that I got out of the marriage, but so sad that I could not give my children two parents in one home. Some days that giddiness slides away when I realize that he has figured out another of my vulnerabilities that he can exploit and the following paranoia can grab me hard.

I worry that his new wife, who reacts so strongly against me, will turn against my children in an effort to combat me. I worry that my ex will throw his own children under the bus to gain ground with his new wife, as he has done to me.

I can spend a whole day battling the need to call my ex and beg for peace or to help him get the emotional help that he needs to get healthy.

I entertain feelings of tread, revenge, anger, resentment, pain, and sadness and of course anxiety that something will happen to me or my kids.

I worry that I am not equipped to parent my kids through the various feelings that they have being the children of a very unhealthy parent.

I worry about my former mother-in-law, who is often the victim of my ex-husband’s rathe and has suffered for years at his hands and sharp tongue. And I worry that my ex is not providing a good example for our children on how to treat people.

I have continued therapy and support groups over the years to help me manage these feeling that sometimes makes me feel exhausted and fed up with dealing with this ongoing problem.

And despite this massive amount of emotional damage, I deal with so many people who “don’t want to take sides” and still seem to think that domestic abuse is some sort of couple’s argument that escalated just a little too far. I watch even lawyers and authority back away from getting involved in domestic abuse because they don’t want to take the time to figure out if the women is telling the truth, despite the statistics that show so few of the cases are trumped up.

I see very smart people, including my ex, who try very hard to compartmentalize his abuse and try to separate it from  all the “good” things he has done. As if the mental illness and internal voice that gives him the right to hit someone, somehow goes away and his not part of his character when he pushes his kids to over achieve or interacts with his second wife or reports to his boss or writes an article about another NFL player who beats up a girlfriend.

I watch some of my own family members get pissed that I have brought out this dirty little secret and no longer keep it behind my home’s front door, where they think it belongs. I have watch some friends turn away from me because they don’t want to believe that the couple they knew was a lie and the reality is ugly and not easy to deal with.

I have had to have the authorities get involved in the parenting of my teenage children because my ex has used the court system to abuse me now that he doesn’t use violence to control me. I know that I’m a good mother, a pretty good one in fact. Involved, thoughtful, a good provider, not perfect, but respectful of my children. But, I’ve been accused of being a bad mother who doesn’t deserve custody by ex and his wife and I had to face them in court more than once as they aggressively attacked me in front of the law.

None of these feelings feel good. In fact, they suck.

Yet, I’m happy. Despite it all, I’m happy. I’m happy that I got my children out of the horrible environment. I’m happy that despite two attempts in court, my ex has not prevailed in his accusations against me. I’m happy that I have so many friends and family members who have stepped up to give their support of me, and have been willing to accept the reality of my family and have not been afraid to get real.

I am grateful to my sister who is the only person in my life who confronted my ex and put him on notice years ago and let him know that she was not going to tolerated his abuse of her family. She has come to my emotional aid in person and on the phone more times than I can count. I am grateful that I have more friends and family members who have supported me. I am grateful to the many bloggers who have shared their stories so that I understand my ex, myself and abuse more than ever before.

I am also hopeful that the laws in this country will change and domestic violence will be treated as it should and those abusers like my ex will be held accountable. So that he will stop.

I am hopeful that no one else will ever go through the pain of domestic abuse and I am hopeful that my life will only get better as I move away from the years of abuse.

I am hopeful that my children will not grow up with mental and emotional illness and will never hit their partners.

I am hopeful that all the agencies and law enforcement will change the thinking of others and realize that abuse is assault and battery, a crime, and very destructive. It is not the result of a wife yelling at a husband or a wife needling a man. It is a horrible choice made by a very unhealthy person that needs to be held accountable for the choice. And frankly, needs to be treated differently than the “normal” person.

Another headline of domestic abuse becomes yesterday’s news

Nov. 29, 2011 _ Attention sports fans: Another NFL player is accused of battery against his girlfriend. Dozens of players have been accused, charged and convicted. What’s one more?

Just another headline of a woman getting hurt at the hands of her loved-one. Just another woman getting back-handed, knocked down, bruised, pushed, shoved, bloodied. So what.

These players are tough and their girlfriends sort of deserve a little push now and then, right?

Just another story of a little domestic squabble that made headlines because one in the couple happens to be famous and worth a lot of money.

Just another story of an argument that escalated too far, right?

Really? I mean really?

Who is taking this position? Maybe a bunch of reporters who don’t really understand the gravity of the situation or maybe someone who does the same thing to his wife?

I know first hand that the “unbiased media” is hardly objective. I know first hand that those sports writers have stories of their own and sometime, those stories are a bit too similar to the people they write about and sometime condemn.

My ex once wrote about a player who spit on another player on the field. That player got ejected from the game and was the brunt of my ex-husband’s judgmental column about the incredible lack of character shown by the offending player. Yet, he didn’t confess in that column how he had spat on me more than once … and right in my face. He didn’t talk about his own lack of character or offense. But, after he wrote the story, one that I’m sure his editor told him to write, he never wrote about the player’s offense again. It went away like yesterday’s newspaper.

The same is true of incident after incident of domestic violence that my ex-husband covered while committing the crime himself, over and over.

Don’t wonder why this topic is so easily pushed to the back pages or out of the news cycle so quickly. Abusers have a pretty good ability to blame others for their acts and diminish their destruction, but its gets a bit hard when they have to condemn someone else for the same actions.

My husband is a professional sports writer _ so he can’t be an abuser

Nov. 26, 2011 _ I’ve written before about how abuse is suppose to look. Trashy. Drunk. Classless. Trailer park. Dirty white T-shirt. Social misfits. Friendless. Messy. Mean.

Google domestic abuse and you will find pages and pages of hotlines and shelters ready at a moment’s notice to whisk away victims from dangerous households with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

There are stories after stories of lives saved from and lives lost at the hands of an evil, socially inept monsters, who terrorized families to point of dramatic destruction. And, those who surrounded the victims and the abusers weren’t surprised.

But, that is not my story.

My abuser looked just fine to the outside world. Oh, he was a bit of a blow-hard and a little too interested in his own opinions. He was great at debating and pontificating, sometimes at annoying levels.

But he looked, well, normal.

He held a very good job, still does in fact. He is a nationally known sportswriter who writes about the NFL. He does radio shows and writes columns. His opinion is sought often on the various ins and outs of the sport and the industry.

He is married, owns a home, and mostly pays his child support on time. When we were married, we entertained friends, took family vacations, went to church, coached our kids sporting teams, sent out Christmas newsletters, held BBQs and generally looked like an everyday, American family.

But, behind closed doors, all hell was breaking loose.

It was the land of Oz and I hated it when I had to walk behind the curtain to my reality. The fantasy was so much better. When people were around, I lived the life I had always wanted. When people were gone, I was depressed, sad and scared.

Sometimes my surreal reality would drift into my daily fantasy life and I was unnerved. My friends would talk about the misdeeds of their husbands and I would chime in to fit the occasions, but I never told the truth. If I did, my reality would no longer be surreal and I would have to face it.

I will never forget the night I met a very famous NFL football coach at a very formal party that my ex had taken me to. It was an extravagant affair to honor another, retiring coach. My ex walked me up to the new coach and introduced me. “It is nice to meet you,” he said to me. “You know, your husband makes me pretty mad sometimes,” he said with a smirk. “Well, he makes me mad sometimes, too,” I said back and the coach broke out in this hearty laugh. Oh, how funny I was … but there was this voice in my head … the melancholy of knowing that it wasn’t really a joke.

I never dreamed of calling the police or a hotline or a shelter. I never expected that my ex would kill me. Bruise me yes, harm me yes, but kill me … no I didn’t think that. Why did I need a shelter? I had a place to sleep each night. My kids had their own rooms filled with toys. I wasn’t locked in my room and denied access to my family. I didn’t think I was in danger of loosing my life. I somehow accepted for the most part that getting hit, lied too, cussed out, was normal … or at least my lot in life.

I had enough good stuff that I could tolerate it, right?

But of course, it was all a lie.

And the good stuff …. didn’t make up for anything. Instead, I began to resent the good stuff. I harbored anger toward many things and people, mainly against my husband. And despite my head telling me I could live with this, my heart knew better and I rebelled against acceptance.

I dragged us to counselor after counselor and read relationship book after relationship book to try to unlock the secret to a married life that didn’t include abuse.

I prayed to God. I begged my husband. I begged counselors to “fix” our marriage and make my husband stop hitting me. I knew that if only he would stop, then we could have a happy life and I could truly enjoy the home, the Christmas parties, Sunday services, little league games, family vacations, bridge night with friends, and so on.

I didn’t want to throw all of my life away, just the abuse.

And for a very long time, I resented the counselors who couldn’t or wouldn’t fix my ex.

No, I didn’t need a hotline because I didn’t think I was a victim. I didn’t need the police, because if I called the police, my entire life would come to an end. I didn’t need to run off in the middle of the night. I needed to wake up from denial.

My ex wasn’t going to stop me from leaving, but he wasn’t going to stop abusing me either.

Thankfully, I did wake up. And I got the appropriate help that I needed to strengthening me and let me know that I was not the cause of the abuse and so therefore I had no power to stop it, except to leave. And even now, I have no control over my ex, so I can’t control his choice to abuse, so he still does. He doesn’t hit me anymore, but he still attacks in many, emotional and financial ways.

When I look back on my life through clear glasses, I see that on many occasions, I was almost killed. I was left in horrible emotional circumstances again and again. I was thrown under the bus more times than I can count. My ex has taken actions against me that are very harmful to me and my kids.

I recall the time that he chased me through our home in the middle of the night and I ran into my boys’ room in an attempt to lock the three of us in there away from my raging husband. He pushed the door in and got me pinned up against the wall just a few feet were my little children slept. He beat me there where I stood.

Another beating happened just 5 days after I had had major stomach surgery. With staples still in my foot-long incision, my ex threw me around in his fit of rage and I was slammed up against the wall and slid to the floor like a cartoon character. By the grace of God, I was not seriously hurt and my staples stayed put.

Was my husband murderous? No, I don’t think so, though I know very well that on more than one occasion he wished me dead. But was my life in danger? Of course it was. When my ex turned to violence, it was a choice he made to get me out of his way. He wanted what he wanted at that moment, and my life to him held no value. He didn’t hold back his blows or consider how my body would handle them.

And when he speaks of the abuse today, he is very matter of fact about it. Emotionless. He says that he is sorry, but his eyes are blank as he speaks. The only time he has ever been emotional about it is when he describes “how hard it is to live with himself knowing that he abused.” He feels pain about how it affects him, but not how it affects me. Let the psychologist explain that.

I have come to realize that there is another picture of domestic abuse that doesn’t look dirty and messy from the outside. Abusers hide in plain sight. Articulate and well-read, charming and smart. Employed and well-off. Clean and friendly. But, criminals nevertheless.

Abusers can be sportswriters, lawyers, professionals and doctors. Abusers come from all walks of life and there are no limits. Abusers choice to abuse, they are not pushed to it, so they can choice to abuse where no one can see but their victim and they can get really good at living double lives. Like me, many victims become vested partners, willing to lie about the abuse to avoid the shame and to save the good stuff in their lives.

But, it is all a lie. Not one minute of my happiness while married to an abuser felt nearly as good as the freedom from violence I feel today. I still have good memories of my life with my ex, but those memories are about my kids, my family and friends more than about my time with my ex.

The happiness I feel today is about real happiness that I’m proud to share in its entirety with those who love me. No half-truths and secrets. No lies about my marriage. No more bruises to hide.

What’s funny about abuse?

Nov. 26, 2011 _ As I deal with the various emotions created by the physical abuse of the past and the emotional abuse I’ve just faced, I desperately want to find inner peace and forgiveness. I want to be healed and I want to find humor in my life.

I was raised in a family of smart-asses and funny cousins who could make you spit your milk through your nose in a heartbeat. That laughter helped us through the dramas of domestic life.

Today, my mind desires to laugh about the rollercoaster I ride with my ex-husband and the turmoil that an abuser can cause … but how is getting strangled funny?

I relive the event in my mind, and I can’t think of a single comment that would make me laugh about a husband charging his pregnant wife and wrapping his hands around her neck.

Nothing funny at all about that.

I imagine that I’m Carrie Fisher, who made readers laugh out loud with tales of very sad and serious subject matters .. addictions, mental illness, divorce … she made them all seem bearable with her sarcastic twist. I admire Nora Ephron, who famously wrote about her famous ex-husband’s infidelities, and made me laugh ’til I cried in the telling.

I wish I could find the humor of my situation. I wish I could find the laughter about my ex suing me for custody of my beloved boys. Maybe if I could, I could feel healed and could find the peace of mind that I seek.

Maybe I can’t laugh about the surreal events of domestic abuse because it is not the slightest bit funny. Maybe there is no humor in a man standing over his wife with rage in his eyes and violence in his heart. Maybe the picture of a child left at the door, screaming “Daddy please come back” while Daddy drive away in anger is not anything but sad.

I can find humor in a lot of tragedy in the world. I love to laugh and spit milk! I have found the jokes in my mother’s death and so many sad situations. But, I can’t find the humor in my abuse. What is funny about that?

Will it ever end? I seek a path that doesn’t include domestic abuse

Nov. 22, 2011 _ When I hear the term “domestic abuse,” a bunch of pictures come to mind, various stereotypes and TV pictures of a man beating the crap out of a helpless, submissive woman balled up on the floor. I see the woman as innocent and helpless as a child and the man as mean and nasty as the devil.

However, that is not the picture of the abuse that I have experienced and frankly continue to experience in my relationship with my ex-husband, the father of my children.

Though there were many circumstances that looked a lot like the picture in my head, I never through of myself as an innocent victim. I blamed myself over and over. I called myself stupid that I put myself in that situation with my ex again and again. I blamed myself for complaining, talking back, standing up for what I believed was right, and on and on.

I continued to believe that my ex’s rage was something to pity at least, but for the most part I sympathized with him and maintained a large level of compassion for my ex and his deplorable childhood. I also believed that I could “fix” my husband with enough love and acceptance.

But, I never felt innocent and I rarely looked at my ex as evil.

I was wrong and those thoughts are still very dangerous to my life and my children’s.

I have spent so many hours in therapy, group discussions with other abused victims, reading and trying to understand why this happened to me and seems to continue.

Abuse is simple. It is the result of one person’s actions to get what they want from another, by many, hideous means. To make it worse, the victim almost always stays silent out of shame and deny.

Six years after my divorce, my ex is still abusing me. The latest abuse was an unfounded law suit to grab custody of our children and get the court to force me to do what he wants, no matter my opinion on the matter and no matter the welfare of our children.

But, I also understand that abusers face almost daily emotional chaos that includes feelings of insecurity, helplessness, the need to feel superior to others, pain, self esteem doubts, and on and on. As my ex faces these feelings, he seeks relief.

Gaining a sense of superiority over me gives him that and he tried constantly to have that.

Since our lawsuit was settled and my ex was unsuccessful in gaining custody of our children, he was not able to remove me from the parenting process of our children, had to pay my attorney’s fees that amounted to almost $20,000, he didn’t win reduced child support, was not able to take the children as a tax deduction, now has to pay for half of their activity fees (which I paid for before) and can no longer deduct the supplemental alimony that he pays me on his income taxes. Basically, he was unsuccessful in getting the court to force me to do what he says when he says it and many people he has only made his life worse at great expense.

Yet, my ex as saddled right back on the superiority horse and continues to try to engage with me to his benefit.

I get an email from him almost daily with a variety of instructions, directions and demands. Much of it is unnecessary  as it is spelled out in our new agreement, yet he emails me anyway. I struggle with the desire to tell him to leave me alone and just move on. But, any engagement gives him what he needs.

The lawsuit gave me something that I didn’t have before …. a written instruction on how to manage together our children. So, it is in writing who picks up who and what time we hand off children and where. There is rarely any need to speak and that is fine with me.

But, my ex still tries.

To me, that is evidence that his illness is in full swing and his tension is building.

I worry about it, too. I know that he wants relief. I know that he is looking to feel superior.

Today, I seek information on how to make sure he doesn’t try to release that tension on me.

 

Penn State is just another example of how people of power have the power to abuse

Nov. 13, 2011 _ I am one of three children, nine grandchildren, the mother of two, an aunt to three and sister-in-law to two _ so in my immediate family there are 19 people plus one living parent.

Of those 20 people, more than one was the victim of a sexual predator and more than one was victimized by a domestic abuser. I write that sentence carefully because I want to make it clear that my family members were not victimized by a syndrome, such as child abuse or domestic violence, they were victimized by people, adults to be exact, and in some cases, by adults who claimed to love them.

Some of these criminals are also my family members, but they did not go to jail, or were ever handcuffed or ever charged with a crime because their victims stayed silent.

Instead, the victims kept their abuse secret for many years, sometimes because they were so young and didn’t know what to do about their attackers and sometimes because they didn’t want to hurt their family with an ugly truth and sometimes because they didn’t think anyone would believe them.

Nevertheless, for decades and decades abusers of all kinds have for the most part gotten away with crime after crime. What has happened at Penn State is disgusting and shocking, but it is not unprecedented. Men have been preying on little boys who want desperately to trust a father figure for hundreds if not thousands of years. And societies after societies have allowed it to continue.

The coaching staff at Penn State were right to be fired, albeit too late, but they should also be criminally investigated. It is time that our justice system stops cringing when faced with such facts and take appropriate action. Yes, abuse is ugly and dirty and makes us all want to look away and pretend that our worlds have not be altered by such horrors. But, that doesn’t matter.

In the words of Hillary Clinton, it takes a village to raise children, care for the elderly, help the poor and underprivileged, and take care of those who need help. I am not judging those who don’t want to step up to the plate and get involved through their tax dollars or local volunteer organizations, but I draw the line when someone backs away from taking charge to save a victim from a perpetrator. Call the police. Be a witness at a trial. Stop the abuse if you are presented the opportunity.

Don’t look the other way when you see someone abusing another. We are put together on this plant to help each other again and again. Don’t shirk your responsibility. We are all counting on you.

When I think of my family members who suffered at the hands of sexual predators, I am sick at what they have experienced and how their lives were forever changed by it.

It is time that our society is sickened by abuse and by people of power abusing it. But most importantly, it is time for our laws to be properly enforced, written and executed to protect victims from abuse.

Too often, we assume that victims of these crimes are some how partly responsible for their attack. Wives complain too much. Girls wear provocative outfits. Men harbor latent feelings. Too many excuses that have nothing to do with one person using another as if they have no souls.

Victims are not responsible for another’s actions ever. If they were, they would make that person stop abusing them.

Our legal system, our institutions, our support systems, churches, schools, and so on, need to have a zero tolerance for such crimes and that change needs to happen now. Please do what you can to help and don’t allow another person to suffer at the hands of a criminal.

Domestic abuse takes many forms

Nov. 12, 2011 _ I lived in a violent marriage for 10 years. I was hit, pushed, thrown, shoved, knocked down, jumped on, sat on, kicked, stepped on, spat on and choked over the years at the hands of my then husband.

Six years ago, I filed and was granted a divorce and custody of my two children. My ex didn’t fight one bit of my divorce or the terms. He didn’t get an attorney and he didn’t come to the divorce hearing. He quietly agreed to the divorce because he was afraid for the abuse to go public and he knew that if he fought it, he might be exposed, or so I speculated.

My ex is an NFL sports writer who is known nationally and he didn’t want to jeopardize his career or facing the public about his abusive ways.

And when I left, he never hit me again.

However, in the six years that has followed, he has cursed me out more times than I can count. He has stood in my house, pissed off, and refused to leave. He has screamed at me from my front yard. He has sent me nasty, name-calling emails over and over. He has lied about me to others and created fantasies about me, my life and my fate based on little to no information. He has threatened me many times. He has shorted me on child support over a half a dozen times. He refused to pay me the state required child support amount for more than three years and eventually took me to court to try and get it reduced and lost. He has threatened me many times that he would sue me for custody of our two children.

In April he followed through with his threat and sued me for custody. After seven months of court motions and mediation (he walked out after 5 hours), depositions and many, many hours with attorneys, he eventually agreed to a settlement that gained him just two extra days a month with our children and he had to pay all attorney’s fees (tens of thousands of dollars).

It has been a very difficult seven months as I have faced the thought of a custody change and my teenagers lives changing abruptly at such crucial times in their journey.

My ex accused me of all sorts of things, namely that I was sabotaging his relationship with the children, despite his hit and miss parenting and inconsistent visitation. He rarely calls the children or communicates with them via all the various forms available, yet he blamed me for that.

Since the custody battle was settled, my ex has continued to argue with me over the phone, in person and through email. He continues to blame me and accuse me of deliberately hurting him and violating him. I quickly diverted his communication to only email and told him to follow our new court-ordered agreement to stay clear of me and communicate with me only through email and only about our children.

He made a point of continuing his rude emails and giving me paperwork in person when I dropped our children off for their scheduled visitation, I assume as a way to let me know that he will not be “controlled.”

Domestic abuse takes many forms, but according to all experts, its purpose is the same _ the abuser wants to control the victim and require the victim to do as he wishes, whenever he wishes it.

I also believe, though I really don’t know if this is universally true, that my ex is in a negative emotional state that is causing him a good deal of stress. I am not excusing his behavior, I am trying to be aware of it, because until his stress level is reduced, he will seek to abuse and gain superiority over others, namely me.

Domestic abuse makes many uncomfortable … but it’s wrong

Nov. 10, 2011 _ As a victim of domestic abuse and a controlling ex-husband, I have faced many different reactions from my abuser, family members and friends. Of course, my ex says he is sorry for the abuse he inflicted on me for 10 years of our 15-year relationship, but he usually qualifies his apology that I deserved it or brought it on.

Most of my friends and family have offered me support when they find out and are horrified when they learn what was really going on behind closed doors of my home. Some want details. Some don’t want to hear the details. Some are still in disbelief that the people they thought they knew well were in the middle of a drama that they can’t imagine. And sometimes, that disbelief can look and feel like a condemnation of the public disclosure and maybe even me.

I understand why people struggle getting their heads around a friend of family member either abusing or being abused. I had a hard time getting my head around it and I was there, getting beat up. It does seem surreal, and unbelievable. I never thought my ex would do such a thing, and keep doing it.

I saw the good traits of my ex and I wanted to focus on that. I excused his behavior over and over again and attributed his choice to hit to his poor upbringing and his mental and emotional illnesses. I offer felt compassion for him after he hit me, because I felt that he must have been in so much pain that he had to hit. Unfortunately, those feelings enabled me and kept me in a very dangerous situation that risked my life and the lives of my children.

Unfortunately, the feelings of others kept me there too. They didn’t know it, but I was worried how everyone would feel about it. I worried that my ex would loose his job, his friends, and that the people I loved and carried about would have to face something very bad. My silence kept all of that away.

Also, I wasn’t strong enough to face it myself and face how some people might react badly toward me. Afterall, I was already blaming myself for the abuse. Now my loved ones might, too. There were so many powerful emotions and thoughts that drove me to stay for so many years and to continue even after divorce to put up with abusive, controlling behavior from my ex.

Thankfully, I no longer live day to day in that emotion. I am not always strong, but I always find a way back to the facts. The first and for most is that I did not cause the abuse. My ex abuses me because he gets an emotional payoff to do so. He is addicted to the feeling he gets when he feels the power of controlling others. He chooses to abuse all on his own. He is not a good person who is pushed to the brink. He is a very unhealthy person and he deals with his inside demons with abuse the same way that others eat or drink their feelings. He is self-medicating. And I nor anyone else is put on this Earth to be used in that way. These are very important perspectives that I try to keep in mind.

But here are some other facts that should be in the forefront:

Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women ages 18-44 _ MORE than car accidents, mugging and rapes COMBINED.

One woman is beaten by her husband or partner every 15 seconds.

3-4 million women are beaten in their homes from husbands, ex-husband, or male lovers.

85% of domestic violence victims are women.

1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime.

Domestic abusers offer use their children as a way to control their ex’s after divorce and 70% of domestic abusers ultimately abuse their children.

Most women attempt to make many changes in the dynamics of their family in order to make the abuse stop, but it doesn’t because the batterer is making a behavioral choice that only he can control.

Accepting the cycle of violence

Nov. 8, 2011 _ Now that the custody suit is settled, I am very relieved because my children’s lives won’t change too much and the stress and fear that I have felt for more than seven months are gone. I am very happy because I can definitely live with the court-ordered parenting plan.

But, I don’t think that my ex-husband can. In the few weeks since he agreed to settle, he has fought one of the agreements and went off on me verbally once. It was ironic, because just before he lashed out at me, I was thinking of facing him and trying to help him handle whatever emotional roller-coaster I think that he is on. His verbal abuse snapped me quickly back into reality. He is traveling within the cycle of violence of an abusers and it is best that I stay off the ride.

I believe that my ex is in a truly bad place emotionally and though he had a moment of clarity when we were working on the settlement, his fear was not relieved. And that is not a good sign. Whenever he was tense in the past, or worried, or afraid, he would lash out. I don’t think anything has changed. He is looking for a way to lash out at me.

His emotions are running high and he doesn’t handle that very well. The key is to remember this and stay as far away as possible. Focus on my kids. Give them a healthy life and help them navigate this field.