And this is why

[TheOtherMe]

Sept 13, 2014 17:34:07 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Living the good life is worth a few bruises, huh? After all, it isn't every day, right?

My recently departed mother taught me two things about men:  It's time to leave if he cheats on you and do it the first time as he will do it again.  Second was it's time to leave if he hits you as he will do it again.  

Fortunately, I've never had to find out for myself.

[8 Bit WWBG]

...:::"Unless you've been there, you won't understand. It's not logical at all. But that's the key - they aren't thinking logically. They've been abused physically and mentally and are not thinking like you would.":::...

The fact that 7 pages in, a quote from the beginning is still relevant shows just how spot on this quote is.  I'm sure all of us have a few "illogical" soft spots that others think are "stupid" and "would just in a heartbeat".  While most of our soft spots probably don't go to the extreme of being knocked out, the basic principle is the same.

Its very easy to say you wouldn't be in a situation, until its your situation.

ETA: regarding "he's the star, keep him happy" -- I'd imagine that is a very commonplace attitude in sports.

[milee]

Another interesting article about why women stay in abusive relationships.  The author is the daughter of James Brown, who apparently used to beat the tar out of his wife.  www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/09/17/cold_sweat_my_father_james_brown_and_me_excerpt_james_brown_s_daughter_yamma.html

......Years later I read a quote by Stephen King that summed up what it was like living with the abuse: “People outside such relationships will sometimes ask, ‘How could you let such a business go on for so many years? Didn’t you see the elephant in the living room?’ And it’s so hard for anyone living in a more normal situation to understand the answer that comes closest to the truth; ‘I’m sorry, but it was there when I moved in. I didn’t know it was an elephant; I thought it was part of the furniture.’”

[Angel!]

Awesome article.  This really hit me:

When he first looked at me, it was as if I was looking into the eyes of a stranger—and a mad one at that.

I think it was a different thread when I mentioned this, but this is absolutely true.  Maybe not for all abusers, but I have had this conversation with other victims & they say the same thing.  When they are in a rage, they aren't there.  The person you know isn't home right then & there is nothing you can say to get through to them.  It is weird, but in that moment it is like they are just gone & you can see it in their eyes.  This isn't the guy I know, this is someone different & scary.

[cronewitch]

I left mine but waited 5 months from the first problem. When you leave some of the hard things are starting over, nothing feels like at home. I went from a house to apartment but the worst was my apartment was all new stuff so felt like living in someone else's home. I lost some neighbor friends, my pets, my old neighborhood. My new place was 25 miles or so from home so even new stores for everything. It wasn't bad just everything so new even my dishes and towels were new and I didn't own a lot of things like a tv or pots and pans. It was lonely so I never stayed home, never relaxed. The worst though was the feeling of being a failure since I couldn't make my marriage work, no 50th anniversary party ever. Maybe worse than that was everyone saying mean things about my ex so I felt I had to defend him since I picked him.

Imagine if this Mrs. Rice got divorced how many people would unleash everything about the man she married. Everyone telling her she is stupid to stay and asking why she married him. She would need to try to explain what was good about him instead of being allowed to grieve her marriage while starting over in a new place that didn't feel like home and losing most of the people in her life.

He is sorry, it won't happen again, he loves her, can't you see that?

[achelois]

Sept 17, 2014 11:46:00 GMT -5 Angel! said:

Awesome article.  This really hit me:

When he first looked at me, it was as if I was looking into the eyes of a stranger—and a mad one at that.

I think it was a different thread when I mentioned this, but this is absolutely true.  Maybe not for all abusers, but I have had this conversation with other victims & they say the same thing.  When they are in a rage, they aren't there.  The person you know isn't home right then & there is nothing you can say to get through to them.  It is weird, but in that moment it is like they are just gone & you can see it in their eyes.  This isn't the guy I know, this is someone different & scary.

Makes you wonder if there is such a thing as demonic possession, sometimes, because this empty madness is so true.  

[milee]

For anyone still wondering why a woman might stay in an abusive relationship, it might be interesting to watch "Private Violence" a documentary that will air tonight on HBO.  It will detail some stories that show how and why women stay, including how hard it is for women to actually leave and how rare and difficult it is to get abusers prosecuted, much less convicted.

www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/20/the-worst-question-for-abuse-victims.html

Excerpts from an interview with the director:

In a perverse way, the emotional manipulation that keeps victims trapped in abusive relationships is less sexy than video of a violent elevator brawl. We only wonder why Janay Palmer Rice stayed in a relationship with her abuser and even defended him, but Private Violence shows how simplistic, crude, and accusatory that question is.

“I want people to walk away and no longer be able to say 'Why doesn't she just leave?' That became my obsession,” Hill tells me.

That question—so often asked after abuse victims share their stories—implicitly blames them, suggesting that they could have walked away and protected themselves. As Walters's own situation clearly illustrates, leaving her husband would have not only meant risking her life, but any future with her daughter. Yet, she is still asked why she didn't just leave her husband. “That is the worst question you can ask a victim of domestic violence. There's really no answer, no one answer,” Walters tells me.

“Leaving an abuser is not an event. It's a process,” Kit Gruelle, a domestic abuse advocate, says in the documentary. She suffered at the hands of her husband for years until he died in an accident. “He was trained by the United States Marine Corps, and he told me if I left, he would hunt me down and kill me. So, I didn't leave.”

Gruelle's story highlights the overlooked fact that leaving an abusive relationship can be lethal. One often-cited study showed that women who left abusive relationships were 75 percent more likely to be killed by their abusers. “[The movie] was about understanding the most dangerous thing a woman can do is leave,” Hill says. “Staying may be an act of survival. That's what may be needed to keep her and her family alive.”

At the same time, Private Violence shows how much of domestic abuse is about control and manipulation rather than sheer brutality. Walters recounts how during the abduction, her husband exploited their daughter's hunger to get Walters to confess to cheating on him (something she states in the movie she never did). ....

Private Violence shows how the misunderstanding of domestic violence manifests itself in a legal system that fails to protect abuse victims. Although one would think Walters's case against her husband would automatically put him behind bars for years, it takes close to two just to get him on trial. The documentary shows not only how much work Walters and her legal advocate put into pursuing her husband, but how disturbingly close prosecutors are to declining to even treat the case as a felony.

“Our criminal justice system requires that she be beaten enough to satisfy the system,” Gruelle says in Private Violence. At one point, she is seen talking about Walters's case to a county prosecutor, who is shockingly skeptical about taking it on. Even after Gruelle describes how Walters's husband choked her, the county prosecutor is still dismissive. “Any internal injuries? Do we have any medical doctors that will say these are serious injuries?,” she asks, ultimately concluding that it's unlikely to be more than a misdemeanor conviction.

It is only because Walters's husband transported her and her daughter across state lines, which violates the Interstate Violence Act, that the feds follow the case. It is chilling when a federal prosecutor reveals that Walters's husband “could have gotten off with nothing” if he hadn't been caught crossing state lines.