Intimate Enemies

[Music] [Music] My ex-husband and I dated for a short time before we were engaged. At that time, it seemed kind of fast. My mom told me it was too fast.

On the morning of my wedding, my dad and I were standing at the back of the church. And actually, Dave's best man came up to me with a flask of whiskey and said, "Here, you're going to need this." And my dad looked at me and said, "You know, we can still turn around and run out the back door." And I actually entertained that thought for a couple of minutes because it just didn't feel right. But I looked down into the church and I saw everybody standing there, everybody who came for me because I asked them to. And I felt guilty. "I have to go through this. I've come this far." And I thought in the back of my head, "It'll be fine. We'll be married. We'll have a family. He'll be happy. I'll make him happy. And everything will be okay. And what's the worst that can happen?" It wasn't until later when I realized his dark side.

How could fear be a gift? Well, it is. These feelings are gifts. They're not things we should ignore. The gift of fear is a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and a PhD all rolled into one.

[Music] [Music] Today, we want to talk about domestic violence. You can see how pervasive it is if you think about the people you know. How many were abused as children? How many have been in spousal violence situations? How many have had boyfriends who didn't let go? How many have had boyfriends who frighten them? How do predators engage victims? Generally speaking, with some kind of friendly appearance, with some kind of attractiveness that engages you and keeps you involved. This is true with spousal abusers. There is a process underway. A lot of times, people don't recognize the process. Keep your mind open to and keep your heart open to hear and find the truth about the adoration that they usually start with, shifting into dangerous territory, into threatening territory. Particularly interesting is the way women select men for dating or for marrying. If you find yourself ever doing that, by their potential. Meaning, he's not working now, but he's going to be really successful later on. Uh, he's a great artist, but of course, he can't paint right now because of present circumstances. Or, yeah, he's a little bit aggressive these days, but that's just because of problems he's having at work. What I encourage people to do is listen to the words. "Is not working," "is aggressive," "isn't painting" because that's the person you're actually having the relationship with. And reality always trumps everything else. It doesn't care what we want, what we think, what we hope for, the way it could be, or should be, or used to be, or ought to be. It just is, and it always wins. It's really common for us to try and make every boy Prince Charming and ignore all of the signs that indicate he's a frog. Don't tell yourself fairy tales about who he is. When he acts in a way that makes you afraid, that makes you nervous, that makes you scared, pay attention to it. Look at it. Stand back for a second and think about what it means. As often as we can see reality for what it is, we are far more likely to make good decisions. And these are really decisions. We might think, "Oh, we fell in love and we were swept into the experience." And the next thing you know, we were married. But many decisions occur along the way. And I don't think that violence is ever the correct penalty for bad decisions. But I do think it's important to remember that they are decisions. I've not seen a case in my whole career where it literally came out of nowhere. That first abusive incident, it, you know, it's a surprise. There's no question about that, and it's a shock. But I've not seen one where there weren't pre-incident indicators beforehand. I knew the minute I met my future abuser that I should have, I should stay away from him. But he pursued me. He would not take no for an answer. And I was raised in South Texas. I was taught to be a polite little girl and be nice. And so I thought, "Well, I'll give him a break and go out with him." And that led step by step to 18 years of terror.

So you knew. I knew. You heard the intuition and you let, in effect, society and culture, uh, tell you, "Don't listen to that." Exactly. Go ahead. There's a lot of things that you've triggered in what you're saying. Um, I can remember the very first time that I met my husband. We were meeting for lunch, and I didn't know what he looked like. We had only talked on the phone and email. And so I'm waiting for him. And when I turned around, he was right in my space, like right there. I just thought about that. This room. That this man was right in my. Usually people don't do that. Yeah, they don't. Especially if they don't know you. They're not right there. They're a little distance. Good. Basically, uh, interacting with women in a way that, uh, would predictably make them uncomfortable. I didn't think about it because his smile was so disarming. Listen to those words, by the way. Listen to the words. The smile was disarming. Disarming. Yes. We all know a lot more now about what the warning signs are for abusive conduct. There's no such thing as just verbal. Verbal leads to more. And by the way, just verbal isn't just verbal. It has emotional impact that's huge. That causes you to lose your own self-respect the more you listen to it. So all of it, all of it matters. All of it's bad. It's not okay. If he hits the wall next to you, you're next. It's not okay if he just threatens but doesn't actually hit you. That's next. Look for in domestic violence situations, things that they call symbolic violence. The picture, the wedding picture, smashed. Yeah. Then one thing is that it escalates. At least in my experience, it starts out just belittling you and badgering you and then really putting you down. And pretty soon, clubbing you and then throwing you down the stairs. It gets worse and worse each time. And he's crossed the line once he physically abuses you, and it only gets [Music] worse.

The first time he was really physically violent was on our honeymoon. He had planned a beautiful honeymoon in Hawaii. We were arguing about something so foolish, I don't even remember what it was about. And he had hit me with the palm of his hand on my head a few times. It, it just really took me back. Uh, at that time, I thought, "I'm, I'm out of here. I'm not doing this." But at, you know, at the time, he had the plane tickets, he had the money, the credit cards. I just felt trapped. And so I thought to myself, "You know, once we get back to our home, I'll, I'll leave." That was my plan at the time. When we got back home after the honeymoon, he was his normal, kind, loving, fun self again. And I just thought to myself, "Maybe he was just stressed out from all the money it cost, you know, to go on the honeymoon? Or maybe he was just stressed out for whatever reason." And I just kind of dismissed it.

Is it going to happen again? If you have somebody who's persistently beating you, of course it's going to happen again. Odds are overwhelmingly likely that it will happen again. Is it going to escalate? Yes. Odds are overwhelmingly strong that it's going to escalate. If he punches you today, then three weeks from now, the next incident has to be bigger than that one. You won't be controlled by just the same thing. It has to be escalating. The consequences have to get higher for you as well.

My mom could tell. Um, when she would call sometimes, David would get on the other end of the phone and say, "I don't want her talking to you right now. This is my phone line. I'm paying for it." Things just got progressively worse. He, his control got tighter and tighter. Uh, I wasn't allowed to talk to certain people. Everything was very, um, it had to be very structured the way he wanted it. Even the way his underwear was folded and put away, it had to be a certain way. And if I didn't measure up to that, he would get upset and and hit me. I would just constantly be walking on eggshells, trying to do things the right way as to not upset him.

When the abuser is the source of both the love and the abuse, it's a very confounding situation for the person who's victimized in that way, and for the whole family. Because let's say Dad is the source of all our love and our encouragement, except when he's drinking, and then he's the source of our fear, uh, and our worry. Those are particularly confounding, and they are addictive. Because the, the very place you come to for feeling good, uh, is the same place where the abuse is coming. And that means in order to feel good, you go back to the very same person who victimizes you. And he becomes, uh, a person who, uh, keeps you from friendships, doesn't want you to have any outside friends. He controls the finances, controls what you wear, controls where you go, controls, uh, where you work or if you work. And then he is everything. Everything in life becomes linked to him. You know, within the first nine months, I was pregnant with her first child. He was happy about that. We were both happy about that. Things went pretty well for a while until after she was born. He just became very jealous, very jealous of the time I spent with her. He would take her and put her in another room and not allow me to go in by her. Uh, things like that. He would say things like, "I'm the important one." Um, then his control started getting a little bit more obvious as far as the finances. Because I was home with a baby, I wasn't working. Um, he controlled all the finances. He had put all the checking and savings accounts and everything under his name. He would say, "I should just be happy being home, and I didn't need to go anywhere. I didn't need to see anyone."

This is not a monster running around. Uh, he's also working out his demons, and, uh, he has his wounds and his need to heal. And his mother issues is an obvious one, and need to control, and the belief that he cannot be loved unless he forces you to love him. And that has to look a certain way. And so this is a wounded person as well. And often, what wounded people do is wound. You know, you'll find abuse in their childhoods, and they learned, as I'm sad to say right now as I'm speaking, children are learning somewhere in America that, uh, it's better when it comes to violence, it's better to give than to receive. So this is a, a generational [Music] issue.

One time, I didn't fold the towels the way he wanted them to. So we got in an argument about that. He had chased me around the house. I tried running outside through the garage. He had shut the garage door, brought me back in the house, and banged my head against the wall. The neighbors across the street heard the commotion, called the police. The police came, and he wouldn't allow them in the home. Uh, the police saw blood coming from my nose, so he had probable cause to come in. He forced his way through the door, and it took backup of five officers to get my ex-husband under control. By the time they pepper-sprayed him and cuffed him and took him to the car, I always remember him looking back at me saying, "This is all your fault." And at that time, instead of thinking, "No, this is your fault," I thought, "Maybe I should have folded the towel the right way, and none of this would have happened." I took, you know, his bad behavior and started turning toward myself.

I had actually gone to our pastor and told the pastor things that were going on. He basically told me, "Just do what you need to do to make things work." So, of course, I went back home feeling more guilty and more shameful, like things were up to me to make to make things work.

So, can you tell us, uh, some of your story around this topic? My husband was a pastor, is a pastor and a chaplain. And so when I went to the church that we were attending to tell the pastor and his wife and other people in the church what I was going through, they looked at me like I had horns, like there was something wrong with me. And so I became silent because the church was acting like I had a problem. So I, I thought very quickly, "I better not say anything because the problem is not him, it's me." It wasn't until he beat me down in a parking lot and disfigured my face and put me in a hospital that they were like, "Oh, maybe she was telling the truth."

Gavin, don't you think that these people work harder to put the facade on of a person that they really aren't? Yes. Like they hide behind the, the pastor, the P, yeah, the pastor or the firefighter, like the one or the kind or the gentlemanly or the charming. I could write a book about what it's like to live with this chameleon. And it's so nice out in the public, and behind closed doors, you're dealing with a, with a demon, so to speak, and no one believes you. I was even sometimes surprised at, like, "Is this really the man, the man I married? To what has happened here? There's been such a shift."

Well, true story. It's not a joke. It sounds like it. But you guys were not a good match. Now, but the reason I say it is, is a man who is looking to control someone, who is looking to dominate, who is looking to, uh, to, uh, control the quote love that he gets and make it so that another person can't leave, uh, is not a good match for somebody, uh, who, in fact, has self-esteem and has personal power. And in that sense, you weren't a good match for him. Uh, that he will do better with somebody who will listen to what he wants and give him what he wants until, until she grows. Go ahead. And in that same vein, my ex-husband and I were a good match in that because I was very young when we married. I had a baby at 21, and then babies frequently after that. He kept me beat down. I did not have the self-esteem. I didn't know who I was. I had, uh, I listened to his mantra that everything was my fault. "I'm sorry I hit you. You made me do it. If you would just do this, that, and the other." And I believed him. I had no background for having self-esteem. I just believed in him, and he was occasionally nice, and he was my only source for anything and everything. So my self-esteem didn't even exist. My grandmother's words would echo in my memory: "She made her bed, let her lie in it." So there was no help and no encouragement. It was just, "Okay, this is what you chose. Here are your consequences. Live with it."

[Music] Why do people stay even when they're still afraid? Go ahead. I think in our life, uh, it was the devil. You know, that you're comfortable with. You're familiar with the devil. You know. Yes, absolutely. And we also can tolerate a lot when we've lived in a violent situation for a long time. There's a, a woman I interviewed for "Gift of Fear." She had been a battered woman. She had run to one of those shelters, and then she was running one of those shelters. She told me the story of calling up at 2:00 in the morning the police. And she said, "He's outside banging on the door to the bedroom. Would you send an officer? He had a gun outside the door." And the dispatcher said, "Uh, are you in danger now?" And she said, "No." Even though he was banging on the door to the bedroom. Her reason, later she explained, is he wasn't pointing the gun at me. And you only get that way when so many incidents have worn down your ability to perceive danger correctly. And that certainly happens to battered children, and it certainly happens to battered women. Your way of assessing the situation was different when you were in it than it is today.

Oh boy, that's the truth. There's a line in "Gift of Fear" that got a lot of controversy. "First time a woman is hit, she is a victim. And the second time, she is a volunteer." People thought that I didn't understand the dynamic, and I understood it very well from my own childhood. I understood very well why women stay. You could no more have talked me out of, uh, living in my family home or leaving my family as a kid, then I could talk somebody into leaving their children, or often leaving their husband, even an abusive husband. And above all, the reason that I stand by the idea that the first time a woman is hit, she's a victim, and the second time she's a volunteer, is that if you use a dynamic to explain away her inability to leave, if you say, "Well, that's just the syndrome of this or that," then what is the difference on the male side? He too could have a syndrome that says he also cannot stop hitting. If she cannot stop staying, he cannot stop hitting. And my view is, she can stop staying. And it's possible that you can get out of these relationships. And if we claim that it's impossible, that denial holds you in, or that having children holds you in, or that love holds you in, uh, then we're basically telling people they are handicapped and they are absolutely doomed to stay in relationships that they don't want to be in anymore.

And also wanted to ask you about your experience. Um, yeah, my husband, like, who we got married really quick and stuff. It was like an isolated experience. One night I came home and he was drunk. I knew I should have let it go, but I like instigated an argument and I was like, "You were drinking, blah, blah, blah." And he's like, "You know, leave me alone. Leave me alone." And I kept at him with like yelling at him about it. And then like, he hit me. Like he got up and just like slammed, like just like threw me down, like hit me. And then I was just like, "Oh my God." We haven't had like a violent instance since, but we've also been going to couples therapy. When he drinks, do you have, uh, anxiety or fear? I totally do. I have to stop it from causing problems because, like, if he just has a beer, like, I shouldn't go into panic mode, but I do because I have like this memory of this thing that happened. Sure. When he does seem drunk, instead of being like, "You're drinking, you shouldn't drink," I'll just like go hang out with a friend, or I'll just go play Game Boy in like the bedroom or something. And then like, he usually ends up like coming and knocking like, "Hey babe, like, what, what's up? What are you doing?" You know?

One of the pre-incident indicators associated with spousal violence is, uh, an accelerated pace of the relationship in the beginning. Oh, yeah. We got married after a week. Like, going out was like immediately. And this happened like two weeks after that. This was like all, like, right when we first. And that's why, like, cuz when it happened, I was almost like, "Should I just bail? Like, I mean, we've only been together for like a month." But then I was like, "Maybe it'll be cool." And it has been. So I don't know. What about control? Uh, does he look to exert control? No, he really doesn't. Um, I've been in a controlling relationship before. I've been in relationships actually that are probably better examples of this like violent stuff. I've been with someone who's controlling and violent who I stayed with.

Well, you can't have been in a relationship that's a better example of violence than somebody who's already pushed you down and hit you. Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. Of course. But, um, yeah, I don't know. Go ahead. Um, I have a question. I am curious, in your experience, how often, often do you see people where it truly did happen only once? Like, like in her situation, does it happen once and then you can actually recover in the relationship and move past that? Well, it's a, it's a very tough question because, of course, when, uh, violence doesn't continue, there is no statistic, there is no police report, there is no, uh, outcome that gets everybody's attention. It's, it's a tough thing. What we do know is that in cases where violence did escalate, including to homicide, uh, there were very rarely, uh, cases where there was only one incident. And escalation of incidents is a component of that. Since alcohol is such a, a huge factor in this, and alcohol more than drugs, presumably, you could say if you, uh, resolved alcohol abuse, uh, and you had less drunkenness, you might also have less of the associated violence. I don't think I'd take the chance with one of my daughters on that experiment. But, but it might very well be true. However, whatever the frustrations are that leads somebody to, uh, uh, hit someone, that person resolves their frustration with an outward expression of violence. I think it's fairly reasonable to assume that if, at that time of stress, an individual used violence as the way to resolve their feelings, uh, when they are facing that kind of stress again, they will use violence again. And there's no relationship more, uh, more likely to reliably deliver stress than a marriage. It's going to come again. Go ahead.

Um, I just have a question on that. Can therapy and other things stop you from becoming violent again? I think so. I mean, I like to believe, and perhaps as you do as well, that everybody can grow and everybody can heal. Uh, when you look at something statistically, you're not looking at individuals, you're looking at statistics, and the statistics are not encouraging on this, on this subject at all. Which is when you have multiple incidents of violence, uh, the likelihood of it stopping is very, very low. It makes it, it's not a hopeful scenario. Meaning, if, and also, I would have to ask, you know, uh, if you came to me and you were my daughter, I'd have to ask, uh, "How worth it is this experiment you're doing?" Uh, because in your circumstance, for example, you were with a guy for, you, you married somebody after a week, and you were only with him a few weeks. So in the very first week, you only knew him a month. Yeah, right. So as your father, I would say, "What's really at stake here for you? Is it this four-week relationship?" Because as your father, I could tell you, four-week relationships are very easy to come by. No. Of course. That's probably why I didn't call my father or mother crying about it.

Very well said. In fact, you, you give me an opportunity to make a great point, which is, we all know which friend to go to to get the answer we want, right? And as you say, you can find the message you want on the basis of who you call. And one of the reasons that we have no interest when we're in a situation like that in going to a battered women's shelter is we know what we're going to hear, right? We know what they're going to say to you. At 2:00 in the morning, at a battered women's shelter, if you'd had an injury, you didn't. I think, but if you had a visible, thankfully, was there was no. I'm not sure I'd be thankful about that because sometimes the, the injury is the thing that moves somebody to take steps to help themselves. You never know. But I, I am, well, regardless, I'm glad I wasn't like scarred. I'm certainly glad you weren't injured. But you know, even a bruise is enough that when you get to work and you encounter her as your coworker, she says, "Come, honey, you're coming with me." And then you're at the battered women's shelter, and they say, "We don't care what the story is. There's a bruise on your cheek, right?" It's a little bit like people who call Alcoholics Anonymous. They run many 24-hour, uh, hotlines. And you call up and say, "You know, I don't know if I really, if this is really the place I need to be calling." But the person on the other end of the line says, "You need it. You know, there's a meeting at 7:00, two blocks from your house." Because if you're leaning out like that, uh, you're, you're really showing that the signs are there. And I think your observations here today are hugely helpful because they represent an entire approach that people take. And as your father, I would say, "Hey, four weeks. You know, what do we, what's at risk here? It's not much." That gets different when it becomes four years, yeah. Or when it becomes 25 years, and you've got kids, and you've got all that stuff. And then it's not as much fun, I guess, is the best way for me to put it. Go ahead.

Um, I did get out of an abusive relationship. And all the signs were there, and I chose to ignore them. We dated, and he was always very jealous, very possessive, violent with objects, with buildings, with other people. The cops were always involved, but I would always save him and protect him and say, "I will take care of this. You don't need to worry about him." I made excuses for him all the time. He became very emotionally abusive. And, uh, it's a very hard life, revolving her world around trying to please somebody and make them love you. And, uh, there would be a few weeks at a time where he would be very loving, and I would always be holding on to that and wanting that to come back. Eventually, the, uh, emotional abuse would turn violent when he would get drunk. And it would mostly be with other people. He'd just want to beat them up. He ran into an apartment building one night at my friend's house, busted open his door, tried to fight with him. Me and a couple of other people tried to get him to calm down. He turns around and punches me, gives me a black eye. And I said, "Okay, that was an accident." The next morning, he said, "You did that to yourself. I don't remember doing that." Anytime he would yell at me, he would say, "You're making me do this." He would try to force sex on me when I didn't want it. But then I thought, "Well, this accident happened. Another one could, and it could be worse." The last straw was, uh, we were living with another roommate at the time, and I went to Ohio to see my my family. And he calls me one night, very late in the morning, and says, "I did something very bad. You're going to hate me for it because I know how much you love animals." The roommate had a cat, and he ordered pizza, and the cat jumped on the pizza box, and he threw it against the wall and kicked it. And it, it got very gruesome, but the cat died. And, um, that really made me want to get away. And it still was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. And it took me about two years to get my self-esteem back. And so that's something that happened. Cruelty to animals. That's like a scary thing. You know, cruelty to people is also bad. Don't forget. Go ahead.

One more thing that made me want to get out was thinking, "If I have children with this man, I don't know how he's going to." I don't want my child to go through this. And I went through, uh, childhood of divorce, and my dad was, is an alcoholic. And just that alone, my ex was an alcoholic as well. And I did not want, I couldn't picture him hurting my child. I wouldn't want my child going through that. So that was also something that helped me get out. Good. Thank you for sharing all that.

A friend of mine said a great thing about alcoholics and addicts. He, because it's hard for, uh, for alcoholics and addicts to grow when they're in it. Oh, definitely. And, uh, what my friend said is that addicts do not always have the best childhoods, but they always have the longest. That's very true. Yeah. In other words, they are at 38 years old, and they're still kids, or 48 years old, or whatever the age is. Yes. Go ahead.

The most important question that I asked myself getting out of the relationship was, um, "Am I more important, or is the abuser more important, or the risk that it could happen again or get worse?" And I chose myself. And that was the most empowering thing I could have done. Good. I'm glad. I agree with you. And I would add a third, uh, area that people often get stuck on, which is, "Is the relationship itself more important?" You know, on the altar of the relationship, uh, so many people are sacrificed. The idea that the marriage is the thing that must go on. You know, now, at the age I am today, when friends tell me, uh, "You know, we're going to get divorced," I no longer say, "Oh, this is not necessarily the worst." It was bad news for you. It wasn't bad news for you. It wasn't bad news for you. Now, what I want to do is read the warning signs, the pre-incident indicators associated with spousal homicide and also associated with with escalation of violence in, uh, in spousal relationships. And if you experienced one of these, just, uh, tell me, uh, you did. Number one, the woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. You had that. Oh, yes. Okay. So that's four of you. Number two, at the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace prematurely, placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. Both hands. Okay. Number three, he resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. Uh, number four, he is verbally abusive. Number five, he uses threats and intimidations as instruments of control or abuse. Uh, number six, he breaks or strikes things in anger. Oh, okay. You don't have that one. Good. You're doing great. I don't have most. I only have one of them. Th. Why? That's pretty good. Oh, you only have the main one. You're being hit. But I understand. Uh, he uses alcohol or drugs with adverse effects. He uses money to control the activities, purchases, and behavior of his wife or partner. He uses male privilege as a justification for his conduct. Male privilege is described as treating her like a servant, making all the big decisions, acting like the master of the house. His wife or partner fears that he will injure or kill her. You told me you had fear. I mean, you told me you had fear and anxiety. Yeah, I mean, like, I, I do. I mean, like, I don't know, like, I mean, it's grounded in reality, but like, I don't. The best, the best fear is grounded in. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's grounded in reality. It used to be more, uh, more profound than it is now. It's like it used to be like, like a chest beating, like, "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, is something going to happen?" So the fear that used to be chest beating and and profound, that was not sufficient, I understand, to leave the relationship. Um, I understand. And then if, if you had that fear again, what do you think? I don't know. It's hard to predict the future. It's, it's, I can't really, like, assess, like, what I would do in the future. Like, if something did happen again, like, I don't know what I would do.

So there's a woman I interviewed. She showed me photographs the police had taken of injuries that she had, and she'd had a lot of beatings from her husband, and she'd had two ribs broken. She was going back to him, which is why somebody had asked me to talk with her. She had a teenage daughter, and I asked her what she would do if the same thing happened to her teenage daughter that was happening to her. And she said, "I would probably kill the guy." And she said, "I would definitely tell my daughter to leave the relationship." And I said, "What's the difference between you and your daughter?" She said, "I don't know what you mean." And I said, "Well, your daughter has you, and you don't have you." So she literally did not have the, the resource of somebody looking out for for her. And, you know, you're crazy. One week, summer before getting married, you don't have kids yet. I know. But what would you say to a, to a friend or a daughter in the same situation? I'd probably project my own experience onto them. And because I stayed and thought that it was cool, I would probably, to alleviate any guilt I may feel or something of that, would probably tell them to do the same thing. Like, "Oh, it's cool, just stay. Like, I'm sure it'll be fine." If that makes any sense at all. Well, it doesn't make sense to me, but I understand it. I do understand. Uh, okay. Good. Thanks.

Um, go ahead. Just as a child who grew up seeing my mom hit every day, and us kids, one or the other of us was being pulled aside and beaten, you know, you never knew when it was going to be you. I know I grew up saying, "If that ever happens, that is it. It is over." I don't speak about spousal abusers like their monsters, but the dynamic is very bad for both parties, that's for sure. And because it's so dangerous, then getting out of relationships is usually the best way. You'd said, "Could people get better? You know, could they heal? Could they improve?" And, and you talked about that. And my recommendation to a woman who's in a situation where she could be at risk is, "Let him go and heal." Meaning, there's nothing. The relationship is not the most important thing in the world. It's more complicated when there's kids, but it's all right to divide and go and heal. Many, many, uh, ways of looking at this that will help a woman leave have to include that, uh, it is possible for him to grow. There's nothing wrong with the, with the belief that he may grow, but let him go do it and not perform the experiment with you in it.

My biggest mistake was to stay in the marriage thinking that I could change him, that I could do something to make him happy, uh, that I could do something the right way. And after three years, I realized that it didn't matter what I did. I, I could not change him. I can say for myself, as a child, a veteran of many, many beatings, a lot of violence, and a situation that as an adult, I would not tolerate. But in that circumstance, the idea of leaving did not even remotely enter my mind until I was about 14 years old. On one particular night, when beatings had been going on for a long time, and my older sister and I ran out of the apartment and ran to an all-night supermarket, barefoot and bruised. My sister's idea was to call the police and say, "Hey, there's two kids hanging around the market," so they would come and pick us up. And that's just what they did. And we waited. They, our ride came from the LAPD, and they took us and they put us in the jail cell, and we spent the night in the jail cell because we wouldn't give our names. And we had resolved, "Don't give our names. If we don't give any information, then we can't be taken home." And in the morning, an LAPD officer who looks a lot like you, Bob, he had salt and pepper hair. He came in and he said, "Hey, what happened?" And within 30 seconds, we told him our name, and the, we were taken back home, and taken back to the exact same house we'd run from at 3:00 in the morning, bruised and and, uh, shoeless, because in those days, that's the way it was. There were very few resources for battered women or for battered children. But my point in sharing it with you is that I understand the dynamic because the idea for me, as a kid, that I'll just explode our entire lives, and we'll be taken away from our mother, and we'll be separated from each other, and all of these consequences will come, is just what women are facing today, which is the, the belief that it's simply too big an undertaking to leave this relationship, and this home, and this community, and this family, and and children. It's a big deal. And that's why everybody who's in a violent situation needs help. And the, the biggest help we can give is showing people again and again the realities of their situation, the warning signs of spousal homicide. The more of those that you recognize, the more likely you are to say, "I'm in that situation. You can change this. You're not doomed to this." As my grandmother's words indicated that I was just doomed to this. You're not. You can get out.

I had a knife behind my back, which he didn't know. And I put it to his throat. I was hit in the back of the head with something, and I was out. It was a wooden black Louisville Slugger baseball bat. He had gotten some duct tape, and he started taping around my whole head, all the way down my eyes, my nose, my mouth. I don't swim very well. He kept pulling me further out, and he started pushing down on my shoulders, and I knew I was going to die. I was working with a partner who had been around for 20 years. And you get to the front door, didn't knock on it, kicked the front door in. And as soon as we were into the kitchen, we knew she was dead. She had poured his Scotch bottles out upside down. It just enraged him. So she wound up dying from a gunshot wound.

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