Over 50% of all women will experience physical violence in an intimate relationship. (source)
Nearly 5.3 million incidents of IPV occur each year among U.S. women ages 18 and older, and 3.2 million occur among men. Most assaults are relatively minor and consist of pushing, grabbing, shoving, slapping, and hitting. (source)
Every 15 seconds the crime of battering occurs. (source)
The statistics are scary, aren’t they? What do you think when you read statistics like those?
“I’ll never be a statistic.”
“If my partner ever laid a hand on me, I’d be gone so fast his head would spin.”
“My partner would never hurt me.”
How many people have uttered a statement like that and wound up being a victim? How many of you have uttered a statement like that and wound up being a victim?
In some cases, domestic violence sneaks up on you. In the heat of the moment, you’re filled with rage, shock and maybe even fear. The shock takes over everything else. “I can’t believe he just hit me!” Logic has no place in the heat of the moment. It isn’t until later – later that night, next week, next month, next year, that you look back and think, “Wait a minute… he hit me. That’s domestic violence!”
But then what? What if it was an isolated incident? Are you still a victim? Does being a victim of one incident make you less of a victim – or less deserving of the term “victim” – than the person who experiences domestic violence on a regular basis?
What if your relationship has almost nothing to do with what happened? Your relationship is relatively healthy. You love, trust and respect one another. You communicate. You’re there for one another. You’re supportive. Overall, you don’t fight. You argue about mundane stuff that almost every couple argues about at one point or another – money, work, kids.
Things just “got out of hand”. Something was said to rile up a person, that person lost their cool, lost their temper, and lost control over themselves.
But it was just once…
Then there’s the shame. Who wants to admit that the person they’ve given themselves to – their heart, their home, their body, their resources – has betrayed them by committing such a vile act? Who wants to admit that their husband or their wife slapped them? Who wants to admit that perhaps they didn’t accurately judge that person’s character? Who wants to admit that yes, their partner hit them? Who wants to be a statistic?
Logically, we know that domestic violence is not the fault of the victim. There is no excuse, ever, for a person to lose their temper and act out physically against somebody else. But there’s a common theme among the offenders and even among the supposed sympathizers and supporters (including but not limited to: family, friends, police, counselors): maybe you did something to trigger the violence.
I guarantee that all victims of domestic violence – whether it be one incident or twenty incidents – have heard this at some point. Maybe you said something you shouldn’t have. Maybe you wouldn’t let sleeping dogs lie. Maybe you caught him at a bad moment. Maybe you provoked or antagonized the abuser?
It’s almost always, “You didn’t deserve what he did to you…but.” That but says so much. It implies so much. It downplays what happened. Sure, he hit you, but. But what? But what should you have said? What shouldn’t you have said? What could you have done differently?
The real, logical answer is nothing. You are the victim. Your abuser lashed out at you, not the other way around. Stress, upset, anger – they are no excuse.
It’s no wonder that domestic violence continues to happen, so much and so often. A lot of women don’t bother to report incidents because they’re worried of being criticized, even ridiculed or doubted. They’re afraid of being told, in not so many words and maybe not so directly, that they’re at fault. They already know that most likely nothing is going to happen.
And a lot of these women don’t report incidents because it only happened once or twice in the course of a relationship. But logically, isn’t even once one time too many? Should a person get away with laying hands on you in a violent manner, even if it only happened once? Or twice? Or however many times a woman thinks is “not enough” to constitute real abuse?
I battle these questions myself. Two incidents have happened in my own relationship. The first happened three years ago. We were arguing, as many couples do. It was over our vehicle and whether or not we should get it repaired before attempting to take a 250 mile trip (I argued for the repair, he argued against, as it would delay our trip by a few days). I don’t even know how it happened, because it happened so quick. He was suddenly standing over me, screaming in my face. And then he hit me. Instincts kicked in: I wanted to bolt. I reached for my keys and made for our door, but he stopped me. He grabbed hold of my wrists and forced me back against the wall. He took my keys from he, took the car key off the ring, then flung the remaining keys to the floor.
The second incident happened about a year ago. This one is more vivid to me, because at the time I was not only a mother to one child, I was pregnant with our second. I don’t even know what we were arguing about. Schedules and time with each other and our daughter, I believe. I told him I had had it with his refusal to do his part in making sure we had family time together, and wondered if our relationship was worth trying to save when he wasn’t helping, and went into our bedroom and locked the door. Seconds later he was at the door, rattling the knob. “Open the door!”, he told me. “No”, I answered, “I just want to go to sleep.”
He kicked the door in. The flimsy lock gave way, the door crashed open and against the wall and dresser. Shock and fear propelled me out of the line of fire and back towards the bed, facing him. He came at me, screaming at the top of his lungs. I fell back against the bed. Somehow I “knew” what was coming, so when he raised his hand and swung at me I turned my head away. Rather than catching me fulling across the face, his blow glanced off of my cheek.
After the first incident, I took the remainder of my keys and left. Not entirely, as he had taken my means of escape – the car key, and I had no cash to use for a bus or a taxi. But I physically left our apartment. I went outside to clear my head, to try and process what had just happened.
Then I contacted my mother. Like most people who are in trouble, they run to the surefire help – their parents. I told her what happened, and begged for some kind of support, understanding.
I got it – sort of. She told me she would come and get me if I needed her to. But then she asked what I had done to make him so angry! And later I found out about a conversation (via AIM, hence me being able to read it) with him that very day, asking what I had done to make him so angry, and agreeing that I provoked him.
So there you have it. From my very own mother – I did it. I caused it. I was at fault. I felt betrayed by the two people who meant everything and were everything to me.
Before today I never discussed the second incident. I was – and still am – ashamed of it. I was ashamed to admit that maybe I didn’t do the right thing by letting the first incident go without repercussion. I was horrified by the knowledge that I was stupid enough to have children – not one but two! – with a man who obviously wouldn’t be guilty of just a “one time thing”. I was ashamed to know that I was a victim – again. I was ashamed to think that I was somehow at fault – again.
The same night the second incident occurred, I calmed down from my hysterical tears and my husband calmed down – as he seems to do immediately after going into a rage – and managed to have a discussion with my husband. He told me he had been talking to my mother about me and about some of our problems, and she told him that I needed to be “slapped around”.
I confronted my mother – without telling her of the incident itself – about it. She denied saying it – in those words. She claimed that she said it in a joking manner: “Well, my parents were married in the 40s and 50s. Back then if my mother got out of line my grandfather would slap her. That’s what Jenn probably needs – a good slapping!”
But my husband swears up and down my mother basically advised him to hit me the next time I “got out of line”. Who do I believe? The man I love, the father of my children, the one who did the hitting? Or my mother, the woman who brought me into this world, claims to love me, yet would condone and even jokingly encourage domestic violence, and lay the blame of it at my feet?
I never did tell my mother about the second incident.
For those of you who have even read this far, thank you. I’m not expecting advice or suggestions or even support. Just an ear. Sometimes, getting something off of your chest and into words is more therapeutic than having someone to talk to and seek advice from.
