Domestic Violence can happen to anyone.  Domestic violence isn’t just what the eye sees.  It can happen with financial abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, legal abuse, and physical abuse.  According to the National Coalition Against Domestic violence, it is defined as the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, and emotional/psychological abuse. The frequency and severity of domestic violence varies dramatically (https://ncadv.org/statistics).

The statistics are alarming

In the United States, an average of 20 people are physically abused by intimate partners every minute. This equates to more than 10 million abuse victims annually.

• 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have been physically abused by an intimate partner
• 1 in 5 women and 1 in 7 men have been severely physically abused by an intimate partner
• 1 in 7 women and 1 in 18 men have been stalked. Stalking causes the target to fear she/he or someone close to her/him will be harmed or killed.

I am going to explain how domestic violence turned my life around.

I witnessed my mother being physically abused by my father.  It was a horrible feeling, watching the woman I loved, and was protected by, thrown down a flight of stairs.

Not soon after this even I remember being 6 years old and in 2nd grade.  We moved out of our home.  We packed up everything, put it into storage and we lived for 2 days in a domestic violence shelter.  I so remember watching a little girl filled with excitement to own my old boots that had holes in the toes.  I didn’t understand why she was so excited.  Now, 32 years later, I completely understand.

Fast forward to 2005.  I am pregnant, not married, with the man I thought loved me more than anything, put me on a pedestal and worshipped the ground I walked on.  I found out I was pregnant.  When I announced it, that is where the violence started.   It was pushing, name calling, refusing to go to any of the prenatal appointments, financial abuse, so bad that he would take the phone and keyboard to work with him.  There were many times he would leave a car but no keys, I had to cancel several appointments for baby check ups because I had no transportation.  I wasn’t allowed to work, go to school, nothing other than stay home and take care of “his” daughter.   It would be bad and then it would get really good again.

After my oldest son was born it was “good” for about 3 months.  Until I needed diapers.  I was told that it was my responsibility, with no job and no education I moved in with my mother.  She completely understood.

This is where the legal abuse started.  He wanted his visitation time with the baby he had never spent more than 15 minutes with.  So I was served papers.  I decided I could make anything work with him as long as I could tuck my baby into bed at night.  I went back to him.

Fast forward 2 years, I told him he was to marry me or I was moving on… I wanted a family, a whole family for my son.  We married in Disney World.  Right away I got pregnant.  It was good for about 2 years.  Until I decided to go back to school.  I moved in with my mother again and he promised me he would help with caring for the boys while I took classes.  I missed my first day because he was unreliable.  My mom agreed to drive 45 minutes each way so I could go to college.

The abuse was getting worse and worse.  It wasn’t until my mom sat me down one day and explained to me that I was allowing him to teach my boys that it’s ok to treat me bad.  It was eye opening, shocking, and I couldn’t believe that I was allowing this to happen.  Then one night while I was sleeping I was awakened to pain.  I was being punched while I slept with my youngest son.  My natural instinct was to cover him.  When I did that it revealed my whole left side, that would later be covered in bruises.  I didn’t know why this was happening, it was 3 am and after the attack he was gone.  I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.  I was bleeding from my ear, his wedding ring had cut my ear open, my youngest son wandered into the bathroom with me and said, “Mommy bleeding.”  I was shaking, I was crying, I was scared. I called 911.  He was taken away.  Immediately there was a no-contact order that he violated 3 times.  In all of the breaking up and getting back together, I went through that 5 times before I left for good.

He was forced out of our home by the court, leaving the boys and myself to live in the house.  The boys and myself continued going to school.  Until one day, 2 weeks before Christmas, we had just put the tree up and CPS called, stating if I took my boys into my house I would have them removed from my custody. He had the house tested for black mold and it came up positive.  I had to move out and leave everything behind because it was contaminated.

So long story short, my neighbor allowed us to live there while I finished my first degree and we moved out into our own house on the other side of town.  Living across the street from him was horrible but at that point I had nothing else to do.  Now the question remains, did I feel protected by a piece of paper?  Did feel comfortable allowing my children to go spend parenting time with the man who abused me?  The answer is simple.

I ended up going though a very ugly, “High Conflict” divorce.  And through all of that I am still confused on how the court systems can have domestic violence cases go through the same steps and mediation as normal couples.  I did make one huge change for me and the boys through this, we did receive 18 months of therapy at our local domestic violence shelter.  I truly believe it was through this support I am able to be the strong woman I am today.  I know it isn’t my fault, and am able to understand that I can not change people if they do not want to change.   I was out of weakness.  I had to find strength and love for living.

Happy Ending

Here I am still having to share custody with him.  All of the parenting that I do with my boys is completely UN-done when we go there, but now the boys are seeing why we are not there and I am married to the wonderful man that I am.  2.2 degrees later, a teaching career, and a healthy, strong mind.  It is true what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, and I am living proof.

The wheel above is the wheel of domestic violence.  It starts with the honeymoon, this is where I was put on the pedestal, then the tension built, which leads to the explosion.  And it happens again and again.  It is called a wheel because it rolls.  The cycle of abuse continues, and repeats it’s self again and again.

According to North Korea domestic violence is prevalent and there is “very limited awareness” about the issue and a lack of legal services, psycho-social support and shelters available for victims, the panel said.  They also explain that the report found that penalties for rape in North Korea were not commensurate with the severity of the crime, which also often goes unpunished. Legal changes in 2012 lowered the penalties for some forms of rape, including the rape of children, rape by a work supervisor and repeated rape.  So in conclusion, if you are a victim of domestic violence you do have a better chance of being protected by the law if you are in the U.S court system.

References

World Health Organization- http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs239/en/

Haven- https://www.haven-oakland.org/about

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence-  https://ncadv.org/statistics

North Korea News-  https://in.reuters.com/article/northkorea-un-rights/north-korean-women-suffer-discrimination-rape-malnutrition-u-n-idINKBN1DK1EL