How to Help a Friend in an Abusive Relationship: What You Need to Know About Domestic Violence (2 page)

***All studies indicate that battering is
learned behavior. Between sixty and eighty percent of batterers
grew up watching their fathers abuse their mothers.
[
Battered But Not Broken
, Patricia Riddle Gaddis, Judson
Press, 1996.]

What About the Children:

***Male children who witness adult-to-adult
domestic violence are, as adults, 700 times more likely to beat
their female partners. Male children who also are physically abused
are, as adults, 1,000 times more likely to beat their female
partners.
[
Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American
Family,
Murray A. Straus, Richard J. Gelles, and Suzanne K.
Steinmetz, Anchor Press, New York, NY, 1981.]

***Of children who witness wife battering, 40
percent suffer anxiety, 48 percent suffer depression, 53 percent
act out with parents, and 60 percent act out with siblings.
[
Forgotten Victims of Family Violence
, Social Work, July,
1982.]

***Current estimates of family violence in
the United States suggest that three to five children in every
classroom may witness violence in their homes.
[
Colorado
Coalition against Domestic Violence Fact Sheet
, 1998, website:
www.psynet.net/ccav]

Youth Violence:

***While violent crime in this country seems
to have reached a plateau, one of the highest increases in violent
crime is occurring in teen dating relationships.
[Quote from a
California Family Court Judge.]

***One in three teens experience some form of
relationship violence before they graduate from high school or
college.
[Article published by the YWCA’s Domestic Violence
Institute in the San Diego Union-Tribune, May 2, 1998.]

***Teens do not know that their boyfriend’s
physical abuse is wrong.
[Article published by the YWCA’s
Domestic Violence Institute in the San Diego Union-Tribune, May 2,
1998.]

Costs of Domestic Violence:

***Medical costs from domestic violence total
at least $3 to $5 billion annually. At least another $100 billion
can be added to the cost to businesses in lost wages, sick leave,
non-productivity, and absenteeism.
[
Domestic Violence for
Health Care Providers
, Fact Sheet from the Colorado Coalition
Against Domestic Violence, 1991.]

***Each year, domestic violence leads to
100,000 days of hospitalization, 301,000 emergency room visits, and
almost 40,000 visits to a physician.
[
Five Issues in
American Health
, The American Medical Association, 1991.]

***Some estimates place the annual price tag
companies in America pay for violence in the home as high as $5
billion.
[
Domestic Violence and the Workplace
, The
Family Violence Prevention Fund Web Page.]

***According to a 1996 National Institute of
Justice Study, domestic crimes against adults account for almost
fifteen percent of total crime costs which currently tops $67
billion per year.
[www.gotec.net/dv/info.html dated
9-14-00.]

***In a 1994 survey of senior executives of
Fortune 1,000 companies, 66 percent of the respondents believed
that a company’s financial performance would benefit from
addressing the issue of domestic violence among its employees.
[www.gotec.net/dv/info.html dated 9-14-00.]

***It is estimated that 25% of workplace
problems such as absenteeism, lower productivity, turnover and
excessive use of medical benefits are due to family violence.
[Employee Assistance Providers - MN, the National Clearinghouse for
the Defense of Battered Women, 125 9th St., Suite 302,
Philadelphia, PA 19107.]

Chapter 2 -
Factual Answers to
Frequently Asked Questions

How does someone become a batterer?...
Eighty to ninety
percent of men who are violent with their partners witnessed their
fathers abuse their mothers or were abused themselves as children.
Such childhood traumas contribute to low self-esteem and general
feelings of being out of control as an adult. These early
experiences have also taught men to cope with problems of stress by
using violence. Society has encouraged or condoned such violence by
perpetuating values that a “real man” is aggressive and forceful;
that violence is acceptable at certain times; that women are
acceptable targets of violence; that women enjoy pain; and that
women and children are a man’s property.

If a batterer is using alcohol
or drugs and stops, won’t the violence stop as well?...
Not
usually. There are many families where both violence and chemical
abuse are problems, but one does not cause the other. Both problems
need their own treatment. If a person is chemically dependent this
must be addressed before treatment for other problems will be
effective.

Isn’t battering only a
momentary loss of temper?...
Battering is the establishment
of control and fear in a relationship through violence and other
forms of abuse. The batterer uses acts of violence and a series of
behaviors, including intimidation, threats, psychological abuse,
isolation, etc. to coerce and to control the other person. The
violence may not happen often, but it remains as a hidden (and
constant) terrorizing factor.

Can a batterer change? Is
there hope?...
A violent person is using that violence to
release feelings of anger, fear, frustration, etc. Such a person
lacks the interpersonal skills to express those feelings in
constructive, positive ways. The problem is that many batterers
experience few, if any, real consequences for their violent
behavior. Many men will not seek assistance without strong
motivations, such as their partner leaving them or the court
ordering them to do so. Suggestions from the batterer’s friends and
family that he seek assistance can also be encouraging. But unless
and until batterers are consistently held accountable for their
actions, they will not seek assistance, no matter how bad they say
they feel or how much they profess to want to change.

However, there is hope. It is possible for
batterers to change their violent behavior, but they
must
be
able to admit that they have a problem, take responsibility for
their own actions and seek professional help. They usually must
remain in ongoing counseling for a significant period of time
before newly learned responses become a permanent part of their
behavioral patterns.

Is it true that if children
never actually see the abuse, they won’t be affected by
it?...
I
t is rare for children who
live in violent homes to escape seeing and hearing the violent
incidents. And even if children never actually witness the violence
in any way, they are still affected by the attitudes and emotional
states of both parents.

My husband says if I hadn’t
provoked him, he wouldn’t have lost control. Is this
true?...
Every person has the right to respectfully express
their personal feelings and opinions without fear of reprimand. A
woman has the right to express her anxieties, fears, hopes and
desires. She has a right to ask questions and get a civil response.
She has a right to disagree with her husband and to expect
mutually-respectful conflict resolution. And she has the right to
be involved in the decision-making process in her marriage.

The problem is a controlling man views all such
“rights” as a threat to his pattern of control. He views her
individual expression as provocation and a challenge to his
authority. The abuser sees his wife as a possession instead of a
person with inherent human value. He does not have the ability to
recognize his wife as a partner and the equal member of a team.

Nevertheless, the abuser is personally
responsible for his reactive behavior. No one else is to blame. No
woman deserves to be physically abused, no matter what she does or
does not do. Short of genuine self-defense, no behavior justifies
violence, no matter what the provocation. The mature, responsible
male should be in control of his anger, which may mean taking a
“time out,” until he is ready to responsibly address the conflict.
The problem is the batterer does not possess such skills, and needs
professional intervention and counseling to acquire them.

What’s the difference between
power and authority?...
“
Power and authority must not be
confused”
, cautions Charles Colson.
“Power is the ability to
affect one’s ends or purposes in the world. Authority is having not
only the power (might), but the right to affect one’s purpose.
Power is often maintained by naked force; authority springs from a
moral foundation. While power is not inherently evil, it is
‘inherently corrupting.’”

Violence is a sign of the batterer’s choice to
allow the authority given him by God as the servant-leader of his
family to become corrupted into an unrestrained, self-serving
demonstration of his “power” over the family. The Bible says,
“
The evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in
him.”
The batterer is a living example of the truth of this
proverb.

Shouldn’t a wife just learn to
be more understanding of her husband’s needs?...
Typically,
most battered women already exert tremendous amounts of emotional
energy attempting to meet the needs of their abuser. Along the way,
women also become expert at hiding the truth not realizing their
actions are in fact reinforcing the very violence destroying their
lives.

He hits her. The neighbors call the police. She
says she fell and refuses to press charges. She repeatedly thwarts
the efforts of law enforcement to bring the criminal in her home to
justice. She skillfully hides incriminating evidence and makes
excuses to his employer. In fact, after every violent incident most
battered women are busy not only nursing their own wounds, but
ensuring no one finds out how they were inflicted.

But by working to consistently conceal the
batterer’s behavior, the battered woman only succeeds in negatively
reinforcing his violence. And by doing so, she is actually
reinforcing tantrum behavior in a man who on the exterior may be
very macho, but inside is as possessive as a two-year-old
child.

Rather than learning techniques for being more
sensitive to her husband’s desires, the wife of a batterer needs to
learn to let her husband grow up and bear the full consequences of
his violent actions. He needs to learn to take responsibility for
controlling his impulses and the only way this will occur is if she
stops shielding him from his actions, no matter how painful the
repercussions.

If a Christian wife would just
learn to be more submissive, wouldn’t her husband’s behavior
change?...
It is a popular conviction that by submitting to
violence a woman will win her husband to the Lord or, in the case
of a Christian husband, help him see the error of his ways.
However, accumulating clinical evidence suggests that the single
worst action a victim can take is to submit to an abusive
partner.

Researcher Megan Jobling asserts that the
submissive behavior of battered wives might itself provoke their
husbands. And in his book,
Family Violence
, George Thorman
contends that a battered woman’s use of compliance as a coping
strategy can be dangerous since in many cases the more submissive
she becomes the more her husband will abuse her.

How can an abused wife
persuade her husband to get help?...
She can’t! The single
best course of action is for the battered wife to get help for
herself. As she begins to develop her own personality, her own
individuality and set personal goals and boundaries, her abuser
will start feeling left out and will start reacting to his loss of
control. If there is physical violence in the home, consequences
are the only things the abuser will understand. This may mean a
time of structured separation under the supervision of a trained
counselor. Most of the time, the abuser is motivated to change by
loss and the fear of abandonment.

How can anyone help restore a
marriage without counseling the couple together?...
First
things first! It is too dangerous to discuss the problems of
marriage until everyone is safe. Any problems with conflict
resolution or communication cannot be realistically discussed while
the husband is blatantly abusing power. Trust and confidence cannot
be developed unless safety is first achieved.

Adequate attention needs to be given to ensure
both the wife and the children are safely housed away from the
abuser’s reach. Until that has been achieved, and the abuser has
agreed to honor the new living arrangements and submit to the
counseling process, no amount of marriage counseling will change
the destructive dynamics of that relationship. Many experts believe
that couples need to live separately and individually undergo
counseling for at least two years before any discussion of
cohabitation should be entertained.

When Christians talk about
reconciliation with the abuser, don’t they really mean that the
woman should just, “Kiss and make up?”...
In secular arenas
the term, “reconciliation” is considered tantamount to demanding
that the abused woman stay imprisoned in the cycle of violence.
Nothing could be farther from the truth!

It is no small matter to speak of reconciliation
between a victim of physical and emotional abuse and her abuser.
“
Brutality, no matter who commits it, confronts us with one of
the most agonizing crisis of forgiveness,”
says ethicist Lewis
Smedes. “
And forgiveness
,” he notes,
“is a miracle that
has no equal. While certain steps can and must be taken if
reconciliation is to be set in motion, true reconciliation involves
healing, and that is the work of the divine.”