Robert Davidson's Blog

GET OUT NOW

by

Robert Davidson

Author of THE BEAST I LOVED: A Battered Woman’s Desperate Struggle to Survive


As I’ve written in past blogs, abusers are liars (read Don’t Believe the Con Man on my Amazon author page). And in my other blog on that page, Why Didn’t She Just Leave? I explain that most women who stay in abusive relationships are so lacking in self-esteem and feelings of adequacy that they CAN’T leave no matter how rational such a decision seems. They make the mistake of believing their con man (because they have so much NEED to), and have no ability to leave the relationship even if they doubt the veracity of what he is telling her (“I do it because I love you so much” and “I just lost control; I won’t do it again”) because of their desperate need for a relationship—any relationship, as it were—lest they be left alone, feeling unloved and afraid in a world that, thanks to their abuser, they have every right to fear.

This mix of poor self-esteem, need for love and security, and an equally insecure partner who happens to also be an outstanding actor, is a toxic concoction—and a dangerous one. It is so fragile that it is much like highly volatile nitroglycerin. Read the definition and see the correlations: Nitroglycerin: An Explosive Combination of Atoms. Nitroglycerin is an oily, colorless liquid, but also a high explosive that is so unstable that the slightest jolt, impact or friction can cause it to spontaneously detonate. Would you walk around with nitroglycerin in your purse? Would you have it in your house, especially when young children also reside there? Would you SLEEP with it?

When June Briand was being beaten there were few domestic violence agencies, no emergency hotline and little understanding of how widespread the issue of partner abuse was. She had no one to talk to (a telephone book was not allowed in the house, and phone bills were monitored), no computer, no contact with the outside world in many cases (no car, no money) and a husband perched directly across the street working in an auto repair shop—keeping one eye on the car, and one on the apartment across the street that held his prey captive.

But times have now changed. There is abundant help everywhere, and myriad ways to access it. As I’ve said in other writing, the time to leave an abusive relationship is not after the first blow lands, or after the first irrational act of violence erupts, but at the first HINT of a blow, such as a raised hand, a clenched fist, or the brandishing of a weapon. These are not isolated incidents, or as an abuser will often say, something that “just came out of nowhere; I just lost control; it won’t happen again.” The truth is, it WILL happen again, and more and more often, and more and more severely, because the nitroglycerin-of-a-partner is beginning to react; he’s beginning to boil over, and with 100% certainty, the violence will come: the incessant screaming. the slap, the shove against the wall, the kick, the knife to the throat. Then come more blows—both emotional and physical—and then more, along with more excuses, making up, belief that this is the end of the violence, more blows, more making up, more false hopes based on nothing but insecurity, and then ultimately, in far too many cases, the nitro explodes, putting the victim in the hospital—or the morgue.

The title of this blog is all one needs to focus on: Get out, and get out now. Not tomorrow, not after praying on your knees for it all to stop, not after considering all the difficulties involved in leaving. Get out NOW. Do not hint at your intentions or show any evidence that you are preparing to leave. Do not discuss it, do not threaten to leave, just plan accordingly after seeking assistance, and get out NOW.

DON’T BELIEVE THE CON MAN
by
Robert Davidson, Author of THE BEAST I LOVED: A Battered Woman's Desperate Struggle to Survive

Domestic violence is all about power and the need to control, which comes from the monumental insecurity virtually all batterers suffer from. Like little children, they have a constant, nagging, inescapable fear of abandonment that they never outgrew like normal children do, and so carry around their warped perception of a fearful world that leads so reliably—and unfairly—to the abuse of their partners.

Because most batterers have experienced chronic violence in their own dysfunctional families, and the resultant lack of support and love any child needs while growing up, they become hyper-sensitive to rejection and cannot bear the emotional pain they experienced during those formative years. Thus, when an abuser senses—almost always incorrectly—that his partner is anything less than fully present through constant doting and assurances that he, the abuser, is of value and worth (which, based on past experience, he simply cannot believe to be true) he explodes in fits of jealousy, insecurity and fear which are manifest in verbal threats, ultra-control of the partner, and then to the inevitable emotional and physical assaults that he learned in his own childhood.

Here is the problem: the partner in this relationship is usually suffering from her own deeply-felt insecurities and often has gone through the same type of upbringing as her abuser, so her feelings of low self-esteem are just as incapacitating as his, leading her to accept the abuse, no matter how bad the pain, just so long as she, too, is not abandoned. The conundrum is exacerbated by two key elements: The Con and The Belief.

First and foremost, the woman (and I deal with this issue as it relates to women because though others suffer abuse, women are by far the predominant victims, plus, it is where my study lies), is in just as much need of love and avoidance of rejection as the man, so when he says those magic words, “I love you” it DOES NOT MATTER that he is lying. She NEEDS to believe him, and so puts out of her mind even the remote possibility that it is all a con, that the “love” she receives from him, no matter what the form (fists, kicks, rape) is still love because she could not bear that is otherwise. She does not realize that the “love” she receives from her man has nothing whatsoever to do with love and caring, and is nothing more than infantile dependency from a sick, needy person who never grew up. Batterers are unstable, weak, emotionally immature children, and have developed into career actors, so expert at convincing their women that they are sincere, and that “it won’t happen again” and that “I do it because you mean so much to me” and “I couldn’t bear losing you” (the truest statement of all, and one that melts the unsuspecting heart) and on and on. These words are golden to the ears of equally insecure, frightened “children” who in many cases, have no place to go, no one to turn to—and refuse to believe even those close to them who cast doubt on the veracity of the abuser’s professions of “love.”

So my message is simple: Don’t be fooled. Don’t believe the lies. Abusers are unwell, unlikely to ever be well, and extremely dangerous. Bear this in mind at all times when dealing with domestic abuse: It is always and immediately unacceptable to in any way mentally or physically abuse or be abused by anyone, period. You’ve heard of the California law: “Three strikes and you’re out.” It is my view when it comes to domestic violence that one THREAT of a strike, or slap, or punch and you’re out. Not after the first blow. Not after the first shove against the wall. I’m talking about the first raising of a hand in a threatening gesture. It is right then and there that it is time to go. Remember, most batterers will not get better. Intervention and recidivism programs are usually not effective and take way too long if they are. Anger management classes and counseling rarely work with these deeply disturbed individuals, nor do abusers often have the motivation or intellectual capacity needed to benefit from them. And with all the kind, decent men in the world who know how to provide real love in a genuine relationship of mutual caring and enjoyment, why wait around for the con man to keep the con going? Message: get out at the first sign of abuse and find someone stable with whom to spend your life.

WHY DIDN’T SHE JUST LEAVE?

By

Robert Davidson, author of THE BEAST I LOVED: A Battered Woman's Desperate Struggle to Survive

There are many issues regarding domestic violence, but the one that, to me, is most infuriating, most unfair, and most misunderstood is the most commonly asked question of all: “Why didn’t she just leave?” But that should not be the question. The question should be, “Why do men batter women?” And as a society, “How do we stop it?” That’s what we should be asking.

Why don’t they leave? There are many issues involved, and very complicated ones involving children, jobs, finances, threats, fear, no place to go, no place to hide, no place to be safe and either the perception that there are no alternatives to the situation abused women find themselves in, or indeed the reality that if they try to leave, or in fact do get out of the house somehow without being detected, they will be hunted, found and brutalized like they have never been brutalized before—including losing their life altogether—a disturbingly common occurrence.

Regarding the case I write about in The Beast I Loved involving young mother June Briand, one must remember that back in the mid-1980s when she was being threatened with death for even “thinking about leaving” as her abusive husband often reminded her, there were no 800 numbers flashing across TV screens, no national domestic violence hotline as there is today, and only two safe houses in the entire state of New Hampshire, which June didn’t even know about because she wasn’t allowed to have a phone book in the apartment. It was a different world back then, and just the beginning of the recognition of what is now a clinically recognized condition known as Battered Woman Syndrome.

Early in her marriage, June began falling into this state of BWS—a condition that includes total submission to a dominant, threatening spouse complicated by “learned helplessness,” a psychological state resulting from the domination and “mind control” of the perpetrator. After what the psychologists examining June determined were no less than fifty severe beatings within the first four years of her marriage (it would total over one hundred by the end of it), June was weak and ripe for such conditioning. And to complicate and reinforce this state, she had all the ingredients needed to sink further and further into BWS: complete dependence on her husband; two children to care for; a minimum wage job; no friends; no parents; no family; isolation from the world around her (she had no transportation); no money; poor self-esteem; and above all, the belief that everything that was happening to her was her own fault. If she could just “get it right” like other wives did, everything would be fine. It was one of her husband’s favorite lines: “You can’t seem to get it right.” Or, “If you’d just get it right, I wouldn’t have to do these things to you.”

“Why didn’t she just leave?” I find it most interesting that no one questions why a 10-year-old child doesn’t leave when being sexually or physically abused at home. No one questions that. Women don’t leave relationships for the same reason kids don’t often run away from home: they’re scared; no resources; no place to go; no way to get there; and more than anything else, they need love. All humans do, but especially the young and the vulnerable, and of course, the abused and neglected. They need love and a place to fit in. Many battered women are, in fact, very much like children: they don’t know how to leave; don’t have the confidence or resources; and they are incapacitated by fear and uncertainty—and for good reason: they’re being threatened over and over, day after day, with yet more punishment if they ever attempt to leave.

So I urge those who question why women don’t leave to reconsider what they are asking. Consider, first of all, that YOU are not THEM. You can’t possibly know what it is like unless you, too, are suffering from BWS and the debilitating restraints on clear, rational thinking. Women in these situations are anything but rational—they are delusional. What we need to do is recognize this, stop victimizing the victim, and start talking about this pressing issue so we can begin making the necessary changes in our culture to bring about change.