Domestic Violence is...
 

Disgusting. Utterly disgusting. There is no justification to dealing it out and you are a coward if you ever use it on your partner or family. Low life scum of the earth who beat and abuse their own blood and love don't deserve the right to be part of a family. For family relations are far superior to anything they should have privilege or right to.

I have been exposed to my first account of domestic violence, I am not going to say who or what for it is confidential but I am so filled with anger knowing this even happens. I never thought seriously about the issue until I could relate to it, like now. And how deeply upset is has made me. I would even like to get involved in something to counter this issue. Anyone?

And don't go cracking any jokes on me and my girlfriend because we aren't the example, you dicks out there.

Also a strong issue of mine, I started a spin-off charity for battered women and their kids who were escaping/hiding and starting over with my wife.
There is no excuse for it happening, nor is there an excuse for staying with it.

A personal story I have heard about domestic violence.

My aunt is a pastor and she moved to a small town in Iowa where a name gets you power. There was a man, whose father basically ran the city through a committee, who verbally and sexually abused his wife and she went to get support from my aunt. My aunt encouraged her to stick up for herself and get a divorce if necessary. This lady followed my aunt's advice and tried to file a divorce and that man's father started spreading rumors about my aunt (devil, cult leader, etc), has threatened her physically many times, and through his power basically ran my aunt out of town and prevented her from getting a job anywhere near that place so she had to move back to Chicago.

In the end, that lady did file a divorce and moved in with my aunt until she could get back on her feet. I don't know what has happened since then, nothing too bad since I haven't heard about it.



I also hate domestic violence and think it is one of the most pathetic things anyone can do.

Verbal and physical abuse tears apart your very being. A normally wonderful person actually starts to believe that they somehow deserve the treatment. I think it's one of the saddest issues of our time; but one that is timeless. :(

You might want to rephrase that. I know what you meant but it reads rather strangely.

LOL, I started the charity with my wife.

Fresh, if you think someone is being abused, you should report it to one of the relevant authorities. Namely, the police.

If you're close to one of the abused people, you should encourage them to seek counselling.

They more than likely need help but don't know who to turn to.

I did my share of encouraging to take action and initiative, but she feels being passive is the best thing and I'm not going to be the one to unravel everything completely. I can just give support, unfortunately.

Support is a great thing, and I'll bet a million to one that it means the world to her. It's still important that you keep on telling her that no matter what happens she'll have your support. I still urge you to make a complaint to the police anyway, even if she doesn't back it up. This will help her if she ever does decide to make a formal complaint and will also help if he ever does enough to put her in hospital and she's unable to speak for herself.

Keep telling her you are available, that you will help, that she doesn't need to tolerate this. You may think you've said it enough, but she's on a loop where she's hidden it for a while. She needs the repetition.

Don't judge her, don't inflame the batterer. Just be there for her and offer what help you can. If you can, offer an ear to just listen to her.

One of the hard things is to recognize that we don't have to understand what she's going through. In fact, you'll probably never know all the sordid detail even if you're her twin or her child or her parent.

Having been raised in a violent home and then managed to get myself into not one, but two, abusive marriages, I can tell you that not all of the dysfunction is on the part of the abuser. All too often, the victim has little or no self-esteem and a warped idea that this is life and love. We tend to believe the abusers anger is our fault, that if we were more of this and less of that and just tried harder...we could make them happy and then they wouldn't hurt us anymore. :headshake

It takes a lot of boot-strapping, support, and inner change to realize that no, we do NOT deserve to be treated in such a way and yes, we DO have the strength and power to walk away from our abuser.

I volunteer at the local women's shelter, I am an admin for a large online abuse support site, I loan out my many books on abuse, and I offer my shoulder and affirmation to anyone I see who appears to be in trouble or need it. I speak up whenever I read about this subject, such as on this thread. And lastly, I will never be allow abuse to be a part of my life again. I hope to break the cycle with my own children by living a happy, healthy life.

Stormie

Good work Stormie... working at the shelter was one of the most rewarding times in my life.

I read a frightening statistic recently. In the UK women who are victims of domestic violence at the hands of their partners, suffer an average of 39 attacks before they report.

When i was a literacy tutor several of my female colleagues had suffered or were suffering violence in their homes. One of them, my manager, was a very strong and independant woman. You'd never have dreamed to meet her, that she had suffered 10 years of extreme violence at the hands of her previous husband. Another, younger woman was locked into a relationship with a very violent boyfriend, whom she would occassionally leave but to whom she invariably returned.

I've been in two abusive relationships. They both ended the day I got hit.

I'm not very good at physical pain. I'd rather avoid it.

When I began working at the Sheriff Office I was surprised, and greatly disheartened, to discover the amount of DUI (drugs/alcohol), Domestic Violence and Child Molestation/Abuse that occured within my county. What made it so disheartening, was that if this amount of these crimes were occuring in MY county...imagine if ALL of a state's counties were added up, and then ALL of the 50 State's themselves considered as a whole...
It is much more widespread and prevalent than people think.