Ex Wife And Victim Of Spouse Abuse example essay topic

Marriage and Romance are everywhere in our society. Almost everywhere you look there are signs of them. Magazines, movies, books, most bare stories of this nature reflecting the wonderful perfect relationship between a man and a woman, or at lest how to be in one. Children's stories of the Prince that saves and marries the Princess are just as common. We grow up hearing about this perfect and wonderful thing, where the prince who is strong and handsome loves and cares for the princess who is beautiful and skinny. But today things like divorce, affairs, and abuse break our ideal relationship with our spouse.

These things are common to us today. They do not shock us to hear about them. But they should, especially the last one. Spouse abuse is probably the most harmful to more people than the first two mentioned. This kind of abuse affects the abused, the abuser, the workplace, the children, the family as a whole, and your relationship with friends. To people who have never been in a violent situation it may seem unreal.

I offer this excerpt as a look at what spouse abuse is like. This is how it happens: Inside a quiet room, behind a closed door, a man calls a woman a "slut" and a "whore". He tells her that she is too fat or too sexy or too frumpy, that she is "a poor excuse for a mother", a worthless piece of dirt that only he could love. In public, when she smiles at the grocery clerk, he flies into a jealous rage.

When she comes home minutes late, he grills her about where she's been. One day, he slaps her face. The next time, he slams her head against the wall, or chokes her, or burns her with cigarettes, or drags her across the rug by her hair, his children pleading, "Daddy, please don't hurt her". Then when it's over, he gets down on his knees. "I'm so sorry baby", he says. "You are the only one I can talk to.

I'll kill myself if you leave". Quivering with shame and fear, she relents. And one day, perhaps after she had finally tried to break off the relationship, she ends up dead. "Every year in the United States, thousands of men assault their wives and girlfriends, raising both physical and emotional bruises from which some women never recover. Some women die from the attacks.

Others escape their abuser only to be hunted down and killed". Statistics of abuse as recited by domestic-violence workers: 100,000 hospitalization days each year; 30,000 emergency room visits; an estimated 2 million incidents of battering, male and female. With statistics such as these most people blame the abused for staying around. "Why doesn't she just leave?

Why does she stick around?" This is not unusual. Ca trina Stein ocher, director of programming at the Corpus Christi Women's Shelter in Texas, cautions the victims that come in to her shelter not to be surprised that some friends and family members will not be supportive, in fact the victim should expect it. "Do not keep quite about this! It's everybody's responsibility in your community".

- Denver psychologist Lenore Walker, has done extensive research on the subject of women victims of battering, and has authored several books on family violence. Her research indicates that less than 10 percent ever reported serious violence to the police. That's one in two hundred- seventy incidents of spouse abuse that ever get reported to the police. The severe under reporting of domestically violated women can generally be attributed to the following reasons: o Victim denial o Protection of the batterer o Disavowal techniques to keep it in the family o Silent desire to be abused o Fear of alternatives (i. e., continued abuse, loss of support). o Shame "Unless a woman has made a careful plan, she may not have either the means to support herself or a safe place to stay. Her self-esteem systematically chipped away, her children in need of a father, for a while it may seem less difficult to suffer another black eye or bruised rib.

Most imprisoning, however, is the knowledge that if she leaves, she loses. I stayed because when I left, I left everything I owned or loved; I left a house that was paid for, a car that was paid for. I left with two suitcases, two children and $1,500 to start over again". Says Vicki i Coffey, now executive director of the Chicago Abused Women Coalition, who was abused by her husband. The question of why physically or emotionally battered women tolerate this mistreatment has been probed perhaps more than any other question associated with wife abuse. On the surface it would seem to walk away from this anguish would be as simple as the front door.

Some women do just that. And yet all too often, escaping an abusive spouse or boyfriend is far more difficult to do. Lenore Walker has developed a cycle theory of violence, along with a number or typical reasons to why women stay, including: o Fear- of the abuser, being humiliated, having others find out, being left alone o Finances- losing money, the house, standard of living o Children- losing financial support for them and a father o Social stigma- shame, embarrassment, being labeled. o Guilt- for bringing about the abuse or in believing that they are too needed by the abuser to leave. o Role expectations- that abuse is a normal part of relationships, often based on learned experiences in childhood. The tension reduction theory advances that three specific phases exist in a recurring cycle of battering: (1) tension building, (2) the acute battering incident, and (3) loving contrition.

"What you don't understand is that not everyone thinks its bad. ' I said that the only ones who don't think it's bad are those doing the abusing". - Ann, an ex-wife and victim of spouse abuse after talking to her ex-husband. Emotionally repressed males stem from broken homes or homes where the father was also abusive towards his wife and usually children too. These kinds of males are searching to something to give them worth in their lives. They think that a display of power will make them worth something.

These are five steps that emotionally repressed males tend to follow in their relationships with their spouses. o Intact relationship - he is seemingly loving and caring but he is really being manipulative to get what he wants o Emotional pain - comes after several cycles of abuse. The abused tries to understand and please him but cannot. o Physical separation - usually after the two emotional states are accelerated to a severe state. o Divorce or attempt reconciliation - watch out! This can be a very dangerous time if you decide to permanently separate. Severe battering and even death can occur when a partner confronts her abuser and insists he stop controlling her.

Researchers have put much time into trying to understand why men are abusive to the ones closest to them. Psychologists have two categories for batterers: the ones that adhere to a traditional male role and those who have a weak, immature personality. Enactment of compulsive masculinity, often referred to as "machismo", is an effort to maintain complete dominance over his wife. On the other extreme, many batterers' personalities contain elements of helplessness and dependency. The violent husband has been characterized as a "little boy wanting to be grown up and superior, as he'd been taught he should be". - Kathleen H. Hoteller But there is more to battering than just the physical abuse.

The woman's physical or emotional heath should be discussed as well. Psychological abuse has been defined in its broadest sense as mistreatment in the form of threats, intimidation, isolation, degradation, mind games; and direction violence toward one's spouse or other family members or household objects (e.g. ; slamming doors). Patricia Hoffman defines this type of abuse as "behavior sufficiently threatening to a woman that she believes her capacity to work, to interact in the family or society, or to enjoy good physical or mental health, has been or might be endangered". Hoffman wrote the first research paper on psychological abuse in marriage in the United States.

She is now a psychologist at the St. Cloud State University Counseling Center in Minnesota. Because of the many woman that remain silent and those who don't even understand that they are being abused, there is no real way we can measure the amount of psychological abuse of women. "It became obvious that large numbers of women were seeking safety from psychological abuse". Notes Walter as early as 1970 when more and more refugees were coming into England. "Women come in for counseling feeling unhappy. But when they examine that unhappiness, it usually turns out that their husbands are practicing some form of psychological abuse".

Says marriage counselor Jeanne Wei gum. No woman knowingly falls in love with a man who will abuse her. She only realizes later that his adoration comes wrapped in jealousy and controlling behavior. "He was jealous of anybody I spent time with or knew. I couldn't say hello to anyone- male or female - with out him jumping all over my case. "- Patricia Howard.

"An abuser will always say that jealousy is a sign of love". - "Signs to Look for in a Battering Personality". from the San Diego Police Department's domestic violence unit. The longer a woman knows a man before she moves in with him the better she will be able to increase her chances in recognizing the potential for violence before it occurs. "A good marriage is a refuge, its privacy a buffer against the world.

For the abused woman, the marital bond becomes an isolating nightmare. Abusers exploit this, actively tearing apart the woman's support network, pushing friends and family away. If she has male friends, he may harass them or punish her for being a "flirtatious bitch". If she has women friends, he may treat them so rudely they become reluctant to visit. And the abused women frequently feel embarrassed and ashamed, they are apt to let friendships go rather that share their dark secret". I can't sleep.

I might fall asleep, but in five minutes I'll awaken from a dream of running from this man or this man coming in on me". - Cassandra Finley, in hiding from the ex-boyfriend she says stalked and shot her. Lucy, another abused wife talks about her ex-husband who she shot in his sleep to protect her children and herself. "I was afraid", Lucy acknowledged. "If he had told me to jump off a bridge I would have done it. One of his sayings was, 'It's not yours to question why.

It's yours to do or die. ' I was always taught that divorce was wrong - once married, always married". Lucy is one of many women in "Christian" homes where the husband uses scripture to justify the abuse he gives his wife. In fact, some teachings provide a good covering for abuse under the guise of bringing one's wife "into subjection". Thus the batterer does not consider his actions abusive; he is simply fulfilling his God given responsibilities. "After my marriage my husband treated me like a non person.

With no value other than through him. He cited scripture passages in support of his treatment of me. Anytime I objected to his behavior or to his decisions, he told me that I was to submit to him just as totally as if he was Jesus Christ". -Lucy "Our own theological church, as we know it, has scorned and vilified the body till it had seemed almost a reproach to have one, yet at the same time had created it with the power to drag the soul to perdition " - Eliza Farnham What Eliza is talking about here is the Middle Age church where spiritually was good and materialism was bad. Women were looked at as scapegoats as the church father's attempt to resolve a theological problem. The thought then was that the soul's flight from the body was a precondition for salvation.

So the body then must be the source of human sin. Now it was women who presented them, as men, with their "body" problem. They concluded that specifically female sexuality was responsible for the fall of creation and the decent of man's soul into perdition. The result of this theological dilemma was degrading the body, sexuality, and especially women. Here it was permitted to beat your wife. "In the Creation story, male and female are made equally in the image of God, as woman is drawn from the very substance of man, to share in his dreams, his intellect, his emotions, his spirituality.

Greek tradition held that woman was made of an inferior substance, a cruel trick of the gods to despoil the potential of man. Hebrew tradition tells of a helper who is of a shared essence, a blessed gift from the true and living God. Woman was bestowed to save man from loneliness". Christianity teaches not that men are to beat their wives into submission, or that they are allowed in anyway to harm them. Actually it teaches quite the opposite. As Kroeger and Clark have said, God created woman from man.

He took a rib from Adam's side indicating that woman is to be his partner, not from his feet to say that woman is under him, nor from his head to say that women are above men. In taking the rib from the side, it shows that women are here to help men, to share in whatever they are feeling and the same goes for men, they are to help women and share in what they are going through. The verse that is so often used by abusive husbands is: Ephesians 5: 22-24 Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church-he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. But read on. Ephesians 5: 25 Husbands, love you wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.

Verse 28 in the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Spouse Abuse is a large problem in today's society. But Christianity has provided answers to hard questions concerning this topic, as well as a way out. God never planed for abuse in the bond of marriage, in God's plan men and women support and respect one another, loving the other more than their own body.