[Music] [Music] my ex-husband and I dated for a short time before we were engaged at that time it seemed kind of fast my mom told me it was too fast on the morning of my wedding my dad and I were standing at the back of the church and actually Dave's best man came up to me with a flask of whiskey and said here you're going to need this and my dad looked at me and said you know we can still turn around and run out the back door and I actually entertained that thought for a couple of minutes because it just didn't feel right but I looked down into the church and I saw everybody standing there everybody who came for me because I asked them to and I felt guilty I have to go through this i' I've come this far and I thought in the back of my head it'll be fine we'll be married we'll have a family he'll be happy I'll make him happy and everything will be okay and what's the worst that can happen it wasn't until later when I realized his dark side how could fear be a gift well it is these feelings are gifts they're not things we should ignore the gift of fear is a bachelor's degree a master's degree and a PhD all rolled into one [Music] [Music] today we want to talk about domestic violence you can see how pervasive it is if you think about the people you know how many were abused as children how many have been in spousal violence situations how many have had boyfriends who didn't let go how many have had boyfriends who frighten them how do Predators engage victims generally speaking with some kind of friendly appearance with some kind of attractiveness that engages you and keeps you involved this is true with spousal abusers there is a process underway a lot of times people don't recognize the process keep your mind open to and keep your heart open to hear and find the truth about the Adoration that they usually start with shifting into dangerous territory into threatening territory particularly interesting is the way women select men for dating or for marrying if you find yourself ever doing that by their potential meaning he's not working now but he's going to be really successful later on uh he's a great artist but of course he can't paint right now because of present circumstances or yeah he's a little bit aggressive these days but that's just because of problems he's having at work what I encourage people to do is listen to the words is not working is aggressive isn't painting because that's the person you're actually having the relationship with and reality always trumps everything else it doesn't care what we want what we think what we hope for the way it could be or should be or used to be or ought to be it just is and it always wins it's really common for us to try and make every boy Prince Charming and and ignore all of the signs that indicate he's a frog don't tell yourself fairy tales about who he is when he acts in a way that makes you afraid that makes you nervous that makes you scared pay attention to it look at it stand back for a second and think about what it means as often as we can see reality for what it is we are far more likely to make good decisions and these are really decisions we might think oh we fell in love and we were swept into the experience and the next thing you know we were married but many decisions occur along the way and I don't think that violence is ever the correct penalty for bad decisions but I do think it's important to remember that they are decisions I've not seen a case in my whole career where it literally came out of nowhere that first abusive incident it you know it's a surprise there's no question about that and it's a shock but I've not seen one where there weren't pre-incident indicators beforehand I knew the minute I met my future abuser that I should have I should stay away from him but he pursued me he would not take no for an answer and I was raised in South Texas I was taught to be a polite little girl and be nice and so I thought well I'll give him a break and go out with him and that led step by step to 18 years of Terror so you knew I knew you heard the intuition and you let in effect society and culture uh tell you don't listen to that EXA exactly go ahead there's a lot of things that you've triggered in what you're saying um I can remember the very first time that I met my husband we were meeting for lunch and I didn't know what he looked like we had only talked on the phone and email and so I'm waiting for him and when I turned around he was right in my space like right there I just thought about that this room that this man was right in my usually people don't do that yeah they don't especially if they don't know you they're not right there they're a little distance good B basically uh interacting with women in a way that uh would predictably make them uncomfortable I didn't think about it because his smile was so disarming listen to those words by the way listen to the words the smile was disarming disarming yes we all know a lot more now about what the warning signs are for abusive conduct there's no such thing as just verbal verbal leads to more and by the way just verbal isn't just verbal it has emotional impact that's huge that causes you to lose your own self-respect the more you listen to it so all of it all of it matters all of it's bad it's not okay if he hits the wall next to you you're next it's not okay if he just threatens but doesn't actually hit you that's next look for in domestic violence situations things that they call symbolic violence the picture the wedding picture smashed yeah then one thing is that it escalates at least in my experience it starts out just belittling you and badgering you and then really putting you down and pretty soon clubbing you and then throwing you down the stairs it gets worse and worse each time and he's crossed the line once he physically abuses you and it only gets [Music] worse the first time he was really physically violent was on her honeymoon he had planned a beautiful honeymoon in Hawaii we were arguing about something so foolish I don't even remember what it was about and he had hit me with a palm of hand on my head a few times it it just really took me back uh at that time I thought I'm I'm out of here I'm not doing this but at you know at the time he had the plane tickets he had the money the credit cards I just felt trapped and so I thought to myself you know once we get back to our home I'll I'll leave that was my plan at the time when we got back home after honeymoon he was his normal kind loving fun self again and I just thought to myself maybe he was just stressed out from all the money it cost you know to go on the honeymoon or maybe he was just stressed out for whatever reason and I just kind of dismissed it is it going to happen again if you have somebody who's persistently beating you of course it's going to happen again odds are overwhelmingly likely that it will happen again is it going to escalate yes odds are overwhelmingly strong that it's going to escalate if he punches you today then 3 weeks from now the atic incident has to be bigger than that one you won't be controlled by just the same thing it has to be escalating the consequences have to get higher for you as well my mom could tell um when she would call sometimes David would get on the other end of the phone and say I don't want her talking to you right now this is my phone line I'm paying for it things just got progressively worse he his control got Tighter and Tighter uh I wasn't allowed to talk to certain people everything was very um it had to be very structured the way he wanted it even the way his underwear was folded and put away it had to be a certain way and if I didn't measure up to that he would get upset and and hit me I would just constantly be walking on eggshells trying to do things the right way as to not upset him when the ab user is the source of both the love and the abuse it's a very confounding situation for the person who's victimized in that way and for the whole family because let's say Dad is the source of all our love and our encouragement except when he's drinking and then he's the source of our fear uh and our worry those are particularly confounding and they are addictive because the the very place you come to for feeling good uh is the same place where the abuse is coming and that means in order to feel good you go back to the very same person who victimizes you and he becomes uh a person who uh keeps you from friendships doesn't want you to have any outside friends he controls the finances controls what you wear controls where you go controls uh where you work or if you work and then he is everything everything in life becomes linked to him you know within the first nine months I was pregnant with her first child he was happy about that we were both happy about that things went pretty well for a while until after she was born he just became very jealous very jealous of the time I spent with her he would take her and put her in another room and not allow me to go in by her uh things like that he would say things like I'm the important one um then his control started getting a little bit more obvious as far as the finances because I was home with a baby I wasn't working um he controlled all the finances he had put all the checking and savings accounts and everything under his name he would say I should just be happy being home and I didn't need to go anywhere I didn't need to see anyone this is not a monster running around uh he's also working out his demons and uh he has his wounds and his need to heal and his mother issues is an obvious one and need to control and the belief that he cannot be loved unless he forces you to love him and that has to look a certain way and so this is a wounded person as well and often what wounded people do is wound you know you'll find abuse in their childhoods and they learned as I'm sad to say right now as I'm speaking children are learning somewhere in America that uh it's better when it comes to violence it's better to give than to receive so this is a a generational [Music] issue one time I didn't fold the towels the way he wanted him to so we got in an argument about that he had chased me around the house I tried running outside through the garage he had shut the garage door brought me back in the house and banged my head against the wall the neighbors across the street heard the commotion called the police the police came and he wouldn't allow them in the home uh the police saw blood coming from my nose so he had probable cause to come in he forced his way through the door and it took backup of five officers to get my ex-husband under control by the time they pepper sprayed him and cuffed him and took him to the car I always remember him looking back at me saying this is all your fault and at that time instead of thinking no this is your fault I thought maybe I should have folded the towel the right way and none of this would have happened I took you know his bad behavior and started turning it toward myself I had actually gone to our pastor and told the pastor things that were going on he basically told me just to do what I needed to do to make things work so of course I went back home feeling more guilty and more shameful like things were up to me to make to make things work so can you tell us uh some of your story around this topic my husband was a pastor is a pastor and a chaplain and so when I went to the church that we were attending to tell the pastor and his wife and other people in the church what I was going through they looked at me like I had horns like there was something wrong with me and so I became silent because the church was acting like I had a problem so I I thought very quickly I better not say anything because the problem is not him it's me it wasn't until he beat me down in a parking lot and disfigured my face and put me in a hospital that they were like oh maybe she was telling the truth Gavin don't you think that these people work harder to put the facade on of a person that they really aren't yes like they hide behind the the pastor the P yeah the pastor or the firefighter like the one or the kind or the gentlemanly or the Charming I could write a book about what it's like to live with this chameleon and it's so nice out in the public and behind closed doors you're dealing with a with a demon so to speak and No One Believes you I was even sometimes surprised at be like is this really the man the man I married to what has happened here there' be such a shift well true story it's not a joke it sounds like it but you guys were not a good match now but the reason I say it is is a man who is looking to control someone who is looking to dominate who is looking to uh to uh control the quote love that he gets and make it so that another person can't leave uh is not a good match for somebody uh who in fact has self-esteem and has personal power and in that sense you weren't a good match for him uh that he will do better with somebody who will listen to what he wants and give him what he wants until until she grows go ahead and in that same vein my ex-husband and I were a good match in that because I was very young When we married I had a baby at 21 and then babies frequently after that he kept me beat down I did not have the self-esteem I didn't know who I was I had um I listened to his Mantra that everything was my fault I'm sorry I hit you you made me do it if you would just do this that and the other and I believed him I had no background for having self-esteem I just believed in him and he was occasionally nice and he was my only source for anything and everything so my self-esteem didn't even exist my grandmother's words would echo in my memory she made her bed let her lie in it so there was no help and no encouragement it was just okay this is what you chose here are your consequences live with it [Music] why do people stay even when they're still afraid go ahead I think in our life uh it was the devil you know that you're comfortable with you're familiar with the devil you know yes absolutely and we also can tolerate a lot when we've lived in a violent situation for a long time there's a a woman I interviewed for gift of fear she had been a battered woman she had run to one of those shelters and then she was running one of those shelters she told me the story of uh calling up at 2: in the morning the police and she said he's outside banging on the door to the bedroom would you send an officer he had a gun outside the door and the dispatcher said uh are you in danger now and she said no even though he was banging on the door to the bedroom her reason later she explained is he wasn't pointing the gun at me and you only get that way when so many incidents have worn torn down your ability to perceive danger correctly and that certainly happens to battered children and it certainly happens to battered women your way of assessing the situation was different when you were in it than it is today oh boy that's the truth there's a line in gift of fear that got a lot of controversy first time a woman is hit she is a victim and the second time she is a volunteer people thought that I didn't understand the dynamic and I understood it very well from my own childhood I understood very well why women stay you could no more have talked me out of uh living in my family home or leaving my family as a kid then I could talk somebody into leaving their children or often leaving their husband even an abusive husband and above all the reason that I stand by the idea that the first time a woman is hit she's a victim and the second time she's a volunteer is that if you use a dynamic to explain away her inability to leave if you say well that's just the syndrome of this or that then what is the difference on the male side he too could have a syndrome that says he also cannot stop hitting if she cannot stop staying he cannot stop hitting and my view is she can stop staying and it's possible that you can get out of these relationships and if we claim that it's impossible that denial holds you in or that having children holds you in or that love holds you in uh then we're basically telling people they are handicapped and they're absolutely doomed to stay in relationships that they don't want to be in anymore and also wanted to ask you about your experience um yeah my husband like who we got married really quick and stuff it was like an isolated experience one night I came home and he was drunk I knew I should have let it go but I like instigated an argument and I was like you were drinking blah blah blah and he's like you know leave me alone leave me alone and I kept at him with like yelling at him about it and then like he hit me like he got up and just like slammed like just like threw me down like hit me and then I was just like oh my God we haven't had like a violent instance since but we've also been going to couples therapy when he drinks do you have uh anxiety or fear I totally do I have to stop it from causing problems because like if he just has a beer like I shouldn't go into panic mode but I do because I have like this memory of this thing that happened sure when he does seem drunk instead of being like you're drinking you shouldn't drink I'll just like go hang out with a friend or I'll just go play game boy in like the bedroom or something and then like he usually ends up like coming and KN be like hey babe like what what's up what are you doing you know one of the pre-incident indicators associated with spousal violence is uh an accelerated pace of the relationship in the beginning oh yeah we got married after a week like going out was like immediately and this happened like two weeks after that this was like all like right when we first and that's why like cuz when it happened I was almost like should I just bail like I mean we've only been together for like a month but then I was like maybe it's maybe it'll be cool and it has been so I don't know what about control uh does he look to exert control no he really doesn't um I've been in a controlling relationship before I've been in relationships actually that are probably better examples of this like violent stuff I've been with someone who's controlling and violent who I stayed with well you can't have been in a relationship that's a better example of violence than somebody who's already pushed you down and hit you oh yeah that's true yeah yeah of course but um yeah I don't know go ahead um I have a question I am curious in your experience how often often do you see people where it truly did happen only once like like in her situation does it happen once and then you can actually recover in the relationship and move past that well it's a it's a very tough question because of course when uh violence doesn't continue uh there is no statistic there is no police report there is no uh outcome that gets everybody's attention it's it's a tough thing what we do know is that in cases where violence did escalate including to homicide uh there were very rarely uh cases where there was only one incident and escalation of incidents is a component of that since alcohol is such a a huge factor in this and alcohol more than drugs presumably you could say if you uh resolved alcohol abuse uh and you had less drunkenness you might also have the less of the associated violence I don't think I'd take the chance with one of my daughters on that experiment but but it might very well be true however whatever the frustrations are that leads somebody to uh uh hit someone uh that person resolves their frustration with an outward expression of violence I think it's fairly reasonable to assume that if at that time of stress an individual used violence as the way to resolve their feelings uh when they are facing that kind of stress again they will use violence again and there's no relationship more uh more likely to reliably deliver stress than a marriage it's going to come again go ahead um I just have a question on that can therapy and other things stop you from becoming violent again I think so I mean I like to believe and perhaps as you do as well that everybody can grow and everybody can heal uh when you look at something statistically you're not looking at individuals you're looking at statistics and the statistics are not encouraging on this on this subject at all which is when you have multiple incident of violence uh the likelihood of it stopping is very very low it makes it it's not a hopeful scenario meaning if and also I would have to ask you know uh if you came to me and you were my daughter I'd have to ask uh how worth it is this experiment you're doing uh because in your circumstance for example you were with a guy for you you married somebody after a week and you were only with him a few weeks so in the very first week you only knew him a month yeah right so as your father I would say what's really stake here for you is it this four-week relationship because as your father I could tell you four-week relationships are very easy to come by no of course that's probably why I didn't call my father or mother crying about it very well said in fact you you you give me an opportunity to make a great point which is we all know which friend to go to to get the answer we want right and as you say you can find the message you want on the basis of who you call and one of the reasons that we have no interest when we're in a situation like that in going to a battered women's shelter is we know what we're going to hear right we know what they're going to say to you at 2 in the morning at a baded women's shelter if you'd had an injury you didn't I think but if you had a visible thankfully was there was no I'm not sure I'd be thankful about that because sometimes the the injury is the thing that moves somebody to take steps to help themselves you never know but I I am well regardless I'm glad I wasn't like scarred I'm certainly glad you weren't injured but you know even a bruise is enough that when you get to work and you encounter her as your Co worker she says come honey you're coming with me and then you're at the battered women's shelter and they say we don't care what the story is there's a bruise on your cheek right it's a little bit like people who call uh Alcoholics Anonymous they run many 24-hour uh hotlines and you call up and say you know I don't know if I really if this is really the place I need to be calling but and the person on the other end of the line says you need it you know there's a meeting at 7:00 two blocks from your house because if you're leaning out like that uh you're you're really showing that the signs are there and I think your observations here today are hugely helpful because they represent an entire approach that people take and as your father I would say hey four weeks you know what do we what's at risk here it's not much um that gets different when it becomes four years yeah and or when it becomes 25 years uh and you've got kids and you've got all that stuff and then it's not as much fun I guess is the best way for me to put it go ahead um I did get out of an abusive relationship and all the signs were there and I chose to ignore them we dated and he was always very jealous very possessive um violent with objects with buildings with other people uh the cops were always involved but I would always save him and protect him and say I will take care of this you don't need to worry about him um I made excuses for him all the time um he became very emotionally abusive and uh it's a very hard life um revolving her world around trying to please somebody and um make them love you and uh there would be a few weeks at a time where he would be very loving and I would always be holding on to that and wanting that to come back um eventually the uh emotional abuse would turn violent when he would get drunk and it would mostly be with other people he' just want to beat them up he ran into apartment building one night at my friend's house busted open his door try to fight with him uh me and a couple other people tried to get him to calm down he turns around and punches me gives me a black eye and I said okay that was an accident um the next morning he said you did that to yourself I don't remember doing that anytime he would yell at me he would say you're making me do this he would try to force sex on me when I didn't want it um but then I thought well this accident happened another one could and it could be worse the last STW was uh we were living with another roommate at the time and I went to Ohio to see my my family and he calls me one night very late in the morning and says I did something very bad you're going to hate me for it because I know how much you love animals uh the roommate had a cat and he ordered pizza and the cat jumped on the pizza box and he threw it against the wall and kicked it and it it got very gruesome but the cat died and um uh that really made me want to get away and it still was the hardest thing I've ever had to do and it took me about 2 years to get my self-esteem back and so that's something that happened cruelty to animals that's like a scary thing you know cruelty to people is also bad don't forget go ahead one more thing that made me want to get out was thinking if I have children with this man I don't know how he's going to I don't want my child to go through this and I went through uh childhood of divorce and my dad was is an alcoholic and just that alone uh my ex was an alcoholic as well and I did not want I couldn't picture him hurting my child I wouldn't want my child going through that so that was also something that helped me get out good thank you for sharing all that a friend of mine said a great thing about alcoholics and addicts he because it's hard for uh for alcoholics and addicts to grow when they're in it oh definitely and uh what my friend said is that addicts do not always have the best childhoods but they always have the longest that's very true yeah in other words there they are at 38 years old and they're still kids or 48 years old or whatever the age is yes go ahead um the most important question that I asked myself getting out of the relationship was um am I more important or is the abuser more important or the risk that it could happen again or get worse and I chose myself and that was the most empowering thing I could have done good I'm glad I I agree with you and I would add a third uh area that people often get stuck on which is is the relationship itself more important you know on the altar of the relationship uh so many people are sacrificed the idea that the marriage is the thing that must go on you know now at the age I am today when friends tell me uh you know we're going to get divorced I no longer say oh this not necessarily the worst wasn't bad news for you wasn't bad news for you wasn't bad news for you wasn't bad news for you now what I want to do is read the warning signs the pre-incident indicators associated with spousal homicide and also associated with with escalation of violence in uh in spousal relationships and if you experienced one of these just uh tell me uh you did uh number one the woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk you had that oh yes okay so that's four of you number two at the Inception of the relationship the man accelerated the pace prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment living together and marriage both hands okay number three he resolves conflict with intimidation bullying and violence uh number four he is verbally abusive number five he uses threats and intimidations as instruments of control or abuse uh number six he breaks or strikes things in Anger oh okay you don't have that one good you're doing great I don't have most I only have one of them th why that's pretty good oh you only have the main one you're being hit but I understand um he uses alcohol or drugs with adverse effects he uses money to control the activities purchases and behavior of his wife or partner he uses male privilege as a justification for his conduct male privilege is described as treating her like a servant making all the big decisions acting like the Master of the House his wife or partner fears that he will injure or kill her you told me you had fear I mean you told me you had fear and anxiety yeah I mean like I I do I mean like I don't know like I mean it's grounded in reality but like I don't the best the best fear is grounded in yeah that's what I'm saying it's grounded in reality it used to be more uh more profound than it is now it's like it used to be like like like a chest beating like oh my God oh my God oh my God like is something going to happen so the fear that used to be chest beating and and Prof that was not sufficient I understand to leave the relationship um I understand and then if if you had that fear again what do you think I don't know it's hard to predict the future it's it's I can't really like assess like what I would do in the future like if something did happen again like I don't know what I would do so there's a woman I interviewed she showed me photographs the police had taken of injuries that she had and she'd had a lot of beatings from her husband and she'd had two ribs broken she was going back to him which is why somebody had asked me to talk with her she had a teenage daughter and I asked her what she would do if the same thing happened to her teenage daughter that was happening to her and uh she said I would probably kill the guy and she said I would definitely tell my daughter to leave the relationship and I said what's the difference between you and your daughter she said I don't know what you mean and I said well your daughter has you and you don't have you so she literally did not have the the resource of somebody looking out for for her and uh you know you're crazy one week uh summer before getting married you don't have kids yet I know but what would you say to a to a a friend or a daughter in the same situation I'd probably project my own experience onto them and because I stayed and thought that it was cool I would probably to alleviate any guilt I may feel or something of that would probably tell them to do the same thing like oh it's cool just stay like I'm sure it'll be fine if that makes any sense at all well it doesn't make sense to me but I understand it I do understand uh okay good thanks um go ahead just as a child who grew up seeing my mom hit every day and us kids one or the other of us was being pulled aside and beaten you know you never knew when it was going to be you I know I grew up saying if that ever happens that is it it is over I don't speak about spousal abusers like their Monsters uh but the dynamic is very bad for both parties that's for sure and because it's so dangerous then getting out of relationships is usually the best way you'd said could people get better you know could they heal could they improve and and you talked about that and my recommendation to a woman who's in a situation where she could be at risk is uh let him go and heal meaning there's nothing the relationship is not the most important thing in the world it's more complicated when there's kids but it's all right to divide and go and heal many many uh ways of looking at this that will help a woman leave have to include that uh it is possible for him to grow there's nothing wrong with the with the belief that he may grow but let him go do it and not perform the experiment with you in it my biggest mistake was to stay in the marriage thinking that I could change him that I could do something to make him happy um that I could do something the right way and after 3 years I realized that it didn't matter what I did I I could not change him I can say for myself as a child a veteran of many many beatings a lot of violence and a situation that is an adult I would not tolerate but in that circumstance the idea of leaving did not even remotely enter my mind until I was about 14 years old on one particular night when beating had been going on for a long time and my older sister and I ran out of the apartment and ran to an allight Supermarket Barefoot and uh bruised my my sister's idea was to call the police and say hey there's two kids hanging around the market so they would come and pick us up and that's just what they did and they we waited they our ride came from the LAPD and they took us and they put us in the jail cell and we spent the night in the jail cell because we wouldn't give our names and we had resolved don't give our names if we don't give any information then we can't be taken home and in the morning an LAPD officer who looks a lot like you Bob he had salt and pepper hair he came in and he said hey what happened and within 30 seconds we told him our name and the we were taken back home and taken back to the exact same house we'd run from at 3:00 in the morning bruised and and uh shoess uh because in those days uh that's the way it was there were very few resources for battered women or for battered children but my point in sharing it with you is that I understand the dynamic because the idea for me is a kid that I'll just explode our entire lives and we'll be taken away from our mother and we'll be separated from each other and all of these consequences will come is just what women are facing today which is the the belief that it's simply too big and undertaking to leave this relationship and this home and this community and this family and and children it's a big deal and that's why everybody who's in a violent situation needs help and the the biggest help we can give is showing people again and again the real ities of their situation the warning signs of spousal homicide the more of those that you recognize the more likely you are to say I'm in that situation you can change this you're not doomed to this as my grandmother's words indicated that I was just doomed to this you're not you can get at I had a knife behind my back which he didn't know and I put it to his throat I was hit in the back of the head with something and I was out it was a wooden black Louisville Slugger baseball bat he had gotten some duct tape and he started taping around my whole head all the way down my eyes my nose my mouth I don't swim very well he kept pulling me further out and he started pushing down on my shoulders and I knew I was going to die I was working with a partner who had been around for 20 years and you get to the front door didn't knock on it kicked the front door in and as soon as we were into the kitchen we knew she was dead she had poured his Scotch bottles out upside down it just enraged him so she wound up dying from a gunshot wound [Music]