Cycling With the Enemy
A recent National Crime Victim Survey showed that of the more than 2,000,000 reported incidents of crime victimization among intimates, women suffered more than 1,540,000 violent victimizations compared with the approximately 150,000 incidents experienced by men. No Brainer Hammer-conclusion: For both fatal and non-fatal violence, women are at a far greater risk than men of being victimized by an intimate!
Need further evidence? What about this? In 2005, well over 1/4 of all women murdered in this country were put in the ground by their loving husbands or boyfriends, according to the F.B.I.
I was a state parole officer for years and I, like all law enforcement people, came face-to-face with what we called The Ever-Loving/Ever-Dying Vicious Cycle Of Love. At least that’s what I called this inexorable self perpetuating Cycle of Domestic Violence. Many of the victims couldn’t name what violent vortex they were in. They just knew they were inside something that kept happening over and over, something bigger than themselves, something too many of them only escaped through my intervention – when I put their Old men behind bars – or, sadly, through death.
I am liberating this Ever Loving/Ever Dying Cycle because maybe one or two of my readers can recognize something they are caught up in now and do whatever they can to break the cycle. Or, mayhap you will someday see this cycle beginning and escape from it before it is too late.
STAGE 1. TENSION BUILDS.
Time has passed in this relationship and things are not going well. Your man has become more and more controlling. More and more abusive. He has already struck you once or twice. Maybe it was when you came home late from work. He always interrogates you about your friends, where you go. The tension has built and built between the two of you. There is no romance, no flowers, no going out at all. You have stopped making love. As the tension builds you know that it is only a matter of time before he beats you again. Finally, unable to take the tension, you force his hand by challenging him, calling him an ugly name. It is like: I know he is going to beat me, so let’s get it over with.
STAGE 2. VICTIM RAGE.
Prophesy fulfilled. You get your beating and this time it seems worse than ever before and his rage lasts longer. You are pretty hurt and feel what is natural and right. You feel rage and something else. Shame. This is it, you tell yourself and you call the police, or the asshole’s parole agent. You demand action. And, like in Stage 1, you get what you ask for. Your man is locked up.
STAGE 3. LOVE RETURNS.
Your man calls and writes from prison. When he can’t contact you, his friends and family do. He is sorry. He thinks only of you now as his hearing or trial nears. He sends you flowers. Candy. It has been so long since you have heard those words, those promises. At first and even at second, you reject him. Scold him. But now he keeps calling, and he says that he never would have struck you if it weren’t for those terrible, nasty words you chided him with that day he struck you, kicked you, pistol whipped you, cut you up so badly. Friends and family reiterate that it, after all, was your words that drove him insane that day. Only you have the power over him to affect him that way. After all, he loves you. Guilt, shame and self loathing start to take hold and you are a victim once again, although you see yourself now as the victimizer. In the end you realize that maybe you can use his remorse as a way to rekindle the love and the passion—
STAGE 4. BACK TOGETHER.
If you have any connection to the Criminal Justice System, you already know the rest of the story. She/You either refuse to follow through by testifying at the Parole/Probation Hearing, or magisterial court. You drop the PFA. He is back home, and, just like you hoped, he is more attentive, more responsive than ever before. You know that this is the way it is going to be forever——
ERR. OR NOT. Empirical studies, but more importantly, my 34 years of experience tells me that in time the cycle must and will repeat itself. It is a self fulfilling prophecy, more or less. Not only that, the Tension Building Stage will build and erupt quicker each time the cycle is repeated. In time, actually, there will hardly be that stage. It will get to the point that the woman will come home late and will be too slow in her explanation regarding why and she will be attacked. What’s more, the attacks will escalate in violence until there will be no follow-up stages.
No tension required. Until death or jail intervenes.
Stay Safe.
Hammer