By Sangita devi dasi
Regarding the recent article on your front page about October being Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I would like to submit an article I wrote for our website www. vaisnavascare. com.
Ask a Registered Nurse
Question: I have been married for over ten years. I am ashamed to admit it, but I feel trapped in an emotionally and often, physically, abusive relationship. Can you give me some information to help me? I am sure I am not the only one experiencing this.
Answer: By Susan Pattinson, RN, CHPN, Certified Hospice Educator (Sangita devi dasi, ACBSP)
You are correct when you say that you are certainly not the only woman experiencing this type of inappropriate relationship. There are many ‘red flags’ that need to be recognized in order to see warning signs and symptoms of spousal abuse. Seeing these signs and symptoms is the first step in getting free or in seeking assistance to help change the relationship. It is important to mention that in some cultures, it is the general belief and teaching that women should ‘tolerate’ abuse of this type. It may not be openly spoken of, but it is talked about in whispers and behind closed doors. It is even believed in some cultures that to tolerate abuse from your husband shows a high degree of ‘chastity’ on the part of the woman. However, women should never have to tolerate living within a cycle of abuse inside her home, a home which should be her safe haven from the dangers of the outside world. This article is not meant to be a forum for an internet debate. Our only hope is to help those women who need and want assistance in a violent situation and see no way out.
(Note: It is important to point out that men are sometimes the victims of abuse and are battered by their wives, but statistics find that women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by a partner.)
A basic definition of ‘domestic abuse,’ sometimes called ‘spousal abuse,’ occurs when one person in an intimate relationship or marriage tries to dominate and control the other person. The abuser often uses fear, guilt, shame, and intimidation to hurt and wear down his partner in order to gain complete power over her. An abusive husband may threaten his wife, hurt her, or hurt their children or other relatives (or even a pet) living in the home. Abuse that includes physical violence is called ‘domestic violence.’ Domestic abuse knows no boundaries and can occur within all age groups, ethnic backgrounds, and financial income levels. Violence by one partner towards another is an independent choice made by the abuser to take control over his spouse. It is not necessarily about anger or rage. This is known for the following reasons:
The abusive husband does not usually physically hurt other people, other than his wife.
The abusive husband waits until there are no witnesses and abuses the person he claims to love.
When abused women are asked if her abusive husband can stop hitting her when the police come to their home, she will say ‘yes.’ The husband then looks calm while the wife, who has just been beaten, looks hysterical and out of control. If he were really ‘out of control’ he would not be able to stop himself when it is to his advantage to do so, such as when the police or neighbors arrive at the door.
An abusive husband often increases his abusive behavior from pushing his wife to hitting her in places where the bruises and marks will not show. If it were true that he were ‘out of control’ he would not be able to think clearly enough to limit where his kicks or punches were directed.
Spousal abuse is used for one purpose and one purpose only–to gain and maintain total control over his victim. In addition, you may recognize some of the following strategies used by your husband to exert power over you:
1. Dominance: Abusive men need to feel in charge of the relationship. Your husband will make all decisions for you and the entire family. He will tell you what to do, and expect you to obey without question. He may even go as far as to treat you like a servant, child, or even as his possession.
2. Humiliation: Your husband will do everything he can to make you feel bad about yourself. He will try hard to make you have very low self-esteem until you feel as though you are worth nothing. This is done because if you believe you are worthless and that no one else will want you, you are less likely to leave him. Insults, name-calling, and shaming you in public places are all his ‘weapons’ of abuse made to grind down your self-esteem and make you feel powerless.
3. Isolation: This is a common tactic used by an abusive husband. In order to increase your dependence on him, an abusive husband will literally cut you off from the outside world. He may keep you from seeing family, friends and neighbors. He may even forbid you from going to work or school. Many abused wives must ask permission to do anything, go anywhere, or see anyone. Most often, her husband will deny her permission in order to keep her more isolated and without anyone to turn to for help. I know of one situation where the abusive husband, a police officer, locked his wife and two sons in a closet every morning before he went to work. Years later, his older son, committed suicide.
4. Threats: Abusive husbands or partners often use threats to keep their wives from leaving them. They scare them from dropping legal charges against them by threatening to kill them or to kill their children or other loved ones. Some abusive husbands threaten to report their wives to child services saying she is an ‘unfit’ mother. He may even threaten to commit suicide if his wife leaves him. Then when she agrees to stay, the cycle of abuse begins all over again.
5. Intimidation: An abusive husband might use many types of intimidation styles in order to scare you into submission. Some of these may include threatening looks or gestures, smashing things in front of you, destroying property, hurting your pets, or putting weapons on display. These messages may be non-verbal, but are heard loud and clear.
6. Denial and blame: Abusive husbands become very expert at making excuses for his inexcusable behavior. They may blame their behavior on an abusive childhood, or may even blame his wife for making him become abusive. In fact, he may often minimize the abuse or deny that it occurred making his abused wife feel like she is literally ‘going insane.’ He may somehow make her feel that the abuse is always her fault for having done something wrong or that she somehow deserve the abuse to occur.
7. Guilt: After the abusive episode takes place, the abuser may feel some guilt, but please understand that this guilt is not due to what he has done to you. It is often over the possibility of being caught and facing legal and social consequences, such as losing his job or social position in the community. After an abusive episode, your husband may apologize for what he has done. His apologies and loving gestures in between the episodes of abuse can make it difficult for you to leave. Your husband may have you believing that you are the only person who can help him. ‘Things will be different this time,’ he may say. Ask yourself how many times he has said these things and how many times the violence has then continued.
Remember that domestic abuse often begins with threats and verbal abuse and then spirals to physical violence– and even murder. There are different types of domestic abuse, including emotional, physical, sexual, and economic abuse. Many abusers behave in ways that include more than one type of domestic abuse, and the boundaries between some of these behaviors may overlap. Physical injury may be the most obvious danger, but the emotional and psychological consequences of domestic abuse are also severe. In any society or culture, no one deserves this type of pain! Your first step is to recognize that your home situation is abusive. Please read the signs and symptoms below and ask yourself how many of them pertain to your situation:
You are afraid of your husband.
Your husband belittles you or tries to control you.
Your husband pushes, shoves, hits, kicks, or slaps you.
You feel helpless.
You feel worthless.
You feel trapped and alone.
You are afraid your husband will hurt your children or even take them away from you.
You avoid speaking about certain topics out of fear of angering your husband.
Your husband forces you to have sexual relations when you do not want to. He may even “rape” you. (This is “sexual abuse.”)
Your husband tells you it is your fault that he has hit you. Then he promises he will never do it again… but he does.
Your husband destroys personal property, especially things that mean a lot to you.
Your husband follows you from place to place and does not trust you.
Your husband will not allow you to go to school or to work.
Your husband denies you money for food, prescriptions, transportation, or your children’s needs.
A part of you believes you deserve to be hurt or mistreated.
You believe that if you had done or said something differently, your husband would not have gotten angry and violent.
You sometimes wonder if you are the one who is ‘crazy.’
Your husband embarrasses you in front of others.
Your husband tries to isolate you from friends, neighbors, and family members.
Your husband ignores you or puts down your opinions. He makes you feel useless and ignorant.
Your husband controls the money, the car keys, where you go, and who you see.
There are many more signs, but the more you answered ‘yes’ to the above signs, the more you need assistance. Please call a Women’s Abuse Hotline in your community by looking in your community phonebook or by calling the assistance operator for a hotline in your area. Or consult with someone you can trust who can assist you in finding help and a way out of the situation. The answer is not always having to break up the marriage unless the lives of you and/or your children are in danger. If you feel you or your children’s lives are in danger, then you need to leave immediately and find an emergency shelter or other safe haven until the situation calms down and more help can be found. We do not want you to remain part of a growing statistic of domestic violence.
Again, it is important to remember that domestic abuse occurs in every neighborhood and in every socioeconomic background. For more on this subject, we suggest you read the book, “Not to People Like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages” by Susan Weitzman. You can find it on amazon. com.
There are many counseing programs designed to help families trapped in the cycle of domestic violence. Many families who lived for years in a violent situation were changed by receiving family counseling. In addition, seek legal assistance and find out your rights as a citizen. Find help soon. Protect yourself and your children’before it is too late.
In the United States, there is an abuse hotline called SEWAA for women from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Napa, and India. The phone number is: 1-215-627-3922.
In the United States, there is an abuse hotline called Korean Women’s Support Committee–1-215-886-8725.
In the United States, there is an abuse hotline for those who speak Spanish, called Expanol Hotline–1-215-235-9992.
Another one in the U. S. is called: Congreso de Latinos Unidos–1-215-291-8742.
There are help for the abusers. For a man trapped in a cycle of abusing your wife and wanting to stop it, please call the Men’s Resource Center at 1-610-971-9310.
It is advised to contact a domestic violence agency BEFORE an emergency occurs. There are domestic violence programs available 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. They are available in many countries around the world. In the West, most countries have several emergency shelters to bring you and your children to in order to avoid another violent situation or to escape one. Appeal to the courts, the legal system, a trusted friend or relative. Keep seeking help until someone will assist you. Go online and search for safe shelters or abuse hotlines in your area of the world. Most are free of charge and volunteers are trained to help you. Talk to someone and if that does not help, talk to someone else. Keep talking until you and your children are safe!
You have the courage to face your fears!
Please contact Vaisnavas C.A.R.E. at jusaniya@vaisnavascare.com if you have more questions.
Dear Sangita Mataji,
Please accept my Humble Obeisances, All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Domestic violence is certainly ridiculous, but can someone pls. suggest what would be the ideal behaviour of the husband whose wife is uncooperating, thinks that she is smarter than the man and can survive independently, spend-thrift etc.
I understand that abuse is definitely not the solution but what if regular correction by speaking nicely even for small things like keeping the house clean doesnot attract attention from the other side.
A crude example:
If while going to office one is getting late and asks the wife for something and the reply is, “I don’t know.”(and this happens frequently not rarely) What should one say or do?
Isn’t expecting the wife to clean and arrange the house properly, OK?
In other words what r the duties of the wife and what is the ideal behaviour of a husband?
The article only highlights the problem, if the CAUSES and SOLUTIONS are also discussed then it would have been a complete article.
One may say, the problems(of the husbands) I’ve mentioned above are individual or rarely found and the solutions(you would suggest) would be very general, but again the problem (your good self have mentioned) is also rare and have to be dealt individually.
One of my friends from Chennai is in urgent need of the solutions to the same problem.
Rajes raises the important question of how husband and wife are to life in domestic harmony and tranquility.
Of course abusive husbands who torture their wives physically and emotionally are very sinful, and women in such situations need to find help and solutions to their predicament.
[Also, in a much smaller percentage of cases, there are even women who physically abuse their weaker or invalid husbands. And elder abuse is a huge problem, as is child abuse. These severe cases often justify some sort of intervention from those outside the family unit.]
But aside from these severe cases, there is the normal give and take of married life in which spouses do not live up to each other’s expectations, get on each other’s nerves, have annoying habits, quarrel about money, or in-laws, or the million little decisions that have to be made in family life.
After all, this is the Age of Quarrel, and married couples are not immune from its influence. Sastra predicts that the institution of marriage suffers during Kali yuga, until it becomes almost nonexistent.
Even in my own short lifetime I have seen cultural norms and morals change dramatically, and it is no longer unusual for famous people to simply cohabit without marriage, to have children out of wedlock, or to divorce and remarry numerous times. (Well, even in my parents’ generation multiple divorces were not uncommon, at least in Hollywood, but there was still a scent of scandal about such things that we have now become desensitized to. It is an every day occurrence.)
Rocky marriages are yet another aspect of the threefold miseries. Having accepted material bodies we are prone to so many disturbances. We are forced to do our best to deal with them.
Just as a devotee who has setbacks in business may take help from a business consultant, a devotee experiencing marital discord can take help from marriage counselors and self-help books and other resources. Most couples will tell you, we have to work on our marriages, being sensitive to our spouse’s needs and personality, and being able to communicate our own needs, and being introspective enough to understand our own personality and willing to work on changing as necessary.
Devotees have several advantages over nondevotees in making marriages work. First, they *have* to make it work (divorce is not an option). Second, they develop good qualities like tolerance and mental satisfaction. Also, Krishna helps devotees. . .
I did not address all of Rajes’s questions. I am not an authority on the subject but I could try to say something more.
It should be understood that we are talking about something totally different from the subject that Sangita raised, which is a pathological attempt by one spouse (usually a husband) to totally dominate every aspect of the other spouse’s life, using all kinds of methods including calculated violence. Sangita mentioned that she was not inviting an “internet debate” about this.
Rajes first asks about the “ideal behavior” of a husband whose wife is negligent in various ways. Talking about “ideal behavior” can be a trap, because some ideals can be so high it is unrealistic to expect ourselves to comport with them.
I can think of some ideal men who would peacefully tolerate a lazy, disrespectful, spendthrift or shrewish wife, all the time offering obeisances to the Supreme Personality of Godhead from the core of their hearts, being kind and trying to show mercy to the wife in whatever way possible, until eventually (after the children were grown) the situation presents itself for taking sannyasa. But that ideal might be difficult to live up to and might not be the optimal behavior for a given man with his own particular limitations.
The examples Rajes gives shows a man who is dependent on the wife in various ways. He is habitually running late for work, which is not the wife’s fault. He can train himself to get to work on time without the wife’s help. He can hire a housekeeper to make up for the wife’s failure to clean, if necessary.
Of course, such a wife (who does not work, who is disrespectful, etc.) is not behaving well. Rajes’ next question is, “What are the proper duties of an ideal wife?”
That could be a big discussion, because we do not live in a cookie-cutter society where all labor roles are clearly deliniated. [There are ideals of attitude, and there are ideals of duties physically performed. Today, we do not do fire sacrifice each day, etc., but if we chant Hare Krishna each day at least our attitudes can become ideal, even if we work in an office.]
In most cases neither the husband or wife are completely ideal. Married devotees need to learn the knack of expecting more from themselves than from their spouses, of developing divine qualities like gentleness, tolerance and forgiveness, and taking shelter of the holy names.
Having a spouse who is not a devotee must be very difficult.