humiliation, heartbreak, physical injury, ugly custody
battles, isolation, wedges driven between mothers and their
children, confusion, mistrust between siblings, secrets, lies.
No woman should have to live this way. Neither should
her children. But there are other lives that are also affected,
because for every abused woman, there are friends and
relatives who suffer, too, from their worry and pain over
what they see happening to her. Some of those who
approach me to share their anguish are men who are
groping desperately for clues to how they can assist their
daughters and sisters and mothers who they see being
sliced to ribbons a day at a time. In fact, it is unusual for
me to talk to anyone, male or female, whose life has not
been saddened at some point by an abusive man.
In recent years, in my public presentations, I have
increasingly addressed the effects on children who are
exposed to partner abuse. While writing this book I spoke
at a training session for police officers, where a young cop
who was built to intimidate—about as wide as he was tall
—came up to me privately during a break and said, “All
this stuff you are talking about went on in my family
growing up. My old man was just like what you describe,
always controlling, scaring everybody. And he drove me
and my mom apart, just like you said. But we all saw
through him when we got older, and me and my mom are
close now.” I told him how happy I was that he had
become a police officer, so that when a family calls for
help, they might be sent a cop who can see through the
children’s eyes and remember that they are victims too.