How To Spot Signs of Domestic Violence

Faith Eggers — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:21:28 -0500

A woman in my community was the victim of domestic violence for over 15 years before she finally decided to leave her husband. One guess as to why she waited so long is that she wanted to wait until her kids were grown before she divorced their father.

I'm sure that it's probably much more complicated than that, but sadly, we'll never know the answer because last week her husband murdered her. A terrible tragedy and a totally unnecessary loss, yet it happens every day.

In fact according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline on average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day and 70 percent of all instances of domestic violence in a marriage occurs after the couple has separated.

What does this mean to us? To me, it means that something needs to change. To me, it means that women need to be educated on the subject of domestic violence. We need to know how to prevent it. We need to know what the warning signs are, and what we can do if it happens to us.

Domestic violence wasn't relevant to me until, well, it was... My ex-husband Levi was never physically abusive to me throughout our entire relationship. Then, near the end of our relationship, we decided to go to therapy together. We went to one session and when we got home, we got into an argument — he didn't appreciate some of the things the thearpist had to say — and he punched me in the face. I'll never forget how shocked I was and I'll never forget the look on his face; he was equally as shocked.

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How To Spot Signs of Domestic Violence