Domestic Abuse in Affluent Homes

Well today I am veering off the topic of my blog to write a post for Amnesty International. The topic I am choosing to right about is something that I have personal knowledge of. Domestic Abuse in Affluent families.

It does not matter what your financial background is in order to experience the fear of being abused by the person whom you love and trusted not to harm you, but it really happens everyday. Just think about Nicole Simpson and how the police who went to her home to protect her were simply enamored with OJ being a star. Where was the help for her? She lived in a mansion in Brentwood. OJ told the police it was her problem and they were happy to believe him. It's like a good ole boys club. I wonder what the numbers of police men who abuse their wives or children are? I know it happens all over the country.
The world does not understand why affluent women are afraid to leave or have their spouses arrested. These men hire hire priced attorney's to get them off the hook. They can afford to buy their way out. Poor people don't have that luxury.

The problem is it is almost impossible to get help from a family because as I know first hand the old expression was "We do not wash our dirty laundry in public." That's how my former husband was taught and that is what he insisted be the rules in our home.

The first time I was beat up I think I reacted like many women, I simply brushed it off to his being drunk. Actually when I met him he was 28 years old and drunk every night. It is what ended his marriage at such a young age. But I did not know that at the time. His former wife did not bother to confide that little fact to me. She probaby believed someplace in her head, that it was her fault. I whole heartedly believed he was just venting his anger about how much he was losing in the divorce and being separated from his daughter who was two at the time. I thought he would simply sober up on his own and heal from his divorce. I was also newly divorced but with no children so I really felt sorry for him when every Sunday he was literally in tears when he returned his daughter to her mom and his old house. I was smitten by his sensitivity and his love of his child. Little did I know that many people with alcohol problems cry about a lot of things. It's a great way to get sympathy and keep drinking. I sure fell for it. After all he was highly educated, an assistant deputy DA and as good looking as any famous actor in LA and his family owned a movie studio no less. He had it all going for him. I was in love.

It was a wonderful warm Palm Springs night the first time he ever laid a hand on me. As women who have been abused will often acknowledge it will not take much to set a violent tempered person who is drinking into a rage. I simply told him I was tired and I thought since it was 3 am maybe he should get some sleep and stop drinking so we could have a nice early day.
I had been looking forward to sitting out by the hotel pool to get a tan.

WELL, before I knew it, I had two black eyes and was simply in shock. this was the man who I fell head over heals in love with, 5 months before this. I had told all my friends how amazing he was and that I was going to marry him. Well needless to say that ended our Palm Springs birthday get away. We drove home the next morning in silence. Of course there was no remorse, he said it was my fault for upsetting him. I often hear that from the victim. Reverse psychology is quite common I have learned over the years.

I did not tell have the courage to tell any of my close friends what happened, but confided in a woman I had just recently me through him at a club.She told me to pack a bag and stay with her which I did. I was humiliated. How could this happen to ME. I did not come from an abusive household, neither parents drank except one drink on a holiday. I was not emotionally prepared for this. I was the adored only girl in the family. I had nothing to draw from, I was in foreign water to be sure. Back then no one spoke about Domestic Abuse or quite frankly Alcoholism for that matter.

But like so many women, he kept calling me asking me to come back, he was so sorry. It would never happen again.
I'm not going to chronicle the many more incidents themselves but focus on the lack of help for being abused that I got.

When he broke into my apartment in a drunken rage while I was gone, when I called the police they didn't even take it seriously, It was simply an area they didn't get involved with. Domestic Issues. This was back in the late 70's.
I don't think they believed me. Even though a neighbor had called the police, helicopters where hovering over my place and the front door was kicked in. The police didn't care. They said I couldn't prove it was him. The Hell I couldn't. There wasn't a thing missing or broken. He was looking for me because I had a friends, good friend staying in my extra bedroom and he didn't like that. We were not even living together because of his drinking and his temper. He was gunning for me or perhaps the couple who was supposed to stay with me. They were so afraid they left and checked into a hotel. It meant nothing to anyone that I was terrified. That's emotional abuse and it hurts just as much as a slap.

It was my problem to deal with. Not the police or my friends wanted to stick around. There is no sympathy. The victim is just thought to be an idiot for sticking around.
I have learned that there were two definite personalities to my abuser. The kind loving man who I just adored, and the man that could break your nose or you cheek bone like he did mine.

What is it that keeps women like myself in an abusive relationship? Is it that we really believe we deserved to be abused.. I think in the back of my mind I always felt somewhat responsible for setting him off because I always defended myself which just angered him more.
I was not a wishy washy coward but I talked back. That was the biggest problem for him, there should be no reasoning with him when he was angry.

In later years after we got married he wasn't drinking and the anger was still there. It usually ended up with the door taking the brunt of it. But it didn't matter because he had the money to repair whatever he wrecked. The family did not need to be involved.
Then I was expecting our first child. He was sober and angry and he actually kicked me in the stomach. Lucky for me the baby was ok. He took me to his father's house and his housekeeper took care of me while he calmed down.
It was never talked about. The only person who even listened was the housekeeper. She told me to keep calm, and have the baby and no matter what happened this child would always be mine. I have a feeling she knew what I'd been through herself, but even she stayed in an abusive marriage. She managed to live in my father in laws home five days a week to escape.

Here we were from two different worlds and yet we were in the same boat. Feeling like you had to stay in the marriage.
Too many people were involved in our lives and of course I did know what I had gotten myself into when I married him.
Once again, I took full responsibility for what had happened to me.

It was now 1984, I had no place else to go quite frankly. I could never afford to raise a child on my meager hair dressers income. I felt trapped. It was never an option in my mind to go live in the ghetto, where I could afford the rent on my own.
I was spoiled by my life style. I did not want to give it up, plus I married him through sobriety and he had not taken a drink.
I could not break my vows. I did not even say for better or for worse when I married him. I simply said through sobriety.

He didn't pick up a drink for 14 years but his anger did not go away. Our son seemed to calm him down for years. He was very happy to have another family. I felt that he had outgrown his violent side. I was dead wrong. The abuse had turned to verbal abuse. Little by little over the years he tried to break me down with insults. Lucky for me I was strong and never believed these insults to be true. I give my family credit for loving and adoring me so much that my self esteem was always very good. It's what saved me from total melt down. It's also what made him ever angrier most of the time. I would stick up for myself. When the insults were aimed at my family, I stuck up for them also. I actually got good at arguing with a lawyer.
I learned that he would not fight fair and he used everything I loved and picked it apart and threw it in my face. Then of course he would apologize and buy me something nice. I was not above taking the payoff for silence back then. Even though I loved to say to him that "He could not buy me," I was still there wasn't I? He did buy me, I just didn't admit it to myself.
I lived in a beautiful English Tutor in Malibu.

When he finally did pick up that drink, I now had to think about how much my son loved him. He was an amazing father. He never lifted a finger to our son. This only made me feel like it was more my fault. He started going back to the martial arts in sobriety which really helped him to release all that pent up need to hit something. When he got his Black Belt somehow the need to stay sober was not a priority any longer. He had been taking pain pills and back then I had no idea how much closer to drinking he was getting every day.

All the signs were there that the Volcano was going to erupt, but of course, I did not want to admit it. His family thought he was never going to pick up a drink again, and my family didn't know much about his past, because I didn't want them to know.
I hid it from them.
I went to Al-Anon for years and even they don't want to talk about it. They would tell me to focus on me, not the problem.
I simply did not know how to separate the two issues.

I think Abuse is the ultimate trap. If you seek help, your entire life as you knew it will be lost forever. Because there is no permanent cure for Anger. Not even "Anger Management". If you leave, you are guaranteed to live a sub-standard life style because there isn't a court in the world that can give you as much money as you had together as a family, and your children will reap the effects of that choice. If you stay, you believe you deserve whatever happens to you. You feel you sold your soul for a life style and quite frankly you have.

After my husband picked up that first drink, it took me six years to actually leave him. Before I could bat an eye lash, he was in another relationship with a woman who looked like we could be sisters. Ten days was al it took to be replaced. It was one of my biggest fears. I had thought that he loved me enough to get and stay sober again. I was wrong.
His drinking and trying to get sober was hell on him also. His anger got him into fights and one time it ended up resulting in 9 pins in his right arm and almost the use of it. The last time he was facing 3 years in prison for slashing his landlords tires an threatening some workers with a large hunting knife.

It was then that I really believed that I was not his problem, but it took almost 20 years for me to accept that. In the end, his addiction not his anger got the best of him. He was so terrified of going to prison he never picked up another drink, he died falling off a balcony with a belly full of Valium.

I was questioned for murder because I was with him when he died. He was grieving for his girlfriend who had hung herself ten days earlier. That was the ultimate act of Violence. She punished him for his being angry with her for not staying sober one more time and she was totally jealous of our continuing relationship with our son. We always put his feelings first. We were having a more than civil divorce when he died suddenly.

In the end, even though he died because of a fall, I was questioned for murder by the police and the coroner. I guess they knew his history. But knowing how he was, I would have been responsible for his death if another physical incident were involved. Thank god he didn't hit me. They would have never believed me.
Today I feel there really is no way out, you suffer no matter what you choose. If you stay you will suffer, if you leave you and your children and the family will be torn apart.
I believe that violence and addiction are closely related as many do. but I also know that it goes much deeper than that because the abuser doesn't need alcohol to fuel the rage. It's something just in them. And in my experience therapy did not help either of us.

I was simply addicted to him or maybe the abuse. No one has ever given me a clear picture of why I stayed for so long, or why I stayed silent for so long.







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