I first heard of Eleanor's story' from Alice, a public defender who was soon to represent Eleanor at a sentencing hearing in county Superior Court. Fearing that a jury would not believe her story, Eleanor, a shy and soft-spoken African American bus driver, had pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder. This was against Alice's advice. Alice thought that Eleanor's case was strong and they could win. But Eleanor was not willing to face a jury trial with charges of first-degree murder. She was not willing to risk being found guilty and spending all of her children's growing-up years in prison. Now Alice was hoping that at least the sentence could be mitigated, and was asking me to give expert testimony to help the judge understand the reasons Eleanor had felt threatened and afraid—frightened enough by one of her husband's assaults, that she had tried to defend herself and had accidentally killed him.

Alice and Eleanor came to my office at the battered women's shelter, and Eleanor quietly and haltingly told her story. Eleanor had been married to Bob for eight years. During their first year of marriage, Bob had become verbally abusive, calling her a slut and a whore, falsely and obsessively accusing her of having affairs, disappearing for nights at a time in retaliation for her supposed infidelity, and finally one night, after months of haranguing, punching her in the arms, face, and stomach until she passed out. After that, he had said that he'd "come to his senses" and apologized. Eleanor became more withdrawn and jumpy after that, but she felt that the worst was over and believed that her love would help heal him and their troubled relationship. Bob did not beat her again for several years, but the stream of verbal abuse continued. Now, due to her nervousness around him, he began to tell her she was mentally disturbed, a judgment she sometimes came to share. He also made veiled threats. In one instance, he brought a large industrial hose made of very hard rubber into their bedroom and laid it at the foot of the bed. When she asked what it was for, he said it was to whip burglars.

Bob also did sexual things that Eleanor felt were abusive, but she did not dare complain. He would grab her at any time of the day or night, throw her down wherever they happened to be, and force her to have intercourse, all the while grinning and saying, "Don't you like it, babe? I know you want it!" She believed that it was her duty as a wife to comply with his sexual demands, and she also was afraid that if she ever refused, he would go back to accusing her of having a lover. She feared his disappearing again and then coming back and beating her.

On the day in question, Bob and Eleanor had been arguing. He wanted the milk that was in the refrigerator, and Eleanor had asked him to save it for the children for supper. Bob suddenly towered over her in a rage, holding the full milk carton high in the air. "You don't want me to waste milk?" he shouted, and started to pour it around the kitchen, splashing the walls and the ceiling. Eleanor started to cry. He then backed her up against the sink and started to hit her on the head with the sharp corner of the milk carton. He grabbed for her throat with his other hand. Eleanor felt behind her on the kitchen counter in a panic. She was terrified that this time he would kill her. In her terror, she thought maybe she could distract or disable him just long enough so that she could get out of the house and run to the neighbors' for help. Her hand found a knife, and she stuck him in the thigh.

Bob fell to the floor, shouting and bleeding profusely. Just at that moment, the children came home and banged on the glass sliding door that opened into the kitchen. When they saw their father, they began to scream and cry. Eleanor was distraught. She led the children to the neighbors', tried to calm them down, and called 911. The ambulance came, and then the police were called. Bob was unconscious when the police arrived, and blood was all over the floor. Eleanor was crying, and when the paramedics said to the police, "He's not going to make it—too much blood loss," she cried, "Oh, my God, I killed him!" Eleanor was arrested on the spot. In an effort simply to disable her attacker, Eleanor had unknowingly stabbed him in the femoral artery, and he had quickly bled to death.

The hearing took just an afternoon. The judge had been prepared to give Eleanor the maximum sentence because, he said, "When there's blood on the floor, someone has to pay." But after hearing the testimony, he told me that he now understood Eleanor's fear as justifiable, and he gave her a much reduced sentence: time served, and six months in a minimum-security work program.² Eleanor was able to see her children and able to leave the women's facility to work every day. But tragedy continued to pursue her. As a secondary consequence, Eleanor lost her job. She had been a county bus driver, and because she was now on record as a convicted felon, she was told that she was no longer eligible to work for the county, and was fired.

All too often, battering leads to death—most often, the death of the woman, and sometimes, as in Eleanor's case, the death of the batterer himself. Some 2,000 to 4,000 women are beaten to death every year.³ One-third of homicides of women are committed by a husband or intimate partner, compared to just 4 percent of homicides of men.⁴ Estimates ranging from 79.3 to 90 percent of women incarcerated for homicide⁵ killed their batterers, and many of them were denied self-defense as an argument in court, either because they could not prove that there was a threat sufficient to warrant using deadly force, or because the threat was escalating over time but there was no imminent attack in the moment the woman killed the batterer.⁶ For many offenses, women and men receive the same sentences, but for offenses traditionally considered "masculine," including murder, women tend to receive heavier sentences.⁷ Many battered women's advocates are now involved in a movement to gain clemency for women who were convicted and are currently still serving time for killing their batterers.⁸

What is battering? Although there is much more general awareness now about this epidemic problem, battering, or domestic violence, continues, perhaps even increases, and misconceptions still abound. Battering is still commonly seen as a problem of stress and poor communications, a problem within the embattled couple, in which one or both partners are abusive when tempers flare. But battering is both more simple and more difficult than that.

Battering is abusive behavior that intimidates and controls the battered partner, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining authority. Again, as with other forms of violence against women, battering is a matter of power, and its aim is not primarily to discharge anger or stress, but to assert ownership and enforce control. This is the simple reality, the simple truth that a battered woman lives day by day—the walking on eggshells, the fear of "catching it" if she "steps out of line,"the increasing regimentation and restriction of her life in attempts to please her abusive partner, placate him, and avoid being hurt again.

But it is also difficult—difficult to explain, difficult to confront, difficult to change. From the outside looking in, it is tempting to analyze a battering relationship in any number of complicated, sophisticated psychological ways. It appears as if the couple is locked in a closed system in which both partners refuse help, refuse to let in the light of day. But it is the violence, the intimidation and control, that are the padlock, and not any other internal factor in the woman's psychology, or some mysterious symbiosis between them. It is the violence that keeps the system shut tight, and only an interruption of the cycle of domination and control can begin to break it open.

A useful tool for understanding the dynamics of a violent relationship is the now classic "Power and Control Wheel"⁹ (Fig. 5.1). The wheel shows the variety of abusive behaviors that a battered woman may be experiencing, encircled and hemmed in by the all-encompassing motive and effect of domination and control. A very useful counterpart, a "Nonviolence Wheel,"¹⁰ has also been developed more recently to highlight the healthy features of cooperative relationships and contrast these to the abusive relationships depicted in the Power and Control Wheel (Fig. 5.2). Sometimes a woman will come to a battered women's agency, still uncertain whether she is "really a battered woman." The wheel is a useful tool in helping her to see that what has been happening in her relationship is unacceptable and dangerous, and that the physical violence is part of a larger picture of intimidation and domination.

A checklist of characteristics of an abusive relationship can also help a battered woman to identify how unhealthy, controlling, and unsafe her relationship is. A sample is shown in Figure 5.3: "Is Your Relationship Healthy?"¹¹

Battering exists on a spectrum from verbal abuse to death, and in almost all cases the violence escalates over time if there is no intervention. On the seemingly more "mild" end of the spectrum, there is already danger. Women report verbal abuse, name calling, and constant put-downs. The continual criticism and verbal harassment wears the woman down, like water dripping on a stone. It erodes her self-esteem and her sense of self-worth, and creates an artificial dependency in which she believes that she would not be able to do anything in her life without her partner. It sets the stage for further violence and control. Verbal abuse easily escalates into threats. Verbal threats often escalate into threatening actions. Harming pets, destroying furniture or other property, stealing the woman's personal belongings, or slashing or pouring bleach on her clothes not only carry the destructiveness of the actions themselves, but also serve as threats: Do what I say, or it will be you next time.

Isolation serves to reinforce the batterer's domination and the woman's entrapment. Batterers will slowly undermine women's relationships with family and friends. Battered women hear and sometimes try out of concern for the batterer to accept such statements as "He was making eyes at you, and I don't want you to talk to him," or "Your family never liked me—I don't want us to spend so much time with them," or even "Why do you spend time with her? You're too good for her."

Some women do not identify themselves as battered because they have never been hit. But they have been shoved, dragged, or pushed up against a wall. They have been locked in or locked out. This is battering.

Many, many women, of course, have been hit, punched, slapped, and beaten. In the State of California, criminal law activists convinced the Bureau of Criminal Statistics to count fists and feet as deadly "personal weapons," because so many women are killed, not only by knives and guns, but by punching, choking, kicking, and being thrown down stairs, through a window, or across a room. Women are also bludgeoned with hammers, two-by-fours, and chairs. They are slashed with broken bottles and scissors. And, yes, they are stabbed with knives and shot with hunting rifles and handguns. In short, battered women live their lives in a war zone, enduring from uneasy truce to uneasy truce. They are prisoners of war as any captured soldier, except that no one knows to look for them, and often no one will believe their stories if they tell.

In a majority of cases—though, importantly, not all—there is a now fairly well-known "cycle of violence," as first described by pioneering psychologist and battered women's advocate Lenore Walker 12 (Fig. 5.4). Walker built this theory on evidence that a battering relationship typically moves through a tension-building phase, in which the woman experiences "walking on eggshells" and tries a variety of strategies to avoid or defer a violent incident; the acute phase, in which the batterer inflicts severe harm over a period usually ranging from two to twenty-four hours (but in some cases stretching to a week or more); and finally, an unreliable respite phase of kindness and contrite, loving behavior. This is sometimes referred to as the "honeymoon" phase, but for the battered woman it is no honeymoon. At best, it is a shaky reprieve within a context of coercion, threat, restricted options, and injury.¹³ The cycle repeats in spiral fashion, with the tension-building phases becoming longer, the violent incident becoming more dangerous, and the respite phases becoming shorter or nonexistent.¹⁴ A tension-building phase may extend even over years as threats, intimidation, and isolation serve to maintain the batterer's domination.¹⁴

There is a trap here for clergy and others who would help. Often a woman will initially break silence about abuse in the aftermath of a particularly frightening beating. But when the pastor follows up, he or she is told that everything has been worked out now, they will be seeing a counselor, the husband has repented, and not to worry. Occasionally the batterer will even come to the pastor for confession and absolution. It is important to recognize that this is likely to be part of the respite phase of the cycle, and not to be drawn unwittingly into collusion with the abuse. Marie Fortune has written clearly about the difference between this kind of glib pseudo-repentance and the true, hard-work, long-term repentance of turning one's life and behavior completely around.¹⁵ Quick and sudden reassurances on the part of either the victim or the batterer that all is now OK should always be cause for concern, not relief. Both partners need to be educated about the cycle of violence and urged—separately-to get appropriate help.

The cycle of violence is also an important factor in women's ability to leave an abusive relationship. While the respite phase is the period in the cycle during which it is probably safest for a woman to leave the relationship (although at no time is this completely safe), it is sadly the time she is least likely to go. Leaving or threatening to leave is often the occasion for the worst violence in the relationship, and many women are killed just as they are trying to leave or have recently left.¹⁷ Women report time after time that their batterers have threatened, "if you ever try to leave me, I'll hunt you down no matter where you are, and I'll kill you." Sometimes this threat is accompanied by the insanely paradoxical statement, "That's how much I love you." This is the ultimate assertion of ownership, because a women's threat to leave is heard by the man as treason against his property rights.

Shelters almost always are set up at confidential locations for just this reason. Anyone who has worked at a shelter for any length of time knows the dread of the knock on the door in the middle of the night by an enraged batterer looking for his partner. We have all heard the rare but terrifying stories of shelters whose security was breached, and residents or shelter workers hurt, even killed."¹⁸ We have all fielded calls from men who are sure their wives are staying with us—whether this is the case or not. Those of us who have worked at shelters long enough have also felt the grief and despair of losing a client—not only because women return to their batterers, but because their batterers stalk them, find them, and, in the worst cases, murder them.

How prevalent is battering? The FBI estimates that one out of four American women will be physically battered by an intimate partner at some time in her life. The California attorney general, in agreement with Dr. Lenore Walker, estimates twice that many, i.e., half of all women, will experience at least one violent incident in an intimate relationship.¹⁹ Prevalence studies conducted in specific settings such as hospital emergency rooms, family service agencies, and other public institutions generally show a figure of about 28 percent. This is staggering. To get a clear mental picture of these statistics, sit on a bus, or in a large meeting or conference, or in church, and count off: one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. At least this many women arc statistically likely to have been battered or to have battering in their futures.

One question often arises in workshops at this point: What about battered men? It is probably important to separate out physical from emotional battering. Physical battering is much easier to measure, and prevalence studies consistently show that 95 to 98 percent of battered spouses are women. In the rare instances where the battered spouse is a man, it is often the case that the man is elderly, sick, or disabled, and the power imbalance in the relationship weighs in on the woman's side in an unusual reversal of the societal norm. What is important is that, regardless of gender, battering remains a matter of power and control.

In the area of emotional battering, it is sometimes said that women are more often verbally abusive than men. While it is certainly true that verbal abuse can be terrible, and it would be naive to assert that women are incapable of meanness and mental cruelty, this picture of the nagging or cruel wife needs to be reexamined, first in the light of stereotyping and then also in the light of the societal power dynamics that exist beyond the boundaries of the couple's own relationship. While it is certainly true that a woman can verbally badger and insult an intimate partner, the level of intimidation possible is far less than that which accompanies the same verbal abuse from a man. A man is much more likely to be able to back up put-downs and threats with physical force, and men are more socialized by far than women to use force to resolve conflict. Men also have options to get out of the relationship more easily and with fewer negative consequences. This is not to assert that divorce or the break-up of an intimate relationship is ever painless for either men or women. But to a very unequal degree men have the economic means, and the social support system, decisively to draw the line and leave. Studies have shown that after divorce a man's income and standard of living is likely to go up, while a woman's is likely to go down. And while women are socialized to stay in relationships at all costs, to "stand by your man," men are socialized not to take any guff from anyone, More will be said below about why women stay in abusive relationships. As for men, it is likely that they will either find ways to reassert their control through physical retaliation to squelch the verbal abuse, engage in a mutual battle of cruel words and passive-aggressive retaliation, or try to ignore the woman and—because they have the relative freedom to do so—partially or totally absent themselves from the emotionally abusive environment.

Women who do verbally abuse generally do so out of a stance of powerlessness, not power. In the absence of real authority and sense of self-worth, the women sometimes do resort to the tactics of the oppressed: manipulation, hypercriticism, and nagging, The stereotype of the carping, henpecking wife all too often feeds into the myth that somehow a woman deserved to be battered. Our language abounds with words for the nagging spouse: harpy, shrew, virago, termagant, bitch, all gender-specific to women, with no counterpart specific to men. These terms, especially those drawn from mythology, carry the weight of being eternal truths about women, which both women and men internalize as beliefs. While these behaviors are certainly destructive, and especially poisonous when applied to children, it is the whole power-over/ power-under dynamic of the relationship that needs to be changed. Blaming women for nagging does not address the root causes of social powerlessness and personally ingrained feelings of inferiority.²⁰

A number of persistent myths and stereotypes about battered women can influence women's ability to extricate themselves from violent situations and also can unconsciously hinder our capacity to help them. Some of these have been touched on already. These myths are so ingrained in our culture that, even after years of working directly with battered women in shelters and agencies, domestic violence advocates still need to confront their own tendencies to slip back into one or another of these misconceptions about survivors of abuse. Openly exploring the myths is the first step toward stopping the abuse.

There are many variations on this myth—that battering only happens to poor women, or black or Hispanic or Native American women, or women without a college education. White women, "nice" women in upper-middle-class families, professional women, women in "nice" suburban homes don't get battered. It doesn't take very long working on a domestic violence hotline to lose this myth. I have answered hotline calls from women doctors, lawyers, psychologists, and nurses, women professors and the wives of professors, women living in affluent communities and quiet suburbs known for being "free of crime." Women who, the myth would say, "ought to know better." Women who treat battered women in their own professional work.

One variation on this myth is that battering doesn't happen in church families. Parishioners may genuinely believe "the people in this parish are nice, upstanding, law-abiding people. I can't believe it could happen to one of us!" Because no woman has ever approached the pastor with a complaint of violence at home, the pastor then believes that it's not happening. The truth is, most battered women have sensitive antennas and are not as likely to tell someone who is not ready to believe them.

There is no one group of women who are more likely to be battered than any other. Domestic violence cuts across all lines of education, class, color, sexual orientation,²¹ and religion. The frightening truth is—especially for women—that any woman can be battered. The sheer prevalence of battering statistically suggests this. This leads to. . .

If, as described above, somewhere from one-fourth to one-half the women in this country—upwards of sixty million women—will be battered in the course of their lifetimes, then this is clearly a widespread social problem and not a bizarre or rare crime. The State of California registers over 180,000 calls to police by battered women each year. When this figure is multiplied by the average number of incidents that are not reported, this means nearly two million battering incidents each year in one state alone. More will be said about the profile of the typical batterer below, but statistics alone indicate that battering is not only not rare, but terrifyingly commonplace, and that batterers are no more or less sociopathic than all men in society. This is equally true within and outside the church. Even ministers sometimes are batterers.²²

This has been touched on above. Battered women themselves believe powerfully in this myth and are doubly convinced of it because it is what their batterers tell them by way of excuse. "If you were more responsible . . . if you would keep the kids quiet when I come home . . .if you could ever be on time . . .etc., etc., I wouldn't have to hit you to teach you a lesson . . . . I wouldn't lose my temper that way . . . ."

Victim-blaming also takes more sophisticated forms. Shelter workers and others in the grassroots battered women's movement have long criticized the psychotherapeutic community for subtly perpetuating models that blame women for violence against them.²³ This can take several forms. The most traditional form of woman-blaming comes in viewing battering as a symptom of her own mental illness or emotional problems. Battered women have been mistakenly diagnosed for behaving in ways that may have been their only alternatives for surviving life-threatening violence by their partners, including: masochism,²⁴ borderline personality disorder, paranoid, even schizophrenic,²⁵ or (thankfully eliminated from DSM-IV) "self-defeating personality disorder."²⁶

A much more appropriate diagnosis for the problems a woman may be experiencing is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), under which Lenore Walker assigns her "Battered Woman Syndrome."²⁷ This diagnosis is based not on any assumption of prior emotional disturbance before she was battered, but on the after-effects of living with constant terror. In this view, battered women's so-called symptoms are similar to those of survivors of war, out of whose experience after the Vietnam War PTSD was identified.²⁸

Another clinical approach that can be subtly used to place blame on the victim is the family systems approach.²⁹ As an alternative to classical psychoanalytic approaches, family systems theory was actually a liberating approach when it was first put forward, because it presented the idea that the person identified by the family as being "sick" might actually be the family scapegoat, or at least be "carrying" or "acting out" unspoken issues of other family members. This person was understood to be the "identified patient,"³⁰ and it was often the wife or an adolescent or child who bore this role. The systems view was liberating in that it required the apparently more "normal" or "healthy" family members to acknowledge their own roles in the family pathology and participate in making changes in order for the therapy to succeed. However, this view can backfire miserably for a victim of abuse. When it comes to physical or sexual violence, the perpetrator must take full responsibility for the abuse. All too often, from a systems perspective, the battered partner is seen to be contributing to the dysfunction in the family system, and the battering is only seen as a symptom of this dysfunction, to which she herself is viewed as coresponsible.

Finally, a third popular trend in therapy, borrowing from chemical dependency treatment, examines relationship dynamics in terms of "codependency"³¹ or "women who love too much."³² Battered women find much of value in the self-help books in this category and in support groups, based on them, because the view is clearly one of claiming a healthy life for oneself and extricating oneself from destructive relationships. However, there is still a subtle form of victim-blaming inherent in this trend, namely, that the focus is still on what the victim should or could do to change, rather than on the perpetrator's responsibility.³³ Robin Norwood, author of Women Who Love Too Much, directly adapts a disease model from the recovery movement to describe women in destructive relationships as having a "relationship addiction."³⁴ She defines this as "a progressive and ultimately fatal disease process,"³⁵ and states that women afflicted with this addiction will "choose dangerous men and dangerous situations"³⁶ in order to produce an adrenaline rush, and that they will provoke violence through "clinging, placating, nagging and pleading."³⁷

The adaptation of an addiction/codependency model applied to battered women becomes especially complicated when alcohol or drug abuse is actually present. A major pitfall of many social work and community mental health counseling approaches is that they often blame the chemical or the addiction for the violence, whereas alcohol and drugs are usually the perpetrator's excuse for the violence and not the cause.³⁸

The bottom line, which is never doubted in the case of stranger assault but nearly always is forgotten in the case of domestic violence, is: No one asks, causes, or deserves to be assaulted or abused. To believe that a woman deserved or provoked a man to violence is to confuse violence with anger. Anger is legitimate, even necessary and healthy in a relationship. Violence is not.

There is, finally, a particularly subtle enactment of the myth that she caused or provoked the violence, which is set in motion by the perpetrator but made to appear the other way around. On occasion, a batterer will taunt and provoke a woman to lash out at him in reaction. She may slap him or hit him. He then restrains her with his greater physical strength and proceeds to beat her with a great deal of force. Later, she believes that because she hit first, it was all her fault, and if she were to report it, he would simply claim self-defense or mutual battering. This can be particularly difficult to sort out in cases of lesbian or gay male battering. Especially in these relationships, it is important to survey the entire pattern of who is intimidating and controlling whom, who defers to whom, who has and uses greater physical strength, and who is frightened, and not simply to evaluate the abuse quantitatively on the number of blows. Again, this is not to excuse any violence, but to remember that battering is behavior for the purposes of intimation and control, in assertion of authority. It is not simply a matter of temper or poor communications.

Masochism, the "M" of "S & M," is a (highly controversial)" term in clinical psychology, referring specifically to a sexual disorder. "Sexual masochism" is defined in DSM-IV as "recurrent, intense, sexual urges and sexually arousing fantasies, over a period of at least six months, or behaviors involving the act (real, not simulated) of being humiliated, beaten, bound, or otherwise made to suffer. The fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning."⁴⁰ It has nothing to do with battered women per se.

Sexual sadism, the "S" of "S & M," is the corresponding disorder in which the "psychological or physical suffering (including humiliation) of the victim is sexually exciting."⁴¹

"S & M," or sado-masochism, is therefore a term referring to sexual activity that involves humiliation, bondage, and physical pain. Sometimes this is described as a pursuit of pleasure heightened by the stimulation of fear or pain itself. It has also been described as being a way of working through issues of power, dominance, and submission.⁴² Perhaps especially because of my work with battered women, I have grave misgivings about this activity as ever being acceptable. I seriously doubt whether any relationship can ever be safe and equal enough in power to make authentic consent to violence possible.

Nevertheless, S & M is at best a mutually consensual sexual activity practiced by some people. Battered women unequivocally do not invite, nor do they consent to the violence that is perpetrated upon them, even though their batterers may claim that they do.

Perhaps the most commonly asked question is, "Why do battered women stay?" People unfamiliar with the dynamics of an abusive relationship find it difficult to believe that anyone would tolerate violence. This is often regarded, not only by the uninformed public, but also by certain experts and clinicians, as a sign of weakness and identification with the role of victim. However, in my experience, women often remain committed to violent relationships precisely because of their strength.⁴³ Their belief in their own capacity to change, heal, or renegotiate the violence-torn relationship, compounded by societal expectations of marital and family unity, often creates a dangerous but persistent illusion that with just a little more effort on their parts, the violence will end. The idea that battered women "stay" is, in itself, an oversimplification of most women's experience. Many battered women do not stay in a frozen and passive state, but more commonly engage in a dynamic process of "stay-leave-return."⁴⁴ This is an active process, in which the leave-takings, however temporary, are intended to signal how seriously the woman takes the violence, and returning to the relationship is aimed toward renegotiating a violence-free relationship.⁴⁵

Over time—often a great deal of time, and much longer than anyone trying to help her may be able or willing to understand—a battered woman's thoughts do turn toward leaving the relationship permanently. It is important for observers and helpers to understand that this final decision comes with a great deal of sacrifice, in terms of her emotional investment, her investment of effort often spanning many years in the relationship, and also often in terms of the economic and material realities of the life they have built together. Most of all, her hopes and dreams, invested in this partner, must be sacrificed or transferred to another possible future relationship or relationships.

These dreams and investments are reinforced by societal expectations and realities. The most frequently mentioned external constraint on women's ability to leave a violent partner is economic. Sometimes this is a function of the batterer's isolation tactics, reinforced by traditional expectations about a woman's place being at home with the children, in which a husband refuses to let his wife work outside the home. Long absence from the working world, combined with her batterer's verbal assaults on her confidence, may make her doubt whether she could find a job to support herself and her children. Many battered women who first seek assistance from a shelter or agency in permanently leaving their batterers feel overwhelmed by the prospect of finding an apartment, applying for assistance, searching for work, and then locating appropriate, safe child care-to be accomplished all at once, and often secretly or while in hiding from her batterer.

Another reason why women stay is the societally conditioned belief that "love conquers all." The battered woman may believe the promises made during the "respite" phase of the cycle of violence. She often still loves or at least cares for the man she first fell in love with. She feels she should stand by him, believe in him, and help him change. Few women, especially early on in the violent relationship, want to give up on a partner who in other ways has been important to them, even apparently loving and caring. Then, as months and years go on, this initial hope is replaced by the time and emotional investment in the relationship which she does not want to discard. Starting all over seems a grim prospect, especially when one's hope is already so worn down. Rather than view the relationship as hopeless, the woman may try to separate the "good man I married" from the man who batters her. Often, she accomplishes this by viewing his violence as a sickness, one for which she should be able to help him find a cure. In this way, she may come to feel responsible for healing or changing him.

Pressured by public and religious norms, she may believe it is her moral duty as a woman to stand by him at all costs. If she is Christian, she may believe that it is un-Christian not to forgive him again and again, and that she must continue to "turn the other cheek."' For a woman with children, there is also often a deep moral struggle between her own need to feel safe, and what she—and society—may view as her children's right to be with their father—or his right to be with them. Her own needs are low on the list of priorities, beneath her belief in families staying together, fathers and children being close, and a profound socially conditioned ideal of family unity. Sometimes influenced by her own minimization and denial about how much she is hurting, she may not as easily see that her children are also being harmed by witnessing this violence. She may not even see as clearly as she should that the children themselves are being emotionally and perhaps physically abused by her husband.

The attitudes of family, friends, counselors, and pastors all have a critical impact on how much the societal reinforcements for a woman's staying with her batterer will hold sway. Rather than pointing out her supposed weakness in capitulating to the batterer, they can point out the enormity of the pressures she is experiencing and help her to name them. They can also mobilize her strength and hope toward the many concrete tasks of designing her own safety and freedom and that of her children, rather than pouring it into a relationship that is only likely to end in tragedy.

I am aware that this view is somewhat different from a currently prevailing understanding of battered women as lacking self-esteem. Many battered women and their advocates do subscribe to a belief that a woman is unable to leave the violent relationship because her self-esteem has been so beaten down by the violence and the verbal abuse that she has come to believe she deserved the beatings. She fears that no one else would ever want her, that she will be alone for the rest of her life. She may fear that, in addition to what her partner has told her about all the things that are wrong with her, she is now further "damaged goods" because of the abuse, and no one would ever love her again. She may believe that it is possible that the "devil she knows" is truly better than the "devil she doesn't know"—hope has failed and there are no better alternatives. She stays because it is easier than to contemplate the overwhelming task of reconstructing her life from ground zero.

She may come to believe that if only she were a better wife, her husband would not beat her. This is terribly compounded if she has, in fact, done things in the relationship that went against her own internal moral code—for example, if she believes she was "bitchy," or shouted too much, or if, out of loneliness and despair, she had an affair. She sides with her partner's abuse as just punishment for her own sense of wrongdoing. She cannot forgive herself and believes she has caused the abuse. She even comes to believe, at least some of the time, that it is for her own good.

In my experience, this is not incompatible with an understanding that a woman stays because of a core strength. She acts, repeatedly, out of strength and a core conviction that she can and should be able to remedy the relationship in which she has invested. She often blames herself for failing to renegotiate a nonviolent relationship, because deep down inside, she believes that she should be able to change it, either by changing herself or modulating or controlling his behavior. Because, in reality, she cannot bring about these changes, she may experience a deepening sense of guilt, frustration, and depression as the relationship wears on.

This depression can be demobilizing and may look to outside observers like a passive acceptance of a victim role. Lenore Walker has made the connection between the psychosocial learning theory of "learned helplessness" and the question of why women stay in battering relationships. Researchers have found that victims of repeated, random trauma are essentially reprogrammed by their repeated experience of helplessness to believe that they do not have the normal human capacity to control or influence their environment. Whereas people who are subjected to one-time traumas, such as fires, plane crashes, or hurricanes, mobilize quickly to rebuild their own lives or to help others, human beings respond to repeated trauma by becoming passive and convinced that they cannot do anything to help themselves.⁴⁷

The more a woman tries to stop or control the battering herself by trying to adapt her own behavior to please her partner or by attempting to reason with him or help him change, and (inevitably) fails in her attempts, the more the learning is reinforced in her that she can do nothing to change the situation. Although he may give pseudo-reasons for his abuse (the dinner wasn't cooked, the house wasn't quiet enough, etc.), and she may consciously believe them, the unconscious learning is that the violence is random and chronic, and that the threat of further harm is pervasive. Over time, her ability to mobilize her own defenses is eroded and her capacity for hope is numbed. This is important for those who would help her to realize she has options—she may in fact resist outside efforts to free her, because she has become programmed to stay in the prison of the abuse. This does not mean that she does not "want" to be free of the violence, but concrete plans for action no longer seem believable to her. This strikes at the heart of the theological task—journeying through despair and rebuilding hope are not philosophical luxuries, but necessary precursors to any liberating change.

The application of this theory of learned helplessness to battered women is being challenged by some in the battered women's movement who point out that the theory casts women as "quintessential victims."⁴⁸ Researchers Dobash and Dobash object that the theory of learned helplessness and Walker's cycle of violence may be used as a new orthodoxy to pigeonhole women into a static pattern, when in fact women are making active and conscious choices in a dynamic process. The "stay-leave-return"⁴⁹ pattern of many women begins as an active, not passive, process. I believe that the mounting frustration and despair that are described by the theory are accurate and have much more to do with a woman's conviction that she should be able to save the relationship, out of a position of strength, than any stance of weakness. Perhaps "learned hopelessness" is a more accurate term and one that not incidentally names the theological dimension of her plight.

This is where shame, embarrassment, and failure enter the picture and further prevent women from leaving. To leave is to admit defeat, and this defeat is in the area in which women are most expected to excel—the area of relationships and care. It is ironic and tragic that a person who is beaten by an intimate partner will feel ashamed, but that same person would not hesitate to report or discuss being held up by a stranger on the street. This shame is a function of externally conditioned and reinforced social stigma and public unresponsiveness, combined with internalized values of women as nurturing, patient, and ever-faithful, no matter how they are abused. Shame breeds secrecy, and that secrecy becomes the receptacle for more and more abuse.

Finally, perhaps the most compelling reason why women stay is fear. She has been told that if she tries to leave, he'll make sure she never sees her kids again. Or, worse, he'll kill her, and if she does manage to escape temporarily, he'll track her down wherever she is and kill her. Enough batterers carry through these threats that women are justified in feeling terrified when they hear them.

Many of the factors described above also relate to why women so seldom report battering to the police (usually only one in ten incidents are reported), and why they are so reluctant to follow through with prosecutions or other legal options. Minimization and denial set in soon after a battering incident, making it seem less significant than the crisis it truly was at the time. Loneliness, doubt, low self-esteem, and brainwashing to believe it was her own fault begin to take over once the worst injury is past. A battered woman also has fears, often justified by past experience, that the police or the justice system won't believe her or won't treat the battering seriously. if police respond inadequately, for example, by just walking the man around the block with a friendly admonition, or if the justice system simply gives the batterer a "slap on the wrist," it is tantamount to permission to continue battering. Economic factors enter into a woman's decision not to report as well: she fears that her partner will lose his job or lose valuable work time if he is held in jail. Finally, she is terrified of his retaliation. Almost every battered woman shrinks from the thought of jail time for her partner, because she knows that he will be released sooner rather than later, and upon his release, he is likely to make a beeline for her with intent to kill her. There are too many horror stories about women who were not warned of their batterer's impending release from prison, and because they were not warned, they were murdered.

Given all these realities, it is no wonder that women find it difficult to leave. Recently this question of why battered women stay has been challenged and turned upside-down: Once again, why is the focus on the woman? Why not ask the question, why do batterers stay? If they are so provoked, so angry, so miserable, why do they stay in a relationship that they feel drives them to violence?

First, without intervention, even if that intervention seems unwelcome, a battering relationship is at high risk for ending in the death of one or both partners. Couples do not just "work things out on their own." Our bias toward privacy, often a legal cornerstone for women's rights, in this case works against a woman's safety. Studies have shown that people who would intervene when witnessing a stranger assault, back off and refrain from getting involved when they perceive that the assailant is known to the victim.⁵⁰ And second, thanks to the hard work of battered women's advocates for two decades now, the legal biases against battered women, inherited from eighteenth-century English jurisprudence, are slowly being eroded, and laws against battering, stalking, and marital rape are increasingly being passed through state legislatures and enforced.

Are certain women predisposed to becoming victims? This question, again, assumes that there must be something wrong with women who are battered before they even meet the batterer. But given the statistics, and the complicating factors involved in women's socialization to take responsibility for holding relationships together at all costs, it is safe to say that any woman can be battered. There may be particularly vulnerable times and situations, and it may be true that women who survived abuse in their childhood may be less clear about their own right to safety or about what constitutes a loving relationship. However, many battered women had nonabusive childhoods and were completely unprepared for the eventuality of violence in their adult relationships. This points to a need for primary prevention and reaching women at risk even before the first physically violent incident occurs. Premarital counseling, Engaged Encounter, and other church-based interventions with couples early in their relationship can be helpful in outlining dynamics of healthy versus abusive relationships and in talking about the early indicators of abuse in terms of dynamics of power and control. Almost all violence occurs either before the marriage itself or before the birth of the first child.⁵¹ The best indicator of potential violence is how the relationship has been in its first two years and how power and decision-making are shared or not shared.

Most interventions begin after violence has occurred. Once a woman has been battered, certain common traits may emerge relating to the psychological burden of survival in such a hostile environment. These traits need to be understood as outcomes of living daily with trauma, and not as pathological. They are similar to the responses of prisoners of war—diminished self-esteem; being anxious to please (if she's just perfect enough, maybe the beatings will stop); indecisiveness, inability to plan, inability to project into the future (violence has interrupted their life so often, planning seems futile); depression, even major clinical depression and suicidality—the results of despair, and rage that had to be buried because it was too unsafe to feel or express; flattened affect—the numbness of a survivor of atrocities; mood swings, being jumpy, nervous, irritable, or drifting off into daydreams—all classic traits of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder seen also in war veterans; self-destructive acts, sometimes disguised in the form of drug or alcohol abuse, reckless driving, or eating disorders, or sometimes quite frank in the form of self- mutilation, cutting, slapping, biting, or self-starvation. In nearly all cases, battered women end up with problems with boundaries—although they may not have started out that way—because their sense of self has been so shattered. These boundary wounds may manifest themselves in swings between extremes of dependency and independence, blame of others versus self-blame, outward expressions of anger versus self-destructiveness, wishes for revenge versus wishes to rescue the abuser; and questions of identity and meaning: "What's it all worth. anyway? And who really cares?"

While there is no identifiable set of predisposing traits for battered women, there are predisposing factors toward being a batterer. Not all batterers have every trait, but the more traits are present, the more likely the person is to resort to violence in intimate relationships.

While there is no single type that describes every batterer, most fall into one of two general categories: the sociopathic or antisocial batterer who has very limited self-control and is highly irritable and violent generally in all situations, including at home; and (more common) the more "classic" batterer who is violent only with his intimate partner and about half the time also with his children. It is this kind of batterer who is more difficult to spot, and who engenders the comment, "I can't believe that John would beat his wife. He's such a nice man and such a good, upstanding church member!" Therein lies, perhaps, his most dangerous qualities—his ordinariness, his niceness.

Still, looking beneath the surface, one is likely to find a number of traits common to batterers. First, he has an explosive temper, but one that is controlled enough to be limited only to a safe, private environment—with a wife or girlfriend. He is viewed by most people, even relatives, as a nice guy, gentle, even meek. Second, he suffers from low self-esteem, accompanied by an extreme need to control the people and things in his immediate environment. He may or may not be a "loser" in the world's terms, but he is always terribly afraid of being one. Another very common trait is possessiveness. Battered women often describe their batterers as pathologically jealous, imagining that they are having affairs, accusing them of being too sexy for wearing shorts in public in the summer, beating them for simply exchanging polite words with waiters or grocers. One batterer spread flour under the windows and doors every day when he left for work to be sure that his wife wasn't escaping on some romantic adventure. Another called his wife from work every half-hour to be sure she was still at home.

Batterers generally have very strict traditional ideas about sex roles and a "woman's place." They are anxious to prove their own masculinity. One batterer routinely beat his wife during or after a visit from his brothers, who had ridiculed him since childhood for being the smallest of the four. Superbowl Sunday is also thought by some to be the heaviest day in the year for battering incidents—related not only to alcohol consumption, but to the vicarious identification with the violence on the television screen and the sense of license given to dominate others by use of force.⁵² A man's failed dreams of masculine glory all too often result in the bullying and destruction of those within his reach who are weaker and who are least likely to retaliate.

Ironically, in light of these displays of frustrated machismo, batterers are more than usually dependent on their partners. They do not know how to have their emotional needs met by anyone besides their partners and cannot form friendships easily. They do not communicate well, particularly in the area of expressing feelings, and they are inhibited in asking for what they need. They tend to confuse intimacy with sex and mistakenly attempt to achieve intimacy through control, domination, and sexual activity (whether by consensual sex or rape). They believe on some primitive level that their very survival depends on making sure their spouse provides for every need, from clean socks to hot meals to a social environment necessary for their work or recreational routines. Their violence betrays their (unconscious) panic that if just one of these needs is not provided adequately by this partner/parent, they will die.

There is controversy concerning whether witnessing abuse in childhood "causes" men to batter. This is known as the "intergenerational cycle of violence." There is some evidence that batterers are more likely to have witnessed their fathers beat their mothers or to have been beaten themselves as children. However, many boys grow up in violent households to become loving and nonviolent husbands and fathers, repudiating the violence of their pasts. And similarly, not all batterers grew up in violent homes. All too often this is used as an excuse for violent behavior in adulthood. It should also be noted that witnessing or experiencing violence in childhood does not necessarily predispose girls either to be batterers or to be battered.

Finally, batterers have a very difficult time accepting responsibility for their own negative behavior. They seek to place blame outside themselves and generally minimize and deny violent acts that they have committed. Whether this is understood as narcissism or as deeply ingrained shame that leads to defensiveness, externalized blaming, and fear of responsibility, it is the factor that, combined with the battered partner's over-responsibility and self-blame tends to keep the reality and magnitude of the abuse hidden, even from the consciousness of the partners themselves much of the time.

Battered women are more likely to turn to clergy than to any other resource.⁵³ Traditionally, the clergy's responses have ranged from uninformed to harmful.⁵⁴ However, there is some evidence that with education and support, this picture is slowly changing.⁵⁵

What can clergy and religious professionals do, specifically, to help women and their families break the deadly cycle of domestic violence?

First, recognize the signs. Be alert that battering probably occurs in families in your congregation. If statistics hold true, one-fourth to one-half of the women in the parish have been or will be battered at least once in an intimate relationship. Common indicators of abuse include women who seem "accident-prone," or seem to have far more bruises and injuries than one would expect. Common explanations are failing down the stairs, walking into a door, being injured getting out of a car, etc. Strokes in young women may also be an indicator of abuse, caused by blows to the head or damage to neck arteries due to strangulation. Anxiety or anxiety-related health problems such as ulcers, headaches, or other symptoms are also common. More subtle indicators include hypervigilance and "startle response," daydreaming, an unusually isolated lifestyle or inability to come out to church for weekend or evening activities. A battered woman may make oblique references to her partner's "anger" or "temper" in the fleeting hope that a sensitive helping professional will read between the lines. When with her partner in public, she may defer to him or be unusually quiet around him for fear of saying something for which she will be punished later. She is generally very protective of him with others, particularly those in authority. At the same time, the abuser may be verbally abusive in subtle or obvious ways, may make attempts to impugn her reputation or her sanity to the pastor, may show signs of unwarranted jealousy, or may engage in a custody war with the woman and even kidnap the children. If a woman seems to be frequently leaving and then returning to her home or relationship, battering should be suspected. Battering should always be considered as one possibility when there is any suicide attempt.

Once battering is suspected, when it is safe and the batterer is not present, ask the question: Is someone hurting you? Are things happening in your home/relationship that are making it hard for you? If she indicates that this is so, ask even more directly. Is your partner physically hurting you? It has never been my experience that a woman was upset or "put off" by such a question. In cases where I was wrong, it was shrugged off easily, and usually some other kind of revelation was made that was equally important. But in most cases, it opened the door to real support for the woman, sometimes for the first time.

Talk about the violence straightforwardly and don't be afraid to ask. Do not refrain from asking what is really happening out of a mistaken notion of respecting her privacy or not embarrassing her. If she is being battered, she needs an opportunity to disclose in order to break the silence that perpetuates the abuse. It is also possible that a pastor will refrain from asking because he or she really doesn't want to know. The details may be too painful—or the consequences, for example, of knowing that a senior and respected parishioner is battering his wife may be too overwhelming. On the other hand, a pastor may be too personally interested in the details of a parishioner's intimate life. It is important to ask all questions from a centered and calm place, motivated by a genuine interest in what is best for the parishioner.

(1) Believe her. You may be the first person to whom she has disclosed. She may be expecting you to defend her batterer, to tell her what a nice man he is, and to disbelieve. Let her know that you trust her and that you believe her story. Let her know that she is not alone. Share some of the statistics with her. Let her know that there are others who have gone through similar things, and steer her in their direction (a support group run by a local shelter, or perhaps another woman in the congregation who went through similar experiences and has indicated a willingness to help others).

(2) Remember her safety first at all times. Remember that any intervention you suggest to her may have consequences for her safety.⁵⁶ Making appointments with you outside of her regular schedule, making phone calls that may appear on a telephone bill at the end of the month, receiving a call from you at home—in fact, any exercise of freedom on her part or sign that she is breaking her customary isolation may arouse the batterer's suspicion and cause him to escalate his violence. Respect her intuition at all times about what is safe for her, and remember to raise the issue periodically even if she does not.

Recognize that she may be minimizing the danger of the situation. Let her know that violence that continues unchecked is extremely dangerous and may end in the death of one or both partners. In cases where you believe the danger to be acute, you must warn her of this and let her know that one of you needs to call the police. Under no circumstances should you share what she his told you with the batterer.

(3) Let her know this is not her fault. Battered women will find many ways to blame themselves and exonerate their batterers. Too often the clergy have reinforced this pattern. Even in print, one author exhorts clergy:

Pray with the battered woman. At this point she will have little or a very damaged faith. Let her depend on yours. Ask God to bring her a sense of peace and to give her wisdom in knowing how to avoid conflict at this time. Give her a gentle hug. She needs to feel a man gently embrace her who is not her husband. Asking God to change herself is the first step. She needs to become aware of what words, actions, or other activities of hers are provocative. What kind of stress is she putting on her husband (emphasis mine).⁵⁷

This advice is not only dangerous anti victim-blaming, but also borders on abusive revictimization of the woman in the guise of the gentle embraces of a man who is not her husband.

The battered woman needs to be empowered with information about the cycle of violence—if it pertains to her situation, about the many ways in which battered women in general take the responsibility for the violence and believe—dangerously and erroneously—that they can control it or stop it. She needs to know that she is a victim of a crime, and that it is neither her fault nor a sin. Responsibility lies with the person who chooses to cross the line and use physical violence, regardless of the supposed provocation.

(4) Share with her the myths and stereotypes about battered women and the information you have learned. Women often recognize themselves and their own beliefs in the myths and stereotypes outlined above. Some, although not all, battered women will also recognize the cycle of violence as describing their situation and may identify with the theory of learned helplessness. Let her decide for herself what of the theory fits and doesn't fit for her, but in any case sharing knowledge is sharing power. Suggesting readings, especially those written specifically for women currently in battering situations, is also very helpful for some women—for example, Ginny McCarthy’s Getting Free, a workbook for getting out of an abusive situation, and Marie Fortune's very concise and helpful Keeping the Faith, which addresses Christian battered women's theological and moral concerns. (Bear in mind that she may need to figure out a way to obtain books without arousing the batterer's suspicion. Don't just assume she can take such books home with her.)

(5) Refer her to expert, specialized help. Let her know there are others who can help her and who have expertise on this issue that exceeds your own. You do not need to bear the burden of helping her by yourself. Pastors provide crucial and sustaining spiritual support. Battered women's agencies and shelters are uniquely equipped to provide the logistical supports she needs, especially in the crisis stage of an acute battering incident or a decision to leave her batterer. Even if she does not seem likely to use these resources immediately, be sure she knows where to find their telephone number, and familiarize yourself with what services they offer so that you can introduce them to her.

(6) Respect her right to self-determination. Do not press her into action, but respect her process and her sense of what is safe. Give her options and resources, but do not insist. Similarly, in spiritual matters, offer support but do not press her to forgive, to preserve a relationship, or simply to pray. Let her know that exploring all her options, including shelter, legal services, police, and counseling services is compatible with—even indispensable to—living faithfully with God's plan for her. Also reassure her that whatever she decides to do or not do at this time, you will be there for her. You will not abandon her or judge her choice.

By the same token, do not be overactive in the situation or try to rescue her. Pastors should not try to do the work that battered women's shelters are set up to do. It is far better to refer and then support the work done through that referral. Giving advice may merely substitute one dependency (on the pastor) for another (on the batterer). Except in the case of acute, imminent danger, when you believe the police must be called, let all decisions and actions rest entirely with her. Then support her actions. Even when the police should be called, help her if at all possible to do this herself, so that the authority for the action remains with her. Helping her identify her own options and respecting her self-determination are the most helpful ways to empower her.

(7) Do not use a couple counseling format. It is unsafe.⁵⁸ This format is very familiar for some pastors, but it is necessary to realize that this is not just in issue of poor communication or lack of intimacy. Couple counseling also may convey the message, however unintentionally, that the preservation of the relationship is more important than the safety of the woman and other family members. In some cases, Christian marriage counseling holds as its explicit purpose to "save the marriage." Both partners may have been taught that divorce is sinful and unbiblical and expect the church to value the marriage over all else. It is important to remember, and to share with the family and the congregation, that it was the introduction of violence into the marriage, and not the divorce per se that broke the covenant between the couple.⁵⁹ Once violence enters into a relationship, the relative equality and peership necessary for any successful couples' mediation has been destroyed. Violence has injected intimidation and control into the relationship, and it is not safe for the battered partner to speak freely in a couple's setting. Whatever she says can be used against her later and can actually increase the likelihood of further violence. Combined with the illusion of security sometimes generated during a respite phase, and the couple's minimization and denial, they may both ask for couple counseling, but it should always be avoided. Refer separately.

(8) Regarding help for the batterer, let him know that you stand ready to support him with referrals to batterers' programs to help him stop his violence, but let him know that violence is wrong, period. As difficult as it may be in the face of his convincing denials and explanations, let him know that he needs specialized help and that what has happened is not OK. It is precisely because you care about him that you want him to get the kind of help he really needs—and you are not the one equipped to do it!

(9) Let the congregation know that it's OK to talk about abuse. By mentioning domestic violence in sermons and in newsletter articles, and posting informative brochures and posters from local battered women's agencies on the bulletin board and in the tract rack, you are sending a message that it's OK to discuss what is happening without being shamed or disbelieved. There is an increasing number of excellent church-related resources for battered women available as well, in the form of posters, brochures, tracts, and congregational study guides.⁶⁰ Battered women have strong survival skills and finely tuned antennae. They do not disclose abuse lightly, because they know the extreme risks involved, but they are longing for a truly safe place to share their fear and pain and to begin working their way toward a safer and happier life.

(10) Assure the battered woman of God's love, and help her build a spiritual support community. There are certain messages that the church can uniquely give: You are loved by God. You do not deserve to be abused. You are not alone. This is not your "cross" to bear—God wants wholeness and abundance of life for all people. God does not cause or desire our suffering: God suffers with us when we suffer, and God is moving in your life to bring you liberation and joy.⁶¹ No, you don't have to feel pressure to forgive him now. True forgiveness needs genuine repentance and justice to occur first. Perhaps the Holy Spirit was moving in you to bring you this far, to tell your story and to seek help. Do not give up hope—you deserve freedom and joy.

And you are not alone! Not only is God with you, but I am here for you, and there are people here in this congregation who are sensitive and supportive, and who will help you if you want. Would you like their names? We also have a women's support group on Wednesday nights. There is child care. Do you think you can safely come out to that meeting? How can I help you to take the steps you feel you want to take now? Please know that I stand ready to assist you.

Battered women are not crazy or deserving of their abuse or few in number. Battered women are in your congregation, maybe even in your family. Battered women deserve wholeness, freedom, and support. An educated and sensitive clergyperson can mean the difference between a battered woman's inability to escape the trap of violence in her life and her having the strength and courage and conviction to create a new life for herself and her children. She may never be completely free of fear, but she can walk tall with the certainty that God loves her and that she deserves the fullness of life that God wills for all God's precious children.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;
I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

- John 10:10