A Battered Wife’s Story
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woman in her early thirties once sought my advice on her very sad and pitiful situation. She was a battered wife with three children. As she narrated her story, she began by saying, “My husband is an ordinary government employee. In the first few years of our marriage, his income was enough for us and he was generally okay. He would shout at me once in a while when I would make mistakes but he never physically hurt me. When we already had three children and prices of goods went up more than his salary, he would shout at me more frequently everytime I would complain about our situation. Then, one night, perhaps because I was so tired of cleaning the house, taking care of the children and with very little money left till next pay day. I raised my voice about the many things I have to buy compared with the little money left. He looked at me with dagger eyes and suddenly, he hit me right in the face with his fist and I fell down. He shouted, “Stop nagging me. You better keep quiet or else I will hit you again.”
I asked her, “What did you feel the first time he hit you?”
“I was shocked!”
“What did you think after he hit you?” I asked again.
“After the initial shock, I thought probably he just had a bad day in the office and that I should really keep quiet and go to sleep.”
“How long ago was this? And did it happen again? Did he hit you again?”
“Around six months ago. Yes, he hit me two more times. You see, sometimes, I cannot control myself in complaining about the urgent needs of our children and other
basic needs compared to the money he gives me. So, around 3 months ago, he hit me again when I complained. The last time he hit me was just 2 weeks ago,” she answered.
"How did you feel the second time he hit you? What were you thinking then?”
“I felt afraid, very afraid. Then I thought that it is really probably my fault because, even if he looked tired still, I would nag him about our situation. But, you see, I don’t want to separate from him because, I have no work, I am just a high school graduate. How can I feed my children? A friend of mine whom you have helped before told me you can help me. How can you help me? What should I do?”
“The first thing we have to do is to study the right way of looking at your problem. Only after a right analysis can we find the right solution.
First, you must realize that nobody, not your parents, your brothers, sisters, husband, close friends, not even the President or any other high official has the right to physically hurt you and any person for that matter, unless in self-defense or to stop you from committing a serious crime. So, no matter how bad the day of your husband was, or how tired he was, or how much you complain about your financial situation, he has absolutely no right to physically hurt you. Never, ever allow your husband to hurt you again. In fact, the first time he hit you, you should have fought back right away. Of course, since he was physically stronger than you, you should have immediately sought help from your close relatives and from the police.
You also mentioned that before he physically hurt you, he would shout at you occasionally. You should not have allowed him to shout at you, to verbally abuse you. You should have immediately corrected him, firmly telling him it is wrong to shout at you when you make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Problems, mistakes should be talked over without shouting. We should be respectful to each other, especially so between husbands and wives.
If you analyze your reactions, you will realize that you justified his hurting you because of your fear of him. That is one way by which the mind behaves to remove the fear. The mind rationalizes a given situation either rightly or wrongly. Next time, try to be aware if you are thinking rightly or wrongly when you fear something or someone.
To stop him from hurting you again, you must seek help now from your parents, brothers, uncles. Do not be ashamed to tell the truth about what your husband has done. You should not cover up such a brutal behavior of your husband. It is your husband who is at fault. He should be the one who should feel very ashamed. As I said, you must fight back, you must stop his brutal treatment of you. Together with your parents and/or other close relatives, find out the right course of action to stop your husband. You may or may not give him another chance. That is your choice. In making your choice, consider this advice among other things.
After your close relatives have talked to him and threatened him with legal and physical retaliation if he hits you again, he will be afraid of battering you again. But while this fear of retaliation might stop him, the more important reason for him to change should be how much he loves you and your children. Fear of your relative’s retaliation is only good in the short run, it is only a temporary solution. Only love, for you and your children, can change him in the long run. Only such love is the permanent solution. So, honestly find out how much he loves you and your children.
With regard to you and your children’s basic needs, seek help from your close relatives and close friends in finding a job and a place to live in even temporarily. I am sure they will understand and help or at least one of them will understand and will help you. I also know of non-government organizations that help women like you. I will give later their telephone numbers. But remember, your relatives, friends and NGOs can only help in a limited way. The most important thing is for you to fight back and try your best to help yourself.”
She kept quiet for a while. Then, after a few minutes, she said, “I don’t want to have a broken family. It will psychologically affect my children so much. I have seen it in many cases. Children of broken families usually end up confused and troubled.”
“The truth is, when your husband hit you, there was already a big crack in your family life. In a way, you already have a broken family. Such a situation already has caused a deep fear and confusion, a deep wound in your children’s hearts and minds. Your family is only physically together but emotionally, mentally and spiritually, there is a big gap between you and your husband as well as between your children and your husband. How do you remove such fear and confusion? How do you heal such deep wounds? How do you bridge that gap? Would more exposure to such battering from your husband remove the fear and confusion? Would more exposure to such brutality heal the deep wounds? Would simply being together physically eventually bridge that gap?
Of course not! You remove such fears and confusion, such deep wounds in two ways: One, by preventing your children from seeing such battering. By prevention I mean, stopping such battering and not by merely hiding from the children such battering. Second, you must explain to your children the right way of looking at what they saw. You must explain to them that what your husband did, that what their father did was very, very wrong and that your husband was very bad for doing that. Tell them that you did not know that their father was like that when you chose to love and marry him. Tell your boys that when they grow up and have girlfriends, they should never do such things. Tell your girl, that when she grows up and begin to choose a man to love, she should be very careful and take the time to know the real character of the man. Tell them that it is normal to make mistakes in life even as we must try our best to avoid them. Tell them that mistakes should be corrected as early as possible to avoid further damage. Tell them that you are correcting your mistake, that you are fighting back, that with the help of your close relatives, you will stop your husband from battering you ever again. If you explain such things to your children, they will grow up not confused about such a barbaric treatment of a wife. Thus, experiencing the bad effects of such batterings, understanding correctly the bad experience, learning the right lessons from such a bad experience, your children will resolve not to do such things when they grow up. They can thus avoid a troubled and confused life.
“Can my husband not change? Can you not help him change? I have been praying a lot a lately, asking help from Jesus and Mary. I hope they will help me. I hope They can help in changing my husband,” she said.
“That would depend on a few important factors. One factor would be how deeply - rooted such a brutal behavior is in your husband’s character. In general, the more deeply - rooted a basic flaw in character is, the harder it is to change. Another factor would be, assuming he realizes his serious mistake, how determined is he to change this basic error in his character. Such determination depends mainly on how much he loves you and your children. Give me the first name of your husband so I could know the relevant facts related to these factors.”
Though she looked puzzled, she nonetheless gave me the first name of her husband. Then I requested for 15 minutes to find out the relevant information.
Fifteen minutes after, I said, “Your husband’s father, your father-in-law, also battered his wife, your mother-in-law. Your husband was exposed to this situation ever since he was young. A child’s mind is like a sponge, it just absorbs what it sees. It cannot as yet distinguish right from wrong, a good action from a bad action, unless there is someone he or she respects who would tell him/her what is right and what is wrong. Nobody told your husband that what his father was doing was wrong. Thus, he absorbed this very wrong idea, this very bad act that it is alright to hit wives to stop them from doing something husbands do not like.
As children grow older, as they become an adolescent and then an adult, they learn many other right and wrong things outside the family. Hopefully, he/she will learn the right ideas that would correct whatever wrong ideas he/she has absorbed in his childhood years. Unfortunately, your husband did not also get to learn the right ideas that would correct what he has absorbed from his father’s brutal behavior toward his mother. Further, your mother-in-law did not fight back. She sacrificed her life so her children could have the food and education provided by her husband. Thus, up to now, your husband still carries that wrong idea. While we may say your mother-in-law had good intentions in sacrificing her life for her children’s sake, it was a wrong way to solve the problem. Thus, you see such wrong effects of the wrong solution in your husband’s behavior right now.
The battering behavior of your husband is deeply - rooted in his childhood years. It is very hard to change such a deeply - seated wrong idea and practice. On one hand, however, your husband became close to his mother because it was his mother who took very good care of him. His mother taught him many good ideas and values, one of which is to love your family. So, there is one side of him that does not like what his father did to someone very good to him, his mother. At the same time, the wrong idea he absorbed from his father was not corrected explicitly and thoroughly. So there is a conflict within him. This explains why his batterings are not frequent and came out only later when the family’s financial condition made him tense, nervous and under stress.
Someone who your husband respects much, someone who he considers an authority on moral issues, should talk to him that it is very wrong and very bad to batter wives. That person should tell your husband to also seek professional help from a psychologist or someone who could explain the roots, the causes of such behavior and how it could be overcome. Your husband loves his family. He does not like to have a broken family. While you are considering whether or not to give your husband another chance, you and your children should temporarily stay away from him, away from his house, until he talks to that someone who could help him psychologically and spiritually. Only after you are convinced that he is changing, only after an assurance from that person giving him spiritual and psychological advice that your husband is making significant changes, only then should you consider giving him another chance or not.
This is all I can do, sharing ideas on the right way of looking at your problem and a few pieces of advice on the right solution. There are no miracles on such problems. Your husband has his own mind, he is free to do the right things or to do the wrong things. It is wrong for any person or any Higher Spiritual Beings like Mary and Jesus to impose Their wills on your husband to change him. Your husband must learn what is right and what is wrong. He must learn to decide to stop doing the wrong things, to change and do the right thing. You actually teach him what is right and what is wrong when you fight him back and stop his wrong, brutal acts.
Jesus, Mary and other Spiritual Teachers and Masters will only show the right ideas and values you should have and should fight for. They do not force their ideas on a person, They do not decide for a person. They also help a person realize that if and when he/she has the right ideas and does the right things, his/her problems will eventually be solved.
There are other things Jesus, Mary and other Spiritual Teachers and Masters can do to help you like making you meet the right persons to help you but remember this - you must earn the right to be helped. You earn that right by finding out the right ideas and values about life, by learning the lessons from both your good and bad experiences and by developing your will, your determination to do what is right. That is the way it is.
Continue to pray to Jesus and Mary but not to ask Them to miraculously solve your problems. Instead ask Them to help you see more clearly the right analysis and the right solution to your problem. Be wise my new friend. Use your mind to analyze the problem correctly. And, be brave in doing the right solution!”
She was quiet. She was in deep thought, reflecting what I had said. After some minutes, she said, “It is not easy to do what you have said. But anyway, thank you for your ideas and for your time. I will go to my parents today and ask help.”
“Thank you also for trusting me with a very personal and delicate problem. You see, doing the right things in life is like climbing the stairs while doing the wrong things is like going down the stairs. It is indeed much easier to do the wrong things and much harder to do the right things. But, only in doing the right things will you be able to solve your problems and be happy. There is no other way to be happy. You are basically a good woman. You deserve to be happy. Fight for your happiness!”
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