Domestic Abuse: An alternative to pressing
charges
Each day thousands of police nationwide
respond to 911 calls involving domestic violence. Typically, one
partner (the "victim") goaded their partner
(the "abuser") into hitting them. The "victim,"
addicted to blaming, with bruises to prove the assault, are told
that the "abuser" must be arrested. Perhaps a day later
the arresting officer discovers that the charges have been
dropped (this happens with eight out of ten domestic violence
arrests). We ask why? And, is there a more effective way to
handle domestic violence?
Seldom, if ever, does the accuser tell the police the truth
about his/her cause, of what they did to goad their partner into
hitting them.*Responsibility, the realization of having caused the abuse, of
having masterminded the incident, usually sinks in after a few
hours of being home alone with the experience of having blamed their
partner who now sits in jail with a police record. Once the
accuser has had time to be with the fact that they intended the
abuse, (however unconscious they may have been at the time), it
no longer makes sense to cause the accused to spend time in jail
for something the accuser set them up to do. The premise here,
that both are equally powerful.
What's not
so readily apparent is that when an officer unconsciously
supports both in lying about what happened, about who started it
(which is never the truth), the lies have even more undesirable
consequences, for all concerned, including the police who
unconsciously create space for the victim to lie.
When an accuser withdraws the charges it upsets the police, they
intuitively know that unless both parties are required to
participate in mandatory counseling/coaching (until it's
deemed by the facilitator that they both have acknowledged their
addiction to abusing and to being abused) they, the police, will
usually be
called to the same residence again.
Another, not so
apparent, aspect of the
goading-hitting-blaming-victim-arrest dance**
is that most police are unaware that with all such arguments
both partners simultaneously started the fight. Both are
unconsciously reaching out to the community; what neither need
is for an officer to accidently non-verbally side with the
"victim." Such bias rewards the setter-upper, the one who
cleverly manipulated the other into hitting them; it also
punishes the "abuser" with a police record.
Present
laws don't take into consideration Newton's Third Law of Motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction;
when A exerts a force on B then B must exert a force of equal
magnitude. Not nearly equal or pretty-much
equal, but exactly equal; the law doesn't take into consideration
that a timely well-placed stink-eye, or constant daily
invalidations or that condescending
put-downs wreak havoc with ones temperament, ones mental
stability; they don't take into consideration the thousands of
verbal, non-verbal, and psychic communications, delivered
day-after-day, it takes to cause physical communication. All
abuse victims unconsciously chose an equally abusive partner
because their karma was such that they couldn't attract a
well-adjusted partner. They needed to find someone to mirror
themselves.
* Officer, please
don't let my "innocent victim act" fool you. Using my
extremely well developed leadership-communication skills I
goaded him into hitting me. I know exactly what buttons to push.
I know what hurts him. I know how to upset him and I know when
to back off. It's not fair to punish him for what I
manipulated him into doing; he simply doesn't stand a chance
in a word-fight with me. He knows that I hold over him the power
to send him to jail. I know this is emotional blackmail and
manipulative, yet I can't stop myself. I'm addicted to
starting arguments, to abusing, to being abused, and to
blaming. The truth is I'm at a loss as to what to do to get him to see that if he
doesn't go to therapy with me I'll have to leave him. I'm
using the police to scare us both into doing counseling.
** It's also true that the
hitter unconsciously goads the goader into goading; both are
addicted to abusing and to being abused and to blaming.