A prayer

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength
of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

-Psalm 27:1


As each one had received a gift,
minister it to one another,
as good stewards of the
manifold grace of God.

-Peter 4:10

Domestic violence - continues....

No doubt domestic violence happens to men also whose wives are strong and aggressive. But what are the chances of that happening? Domestic violence covers a wide area and most of the time, the victim does not know he/she is experiencing abuse. Sometimes he/she thinks that they imagined the whole thing ever happened. Actually, it happens to people all over the world.

How to recognize the signs of abuse????

You are living a life of abuse if your spouse / partner:-
-controls the finance and refuses to give you money. The famous words are: I don't have any/not enough;
-acts jealously;
-threatens to kill himself/herself;
-tries to restrict what you wear or how you spend your time;
-gets angry when drinking alcohol or use drugs;
-looks at you in an aggressive way;
-say hurtful words to make you feel inferior;
-say abusive/threatening words;
-scares you by driving recklessly;
-by his behavior shows that he intends to hurt you so that you fear for your life;
-force himself upon you in a sexual way;
-threatens to hit or hits you or the children in anger when inebriated or under the influence of drugs;
-threatens to hurt or hurts the pets unnecessarily when inebriated or under the influence of drugs;
-destroy furniture in the house;
-calls you bad names;
-say that his behavior is actually your fault;
-stop you from calling the police for help;
-tells you that abusive behavior is natural and his father did it to him so why can't you suffer like his mother;
-and the list goes on........

Do not think that domestic violence happens to the labourers or to people who are not educated. I can tell you it happens to everybody and it is rampant in most families except that we do not know what happens behind closed doors! The victims will not normally disclose what happens behind closed doors for fear of being ridiculed because the abuser is usually a respected man in society. In the Asian society, even though the victims suffer from abuse, yet they are unwilling to voice out their troubles and prefer to suffer in silence. They are afraid to take action, like divorce because there is a stigma being attached to a divorcee. People whisper..... eh, look! She's divorced. No wonder lah! She looks so fat and clumsy and never want to dress properly and her face so sour. Who wants to live with her. If it happens to a beautiful lady who's divorced, eh! Careful of your husband....... so and so is divorced, you know what I mean.

In the case of a divorce, what happens to the men? They pay alimony? They try all ways and means to avoid paying alimony if they can and they have more money to enjoy themselves and look for another victim.

Remember you do not have to suffer alone. Please voice out. Get help. Find someone who can offer maybe not money but advice and sometimes a willing ear is indeed God-send. Find somebody who is willing to hear and sometimes voicing out your anger is enough to release your stress.

Sometimes, there is an institution in your local area who offers shelter and advice to victims who suffer from domestic violence. Find out where they are, seek them out and seek advice.

If all else fails, ...............
PRAY!!! When you really don't know what to do, go further, go spiritual, believe in someone who can do more than what you or me can't. No matter what is your religion, remember to pray and have faith. Have faith that even though divorce is not the choice/option that you want to take, pray that the abuser will mature and somewhere along the way somebody can talk some sense into him or that the abuser will seek professional help. All is not hopeless but you must have faith that some being who is more powerful than the ordinary humans that we are, will listen to our pleas and provide a helper when you most need one. I always believe that the victim must find ways and means to be strong so that the abuse can be stopped. There is hope.

If you know a friend who needs help, offer a willing ear. REACH OUT! Offer your hand and help to carry them along the way. If you know a family member who is experiencing some form of abuse, no matter how minute is the abuse, offer to help. Most family members I know will tell you that every family has its own bible to read and that your family has problems, so what? Yes, every family has problems but you, as a caring family member can reach out and offer words of advice. There is no such thing as: Very sorry, I'm just an in-law, I cannot help you and I don't think he will listen to me.

There are some friends that I know who will tell you to get a divorce but what happens after that? Do you think divorce is the only way to break this cycle of abuse? Share your thoughts.
If you know of somebody who is in this situation, what can you do to help? What do you suggest?

Domestic Violence - Men vs women/Abuser vs victims

It is midnight! Screeeeech........... a car arrives at the front porch. That car sounds familiar, you thought to yourself. Bow wow wow! The dogs start barking and you know somebody is outside the gate. Are these sounds familiar? Are these sounds welcoming? Do you sense fear because you know somebody is going to enter this safe haven that you have created for yourself? And you sense fear because you know you cannot block entry to this person for fear of a ruskus outside the house that your neighbours might hear and you are ashamed to face them the next day!!!

How do you know you are/have been living in a cycle of domestic violence?

Nobody in their right mind would ever imagine that they will be living a life of violence. Some children grow up subjected to seeing parents quarreling and the beloved daddy slamming his fist into the crying mother's face. Is this what you want your children to see? Domestic violence is very simple. It is simply a person's desire to exert control. How to control? This person is lacking in a lot of things. Let's say the father figure in the house. He is financially not very well off, he lives beyond his means, he has no self-discipline and he feels he is lacking in a lot of strong characteristics that makes a man a hero figure. But does he know this? Consciously, no but sub-consciously, maybe yes - he knows he is not the manly type who can show to the world that he has a lot of money and is a big shot. How does domestic violence come into the picture. What has this man got that other members in the family don't have - brute strength. This is where physical abuse will come into the picture. This man (abuser) comes home feeling angry, he begins to pick a fight, there is a breakdown in communication because the abuser is feeling strong and he wants to show his strength, tension builds up and the victims who are the wife and children feel fear. The abuser may or may not slap the victims but the tension and the fear is there. Do you know this is a form of domestic violence that can happen in any household? Domestic violence can be subtle in the sense that it does not have to be physical abuse where the abuser literally slaps or hurt the victims but the intention of creating fear in the victims' minds is a form of emotional abuse. If anyone of you out there who has in some time or other in your life experience this sort of abuse, please get help. For the mother, please get help before the situation escalates into physical abuse. For the children living in this sort of situation, I appeal to you please do not carry on this tradition of the father creating fear in young minds. I reckon this experience is traumatic and please remember to look for help maybe within the family like the uncles and aunties who dares to step in and offer words of advice to the abuser or the school's counselor or the church. Please shout out your needs!!!

Domestic violence can be in different form:
-physical where the victim is hurt, eg, blue and black all over the body, bleeding, broken bones, etc;
-sexual where a medical examiner is needed to determine the "rape" where the victim in this case, the wife is unwilling to have sex and the abuser force himself upon her; and
-emotional and in some cases not causing physical hurt and pain where the victim feels tension and is fearful for either her own life or the lives of people around her especially her children.

Emotional abuse is hard to detect and that's why it's the hardest to cure. Most victims do not know that they are suffering from emotional abuse.

Take the example of my friend, Sonia. She got married, had children and the marriage, though not great, was so-so. She does find companionship in her husband although he never gives her money but that's alright because she has a job and she can provide where he can't. After a few years of marriage, her husband met a few friends who are drinkers and that's it. The cycle of domestic violence starts but does Sonia know she is experiencing a form of abuse? NO. She had no knowledge of domestic violence and her father was not an abuser so she goes through the cycle of domestic violence thinking that this is just a road that a wife is supposed to travel. Her husband will constantly and at every opportunity goes out and drink with his friends. What's every opportunity? Can we define it? Every opportunity in this case means the night before any public holidays and on Friday/Saturday/Sunday nights. He will say he needs to relax so his relaxation takes the form of drinking. There's nothing better to do but drink and nothing else in this world to drink but alcoholic drinks. He becomes inebriated and will come home and starts scolding Sonia and/or the children. He will say a lot of unreasonable words that, to give him credit, he will not normally say if he is not drunk. He creates a situation of unpleasantness and tension.

Sonia, although angry, does not really know what to do and has nowhere and no one to turn to. Does she talk to her mother? Does she talk to her mother-in-law? Does she want to talk to her brothers/brother-in-laws/sister-in-laws? How will they take this situation? Will they listen? What can they do? Can they be there when it happens and assess the situation for themselves? Sonia tries to call his group of friends that constantly indulge in this bouts of drinking. You know what the friends say? Oh, he comes here - we do not invite him. We didn't know he will go home and create trouble because he is a great friend to us and he's a very likeable fellow. We cannot stop him from coming to our house because he is our friend. You call these animals "friends"????? They know the wife is crying out for help, yet they continue to let this sort of behavior continues and they say they are "friends". Are friends not supposed to be there to help you when you need them? Do you think not Sonia but her husband needs help? Help to control his drinking which his group of "drunkards friends" can provide by talking to him and informing him constantly that "he can drink but not so much that he will go home and cause trouble?" Are these friends or just animals without brains? Do they read newspapers about accidents that happen when drivers drive under the influence of alcohol? Did they hear of a friend who got drunk and on the way home, feel into the drain and died at the age of 30 leaving behind a grieving widow and 3 young children not yet entering primary school age? Is this tragic? Do they not know it is a risk that their friend is taking by driving home after a night of drinking? Do they really care what happens to their "friend"?

Sonia begins to dread the holidays and the weekends and pray that everyday is a working day. Sometimes she does not trust her own judgment and wonders whether she is reading too much into the situation because the next day, her husband is sorry and he is his "normal friendly self" and does what he normally do around the house. Sonia sometimes wonders whether what happened the night before actually happened. She is fearful but she hopes it will not happen until ........ one of those nights......

Sonia wakes up and looked at the clock. It's 2:00 am in the morning. She heard someone at the door and the sound of a key dropping. She knows it must be her husband. She opens the door and got blasted with a few swear words. Being angry herself, she pulls a sour face and that brings on another bout of aggressive behavior where at one time, her husband makes a show of slamming his helmet on top of her head. Luckily, the helmet landed a few inches from her. She is now more scared than angry. She checks on the kids but they are still sleeping peacefully. She closed the bedroom door praying that her husband will not go in to disturb them. She secretly called her brother. Hiding behind the balcony in her pyjamas and shivering in the cold morning air, she waited and heard her brother at the door. But what happens? Her husband is sleeping on the floor in the sitting room snoring and sounding exactly like a pig and all is calm. Does her brother see anything out of the ordinary? No. The situation goes back to normal maybe after 15 minutes or so.

The victim always hopes for the abuse to stop but does it? With no outside help, the situation gets worse because the abuser gets stronger since he knows the victim is weak compared to his brute strength. In the case of Sonia, she does not even know she is experiencing a cycle of domestic violence.

After a night of worry and tension, a few days of "honeymoon" period ensues. WHY? The abuser is sorry and he acts like the abuse never happened because he says he was drunk and he does not remember what he was doing. He becomes the loving daddy to his kids and the helpful husband to the wife.

What happens to Sonia? She did a lot of thinking. She makes up her mind she must be financially independent and she needs to look for all ways and means to protect her children and gives them the best of education within her ability so that they can fight out of this cycle of abuse. She knows that without financial assistance from her husband, she cannot provide them with the best of everything but she can and she will do all that she can.

Meanwhile, life goes on ..... until another night of drinking culminates in a night of violence. Again, Sonia wakes up at 2:00 am in the morning. This time she does not open the door with anger in her heart, she opens the door with fear in her heart. Slam! The door swings back on its hinges and hits the wall with a bang and she saw her husband at the door with a red and swollen face looking angrily at her. The first words he said to her which she will remember for the rest of her life is: Why? You don't like to see me? What I'm doing is wrong? The husband starts his verbal abuse and slams his fist down on the coffee table. Human beings are the same by nature. When they are under attack, they either fight or flight. Sonia decided the best option is flight and turns away. Upon reaching the bedroom, she heard a sound and turns around to see her husband behind her. Shouting abusive words at her, he grabs her T-shirt and pulls it thereby choking her but luckily the T-shirt was an old one and the material gives way and comes out in his hand. Sonia is now angry but very scared. She opens the wardrobe to take out another T-shirt pretending not to acknowledge his action so that this undesirable manner will find no aggressiveness and will stop. Do you think it is easy to stop a man who thought that he is god-almighty? Sonia tries her best to keep calm and racked her brains on what's the best course of action. She turns round to see her husband pulling at the sleeping children and making them wake up shouting something about their stupid mother at the same time. Sonia knows this is a bad situation and the best choice is to "GET OUT NOW" - her brain shouted. She grabs her handbag, pulling her two children with her (may I add everybody is in their pyjamas), they escaped through the front door and sleeps in a hotel in town. What do you think you will do in this sort of situation? Is Sonia suffering from emotional abuse? Is there anything she can do to help herself? Where to go for help? Who can help? Do you think the situation continues? Yes, I can tell you the situation is still the same today.

Do you think divorce is the only option? Are there other ways of controlling the situation?