I read this on our online news and I really sunk as this
could have been me. These words I have used to my now Husband about my x. How
sad it is when we feel like one beating, a fortnight or even month, is OK. “Better
than every day? I used to say to my now Husband. At first, I too, thought he
was mad when he would be shocked at how I accepted it as the norm.
- Jill Dawson
- The Guardian, Friday 21 June 2013 19.15 BST
The art collector Charles Saatchi arrives at his home in west London
after being cautioned by police for assaulting his wife, Nigella Lawson. 'I was
struck by how shocked he seemed by the public reaction. I know how that
feels.' Photograph: Olivia Harris/REUTERS
One morning 17 years ago I woke to find the window in the front room of
my flat broken. The curtain fluttered on an empty space; there was a brick on
the floor lying in a heap of glass. My boyfriend, David, arranged for a glazier
to come, while I took my six-year-old son to school using the back door, so
that he wouldn't see it. (We'd been burgled recently; we didn't want him to
feel unsafe.) I knew who'd thrown that brick.
When I listened to the phone message left for me the night before, it
was confirmed: a former boyfriend; a man I had lived with; a man who still
lived nearby. It was the usual threatening, rambling stuff: "I'm going to....... kill you both" (aimed at me and my son; he didn't know about
David). "I will burn the house down."
I thought about that day again when I saw the photographs of Nigella Lawson and Charles
Saatchi this week rowing outside a restaurant and followed the
public debate that began at once about where the lines between volatile
arguments and domestic violence might be drawn. Saatchi himself acknowledged the public
revulsion, first in his statement – "the pictures are horrific
but give a far more drastic and violent impression of what took place" –
and later by accepting a police caution. I was struck by how shocked he seemed
by the public reaction. I know how that feels.
Once I had dropped my son off to school that day 17 years ago, I played
my ex's phone message to David. His reaction changed everything. He was an
artist and academic. He was stocky, from a tough Middlesbrough background, and
not what my son would have called a sissy. But I saw in his face that he was
shocked. Worse: he was frightened. He insisted I should report it to the
police.
I demurred. My ex – I'll call him X – had "exploded" in the
past and I'd never called the police. But David was insistent. What if X made
good his threat and next time the brick was something burning shoved through
the letterbox? David took the day off work and waited for the police; he sat
with me while I made a statement.
The police reaction too was unexpected. I'd thought they'd find it
trivial, accept my word that "he probably didn't mean it, he sounds
drunk". But on hearing the phone message the male officer described it as
"chilling". It amounted to a "threat to kill", he said, a
serious offence. He could contact BT for a copy and it would make good
evidence.
Has he done this before, he asked. No, he had never broken a window. Had
he ever assaulted me?
A pause.
This was a man I'd loved. Did I really want him arrested? I had got used
to trying to make him happy, trying to make him feel better about his life,
keep him sweet: a habit that went deep.
He's pushed me, I said. He's kicked me. He's grabbed me. He's locked me
in a room. He has explosive rages, calls me foul names, breaks things belonging
to me. (Are these offences? Is this domestic violence? Do they count?) I once
woke with his hands around my throat. He pushed me from a moving car.
Saying it aloud, watching their faces, was salutary. Having three
witnesses – David, a young policewoman and a policeman – I saw, for the first
time, what had happened through others' eyes. What once seemed trivial and
manageable (I'm a tough cookie, I can cope) no longer did so. Did X have a
criminal record? I thought not. But I did remember, suddenly, an occasion when
X had shouted, in his threatening way, at my mother and how upset I'd been at
witnessing it. How sorry I'd felt for her. She'd done nothing to deserve it: I
could see that when he was bellowing so terrifyingly at someone else.
If I would agree to press charges they would arrest him, the officer
said. And so, I said yes. And that's what happened: X accepted a caution over
the threat to kill, and agreed to stay away from us. He moved abroad. It turns
out he did indeed have "previous": that's another story. I am married
now, and have another son.
For most people fights happen at home, without adult witnesses, (though
there may be child ones). Shame is part of violent relationships, but it's
usually the one on the receiving end who feels it most.(It's humiliating to be
knocked about – think of falling over in the street: how quickly we leap up and
say, I'm fine!)
Trying to decide if anger has turned into abuse is not easy when you're
in the middle of it. The popular view is that it's the responsibility of the
victim – usually a woman – to leave the relationship the moment it becomes
violent, and there's something wrong with her if she doesn't. Research on
domestic violence suggests that what makes a difference to men's behaviour is
peer pressure – condemnation by other men in particular, as well as sanctions
from the police and wider society. This week, I have been heartened to find there
has definitely been that.
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