April 23, 1997

JADE:

I DO NOT MIND IF YOU POST MY LETTER OR MY NAME. I AM CURRENTLY ATTEMPTING TO BECOME DOMESTIC VIOLENCE OFFICE AT MY POLICE DEPARTMENT. I HOPE TO SLOW OR DIMISH THIS EVER GROWING PROBLEM.

DAN

I WRITING TO TELL OF ONE POSSIBLE REASON FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. I WAS DIVORCED ON 10/95. MY WIFE WAS ALWAYS ACCUSING ME OF HAVING AFFAIRS. WELL TO MAKE A POINT SHORT I LEARNED THAT MY WIFE HAD AN AFFAIR 2 YEARS PRIOR TO OUR DIVORCE. DURING THOSE 2 YEARS I PUT UP WITH BOTH PHYSICAL AND MENTAL ABUSE (BOTH LEFT SCARS). I HAVE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT ONE POSSIBLE REASON FOR DOMESTIC ABUSE IS GUILT. THE PARTNER TRYS TO MAKE THE VICTIM THE SUSPECT BY TAUNTING AND EVEN SOMTIMES ATTACKING THEM.

IT TOOK ME SEVERAL MONTHES TO REALIZE THAT I HAD BEEN A VICTIM OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. I HAD A FRIEND BRING TO MY ATTENTION THAT WHENEVER SHE WOULD MOVE QUICKLY I WOULD FLINCH. I WONDER HOW MANY OTHERS OUT THERE HAVE GONE THROUGH THIS.

MAYBE SOME OF YOU ABUSIVE MEN AND WOMEN SHOULD WATCH YOUR SPOUSE AND SEE IF THEY FLINCH WHEN YOU MOVE QUICKLY NEAR THEM. I WOULD SAY TO YOU THAT IF THEY FLINCH EVERY TIME, TALK WITH THEM OR GET SOME HELP.

I MIGHT MENTION THAT I AM A POLICE OFFICER (SURPRISE!) AND I HAVE SEEN MOST OF THE ACTS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. I WOULD RATHER HELP AN ABUSER THAN ARREST ONE, BUT IF THAT IS WHAT IT TAKES TO TO STOP THE ABUSE THEN BELIEVE THAT ARREST WILL HAPPEN. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE STOPS AT HOME!!!!!!!!

-- Anonymous, August 08, 1999

Answers

I read your page, and it really hit home to me. I was in such an abusive situation, but it was not my spouse, it was my best friend. I am a thirty year old male, and he and I were best friends we were teenagers. Up until 1995 I never saw him in any other way, but he changed that. He began confessing to me his feelings about me, and how he had no sexual feelings toward woman. I knew I was gay, but I didnt see us that way. Atleast up until then. It went on for a couple of months the not being able to get it out, and we just were growing closer and closer. He had a history of abuse as a child, but I dont really know the extent I can only assume from what I seen from him. Well in june of 1995 I guess is when I really fell in love with him. We began talking more and getting closer and closer. One night we were at his house, and he began pouring his feelings, and I began telling him the same, and he started going crazy and punching himself repeatedly in the face and saying he wanted to die. I didnt know where it came from, and five years later I still dont under- stand most of it. I took him for a walk to calm him down, and he began pouring his feelings about me, and I was so confused at what I just saw, and I was so afraid for him, and I looked at him, and he looked back with such rage in his eyes and said "what are you looking at, do you want me to hurt you" He began punching himself then grabbed me and held me so tight, and said how he would never hurt me, he was so sorry. This went on for months, and I didnt know day to day what was happening. One minute he was confessing his love, the next denying he was gay. He knew he had me, and used it to control me. He began lying to me all the time about my friends and said they all talked bad of me, and I believed him. I met someone, and it was the biggest mistake I could have made, atleast in his eyes. I could go on forever, how he hurt me for the next two and a half years. You see in October of 1997 I began losing my mind. He had done some horrible things to me, and it began hitting me what he may possibly be. And he began once again pouring his feelings to me. I knew that the storm that followed would be so bad. In the past he told me of his psychotic thoughts in sexual situations, and that I never could understand what he wanted to do to people when he was ready to climax. Things like that always followed his confessions of love. He told me that it got him off hurting a three month old baby. And tormented me about things he had done. He joked and thought nothing about using his stun gun on me and doing things when I was unconscious. And the list goes on. I just had to get away, and the guilt has haunted me, because I feel in my heart I should have turned him in. I have held most of this in for five years now, and he walks around like I am the moster, telling his lies about me and what happened. Well I will say goodbye, and I hope that I hear from you.

Thank you Joe

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2000

got you right there, about telling you your friends are talking about you....i rambled on in another thread, i am gay, and was in a bad mistake relationship with a woman from fifteen till twentytwo, and i'm STILL finding old highschool friends and after talking (i thought they hated me, they thought i hated them, etc....) i find her at the bottom of it all. i still don't know why people are like that...

s

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

Joe...turn him in...PLEASE !!! He is sick...youre not ! Ive been reading throught these posts...till now...just read about this side on "Dear Abby" tonight.this man sounds dangerous...please...for other baby's sake...turn him in...who knows what he has done since he told you about all this??? I am the mother of 5...grandmother of 3...was sexually and phisycally and sexually abused since the age of six...please spare any other potential future victims of this sicko !!!

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2002