Wide Awake Part Two: Warning Signs and Escalation

By ReclaimMyLife

IN THE BEGINNING

Many lists about warning signs of violent relationships have some variation of

"He will want to commit — quickly"

This was certainly the case with Mike and I. We met in the fall of 2011, at a weekend dance event. He did not speak to me that weekend. He would come up as if he wanted to ask me to dance, then divert his attention to Lily (my daughter), who was standing next to me. He later said he did not mean to make me feel ignored, but he knew I had come from another style of dance. He did not want to deal with breaking me of habits brought from my previous experience. He explained that once he realized I was committed to and invested in the dance community, he changed his mind. I became "worth spending time on." That might have been truthful. He frequently talks about having to break follows while teaching. It may also be a pick-up tactic. Once we were together, I learned that he had a DVD set about how to pick up women.

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

I had a very negative view of Mike, but people kept telling me that he was the person I needed to go to for dance lessons. When I did book a lesson with him, I was shocked to find that he seemed nothing like my first impression. He appeared to be kind and generous and thoughtful. He offered to lend me his car, he fixed my shoes, he gave me eight gigs of music, he exceeded the time of the lesson and even gave me a discount.

On another day, he gave me a ride, and offered to stop for dinner. He asked about my children's father as we pulled out of the restaurant, and when I told him their father had passed away in 2001, he pulled over. He walked all the way around the car, lifted me out, and gave me a huge hug.

I told my therapist, a specialist in sexual trauma, about that day. I said, "Doesn't he sound sweet and generous, nothing like the person from my marriage." She said no. It sounds like he was the same person using very common manipulative tactics. I was too shocked to ask what those tactics were.

At the time, the tactics themselves seemed less important than understanding that there were a lot of signs, some very early on. Some I ignored, some I could not see, some I saw but did not understand the meaning of.

"Just as some things have to be seen to be believed, some things have to be believed to be seen" (Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear)

"You can’t avoid what you don’t see" (Sandra Brown, How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved)

DANGER AHEAD!

The violence started soon after we moved in. It started with a hole punched in the wall. When Lily found us, Mike and I were yelling. She said he looked, “all red and dangerous” and I looked scared. She told him, “get out of the house right now or I will call the cops.” Mike did not leave or calm down. Lily grabbed a knife (maybe from the block, I am not sure if we had unpacked the kitchen to that extent yet) and held it in his direction. She repeated, “Get out now.”

I panicked, I did not EVER want to see Mike's rage turned toward Lily. I yelled at my daughter, the person who would listen to me, “Go to your room!” She did, and I focused on trying to calm Mike down. Lily locked her door that night, like anyone would, but the erratic moods and violent outbursts soon became a normal part of our lives. She quit locking her door, and I came to see the most bizarre behavior as if it were part of a normal relationship.

I tried to take on a strategy of absorbing all of the anger when it reared its ugly head, so the kids would not see it, would not suffer. This was impossible. I sheltered them from a lot, but the violence could not all be hidden, it could not all be contained.

A SIDE NOTE

I am horrified that I was not a better mother in that moment when I sent Lily to her room, in any of the moments for the next few years. I cannot believe I let a monster into our lives, into our home. "I did my best" does not cover it. I made mistakes, some large, some even larger. I have to live with my regrets for the rest of my life. I know that the best way to apologize for putting us in danger is to change. To learn to see the signs of danger and to fight. To find my way out of the mental traps that come with victimization, those aspects of my personality that made me a target.

ESCALATION

There were other holes, most notably one in the wall of studio four, the night of the first fusion dance. Next came throwing objects. Some things were small (an electric razor), some larger, some very expensive (a computer), some not. They were not thrown at me in the beginning, but eventually they were.

After the second hole in the wall, I needed a respite from the chaos. I started calling Mike before I arrived home every day, to test the emotional waters before I walked into them. On the days when he was irritable or angry, I would drive around the block or park up the road and talk with him until he calmed down. Sometimes I wondered why he did not question how it took an hour and a half for me to get home from four miles down the road. For a while, this seemed to reduce afternoon and early evening conflicts, but bedtime was also problematic.

At bedtime, things were still volatile. When we argued we either took the dog for a walk or sat in the car in the driveway. I think this was originally meant to reduce Lily's exposure to all the ruckus. Technically, my son was also living with us, but he was an adult and was gone most of the time. Leaving the house also kept Mike away from a lot of items that could be thrown in a fit of anger.

When we sat in the car to argue, it was important that we stayed parked in the driveway. Mike enjoyed driving at 102 mph, which is the maximum speed of a Prius. He would change lanes suddenly, follow far too closely, all while cussing and yelling at other drivers. And that was when there was no conflict.

So we sat in the car, in the driveway or in a parking lot a block up the road. If things got too out of control and no one was there to see, or if it was dark enough that there was no way anyone could see, he might start rapidly punching the inside roof of the car. It was like using a punching bag, until his knuckles were swollen and bleeding. This behavior finally reached it's peak at midnight, sitting in the car outside the late night venue of a weekend dance event. We were in the parking lot for hours, but never made it in. To this day, no one knows we were there.

This was the last time Mike abused his car because he was moving to a new level of violence...

SELF-INFLICTED VIOLENCE (SIV)

One day, Mike began to turn his rage on himself. I have tried to put this into perspective for people but it is difficult, as I have never seen anything I can compare it to. His arms were flailing wildly, while he punched himself in the face and head. His face, which looked contorted and sad, seemed emotionally unconnected to his body. He did not look scared, just sad. He continued punching his face until his lip was busted, some spots had turned bright red, bruising set in, and a golf ball size bump appeared on his forehead. I watched in disbelief, not able to comprehend what I was seeing. I was paralyzed with the fear that he might turn those frantic fists on me if I made a noise or moved suddenly.

After the second time this happened, I told him I could not watch it again. We needed to increase our therapy, and he also needed to start going on his own to address his anger issues.

Lily had seen the fallout the second time. She asked what happened to his face and he replied, “Your mom and I got into an argument, and I was so angry but I couldn’t hit your mom, so I hit myself." She and I were really hung up on the choice of the word "couldn’t," rather than "shouldn’t" or better, "wouldn’t". We wondered if the word "couldn't" implied that he "couldn't" get away with it.

MY FIRST INTIMATE ASSAULT

The third time Mike beat himself up, I dared to move. My phone was in my hand, and he seemed preoccupied with hurting himself, so I started to dial 911. But he noticed what I was doing and charged at me. He slapped the phone out of my hand, and it hit the side wall of the bedroom. A second later, I hit the back wall. His forearm pinned me to the wall by my neck (evidence that he was never as out of control as he seemed, although I would not realize that fact until I was a year out of the relationship).

“Never call the police!” he growled. And I did not, until the day I called a victim’s advocate about a protective order a month after the final attack.

Each time we crossed a threshold to a new level of violence, there was no going back. He never hit a wall again once he hit himself. He never hit himself again once he attacked me. One night, when he seemed full of regret for pushing me repeatedly into the floor and dresser, I told him the next time he touched me would be the last.

I wish I could explain why I did not think THAT time should be the last. And I am sure he didn't believe me because I had said, with plenty of conviction, that the first time would be the last….

It is a strange thing, giving one more chance – over and over. It becomes a meaningless pattern of interaction at some point. I believe that I intuitively knew that leaving would be the most dangerous part of our relationship.

THE LAST STRAW

I wish I could say that the last straw was when Mike became violent and verbally abusive to me, but it was not. In the end, I didn't decide to leave to protect myself, but rather to protect my daughter. This is not uncommon, people are often better at identifying dangerous behavior that is not directed at them personally. We are more prone to notice when those we love most are in danger.

Mike's final assault, at the beach, was not the last straw. When that happened, I had already put a deposit on an apartment and found a lawyer to begin the process of dissolving my marriage. I had developed an escape plan because, as I mentioned earlier, I knew that leaving would be extremely dangerous.

(70-80% of domestic violence homicide victims are killed trying to leave or shortly after leaving)

The garbage incident was the last straw. Lily had a friend over to spend the night, one evening. It was a bold move, given how bad things had gotten in our home. For the most part, she had started staying other places. The reality is that Mike and I were unpredictable, and he was dangerous, so she was better off elsewhere. But that day she took a chance, and I am forever grateful because it snapped me out of my victim mentality.

Lily and her friend had cooked dinner and then left to go somewhere. They had not done the dishes. I am not sure where I was at the time. But the next day, when I arrived home from work, she said I should go get the carton of ice cream off my bed before Mike came back. I did not ask where he was, I asked why she put ice cream on my bed. She told me when she and her friend had returned home the night before, the kitchen was clean. They had gone to her room to get into bed. When they got into the covers, they felt something strange. It was garbage and dirty dishes that Mike had put into her bed, as a passive aggressive retaliation for not cleaning the dishes before they left. Among the collection of garbage was the empty ice cream tub. The next morning, angry and frustrated, Lily had left the empty carton on our bed. But then her frustration had given way to fear.

Something awoke inside me. I found my anger, at least temporarily. I am not sure why that was the last straw, but it was. I decided to leave. I did not leave, but I decided to. I knew I needed a plan. Once you are legally bound to someone, just walking out the door is no longer an option.

The next four days, I did not have to work due to snow. During that time, I looked at fifty-four apartments. I created a spreadsheet and was narrowing the choices. My friend Scott paid the deposit for me so it would not show up in our joint account. I started an elaborate plan to convince Mike that we should live separately (I know, this is as believable as Mike's excuse, "my fist fell through the wall"). The plan was to move one week after the anniversary trip.

WHAT CAUSES VIOLENCE?

My mind played tricks on me, as is typical of victims of violence. I believed that if I just did (insert anything), the violence would stop. I want to share two stories that I think demonstrate the fallacy of this mindset.

While by himself, Mike would have explosions of anger. I used to say that he owned enough technology that at any time something would not be working. He could really become enraged about this (i.e. at any time). I would frequently hear him screaming and throwing things in the office. He told me once that he always new when he was out of control, that he had gone to far, when he saw his dog cowering and shacking under the desk.

The second story is not my own. I was in court, applying for my first protective order. The woman next to me had a scar across her right cheek. We were each visibly nervous about a person who may, at any moment, walk through the courtroom doors. In order to curb our anxiety, we engaged in conversation. "So, what brings you here today?" She told me she had been in an abusive relationship that kept getting worse and worse. They had a three month old child together. One day, she was in the kitchen holding their child when he became enraged.

Side Note: "Most attacks that result in serious injury occur in the kitchen, where abusers can easily reach for knives, scissors, and other sharp objects. Also, avoid bathrooms and other areas where there is no escape" (Domestic Violence 101, Universal Class).

He grabbed a knife and cut her, and she could not defend herself with an infant in her arms. She seemed appropriately angry as she described the assault, but a minute later her emotions shifted. Doubt crept into her voice as she said something I will never forget, "It may have been my fault, I did not fold his laundry the way he wanted me to. I just can't do everything he needs since the baby was born."

Notice the word "needs". A common sign of an abusive relationship is that one partner will set unrealistic expectations. Since these expectations are unachievable, the victim eventually fails to meet them, and that "failure" serves as justification for violence.