FEST Writing Group

Note: I have a notion that I would like to introduce a little Bowen theory to the public conversation about domestic violence. I have cred: I was part of a violence-spawning marriage for 11 years. Things broke. I got hurt. And, remarkably, Bowen theory helped me think my way through it. The marriage didn’t survive, but I did (that was not always a given) and so did my ex-husband.

I wrote the following essay as the worst of the Ray Rice domestic violence story was unfolding last month. For those who need a refresher, Rice was a star running back for the Baltimore Ravens who hit his then girlfriend, Janay, and was indicted this spring on a domestic violence charge. The NFL issued a two-game suspension. and the Rices were married the day after the indictment was handed up. When the surveillance video that captured the attack surfaced, however, Rice was released from the Ravens and suspended from the NFL. He lost his endorsement contracts, his image was erased from the Madden football video games and the Ravens announced that owners of Ray Rice jerseys could trade them in. Thousands showed up to do so.

I decided to write this essay during that time, when what I heard on television and read in newspapers reflected a view of domestic violence I believe is unhelpful. 

The piece was conceived for a general audience, although I have concerns about going public with my ideas – even if I could find a publication to accept them. This topic inspires hot passions, and I am not sure I want to be reviled. Also, my own story is what would give me standing with readers, and I am not sure how widely I want to circulate it. What would my former husband think? Doesn’t he get a vote?

So I have things to think about, in addition to the clarity and quality of my writing. But I look forward to comments from anyone who wants to take the time to read this. Thank you in advance.

A different look at domestic violence
By Barbara LeBlanc

In the tempest that surrounds the violent story of former NFL player Ray Rice and his wife, Janay, it is easy to get caught in the polarity of right versus wrong, good versus bad, man versus woman.

The reality of domestic violence, however, is much more complicated than the simple portrayal of perpetrator and victim. It is the result of a complicated dance that involves not just the male  caught on video throwing a knockout punch, but – and I know I risk violating a taboo in saying this – the female receiving the punch.

More than that, I believe, it involves the broader emotional system in which the couple is a part, their extended families, multigenerational families and society itself. Domestic violence, in short, is the outcome of a complex process.

It is all but impossible to consider a broader process when you see raw violence captured on video, as the Rice incident was. A man knocks out a woman in an elevator, drags her, unconscious, from the cab and stands by while she recovers, unassisted on the floor. My God! That poor woman. What a vile man. That was my reaction as I watched, but I also know there is more to the situation than I could see in those few minutes of video.

Nearly 30 years ago, I, too, was in an elevator with an angry, male partner, one whom I’d later marry. But he was not the only one who was out of control in that small space that afternoon. If I am honest – and this honesty is hard – I have to admit that I made the first aggressive move, the angry shove that nudged open the door to violence, before stalking away. (Janay Rice also moved toward her husband in apparent anger before he hit her.)

Over the coming years, that opening to violence creaked wider and wider. Angry shouts escalated into physical violence. At first it was just things that broke – a frying pan slammed on the counter until it was misshapen, dishes shattered and the contents of our refrigerator smashed on the floor. Eventually, I had bruises to make excuses for.

From the quiet of my study and the distance of decades, it is painful to revisit the turbulence and terror of my first marriage. He looked like the violent perpetrator. I looked like the victim. But we both had roles in a situation that neither of us wanted and neither could control.

One night, I almost entered a battered women’s shelter. I had pulled an all-nighter with a fellow reporter to finish a big story. When I got home, my husband was so enraged over the late hour that I immediately fled, but the shelter worker’s sympathy terrified me more than my husband’s rage. I feared that if I accepted her help, I would be lost, buried by a label – battered woman.

Instead of entering a program for victims of domestic violence, I worked with a therapist on some uneasy truths about myself: that all my relationships with men had been problematic (although never violent). That I had rage, too.

As an educated woman with an advancing career, I believed I had agency over my life. But the truth was, despite appearances, I didn’t really have much of a self at all. I  was mushy in about every area of my existence. I didn’t control my back account, my free time or even my career aspirations. My husband and I had merged into a kind of undifferentiated oneness that, given our personalities and other factors, would combust into violence. We both, husband and wife, were stuck and all but helpless in the emotional system of our marriage.

The work of building a separate self (which is of course is still unfinished) was the hardest thing I have ever done. It involved eight years of false starts and dead ends, of weeks spent in hotels under an assumed name to gain time to think and months of trial separations. It involved getting to know my parents, my extended family and my grandparents and great grandparents in a new way, to better understand what went into forming me. It involved recognizing, without blame or self-blame, the patterns we were both caught in, and exploring what I really wanted for my life, while allowing my husband to do the same, if he chose.

I remember a moment when the dynamics of my relationship to my husband changed fundamentally. He was shouting accusations of infidelity at me. That was my cue to start righteous denials, which might turn into accusations over his drinking, misspending and general irresponsibility. He could, in turn, fly into a rampage lasting all night or several days.

This time, however, I finally saw that my husband’s accusations had nothing to do with me. The delusion of adultery was in fact, just that, a fantasy. Moreover, it was his fantasy, not mine. I was under no obligation to treat it seriously.

So instead of defending myself, I laughed. I joked. I played with the accusations. I was  seen stepping out with my editor? Really? Did they see all the other guys I’ve been going out with, too? No? Gosh, there’s a string of them. Let’s see, let me count…. I could treat it lightly because I no longer was stuck in the automatic pattern that often was the first step to violence.

Because I was no longer contributing fuel to the combustible emotional, the force of his accusations deflated. The anxiety in the air vanished.

That remarkable moment was the culmination of eight years of work. It was life changing, and although it did not save my marriage, it did enable me to eventually move on important plans for my life.

I am now happily remarried to a man who can’t reconcile the wife and mother he knows today with the descriptions I offer of me in the past.  Sometimes, but not often enough, I am careful not to paint my former self as a hero or a victim, but rather a member of an emotional system who had the good fortune to find a different way of thinking.

My ex-husband nearly died after I left him more than 17 years ago, but he recovered his health and pursued a new relationship and professional interest. A few years after our divorce, he called to tell me he didn’t know what made him act as he did. He believed he had been depressed.

We are no longer in touch, but I think of our time together as I watch Ray Rice condemned and stripped of every privilege, as I see his wife pitied and vilified for not leaving him. I know that my ex-husband was an excellent teacher of the emotional system and that I would not have the life I enjoy today without the experiences I had with him. I also know there is a wealth of understanding and growth to be unearthed from the Rices’ relationship, if they ever have the opportunity to pursue it. Unfortunately, the likelihood is that they never will.