Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
April 18-24 is National Victims' Rights Week. This is the second in a six-part series.
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Looking back, "Jane" says now, the signs were always there. She just didn't know enough to recognize them.
Jane and "Bob" (names and circumstances have been changed to protect Jane) dated all through high school, and they were in love. Bob, from an educated and wealthy prominent local family, was courteous and attentive, bought her flowers and gifts.
"I thought he was IT. I thought he must love me so much," Jane said recently.
When they were 17, Bob wanted to have sex; Jane wasn't ready and said no, and Bob slapped her. It was the first time.
Bob was apologetic; Jane forgave him. They got married. But the abuse continued.
"The relationship was glorious, wonderful, when things were good," she said. "It was absolutely horrible when things were bad."
Jane eventually was isolated from all of her friends, allowed to see only people Bob wanted her to see. She didn't work outside the home and was not allowed to go anywhere by herself. She could never leave the house with their children.
Bob worked and made money, and bought anything and everything he wanted, leaving very little for Jane and their two children.
He didn't want to have children, but would not allow Jane to use birth control. When Jane thought she was pregnant with their second child, Bob insisted on calling the doctor to find out the results of the pregnancy test, and then, she said, as a matter of control, didn't tell her the results for a week.
Meanwhile, the battering continued, ranging from verbal and psychological abuse to hair-pulling, pushing, hitting and kicking. Bob knocked Jane down the stairs while she was pregnant.
She left him for a while, but "he was on my doorstep constantly, and he even enrolled in counseling."
But after she took him back, the violence got worse.
"Before, he would hit me a couple of times and I knew my place and wouldn't cross it."
But as the battering increased, Bob also began taking out his temper on their children - shoving them around and once throwing his young son onto a couch.
"I would butt in so he would go after me," Jane said.
At one point, she said, her face was so swollen and black and blue that "you couldn't even tell I had a nose."
Jane couldn't turn to his family for help; they were afraid of hurting their prominent reputation in the community.
Finally she worked up the courage to leave him once and for all. But it wasn't easy.
She stayed with relatives at first, and Bob would drive up and down the street, leave notes on her car and call her and then hang up.
When she got a place of her own, he would sit in his car across the street and watch her house for hours. Sometimes when she was at work, he would break in and take things from her house or move things around, just to let he know he could get to her, she said.
Jane said her church and God were what got her through the entire ordeal.
"Without God I would not have survived this - he is my stronghold," she said.
Long after the divorce, Jane found out that Bob had sexually molested their daughter, telling her that since her mother had left him, it was up to her to fulfill his needs.
"People don't understand domestic violence and they don't want to get involved because it's in a marriage," Jane said. "This goes on and it's a danger. We can't let it go on."
In high school, she said, when young girls meet guys, "those men who are abusive sometimes are the most courteous, loving ... at the same time, telling her, 'I don't like your girlfriends, don't hang around with them.'
"It's really hard for a young girl to discern," Jane said.
Her advice is to teenagers, who can stop themselves or their friends from getting into an abusive relationship in the first place.
"Look for the controlling aspect, not letting you have your own mind, telling you what to wear," she advised.
"If you feel like something is not right - take a break from the relationship. If he won't let you take a break, then there's something wrong and you need to talk to someone.
"If he's doing something wrong and says he's doing it because he loves you, then that's a big red flag."
She continued: "Girls and women think, 'The more I love him, this'll fix it,' but it just makes it worse."
