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The Commonalities of Abuse And the Courage to Break Free
By Katie McKy
Millions of Americans have watched the video of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie being stopped and questioned by Moab police officers. A 911 caller reported that Laundrie had struck Petito, which Petito confirmed to one of the officers.
That caller said, “The gentleman was slapping the girl…And then we stopped. They ran up and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, hopped in the car, and they drove off.”
In Utah cases involving domestic violence, an arrest or citation is mandatory, but neither happened. What did happen is what often happens in abuse situations, with the abused blaming herself and the abuser also blaming her. Whether in barrios or Bel-Air, trailer parks or Chicago’s Gold Coast, Manhattan or middle-class Middle America, whatever one’s socio-economic class, the dynamics of abuse don’t change.
One woman, interviewed for this article, but who will not be named, has dedicated herself to supporting other survivors of abuse.
She said, “I get love and tenderness from all my sister-survivor warriors. We are very close and all about love. We celebrate the fact that we’ve come into the light and do everything we can to draw other women out into the light.”
She does this in many ways, from a podcast where she connects with other survivors of abuse to a website and more. She was married to an American icon for nearly thirty years, living the [seeming] dream. But, if you were an acquaintance and you’d passed her and her husband on the street during those decades and you were observant, you might have seen her eyes dart away from you, lest her eye contact invited you to hail her. Abuse begins and ends with control, so her husband did not want her to have acquaintances, much less friends, or even family contact. He was supposed to be enough. He alone would advise and decide.
He owned multiple homes, all in his name. Wasn’t that enough? They were beautifully furnished and decorated, all by him, with nothing to be moved. Wasn’t that enough? He bought her new cars, chosen by him and all in his name. Wasn’t that enough? The great mass of money was in his name. The pre-nup said so, and so did he, again and again and again. She didn’t even have a credit history, much less a credit card.
“I left the marriage at age 55 with zero credit. I didn’t have a credit card when I met him, because I wanted to have zero debt.”
She had worked some throughout the marriage and there was an inheritance too, but because money gives you choices and an abuser wants all the control, he did something about her stash.
“I asked him to invest my money, too, because he had been investing his and done very well.”
His financial investors had prudently invested his money. However, her money was invested otherwise.
“He put every penny of my money into junk bonds.”
$350,000 became $125,000.
“There was just enough for the first round of lawyers,” she said, “as his five lawyers kept dragging me into court for the most petty things.”
Control and power are the hub of emotional abuse’s wheels and the spokes are intimidation, emotional abuse, isolation, using children, using male privilege, economic abuse, coercion and threats, and denying and blaming. (Remember Brian Laundrie blaming Gabby Petito in the Moab video?)
The penny stocks weren’t the only financial penalty she had to bear.
“There was a woman I befriended because our kids were in school together. He said that I wasn’t allowed to have further contact with this woman and that it would be the height of disloyalty to have anything to do with her.”
She did as she was told, but years passed and she missed her friend so much.
“I arranged a hike with her. He found out and said I would be fined $50,000 even though it was my bank account. However, my financial people were his financial people. He actually made that happen.”
She didn’t even go on the hike. Sometimes she was left guessing as to what she’d say or wouldn’t say or would do or wouldn’t do that would trigger his temper.
“They don’t always tell you what you can and can’t do. You learn to police yourself. You have to anticipate when the abuser will react.”
The guesswork and restrictions incapacitate you.
“Your life is shut down.”
Long, black, sullen moods were one of his pitfalls. Screaming was another. One of his homes had a driveway nearly a mile long, and a quarter-mile from their house was a tenant.
“After I left him, the tenants said that they said they’d been able to hear his screaming from their house.”
One time, he was even less cautious.
“I was in an airport one time and I used the bathroom, and he was banging on the door and screaming at me to get out.”
Abusers can present as charming and gentle to others and even to their significant others, when it serves their purposes.
“For the first two months, he was so wonderful, sensitive, and kind. I got the first taste of his controlling ways when I quit my job, sold my car, and gave up my apartment and moved back East with him. That’s when I first saw his temper.”
She made excuses as so many have, regardless of socio-economic status.
“I tried to block that out. I considered it an aberration. I was all geared to the wonderful life we’d have together,” she said. “I’d wonder if ‘maybe it was something I said.’ I felt like it was on me to not set him off. He would just be mad at me, and I wouldn’t know why.”
To further his power and control, he broke down her confidence.
“At first, he’d call me names in a teasing way, like ‘stupid’ and ‘dummy.’ There was one time I couldn’t find my car in the parking lot, and after that, I was forever labeled as scatterbrained.”
As he belittled her, he puffed himself up.
“He created this narrative that I was a Cinderella that he rescued. I was hapless and he elevated me into his kingdom.”
She escaped, but not without lingering costs.
“Five years after leaving him, I still feel the abuse in my chest. I can’t catch my breath. It’s in my throat and lungs. It’s from being silent for so many years. There are physical repercussions from stress. It’s akin to a hostage situation.”
This is why she urges other women caught in abusive relationships to speak up and reach out.
“I encourage women to talk about their situations, to join a support group. Don’t block it out. You can only do that for so long and then it comes back at you, and the longer you wait, the worse it comes back at you.”
Summoning the courage to break free has made all the difference for her.
“I wake up with a smile. I am so happy to be free, and I’m grateful I escaped. He wanted to break me in so many ways, but I’m not broken, and I’m grateful for that.”
