Beaten, she says, ‘It’s okay, just leave us alone’

It was an intense pastoral meeting in the office when the three of us were suddenly stopped. There was the screech of car tyres as the wheels turned the vehicle on a dime and it flew up the driveway.

Then we heard the unmistakable sound of a physical struggle. Shouting from a male voice, screaming from a female.

As if already sparked by the adrenalin that was already coursing through our arteries, we ran down the hall, out the front door and flung the doors of the car open. There hadn’t been a moment to consider how we would deal with the situation.

His arms were around her neck and then he let go.

She motioned to get out of the car, and he pulled her inside, all while we were telling him to stop. Then she said words I’ll never forget. Almost as if recognising the hopelessness of her situation, the adrenalin wearing thin, the result of flight taking over from any semblance of resistance, she said, with body language that betrayed her words, ‘It’s okay, just leave us alone!’

The car sped off as quickly as it had arrived.

We were left there utterly speechless. We were devastated that we, as pastors, couldn’t have done more to help the woman. We feared what would become of her, if not that very day, but on some future day where she might not simply undergo more trauma, but possibly lose her life. So many women do. According to the Red Heart Campaign, 65 women and 18 children have lost their lives due to violence in Australia in 2018.

It happens. This stuff really happens. How many of us have been in our homes and heard the worst kinds of arguments break out next door? Indeed, how many of us have borne personal witness to these events?

Somehow we need to break through the façade
that all is well in modern family households.

I can tell you from my own experiences of anger that my family wasn’t always universally safe. I say this for no other reason than to normalise what most men and women affected want cloistered in secrecy for the shame they bear — either as protagonists or victims. In my case, I’ve never hurt anyone physically, but the potential was there. Situations quickly escalate. Wherever stress is at fever-pitch, nerves are occasionally pushed too far.

Rather than call stress an excuse, we need to be honest about its effects. Only as we’re honest about these issues do we engage with and pique our awareness. Awareness is key. Awareness will get us into therapy. As men we need to be honest about our emotions, especially the negative ones that potentially spill over into violence.

As a counsellor these days, as well as in being a pastor and chaplain, I value incredibly the privilege it is to engage men in the topic of reconciling anger. It doesn’t need to end badly. There is hope.

We need to start talking about stress and anger responses in the public square.

We need to somehow unhinge it from the shame that causes deep secrets to be hidden.

And yet there are also many men (not most, but still many) who believe they have a right to abuse ‘their’ women. My wife and I encountered such a man recently who gas-lit his former wife a dozen times in our ten-minute conversation. This man scared me for what he was capable of. Absolute nutter. Yet… someone who could convince a naïve third party that he was such a loving husband.

The point is violence is in every street of every town and city of every nation, and women bear most of the brunt of it.

In the situation I described above, I wish we’d had the instinct to pull the guy’s keys out of the ignition.

We must be prepared to enter the fray. Especially as men. Yet, when we do, we must also be prepared to understand from the women’s viewpoint that we’re possibly making it worse for her. We need to be prepared that both of them may be violent toward us.

We need to remind ourselves,
we don’t live her reality.
Her reality must be a living hell.

As men we need to pray we have opportunities to intervene and the instinct to act. These are our mothers, sisters, daughters, nieces, cousins and friends we’re talking about, most of whom wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Mostly, we need to understand why she says, ‘It’s okay, just leave us alone.’