Kayleigh was, in all honesty, one of the "lucky" ones—a victim of domestic violence who "got away." However, what it took for her to get away subjected her to a whole new realm of postseparation abuse, unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Her ex-husband had retaliated against her in every conceivable way, filling her days with endless harassment and stalking: false complaints to her job, constant court subpoenas for custody of their children, and even sharing her personal information online—all legal in the eyes of the law.
"I kept expecting someone to come out and help me," she often says as she retells her story. "It's like I was on a raft, out to sea, waiting for a big ship to come and save me. Surely someone would see what was going on and what he was putting me through; surely someone would come along and help." But, because the abuse was nonphysical and, thus, difficult for the law to recognize, nobody could help.
The ship eventually came, in the form of law enforcement and a family court judge. However, instead of coming to bring her to safety, she was faced with victim-blaming messages and an endless loop of laws that protected her abuser's right to harass her more than her right to be free from abuse. No longer could her ex come up to her and scream in her face, because that would be a blatant violation of a protection order that gave her a protective radius of 150 yards. But he could file complaints against her in court, harass her friends and family, and submit complaints to her supervisor in an attempt to have her lose her job. He could tarnish her reputation in a public courtroom, calling her an unfit mother and other heinous things.
When she would complain to the police, they would say there is nothing that can be done. "Technically, he has the right to make complaints," or "Take it up with the judge" they would say before handing her a card with the number to a domestic violence shelter. "What good is this place going to do? They can't help unless I need shelter! I don't need shelter, I need to disappear!" She would cry to unempathetic ears.
"I'd rather go back to the screaming and violence!" she often cried in times of desperation. "At least then someone would take this seriously and help me!"
Eventually, life continued. The numerous complaints filed by her abuser were dropped, dismissed, and long since forgotten by all involved. All except Kayleigh, who struggled with answering calls from unknown numbers, panicked when hearing a knock at the door, and lost her breath when she received an innocent text or email from her kids' school. Long after the bruises healed, the panic and nervousness would continue to cripple her.
"What do you want?" the judge asked during her last attempt to renew the protection order. "We can't take away his right to file complaints and make phone calls. So what do you want the court to do?" She had sat in silence, not wanting the embarrassment of crying in open court that would only fuel his case of her being unstable.
His lawyer had argued for the termination of the protection order on the grounds that "no physical violence had taken place over the past 12 months." She stopped paying attention at that point, focusing only on the room closing in around her. Her protection order was revoked. The small, somewhat meaningless, piece of paper had kept the physical violence at bay, yet it failed to protect her from the many other ways that she was being abused. Yet, somehow, she wanted it. She needed it. But since she could not afford a lawyer, she never could answer the judge. It was revoked.
If she could answer, she did not even know how she would reply. She didn't know what she wanted. She wanted to be free from harassment and abuse. She wanted to be protected from all the ways that her ex was legally allowed to enact revenge on her, simply for leaving a relationship.
But, was what she wanted even possible?
When asked, abuse survivors most often want acknowledgment of wrongdoing. More than legal repercussions such as jail time or citations, most report that they want the abuser to be told that what they did was wrong. They want their abuser to acknowledge this, but also the community that supports them. If the community that supports them would acknowledge that what they did was wrong, this is validating and helps victims feel that they got some sort of justice (Herman, 2023).
However, most perpetrators deny that what they did was abusive, either because of their own refusal to admit wrongdoing or because of their cognitive distortions that convince them that they are the ones who were wronged.
For those in the LGBTQ community, this experience is often magnified by a society that denies their right to exist. Biases in health care and the legal system often prevent LGBTQ survivors from getting support following abuse. It is easy to understand why getting justice for this community is even more difficult to imagine.
For many survivors of domestic violence, the pain of the lack of safety lingers long after any of the physical or emotional wounds. What lingers are the psychological bruises: the ones that rob them of feeling safe in their home or even at their job; the worries about losing their job, their children, or their living; and the fears of isolation after a support system turns against them.
No form of abuse is excusable, and it is difficult to quantify intimate partner abuse. But the lack of justice for survivors whose abuse is unrecognized compounds their experiences of being unseen, not valued, and not protected.
If you are experiencing domestic abuse, seek support from thehotline.org or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE.
References
Herman, J. L. (2023). Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice. Basic Books.
Can Domestic Abuse Survivors Ever Get Justice?
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06.02.2024
Kayleigh was, in all honesty, one of the "lucky" ones—a victim of domestic violence who "got away." However, what it took for her to get away subjected her to a whole new realm of postseparation abuse, unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Her ex-husband had retaliated against her in every conceivable way, filling her days with endless harassment and stalking: false complaints to her job, constant court subpoenas for custody of their children, and even sharing her personal information online—all legal in the eyes of the law.
"I kept expecting someone to come out and help me," she often says as she retells her story. "It's like I was on a raft, out to sea, waiting for a big ship to come and save me. Surely someone would see what was going on and what he was putting me through; surely someone would come along and help." But, because the abuse was nonphysical and, thus, difficult for the law to recognize, nobody could help.
The ship eventually came, in the form of law enforcement and a family court judge. However, instead of coming to bring her to safety, she was faced with victim-blaming messages and an endless loop of laws that protected her abuser's right to harass her more than her right to be free from abuse. No longer could her ex come up to her and scream in her face, because that would be a blatant violation of a protection order that gave her a protective radius of 150 yards. But he could file complaints against her in........
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