WHEN MEN HIT WOMEN
Jan Hoffman's article "When Men Hit Women" (Feb. 16) hit me hard. In the end, it came down to the final paragraph: "Ellen Pence's advice to women in battering relationships is simply this: Leave." I was an abused wife for 10 years, until I finally got the courage to leave my husband last spring. While Pence's advice is entirely appropriate -- because men who abuse their women will not change -- it's never as easy as all that. For 10 years, I didn't even identify myself as a battered wife. I was desperately trying to fix something I believed in, my marriage, and to help someone I loved, my husband. In the early days, I cried to friends and they offered to come get me, but I always said no.
For 10 years, I lived in terror, worried that I would say or do something to set him off. At first I was devastated every time he got angry. After a few years, I stopped caring. I stopped feeling anything at all.
People think that battered wives are co-conspirators, that they participate in the abusive relationship and get something out of it. Believe me, they don't. They are trapped, under a spell. I wanted to wake up.
If you suspect someone is being abused, she probably is. Risk getting involved. Risk alienating her. She wants to be rescued. I know. No one wants to be abused. NAME WITHHELD
Fort Lee, N.J.