In my own experience, I find it very difficult for people who have never lived in an abusive environment to understand the workings of an abusive environment. This is not to say that people aren’t capable of it, or that they’re willfully ignorant, just that many people do not seem to understand the complexities of what goes into living with a psychopath.
It took me a while to accept this; to accept that a lot of people thought I was exaggerating or lying when I would talk about things my father had done or what life was like for my family, but now I can see how difficult it is for someone who has never had experience with someone so manipulative, devious, self-serving, hurtful, and abusive to believe that people like that exist.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people espouse their lack of sympathy for “abused women” because, from their perspective, the woman’s situation was one of her own making. Why can’t she stand up for herself? Why’d she marry him if he was already hitting her? Why didn’t she ever try to leave him? There are several reasons that people adopt these opinions, and almost all of them amount to a gross misunderstanding of what living in an abusive environment is like, or about the mentality of a victim of perpetual abuse.
It’s not that easy to leave when the person you’re trying to get away from has a legal right to your children, has isolated you from your family and friends, has a stranglehold on your family finances, knows how to find you wherever you are (a problem my family encountered for various reasons), is a pathological liar who can manipulate his way around most problems and obstacles, and has vowed to hunt you down and kill you if/when you try to leave. The police don’t matter to them. Whatever consequences they might face don’t matter to them. There is no deterrent, just a constant, futile effort to try and pacify their anger while weathering the abuse.
Even when there is a physical way to safely leave, abuse victims are often mentally incapable of it. Many of them have extremely low self-esteem from years of being verbally and physically battered and convince themselves they deserve the abuse for one reason or another. They still believe that the abuser can change. They tell themselves that, despite all evidence to the contrary, an abuser would never consciously hurt them. They blame abusive behavior on whatever outside factors they can – alcoholism, drug use, children misbehaving, work related stress, everything. They believe that the abuser loves them and they cling to the idea that, someday, that love will make the abuser stop.
To blame an abuse victim for this mentality and withdraw all sympathy for them and their children is cruel, illogical, and shortsighted. It’s a mental illness; a coping mechanism that can’t instantaneously be shut off when they are finally able to live in a normal, stable environment. I was very frustrated with and angry at my mother for many years for never leaving my father. Towards the end, before we did finally leave, I started hearing statements similar to the ones above come out of her mouth less and less. She actually started to get up when he would knock her down, push back when he would shove her. That made him angrier, but it demonstrated the beginnings of a distinctive mental change for my mother.
I was prompted to think about all this when I came across one of the articles about Mary Winkler and what she’s currently going through trying to keep her children. I have been surprised throughout the course of the proceedings by how little sympathy people have for her. I was distressed by some of the quotes included in the article since they reminded me of things my mother would say from time to time while I was growing up.
From this CNN.com article:
“That’s where I will always grieve the fact that I failed Matthew in not bringing it to his attention how bad it was,” she said.
Yeah. She really failed Matthew. Matthew, the man who suffocated their child so he didn’t have to hear her cry. Matthew, the man who abused Mary, sexually assaulted her, and threatened her with death at his hands. Matthew failed his family. Matthew was an irrational, violent psycho who should never have been allowed to get to the point he was at, and whose fault was that? It was Matthew’s.
The behavior of Matthew Winkler’s parents is appalling. They’ve demanded an apology from Mary Winkler – have they made a public apology to the Winkler children for what they had to endure at their father’s hands, or to Mary? If the object here is to point fingers at unfit parents, maybe it’s not in the children’s best interests to place them in the home their father grew up in. He was obviously a real gem.
EDIT: Video footage from Mary Winkler’s interview with Oprah is available through CNN. In the video, she is constantly making excuses for his behavior. It’s sad and interesting to watch. The CNN headlines for the story – “Wife who shot preacher calls sentence too short” – are deliberately inflammatory and tragically misleading.
NOTE: The title of this post is a reference to the Pearl Jam song, “Can’t Find A Better Man”.
ekittyglendower said,
September 14, 2007 @ 1:02 am
Good play on the title, I love that Pearl Jam song. It reminds me of Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”
I was really sad to hear Mary Winkler making excuses for her husband’s behavior, but I know it will be many years before she can really see the extent of his abuse. I say fuck him. And you are right about his parents. Matthew Winkler did not learn his techniques all on his own.
gingermiss said,
September 15, 2007 @ 2:13 am
I had started reading this story once before and didn’t give it enough of a chance, initially stopping after the first few paragraphs. After seeing your comment, I read it. Wow – am I glad I did.
ekittyglendower said,
September 16, 2007 @ 3:28 am
Oooh it is so fun to talk about. What do you think of the grandmother?
gingermiss said,
September 16, 2007 @ 6:06 pm
Initially I felt sorry for the Grandmother. No one in her family respected or embraced her. The way the kids were allowed to treat her was deplorable. Overall the characterization of a browbeaten woman. The way she was hoping she was injured because then her son wouldn’t be able to yell at her as much…
The moment the criminal came into the story, I started feeling uneasy. By the time the husband and son were taken into the woods, I was grippingly terrified.
I noticed the way O’Connor portrayed The Misfit as someone who disregarded the depth of his complicity in his own behavior and enjoyed being cruel. Also the way she portrayed the Grandmother’s naivety in the face of someone so unreasonable – someone who could not be appealed to – someone whose psychology, motives, and lifestyle she had no concept of. This tied nicely into the center section of the story where Red Sammy and the Grandmother were romanticizing the old days. There was a general feeling that this is how much of the world approaches people like this, kind of vainly hoping that there’s something about them they can connect to, something about them that mirrors their own sense of right and wrong.
Oh, and I was jarred by the racism in the story yet felt it was very realistically written.
These is so much that could be discussed in that story.
ekittyglendower said,
September 16, 2007 @ 8:54 pm
Yes, I think the racism depicted is realistic. Not in the context of how ugly racism is, who exactly is hurt by racism and to what degree one benefits by racism, but by simply describing in the context seen by the people who are entirely indifferent to what is happening around them.
You are right, the story does have a slow warming up. If it had not been for the precocious children and their disrespect I probably would have lost interest as well. There was something about the way the mother was described in her dress that made me feel that she was exhausted and had numbed herself in order to deal with her lot. A demanding uncaring husband and an interfering mother in law. The little girl and boy were horrid. I would have been popped in the mouth for saying anything similar to my grandmother.
It does get terrifying and is very hard to read once the Misfit arrives. I have read a lot of criticism saying this follows a Christian allegory. Some arguing the grandmother is Jesus and the other saying the Misfit is Jesus.
The Misfit is unredeemable when he says all crimes garner the same punishment. With that line of thought who can be deterred?
Oh my gawd, then one of them wears Bailey’s shirt!
Have you read the short story “Where are you going where have you been,” by Joyce Carol Oates?
gingermiss said,
September 18, 2007 @ 12:42 am
Once again, I was gripped by terror as I read that story. You know you’re reading something well written when it makes you want to shout out, “NO, Connie, don’t listen to him! Go get the phone!” Thank you for these recommendations. I love short stories, and both of these were excellent.
onemoreoption said,
September 20, 2007 @ 11:30 pm
Thank you for sharing your experienced point of view.
gingermiss said,
September 21, 2007 @ 4:24 am
It’s frustrating to see so many people with so little understanding of it condemn her so vehemently.