No Way Out

Anyone that has used a restroom throughout the Rutgers University Newark campus has seen the collage of posters that hang within the stalls. A bathroom stall carries with it a connotation of undisturbable privacy, something that victims of abusive relationships often never have. The posters advocate for places where abused women, assaulted women, and harassed women can find resources to help them with what trauma they might have experienced prior to entering that sanctuary-like stall. People like Maribel Lorenzo never had access to those kinds of resources while they underwent their abuse. Their partners isolated them from friends, family and anyone that could threaten to undermine their power over their victim. There was no safe way to escape.

“He was my high school sweetheart. I didn’t actually realize what was happening until much later,” says Maribel about her ex.

Many people don’t realize that they’re in an abusive relationship to begin with. They often attribute their continued engagement with their abuser to several factors like fear of retaliation, normalization of the abuse, embarrassment, love, cultural or religious reasons or low self-esteem. In Lorenzo’s case, she experienced feelings of extreme denial. She admits that she ignored warnings from others in the spirit of offering her ex the benefit of the doubt. When she finally sought help from her parents, they discredited her and came down hard on her for suggesting a divorce. Their traditional views on marriage disallowed them from offering her the support she needed to be able to go through with the divorce. It took time for them to witness enough trauma from her emotionally and physically abusive husband to be able to stand behind her decision. She has been divorced for more than 20 years, but her mother still brings up the past and criticizes her for how she handled the situation. “I told you so,” she often tells Lorenzo. “You knew better.”

A woman named Eva went through a very similar experience. She had just given birth to her first child with her ex-abuser when he began to show signs of abuse toward the infant as well. Not even a month old, the baby was marked by bruises from aggressive contact. Too ashamed to allow her family to find out what was happening to not only her but also her child, Eva decided to relocate with her abuser. She felt more ashamed that people would find out she was allowing the abuse to continue than she did about her own safety.

What constitutes an abusive relationship? Not many recognize the nuances in expression and behavior that can begin as harmless interactions but can become flagrant abuse. The National Domestic Violence Hotline’s website defines domestic abuse simply as “a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship.” According to statistics from the NDVH’s website, an average of 24 people per minute become victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States. Maribel Lorenzo fell victim to all of these circumstances, and she confesses that in the beginning she didn’t want to admit to herself that something was wrong. Even after she formally reported the abuse and sought help from the authorities, she still wasn’t taken seriously. Recalling her hearing with a female judge to decide whether or not her protection order would be maintained by the court, she says that she was made to feel like the criminal.

“I had asked the judge for time to consider whether or not I wanted to revoke the order, and she said to me, ‘Decide what you’re going to do. We don’t have time for that.’” Lorenzo said.

NCADV.org , the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, reports one in four women and one in nine men experience severe intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner contact sexual violence and/or intimate partner stalking with consequences reaching bodily injury and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Of those men and women, females between the ages of 16 and 24 experience nearly three times the national average rate of IPV, or intimate partner violence according to data collected by loveisrespect.org. A staggering 43 percent of college-aged women report experiencing violent and abusive dating behaviors. Even more alarmingly, breakthecycle.org reports an astonishing 58 percent of polled students don’t know what to do to help someone who is a victim of dating abuse, and 38% said they wouldn’t know how to get help for themselves on campus if they were a victim of dating abuse.

Rutgers University offers a wide variety of resources for victims of abuse. The Office of Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance in particular offers crisis intervention, advocacy and counseling services are extended to family members and friends of victims. The Title IX office, which was founded off of the 1972 education amendment prohibiting discrimination of any sort on the basis of sex, is also a useful resource for students that may find themselves victims of abuse.  

No ground has been broken in terms of legislative action against domestic violence since 1994, when the Violence Against Women Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Since its establishment, the bill received criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union due to its increased penalties and pretrial detention aspects. After the removal of a provision that would have allowed law enforcement to take DNA samples from arrested suspects and from those stopped by police without court permission, the ACLU voiced its support in a 2005 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

After the law went up for re-authorization in 2011, conservative Republicans voiced their opposition for its renewal due to its protections offered to same-sex couples and provisions that offered battered undocumented individuals to obtain temporary visas that would allow them to cooperate in the detention of their abusers.

Jeff Sessions, Alabama Senator at the time, said, “I favor the Violence Against Women Act and have supported it at various points over the years, but there are matters put on the bill that seem to invite opposition.”

A New York Times article by Jonathan Weisman said that “Republicans say the [VAWA] unnecessarily expands immigration avenues by creating new definitions for immigrant victims to claim battery.” The bill was finally reauthorized in 2013 and again in January of 2019, despite omitting some important protections for gay and Native American citizens.

Women like Maribel Lorenzo who share their journey through abusive relationships offer insight for others in similar situations to realize what is happening to them and to seek the appropriate assistance to end the cycle of abuse. She is considering composing a memoir of her experiences to illuminate the path for those that are in denial just as she was.

When asked what advice she would give to those in similar situations, she emphasized that it was a conscious decision on her part to stand up for herself. Once that decision was made, her journey out began.