Breaking Rank (4 page)

       
•
  
Listened in on her phone conversations?

       
•
  
Read her mail?

       
•
  
Followed her?

       
•
  
Interrogated her when she got home, demanding to know what she did, who she was with?

       
•
  
Expected or demanded sex when she didn't want it?

       
•
  
Selected her friends for her?

       
•
  
Prevented her from having friends?

       
•
  
Threw the family kitten or puppy against the wall?

       
•
  
Scissored up her photos?

       
•
  
Threatened to leave her?

       
•
  
Screamed at her?

       
•
  
Glared at her?

       
•
  
Made a fist, shook it in her face?

       
•
  
Gave her the silent treatment?

       
•
  
Compared her body to photos in magazines?

       
•
  
Threw things?

       
•
  
Punched holes in the wall?

       
•
  
Left a threatening note?

       
•
  
Forced her to have sex when she was asleep?

       
•
  
Called her a whore?

       
•
  
Made yourself unavailable to watch the kids when she was counting on you?

       
•
  
Took the car, leaving her unable to get where she needed to go?

       
•
  
Refused to allow her to have male friends?

       
•
  
Accused her of flirting, or of having an affair?

       
•
  
Sabotaged family/social affairs?

       
•
  
Blamed her for financial problems, or troubles with the kids?

       
•
  
Told her she was a bad mother?

       
•
  
Told her she was a lousy lay?

       
•
  
Told her she was mentally ill?

       
•
  
Made light of your abuse, minimizing its effects?

       
•
  
Forced her to watch pornography?

       
•
  
Told her you were in charge, that your home was your castle?

       
•
  
Told her it was the alcohol or the drugs that made you do it?

       
•
  
Told her that if you couldn't have her no one could?

       
•
  
Idolized her?

       
•
  
Obsessed about her all the time?

       
•
  
Flew into rages?

       
•
  
Went cold, and stayed cold?

       
•
  
Drove recklessly with her (and/or the kids) in the car?

       
•
  
Failed to give her messages from people who called?

       
•
  
Defined and dictated her role as mother, homemaker?

       
•
  
Got jealous when she bought new clothes, put on makeup, got a new hairstyle?

       
•
  
Goaded her into talking about other men, then condemned her no matter what she said?

       
•
  
Checked the phone bills for suspicious calls?

       
•
  
Refused to stop the car when she requested it?

       
•
  
Followed her to work?

       
•
  
Questioned or threatened her coworkers?

       
•
  
Used sex to “make up” for your violence, expecting her to forgive you?

       
•
  
Pulled the phone out of the wall?

       
•
  
Fought in front of the kids?

       
•
  
Used violence against her?

The whole world knows the answer to the last two questions. But, how about the other stuff on that long, depressing list? You're familiar with these behaviors, right? If not from your own home then from the annual domestic violence conferences we sponsored in Seattle? I wouldn't be surprised if there are some conference handouts gathering dust in the filing system of your old office. It would credit people like Michael Paymar, and his book,
Violent No More: Helping Men End Domestic Violence.
Had you read Paymar's book, David? Did you see yourself in those pages? I certainly did—I saw
me
in them.

I've been married and divorced, three times. I recall what it was like to be provoked, the rage that welled up inside when I felt jealous or possessive
or disrespected or—insecure. I did things I regret, and since I'm not shy about judging you I'll tell you what they are.

I
screamed
profanities at my wife—in front of the kids (two stepchildren from the second marriage, my own from the first); turned cold, gave her the silent treatment; slammed my fist into the wall; interrogated her when she returned home—surely she'd been sleeping, or at least flirting, with someone else; glared at her; drove at breakneck speeds with her in the car; lifted her and moved her when she refused to get out of a doorway so I could leave (a favorite tactic: get to the car, roll the windows down, and motor like a madman into the mountains or the desert). Which wife? Doesn't matter. I behaved the same way with each, habitually.

The worst thing I ever did, from where I sit, was to stand above the woman I loved and rain down madness upon her. I was carrying my seventh or eighth badge by then, each new professional milestone symbolizing, in my delusional mind, the parallel progress I'd been making in “personal growth,” in “enlightenment.” My partner was asleep at the time, on a futon on the floor. She hadn't returned my calls, wouldn't commit to some office holiday function I'd felt professionally obligated to attend. She had
ignored
me. So, I towered some six feet above her in a darkened room and
ROARED!
Berating her, accusing her, intimidating her. All I lacked was the belt.

It's tempting for me to minimize these behaviors, to slough them off as “nonviolent,” because nobody got a cut or a bruise—much less a bullet to the brain. But, make no mistake, David: Shouting, threatening, intimidating are all forms of violence. You know this as well as I do. We both saw it throughout our careers as cops. Big men, loud men, scary men—looming over their women, making them quake in fear. I picture the difference in physical space you and Crystal take up in your respective coffins. You, a six-foot, 175-pound man. Your wife, five feet tall, all of a hundred pounds. Don't tell me the way we “talked” to our respective spouses wasn't violent.

Escalation of nonphysical abuse into physical attacks and physical injury is not automatic, but it happens often enough to be predictable and of deep concern to the women being raged against. And to the children who witness it, shrinking in the corner. And to a whole society overrun by violence.

I don't want to be presumptuous, David, but I think I know where you and I parted company: You seemed to believe what you did was okay
because you were in charge. The king of your castle. The
patriarch
in a dismally dysfunctional patriarchal society that licenses men to command rather than communicate.

Mary Nõmme Russell writes in
Confronting Abusive Beliefs: Group Treatment for Abusive Men
: “An abusive man's belief in the centrality and separateness of the self precludes a definition of his behavior as abusive by disregarding effects of this behavior on his partner. His belief in the superiority of the self permits him to devalue his partner [as] well as to justify abusiveness as a necessary defense to his threatened superiority. An abusive man's belief in deservedness of the self provides justification for abuse when his needs are not met.”

Wow. If you'll pardon my saying so, David, that describes you to a T. Your total self-centeredness, your sense of superiority and entitlement.

Me? I'll own the self-centeredness, the “centrality of self” that Nõmme Russell writes about—I was one self-absorbed, narcissistic sonofabitch (I see myself today as a recovering self-absorbed, narcissistic sonofabitch). But I never believed myself to be superior to my partner. Or that I was entitled to hit her. My actions may not have communicated it but I always felt, with each partner, that we were equals.

Alas, what you and I may have felt about our motives matters not a whit. It's how we acted that matters.

There's another major difference between us, my colleague: I got help, you didn't. While I never entertained the thought of physically attacking my partner I knew it was in there, percolating: the potential for physically wounding violence. Psychotherapy was a great gift. It helped me understand and deal with the sources of my childhood wounds, and my adult insecurities. It informed me that my parents' “discipline,” especially my father's, was as unlawful as it was ineffective. It reinforced my fundamental belief in the moral (and liberating) value of true gender equality.

And it erased any excuse I may have had for my behavior:
I
was responsible, not Mommy, not Daddy, not God, not Twinkies, and
certainly
not my partner, for how I acted.

I wish for Crystal that she'd had a chance to know you as an equal, David. I wish that same thing for all partners in their relationships. Especially the wives of cops.

Your crimes triggered a feeding frenzy among the local media. Reporters started sniffing and snooping even before you and Crystal were in the ground (your wife lay in the hospital until they lowered you into your grave, and at that moment she died). The press was eager to learn how many other cops were abusing their partners. Yeah, I know, reporters are bottom feeders, but you can hardly blame them in this case. I mean, you were the top cop in town; if you were guilty of domestic violence, what did that say about other men in blue?

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
ran a week-long series “exposing” the fact that cops are at least as likely as other men to commit domestic violence. (Next, they'll be telling us there are racists in policing.) In fact, more recent research reveals that cops are far more likely than non-cops to be domestic abusers. Yet, police officers are far
less
likely to get busted for DV. Why? Because they're trained to fight, to take charge, to
manipulate.
They know how to inflict excruciating pain that leaves no marks. And they have guns. Their wives aren't stupid.

A police wife also understands that if her husband is convicted of domestic violence he'll lose his gun. In police work, if you lose your gun you lose your job. And since a “cop” is not merely
what
he is but
who
he is (tragic, but true), the implications are ominous. A DV conviction would take away his identity, his reason for living. Talk about your ultra-dangerous situation.

Look at how long it took Crystal to file for divorce. Her family and friends think it was because of your role as a cop, especially a high-profile cop. I think so, too.

But her reticence could also have been for any of the “conventional” reasons many abused women don't “just up and leave.” If there are “fifty ways to leave a lover” there must be an equal number of reasons for staying with an abuser. Anna Quindlen cites several in her best-selling novel
Black and Blue.
And Michael Paymar weighs in with more: