Previously I wrote about Lisa Stebic, the Chicago-area woman who went missing at the end of April. She was in the process of divorce, from a husband she (and witnesses) claimed is emotionally and verbally abusive. She had filed a motion to have her husband removed from the marital home they were still sharing, on the grounds that his behavior was adversely affecting her mental and physical health and the health of their children.
That very day she disappeared and has not been seen since. Her husband did not report her missing, is not cooperating with police and refuses to let the couple’s children, ages 10 and 12, be interviewed or attend counseling.
Finally the police seem to have enough evidence to publicly name him a “person of interest,” which is apparently not quite a suspect but someone whom law enforcement feel may have information relevant to the case. Except he’s not talking. He’s just holed up in their home, with their children, telling them whatever he is telling them.
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Some people are suspicious of claims of verbal abuse. They have the erroneous assumption that verbal abuse is merely name-calling or rudeness said in anger and later regretted. That’s not it, at all. Verbal abusers may say they regret the hurt they’ve done, but their behavior doesn’t change. Verbal abuse cycles, like other forms of abuse, and apologies are nothing but crocodile tears.
Virtually all physical abuse begins with verbal abuse, and, like physical abuse, the abuser is seeking to control the victim. Verbal abusers justify their behavior with claims that it’s the victim’s fault that they yell (or lie, sulk, demean, label, etc.) because the victim “makes me so mad,” or “deserves it.” And the mind games often bewilder the victim, and leave her feeling off-balance and with a sense of “am I crazy, or is it him?”
Always the abuse escalates–sometimes to physical abuse, or murder.
Women gone missing are so commonplace that they barely warrant mention in the national media. Yet a woman kills her husband and the entire nation is weighing in with an opinion. I’m sick of it.
