Abuse

I want to talk about a serious topic for a moment.  (I'm mostly always serious, but often fairly light-hearted.)  It is not a situation I'm living in right now, but rather one I survived in the past.  I want to talk about abuse.  I have a friend-ish who has been accused of sexually assaulting his wife.  I realize there are two general camps on this one: one that believes a man (or woman) has rights to the body of their spouse and one that believes that "no means no" no matter the relationship.  My very pragmatic view is that while one may have rights to their spouse, they also have the responsibility of respecting their spouse.

So, back to my friend-ish.  (Male-female friendships are not common here, and while we are friends, it's not like we hang out or go places together. Thus, "friend-ish.")  He has been accused of spousal abuse.  Most of his children have been taken from him.  (One refused to go.)  His possessions have been taken from him.  He only has his house still because it's in his son's name, not his.  And you can look at it in one of two ways:  "That scum should have more taken from him than that.  He should be in jail now" or "Poor guy has lost everything."

I've been the abused. (Not by a spouse, obviously.)  You know what abusers do?  They flip the blame.  A common one is "If you hadn't __________, I wouldn't have had to _________."  Another is "You made me ______________."  Now, I'm not saying that this woman was not abused because you have to believe the accuser; if you don't believe the accuser, he/she might end up dead, but that doesn't mean you should pass judgement on the accused without further evidence.

For me there's evidence to the contrary, evidence that she has been controlling and abusing him.  Just because the accuser files a complaint first doesn't mean they aren't the abuser.  And seriously, be careful who you marry and/or have kids with; once an abuser has something to control you with like that, you can't really ever escape.