Shhh ��. The problem nobody wants to talk about - reprinted from New Choices for Retirement Living, Oct. 1992: includes related articles, also a directory of resources - Special Populations: Older Battered Women - Directory

Ellen Hopkins

This article appeared in the October 1992 issue of New Choices For Retirement Living magazine (1-800-388-6111) and is reprinted with their permission. In 1994, Hopkins, a contributing editor of Rolling Stone, won the American Society on Aging's National Media Award for this piece of work.

Because of safety concerns, all the names and some identifying details of the battered women and their spouses have been changed. When Tillie told her husband she had to have surgery on her jaw, which gave her continual pain, Jim, a retired contractor known for his good humor and his charm, let out a hoot. He laughed even harder when he learned the doctor couldn't figure out how a middle-aged housewife who played no contact sports could have hurt herself so horribly.

Tillie wasn't surprised by her husband's reaction. Nor did she get angry with him. Instead, she anxiously apologized to Jim and assured him that the doctor would never learn their secret. For Tillie, a college-educated, middle-class 55-year-old mother of three, had spent a quarter of a century learning that being married to a batterer means always having to say you're sorry.

Five years ago, the commonness of domestic violence was branded into our collective consciousness in the unlovely form of Hedda Nussbaum, a New York City book editor battered by Joel Steinberg, a lawyer also convicted of beating to death the couple's 6-year-old adopted daughter. Feminists had first given a name to love that hurts way back in the '70s. But for years, many continued to dismiss stories of spousal abuse as something that happened to "other" people -- other, in this case, being a code word for not my race or class. It was the Nussbaum-Steinberg tragedy that forced us to confront that battering isn't just for the poor and uneducated; it cuts across every social group.

It also isn't just for the young. Despite the many age-related stereotypes that have been shattered in recent years, most people are still unaware that just as you're never too old to find someone to love, you're also never too old to be beaten by the one you love. Indeed, in the United States last year, more than 700,000 women over the age of 50 were hit by their husbands. In fact, approximately half of all physical attacks on women over 50 are committed by their spouse.

This settling reality goes against every stereotype culture has regarding abuse and the elderly: that when an olderperson is abused, a grown child or nonfamilial caregiver must be the culprit; that any couple entangled in an abusive relationship eventually outgrows the destructive pattern.

Some abusive relationships do end, and the levels of violence in the ones that endure drop off over the years. Abuse is still two to four times as likely to occur in a young couple. But battering, for many thousands of couples, can indeed last 'til death does them part.

According to Richard Gelles, director of the Family Violence Research Program at the University of Rhode Island, the numbers look like this: Approximately 5 percent of men between the ages of 54 and 70 hit their wives in the past 12 months, as did 2 1/2 percent of men over 70. And about 2 percent of women over age 54 have been subjected to serious acts of violence by their husbands.

While these percentages may seem small, consider them in cozier terms. Suppose your husband's college class had 200 graduates and all of them gathered for their 40th reunion. As many as 10 of your husband's former classmates may be hitting their wives, and 4 of those 10 could be abusing them to the point of significant injury.

"The vast majority of older abusive husbands are not Joel Steinberg psychopaths," says Gelles. "In most cases you won't find their wives in hospital emergency rooms. Women are not stupid. They aren't hostility sponges. If the violence is bad enough, most women get out of the marriage at a much earlier date. When we're talking about an older battered woman, we are talking about someone who is getting hit on average three or four times a year. It's become part of the marriage ritual."

The rituals in Tillie and Jim's marriage included slaps, pushes and punches. "He'd aim for my head most of the time," says Tillie. "Sometimes he'd hold knives up against my face and threaten to cut me. I can still see that look he'd get on his face before he'd hurt me. It made me freeze."

Tillie was in her early 20s when she started dating Jim. "He was the most charming, outgoing man you ever could meet," she says. "Everyone loved him. And I was very insecure. I wanted someone to take care of me."

It soon was clear to Tillie that her marriage exemplified the danger of answered prayers in the most cruel and twisted fashion. Jim, for example, insisted on taking care of the family finances. Tillie was a housewife and rather than trust her with any of his salary, Jim did all the shopping. "Sometimes," says Tillie, "he'd let us run out of something important so I'd have to keep begging him for it. Like we wouldn't have milk for a few days." Jim took care of Tillie's transportation needs: He was the only one allowed to drive the family car. Tillie never knew when he'd refuse to drive her where she needed to go. Jim took care of Tillie's social life: "He hated for me to talk on the phone. He hated all my friends." Jim also took care of Tillie's self-image. Soon after the honeymoon was over, he began calling his wife "an ugly fat bitch."

"I kept feeling maybe it was my fault in some way," she says. "I kept thinking he must be saying these things for a reason."

Physical violence was the ultimate way in which Jim abused and isolated his wife. "My friends knew it wasn't a happy marriage, but I couldn't tell anyone what was really going on. I was too embarrassed. And besides, I kept telling myself, it was off and on. Months would go by without him hitting me. What I found much more devastating was the mental and verbal abuse. That was constant. I used to write myself notes when things were real bad. Most of them just said, `Don't let this hurt you.' But it never stopped hurting."

In many ways, Jim and Tillie's relationship could be a template for the older abuse-riddled marriage. According to counselors who deal with domestic violence, it is highly unusual for spousal abuse suddenly to manifest itself later in life. "Once in a great while, we'll see a case in which the cause is the abuser's having a stroke or suffering from dementia," says Marie McDonald, director of the elder abuse program at Victims Information Bureau of Suffolk County, New York (VIBS). "Those can be particularly difficult cases because the victim remembers better days, and now all of a sudden he's going after her with a cane. But in most instances, the abuse has always been there."

Post-50 abusive marriages often follow a remarkably similar pattern. The women are mostly housewives who never worked and who led relatively circumscribed lives before marriage. They are likely to be nurturing people. The men are usually unhappy in their work, having achieved less in life than many of their friends and associates. And this failure stands in stark contrast to their desperate need to be good providers. Both men and women have very traditional views about sex roles and the sanctity of marriage. Experts in domestic violence stress that there need be nothing pathological about either the abuser or his victim. "As a group, older abusers are saner than their younger counterparts," says Dr. Samuel Klagsbrun, the psychiatrist who treated Hedda Nussbaum. "The crazy young ones tend to get weeded out over time. And the fact that she doesn't leave him isn't evidence of craziness on her part, either."

"If you're over 50, you're pre-NOW," says Gelles. "You're a little pre-Betty Friedan. You're way pre-Gloria [Steinem]. You're June Cleaver; it's your job to hold the family together. And even if he beats you, if the marriage ends, it's your failure."

It was the specter of being labeled a failure that most disturbed Martha. A 70-year-old former social worker, Martha had been married to a minister for the past 33 years. They were important figures in their affluent suburban community. Martha was proud of her social standing, proud of her looks, proud of the husband who was regarded by friends and neighbors as a good man. And she was terrified that any of her church's members would discover that for the past 33 years this good man had repeatedly subjected her to violence of life-threatening intensity.

Martha wasn't interviewed for this article. Her story was told by counselors at the shelter where she fled soon after her 73-year-old husband pushed her down the stairs with such force that she ended up in the hospital with broken ribs. She stayed at that shelter for three months -- the maximum stay allowable there -- one year ago. Efforts by the shelter staff to locate her ever since she left have all been unsuccessful.

"Most women -- especially if they are older -- go back to their mates," says Mary Hartmann, director of the Nothern Westchester (New York) Shelter for Victims of Domestic Violence. "Under the best of circumstances, leaving a husband is never easy. How is an older woman to do it? Her friends and peers often regard divorce as bizarre. And even if she does summon the courage to leave, where is she going to go? Shelter life isn't easy for the younger women. It can be devastating for a woman who is older."

"I had about 50 cases of older spouse abuse last year," says Marie McDonald of VIBS. "Not one was willing to go to a shelter."

In the shelter, Martha had to share a room with a much younger, streetwise woman who stole her belongings. She was in close quarters with several noisy young children and had to cook her meals in a community kitchen. During group counseling sessions with some of the other battered clients, she was forced to confront the fact that just because she had lived longer than these women, just because she was older and supposedly wiser, it didn't mean her life was better than theirs.

Martha also was forced to confront, on a daily basis, the fact that her husband wasn't willing to let go. He wrote her love letters, often two a day, and sent them to the post office box where the battered women could receive mail. Every letter begged her to come back.

Despite the numerous failures of our society to address this issue, some legal options do exist. But there are not many, and even those are not always effective. Laws vary state by state, but in most parts of America a battered woman can get an order of protection or a restraining order that is supposed to keep her spouse from continuing the abuse. Some orders actually evict the abuser from the house. In practice, of course, these are just pieces of paper that may have little effect on an abuser's behavior.

"The courts tend to be especially difficult in this area with older people," says McDonald. "I had a case with a woman in her seventies, and her eighty-plus husband was still hitting her. We all went to court, and the judge got one look at this charming old man and said, 'This is ridiculous. How could he be abusive to her?' But sometimes you'll get an enlightened judge. And sometimes, just sometimes, the abuser could be frightened into changing his tune. Don't forget, abusers are vulnerable, too. They are dependent on the abused spouse's services. They need their meals cooked, their laundry washed."

"An older battered woman's greatest weapon is that her husband doesn't want to be left alone," says Eve Lipchik, a Milwaukee-based family therapist who specializes in abusive relationships. "He's helpless without her. This is why I do believe there is hope for change in the man. If -- and I must stress this -- if he has the desire for change. And the woman has to stick to her guns, too. But if the woman really does say, 'Enough is enough,' if she calls the police every time he hits her, gets legal advice and tells him they have to get counseling or else she leaves, I think adjustments in such a marriage sometimes can be made."

Lipchik's views are controversial. Many other therapists who counsel battered women are far more pessimistic. "Men who are younger almost never change," says shelter counselor Judith Kissell, C.S.W. "Change is possible, but the chances are slim. You think a 70-year-old man who's been abusing his wife his entire adult life is going to change?"

The power of habit is one of the great dividers between older and younger batterers. "Sexual jealousy is probably the main factor in couples from 18 to 30," says Richard Gelles. "But by the time a couple is in their 50s the hitting is more about habits. It's becoming his way of dealing with stress. It's their bond."

The possibility that there might even be bonds between a batterer and his victim isn't a pretty thought. But, say experts in domestic violence, such emotional enmeshment can often be quite intense. "People are always asking, 'Why doesn't she leave?'" says Mary Hartmann. "As if it were that simple. Well, good heavens, if the marriage is bad, why doesn't he? The answer is, leaving is never easy. For either the man or the woman.

"And," Hartmann adds, "even under the best of circumstances, leaving costs money. Many older women don't have money of their own. They probably have never worked. Why leave if you're facing the possibility of ending up as a bag lady?"

Bag lady and abused wife are the options currently available to Carrie. A 56-year-old housewife with no job skills, she has been beaten sporadically for the past 30 years by the man who vowed to love, honor and cherish her. Dave, who is 10 years older, has retired, and the couple now lives modestly on his savings.

Carrie recently emerged from a 6-month depression so severe that all she could do was lie on the couch and cry. She also has a heart condition that her cardiologist says is aggravated by stress. Several weeks ago she woke before dawn with breathing difficulties. "I thought I was having a heart attack," she says. "I thought I should go to the hospital. But then I thought how mad he'd be if I woke him up, so I went to the kitchen, leaned against the wall and tried to breathe for the next few hours. When he got up, I told him what had happened, and he hit me. He says it's all in my head."

Carrie is counseled on a nonresidential basis through a local battered women's shelter. And much as the staff feels for her, just about all they can do is to give her a safe retreat for a few hours a day. "She's really trapped," says her counselor. "Carrie could work in a cafeteria, she could babysit. But she can't really support herself It would be wonderful if I could say to her, 'Hey, you can do it!' But unless Carrie wins the lottery, it's not going to happen."

"I want peace," Carrie says, with tears in her eyes. "I want calm. I want someplace to myself. I want to be where he isn't. But I have no choice but to continue in this life."

Happily for Tillie, there were some choices. In the early months of 1989 Jim began upping the ante with his threats. "Know what a husband should do with a wife like you?" he'd ask. "Stifle her. Shut her up for good." Tillie virtually stopped sleeping. She spent her nights polishing silver instead. Her days were devoted to crying and forcing herself to engage in the hardest thing she'd ever done: breaking down the wall of silence surrounding her marriage.

After 23 years of abuse, she had finally found her way to a women's center. That first tentative step toward freedom led to her taking a course designed to teach women how to change the destructive patterns in their lives. Tillie began looking at herself and her marriage. "I had never considered myself a battered wife before," she says. "An unhappy wife, yes. But I wasn't like Farrah Fawcett in The Burning Bed."

Then one night, Jim kicked the dog down the stairs. When Tillie began to cry, Jim turned on her. "Another word out of you," he said, "and you're next."

Tillie called the women's center a few days later. "I have to get out," she said. "Help me." Miraculously, they were able to. They found Tillie a rented room in a house with another battered wife on the run. With the help of one of her adult sons, she broke the news to her husband that she was leaving, and because of the young man's presence, Jim didn't attack her. That spring and summer, Tillie managed to make ends meet through babysitting. Then, only five months after she turned her back on the prisoner's life, she accepted a job as housemother to a local university sorority. Two and a half years later, she still has this job.

"I'm very open with the girls about my life," says Tillie, who is still periodically harassed over the phone by her estranged husband. "They all know how I feel about violence in relationships. Whenever I hear one of the fellas say anything that isn't respectful, I correct him. Last year I helped one of my girls who was having trouble with a fella get a restraining order. I'm always telling them, Lord help them if they ever let anyone treat them the way my husband treated me."

RELATED ARTICLE: AoA Funds Projects To Assist Older Battered

Women

Calling domestic abuse against women an "unacknowledged epidemic in America," HHS Secretary Donna Shalala has launched a major initiative to define, investigate, and prevent violence against women. Although the major focus of the initiative is young adult women and children, it is concerned about family violence and its effect on persons of all ages, including older women. Assistant Secretary for Aging Fernando Torres-Gil has been meeting with the Director of the Department of Justice's new Office on Violence Against Women to discuss collaborative efforts and has made the issues and concerns of older women a top priority.

In support of the HHS initiative to reduce family violence, AoA has funded six 2-year projects to link, at the state and local levels, organizations working to combat domestic violence with organizations and agencies concerned with the elderly. Working together, they will develop effective model projects aimed at protecting older women from battering by their spouses or partners. The projects are:

The Older Women and Domestic Violence Program Massachusetts Health Research Institute, Inc. 18 Tremont Street Boston, MA 02108

The Massachusetts Health Research Institute is collaborating with the state departments of public health and of elder affairs and the Massachusetts Association of Older Americans to build a statewide system of services to educate and ensure shelter, counseling, and other care for older battered women. The project is developing a resource guide to materials and services for older battered women in Massachusetts, multidisciplinary training for service providers, and a public awareness campaign. The project is also training formerly battered older women to assist women currently in crisis. For information about this project, contact Helene Tomlinson at (617) 523-6565.

Protecting Older Women Against Domestic Violence Women's Center 111 North Market Street Bloomsburg, PA 17815

The Women's Center is collaborating with the local Area Agency on Aging to improve services to older battered women in rural Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. The project is developing a safe home system and support groups, providing local advocacy, conducting public education and outreach, and providing training to professionals within the local community service systems. For more information, contact Melissa Dyas at (717) 784-6632.

Restructuring Aging and Domestic Violence Services for Elderly Battered Women Mt. Zion Institute on Aging 3330 Geary Boulevard San Francisco, CA 94188

This project is building upon the Mt. Zion Institute on Aging's Consortium for Elder Abuse Prevention to establish linkages between local elder abuse and domestic violence networks in the San Francisco area. Its goals are to improve services by adapting shelters, support groups for victims and abusers, and crisis counseling to the needs of older women; to develop a training curriculum; and to enrich community understanding of domestic violence. For more information, contact Lisa Nerenberg at (415) 750-4188.

Protecting Older Latinas Against Domestic Violence National Hispanic Council on Aging 2713 Ontario Road, N.W. Washington, DC 20009

This project is being c out by the National Hispanic Council on Aging in partnership with Ayuda, a community-based Latino agency providing legal and social services to battered Latinas, and with the D.C. Office on Aging. Project goals are to improve services to elderly Latinas at risk of being battered, develop a training program for professionals, and sponsor a public awareness program to increase the Latino community's knowledge about domestic violence in general and elder abuse in particular. For more information, contact Marta Sotomayor, Ph.D., at (202) 745-2521.

Development of a Statewide Protocol for Serving Older and Disabled Battered Women Vermont Network Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault P.O. Box 405 Montpelier, VT 05601

This project is developing a statewide multidisciplinary network to reduce domestic violence against older women by linking the 14 domestic violence programs and the 14 Adult Protective Service teams in Vermont. Projects include specialized safe homes to provide shelter and a training curriculum for domestic violence advocates, APS teams, and health care professionals. Contact Judith Rex at (802) 223-1302 for further information about this project.

Older Battered Women's Project Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence 1400 East Washington, #103 Madison, WI 53703

This project is building upon an existing system of advocacy, technical assistance, policy development, and education to improve services to older battered women. For more information, contact Mary Lauby at (608) 255-0539.

For more information on AoA initiatives to link domestic violence organizations to agencies and organizations serving the elderly, contact Carol Thomhill, Office of Elder Rights Protection, at (202) 619-2044.

RELATED ARTICLE: Resources for Older Battered Women And the Professionals Who Serve Them

Victims of domestic violence can find support and sanctuary at local shelters or by calling local hotlines. In most cases, these sources of help are listed in the Yellow Pages under "CRISIS INTERVENTION" or "EMERGENCY NUMBERS," or they can be located through the directory assistance operator at 411.

For victims who are unable to find help locally, two national hotlines can provide crisis assistance, such as the numbers of regional hotlines and names of shelters. Both hotlines include multilingual operators and hearing impaired services. They ask that victims be as specific as possible when they call and be prepared to tell the operator exactly what kind of help they need. The hotlines are:

The National Victim Center

1-800-FYI-CALL

National Organization for

Victim Assistance

1-800-TRY-NOVA

To assist professionals working to serve the needs of victims, the Domestic Violence Resource Network was established in 1993, with funding from HHS' Administration for Children and Families. The network works in partnership in community-based domestic violence programs; state coalitions; federal, state, and local government agencies; Indian tribal organizations; policymakers; and others. The network consists of four national resource centers:

National Resource Center on Domestic Violence

1-800-537-2238 c/o

Pennsylvania Coalition

Against Domestic Violence

6400 Flank Drive,

Suite 1300

Harrisburg, PA 17112

Contact: Anne Menard

This center provides comprehensive information and resources, policy development and technical assistance to improve community response to, and prevention of, domestic violence.

Battered Women's Justice Project

1-800-903-0111

c/o Minnesota Program

Development, Inc.

206 West Fourth Street

Duluth, NM 55806

Contact: Ellen Pence

The project provides training, technical assistance, and other resources through a partnership of three national organizations:

Domestic Abuse Intervention Project which addresses the criminal justice system's response to domestic violence, including the development of batterers' programs.

National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women which addresses issues raised when battered women are accused of committing crimes.

Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence which addresses civil court access and legal representation issues of battered women.

Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence

1-800-313-1310

c/o Family Violence

Prevention Fund

383 Rhode Island Street,

Suite 304

San Francisco, CA

94103-5133

Contact: Debbie Lee

This center provides specialized information packets designed to strengthen the health care system's response to domestic violence, as well as technical assistance and library services to support health care-based domestic violence training and program development.

Other organizations working to combat family violence include:

The Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence

(206) 634-1903

936 North 34th Street,

Suite 200

Seattle, WA 98103

Contact: Rev. Dr. Marie M.

Fortune

This is the only organization dedicated to helping clergy in the U.S. and Canada to respond effectively and compassionately to victims, offenders, and their families. The center develops educational programs, literature, and videos. Promotes networking among religious and secular organizations. Produces a quarterly newsletter.

National Network to End Domestic Violence

(512) 794-1133

c/o Texas Council on

Family Violence

8701 North Mopac

Expressway, Suite 450

Austin, TX 78759

Contact: Debby Tucker

This network provides technical assistance and other support to battered women's shelters in Texas, educates the public about the causes and effects of family violence, and advocates for better laws and public policy to protect battered women and their children. The council also operates a local 24-hour hotline for women in crisis. In addition, it conducts training institutes for professionals working in the areas of legal advocacy, counseling, and prevention.

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