Be On the Safe Side - Think Revenge

Seemona Sumasar - Finally out of jail! (photo, CBS News)

If you are trying to extricate yourself from a bad dating or marriage situation, this story from The New York Times might sound off some internal alarms.  Imagine a business woman in a big city who meets a charming guy who says he is in law enforcement.  He insists on moving in, and won't move out.  One day he restrains and rapes her.  When she files charges and won't back down, the craziness starts.

A year later, she has spent 7 months in jail on revenge charges he invented, lost her home and business, and he is currently now in jail, claiming he is innocent and she is framing him (exactly as he framed her).  The abuse and control continues.

WNL:   People who have no personal experience with coercive control (intimate partner abuse) say "Why doesn't she stand up for herself?  Why doesn't she just leave?" Because it gets worse and not better, and control is not about divorce or breakups, it's about CONTROL.

Who needs to read a depressing story like this?  Well, if you know that something this diabolical can happen to an ordinary unsuspecting woman, you now know that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that something similar could happen to you, your sister, or a friend.  And WNL believes knowing how bad things can get is the best defense for keeping bad things from happening, and from escalating into really bad things.