Jan Jarboe Russell - Jan Jarboe Russell
In one fairy-tale version of Christmas, San Antonio families will gather around peaceful hearths to give each other gifts of joy.
But Marta Peláez knows a dark side of Christmas — one in which emotions run high, money runs low and women receive gifts of violence.
“I call it the hunting season,” said Peláez, director of Family Violence Prevention Services Inc. “It's the time of year when men who regularly abuse women go hunting.”
The facts bear her out.
Last Christmas Eve, Kimberly Tello, 18, was shot in the head and killed. Her boyfriend Richard Nathan Gallardo, of the same age, was indicted in March and is out on bail awaiting a February trial. Since her slaying, 15 more women in San Antonio have been killed, allegedly by their husbands or boyfriends, all of them domestic violence victims. That number does not include women with histories of abuse who fell into despair and committed suicide, leaving children with the agonizing question: What could I have done to save her life?
On the day I interviewed Peláez, 148 people were in residence at the Battered Women and Children's Shelter, hiding from their “hunters.” All these residents want for Christmas: safe harbor.
Meanwhile, there also are those victims of abuse no longer at the shelter but whose Christmas will never again be peaceful.
One abuse victim in her early 30s is home now, recuperating from a physical assault by her husband, who stabbed her deep in the mouth with a large kitchen knife, cutting her tongue and permanently disfiguring her face. For now, the man is in jail, charged with the abuse. “How will this young woman ever really heal?” Peláez asked. “What is the mindset of a man who does that to his wife?”
It's a rhetorical question because Peláez, who has worked in this field a very long time, knows the mindset well.
Once a woman stays in an abusive relationship, even for one year, it's difficult to overcome the erosion in self-esteem and the humiliation of having “failed” at the relationship or marriage. Too often, pastors and priests advise women to stay in abusive marriages, characterizing abuse as a cross to bear. Popular culture routinely equates violence with sex.
What's not acknowledged is how persistent sexism destroys men's lives as well. Over the years, Peláez has heard the stories of broken men who felt frustrated by the confusing uncertainty of their own lives — job insecurity, mounting bills, the need to feel in control — and took those frustrations out on wives.
For everyone who lives in a real family, and not in a fairy tale, here's the truth: Times are difficult, globally and locally. None of us needs more discouragement, anger, criticism or chaos.
If you are in an abusive relationship: Leave. There is no comfort or security in the familiar pattern of abuse. If you are in crisis, call the Battered Women and Children's Shelter at (210) 733-8810.
For those with the ordinary problems of family life — kids with rumbling stomachs or broken hearts, parents who are old and lonely, friends who feel hopeless, spouses who occasionally feel overwhelmed — count your blessings. These are tender mercies.
jrussell@express-news.net
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