we need to create programs that have resources ALWAYS available such as permanent housing, career training or college for every women who comes through the door, moving assistance, transportation to wherever they need to go in the event they cannot take the car when they leave, counseling and services to heal the heart and mind, legal help/divorce services and financial assistance for a long enough period of time for a woman to become self sufficient and any other service that a woman may need to stabilize her life. There should be some guidelines such as a legally binding agreement that once the woman is in the program, she will not go back to her abuser and she must have a strong desire to become successful and be in the right frame of mind to deal with the abuse and move on and she must be willing to put forth a great deal of effort and commitment to follow the guidelines of the program such as having acceptable attendance in training or college classes, attending counseling sessions regularly and following through on a life plan agreed upon by the victim and the assisting agency.
These services should make leaving an abusive situation much less traumatic and more like just moving to another home. Why should a woman have to uproot her whole life just because she lives with a man who can’t treat her like a human being? These services should eliminate a lot of the reasons women stay in abusive relationships.
If there was a program like that available, I’d be gone tomorrow. I just don’t want to have to leave my dogs and all my belongings behind because my husband is an asshole. No he doesn’t need counseling. He needs some bigger man to kick the shit out of him and give him a reality check that it’s not okay to threaten to leave the marriage if he doesn’t get his own way. If I had the financial means an employment, I’d help him with his desire to get out of the marriage since it seems that’s what he wants so bad. To threaten to leave just because I won’t put my daughter on a Greyhound bus so he doesn’t have to deal with her is inexcusable. It’s like being in a relationship with a 5’ 7” 2 year old. Physically he may be almost 34 but emotionally, he acts like he’s 2 and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the threats. One day soon, he may just get his wish.
