Elaine Weiss: A Story of Marital Abuse

Ann English 10

Walking Away Isn’t Easy

Elaine Weiss has been married two times in her adult life. Her first husband caused her to feel like less of a woman with the abuse that he inflicted on her. She is happily married now, but even to this day when she hears someone say, “Why don’t these women just leave?” she cringes and wants to give them a piece of her mind.
Elaine has spent 19 years trying to figure out how she ended up in an abusive relationship. She still has nightmares about the abuse. She tried everything she knew to help her marriage. She suggested to her first husband that they should go to couples therapy, and they went. The therapist, that was supposed to be helping them both, berated her for not being able to make her husband happy. He told her that she needs to stop acting like a little girl, and be the grown up woman she agreed to be when she married this man. In front of friends and family they both acted like they were totally in love. Elaine had to lie about what was happening because she thought they would say that she was a failure, and how could she say such things about her loving husband. So, Elaine suffered in silence until one day in Manhattan.
The first spark of hope that she would be able to stand up to her husband, came from a stranger on a street corner. Elaine had been admiring a building, thinking how beautiful it was, and asked her husband what he thought of it. He did what he always did. He made a hurtful comment about what she thought was beautiful. There was a woman standing behind them that overheard this. She turned to him and said that the building was beautiful, and told him that he was being a complete jerk. Elaine realized then, that if a complete stranger could put him in his place and stand up to him, she could too.
Elaine went back to school. While she was there, she had professors giving her praise and encouragement. She realized the more things she did for herself the less her husband inflicted the abuse. She was living her life, as if she was single. Elaine started making friends. She started feeling like she could let go of this horrible experience in her life. Elaine announced that the marriage was over. Her husband begged her to stay. He made promises that he would change, but she had changed so much that there wasn’t anything he could say to keep her from leaving.
Elaine was one of the lucky ones. She made it out. There are a lot of women in this world that don’t make it out without injury; to their minds, physical bodies, or spiritual bodies. These women become so broken, they believe that they are worthless, don’t deserve any better, and they keep repeating the same cycle over and over.
Walking away isn’t easy, but it can be done. Elaine Weiss, and others, that have been in the same situation are out there telling their stories to help women of abuse realize that they can get out and stay out.