It’s not as easy as you think to get rid of family violence

I am so confused. A Kitchener man drinks heavily and gets in an argument with his wife. He puts her in a headlock, throws her to the ground and chokes her.

About 20 seconds later she is able to get away. She runs upstairs. But he catches her, and says “This is it,” as he chokes her again — this time, so hard that she loses control of her bladder.

That happened about eight months ago.

If he had done that to a stranger, he would probably be in jail.

But this week, Justice Craig Parry released this man back to his wife and to their family home for four months of “house arrest.”

That’s what the wife apparently wanted.

Not only did she want her husband back, but she also complained that he hadn’t been allowed to contact her earlier.

The man’s bail conditions had prevented him from contacting his wife. I think that’s reasonable, don’t you? If I had been the victim of such a severe attack, I would expect the justice system to protect me.

But this woman was not impressed, saying in a victim impact statement that the court process punished her and divided the family.

“I feel I have tried over and over to be allowed to speak to my spouse and that has fallen by the wayside,” she wrote. “I feel I have been disregarded by this process.”

She went on to say that no one’s life is defined by one single event. I can’t agree. I’ve interviewed too many abused women over the years, women who somehow managed to forgive and stay with partners who had beaten and belittled them, even abducted the children — only to have something even worse happen after the apology.

If a person can do something terrible once, he can do it again.

That’s why young people are warned: If your partner assaults you, even once, it’s a deal-breaker. Walk away, and don’t look back.

The woman had described her husband as having “always served to lift me up and to positively impact our family.”

Oh, except for that one time when he nearly killed me.

Parry described the woman as “empowered, intelligent and rational” and noted her husband has attended counselling and abuse prevention programs.

But social workers who spend their entire careers working with family violence know these things about it:

The violent partner is not violent all the time, but that does not make him or her safe to be around.

Violence goes in cycles. The violent partner goes through periods of being very, very sorry, during which he or she may participate in counselling. This does not guarantee that the bad behaviour won’t happen again.

Many abuse victims are intelligent, strong people, yet they are simply unable (for whatever reason) to walk away from a controlling, abusive spouse.

To the extent that courts are there to protect victims, I am not confident. The wife may think she knows her husband well, but it takes many years to make fundamental and lasting changes in behaviour. What if he gets into another furious rage six months from now, and can’t control himself ?

To the extent that courts are there to send a message to the wider community about how our society abhors violence, this decision completely fails.