In so many times and in so many conversations I’ve had, the same cries for help have gone unheeded. “ My husband has changed somehow. I don’t know if it’s his job or his military service but he’s changed. I’ve asked his employer to do something to help him and they simply push me off. I cannot take much more of this. His threats against me and the kids are terrifying. I don’t want to cost him his job, but if it continues much more, I’ll have no choice but to call the police and have him arrested for domestic violence and get a restraining order.”
Why should it have to come to this? Why can’t the wife of a military veteran or a police officer simply ask for help for their spouse and get it? The problem puts wife into a situation where she has to make a choice that she’s not comfortable with. We have heard about abused wives and guns needing to be removed from husbands from the women’s groups, and they talk about strengthening domestic violence laws, to ensure that that is being done,yet these same groups are strangely quiet concerning the root cause of many domestic situations, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You would think that, for the sake of the wife who is living through and watching this hell unfold daily, that there would be a hue and cry about the inaction of police departments and the military in getting help for officers and soldiers suffering from PTSD. These groups would preach that the male needs to be restrained from seeing the wife by court order and that he needs to disarmed. Yet, in my experience, restraining orders are just a piece of paper and taking away a weapon won’t ensure that the male spouse won’t get another weapon.
Yes, those measures are good and needed and afford a certain amount of stability to an unstable marriage or dating relationship. But it falls short for long term solutions to the problem. The rationale of these laws is to correct the poor behavior of the spouse and hopefully reunite the couple. This is difficult if not impossible if the defendant is struggling with PTSD. His lack of ability to sleep soundly or long enough, his nightmarish visions and flashbacks robbing him of any rest, everyday events and objects and sounds and sights set off triggers putting him back into the time and place that caused the PTSD, his uncontrolled crying, his difficulty with emotions and dealing with everyday responsibility, to name a few symptoms, makes for a person that cannot deal with any more problems than he’s already overwhelmed with.
So how does this play out in the everyday world we live in? The husband comes home from work dealing the best he can keeping these nightmares and feelings under control. Every little demand made at work seems monumental, but somehow he’s able to deal with it and just get by .He sits down and he hears his wife complaining about the neighbor’s cat for example .A small everyday problem that seemed important to the wife. He’s trying to keep from exploding because this is not the conversation he wanted to hear and he is about at the point that he cannot deal with anything more .But she goes on and now he’s not paying attention. He’s still dealing with what happened at work today and wondering how tomorrow will be for him, if sometime soon he won’t be able to this job anymore because the strain is getting to be too much. Then the inevitable words that set off the fuse that he doesn’t seem to care or pay attention. He explodes about his horrible life and how he wishes he was dead, but there’s no sense talking to his wife because she just doesn’t get it. His words coming flying out and they are painful and hurtful. He says horrible things to her about her and the children calling them terrible names. Why? Because he can’t deal with his symptoms and he can’t deal with her problems because he just can’t deal with any more problems right now. If she would just understand and leave him alone, everything would be fine, he wishes, but he never expresses that to his wife. He doesn’t express much of anything.
The wife is miserable in her existence and cannot handle too much more of this verbal abuse. She wants it to end but she knows that he’ll lose his gun if he’s in the military or the police (Lautenberg Act) and lose his job. And a restraining order will just infuriate him and it’s just a piece of paper .It won’t stop him. She cannot turn to the employer because they will take action against him for domestic violence and she cannot afford for him to lose his job. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to be able to get him the help he needs to deal with this job related injury? The sad reality is that most police departments and the military are sadly lacking in any counselling programs, and that most would rather terminate the soldier or the officer rather than counsel them ( Badge of Life). And the women’s groups just add fuel to this fire by demanding harsher domestic violence sanctions and tougher gun laws, instead of counseling.
This is short sighted at best. The normal course of action would be that a domestic violence report is taken, and an arrest is made, if warranted. A restraining order is put in place and a court date set. The judge determines whether to vacate the restraining order or make it final. Usually the restraining order is vacated and the couple reunited. Even if it becomes final it is just a piece of paper. If the cause of the domestic, in this case PTSD is not addressed this will repeat itself. One would think that removing or modifying the cause, the PTSD, would be the best remedy. Yet the remedy trumpeted by women’s groups is to punish the male and not treat him. I would think that making an attempt to remedy the situation in the interest of the wife seeing she has begged and pleaded would be given some credence. But their “remedies” as such presently fall short of treating the cause. Instead they would have us treat the symptoms of the problem .PTSD tears families apart. Males cannot be husbands and fathers as they would like to be. To demand that a male experiencing PTSD act more like a father and a husband , demand made by women’s groups is demanding that a male do something he is not fully capable of doing. What good can come of that in the end and how is that best serving women who are wives and mothers?
