Montrose - Daily Press

Matt Hildner

Daily Press Writer

MONTROSE — He told her they would only be gone a week.

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Simply a vacation to a sunny state, nothing more.

The week-long vacation turned into a year for Janet, with no access to a phone in the middle of nowhere. Sequestered in her husband’s house, she had no contact with friends or her family members living back on the Western Slope.

“For a year, my family didn’t know anything. They thought I was dead, that he had killed me,” she said in Spanish.

For Janet, whose name has been changed for this article to protect her identity, the episode was but one part of an abusive marriage in which she was belittled, not allowed to work and hit.

While not all cases of domestic abuse result in violence or kidnapping, advocacy groups and law enforcement officials have spent this month educating the public about the problem as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Domestic violence can include a wide range of behavior used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner.

“What happens is a lot of women only think of domestic violence as being hit and punched and slapped and kicked,” said Becky Ela, director of the Tri-County Resource Center, which provides shelter, counseling and legal advocacy for victims of domestic abuse in Montrose, Ouray and Delta counties. “And the reality is that’s a smaller percent of domestic violence compared to emotional abuse or financial abuse or being coerced or threatened.”

Getting a helping hand

In the Uncompahgre Valley, the first stop for women who need help is often Tri-County Resource Center.

The group has safe houses in Delta and Montrose counties that are used to keep domestic abuse victims out of danger when they have no place else to go.

This year alone the organization has given shelter to 81 women and their children.

They also help victims find jobs, affordable housing, and if need be, re-enroll their children in school.

One of the most important roles Tri-County has, however, is helping victims recognize how to avoid abusive relationships.

“My big soapbox is teaching these women how to set boundaries and set limits and say ‘OK, this is what’s appropriate and this is inappropriate,” Ela said. “Most of these women have never had an experience with saying, ‘No, I’m not going to do this.’”

Ela said the center’s support group helps get women down that path.

“If you have someone who’s been out of relationship for a while, they can say, ‘Well you know what, you were exactly where I was five years ago.’”

Coming and going

Leaving an abusive relationship is often difficult, according to Ela, especially for women with limited financial resources.

They may not have money, access to affordable housing, or they may be worried about the consequences leaving may have on their children.

The emotional attachment to a boyfriend or husband also means women who seek shelter from violence may go back to the relationship.

“There is a huge loss there that I think a lot of the public who doesn’t know about domestic violence - they don’t think of that,” she said.

For Nikki Geist, who spent 14 years in and out of abusive relationships, going back was often as much a behavioral pattern as it was an emotional attachment to any one person.

“There’s just moments of weakness or loneliness,” she said. “We women are used to being in relationships and then being out on your own, you’re scared so you go and you get into another relationship.”

After Janet left the relationship once to stay with her family, she relented to a constant stream of phone calls from her husband and returned to live with him.

But the problems in her marriage remained.

“In all marriages there are problems and they work themselves out, but these kept getting bigger,” she said.

Getting out of isolation

The involvement of family and friends in the life of an abuse victim can often play a critical role in helping that person leave.

“One of the really common things that happens in an abusive relationship is the person who is the abusee becomes isolated,” Ela said.

The lack of contact outside the relationship often makes it harder for a victim of abuse to leave.

Ela pointed to an instance before she became a domestic violence counselor when one of her friends was involved in an abusive relationship.

“I was mad at her because she wouldn’t call, and my husband was the one who said you need to keep calling, you need to make contact, you need to do these things because she’s not able to,” Ela said.

When her friend did choose to leave, she left the Front Range and drove all the way to the Western Slope to stay with Ela.

“The best thing friends and family can do is stay in touch, and that’s phone calls, dropping by, maintaining contact throughout the time,” she said. “I can’t say how important that is because that will make the difference between someone leaving and having a place to go.”

Ela, however, does not recommend that friends and family physically intervene in a relationship.

“All perpetrators are not created equal. There are true sociopaths who will do anything to control their victim, including killing them. And then there are offenders who had too much to drink and got in an argument.

“The danger in intervening is you don’t know which end of the spectrum you’re dealing with,” she said.

For Geist, part of her isolation was self-imposed.

“I felt isolated not only because I’ve had men that are controlling and dominating. I also kind of isolated myself out of embarrasment,” she said.

It was that isolation that allowed her to hide her bruises and the shame she felt at being in an abusive relationship.

One of the reasons Geist insisted on using her real name for this article is she wants other women, who may need help, to break their isolation.

“A lot of women endure for many years because of the embarrassment. They feel weak, they feel like it’s their fault, they’re scared. But they can’t get help if they don’t get out there and they don’t ask for it,” she said.

“I want to show women you don’t need to be embarrassed and you don’t need to be scared,” she said.

While Geist is just now renewing relationships with her mother and father in Southern California, her 14-year-old son motivated her to end the cycle of abusive relationships that included three marriages.

“It made things a little scarier because you also have someone else to look out for, not only yourself. You have a little person who’s dependent upon you,” she said.

For Janet, the help of her family did not come in the form of a dramatic intervention, but nevertheless played a key role in her decision to leave the relationship and her ability to eventually stay out of it.

When Janet decided to leave, she had no money. She had spent the time in her marriage cleaning houses for her husband, who refused to pay her a wage.

By helping her pay for a place to stay and a car after she got out of the relationship, Janet’s siblings made it easier for her to get on with her life.

For many victims of abuse, not having control over their income makes taking the necessary steps to leave — like buying a bus ticket or paying for a hotel room — that much harder.

Coming through

For now both women are single. Neither have boyfriends or have given too much thought to marrying again.

Geist has been going to self improvement classes to learn more about herself and to learn about the red flags she should look out for in future partners.

She’s learned to put more stock in whether men have close relationships with their families, treat their mothers well, and have a past history of drug use or failed relationships.

“Before I would go, ‘This is just a little thing — I can ignore that, or I can change him.’”

She has not been in a relationship for eight months and she doesn’t see one on the near horizon, either.

“That’s why I’ve chosen not to be in a relationship — because I don’t trust my judgment just yet,” she said.

Janet has been out of her abusive relationship for nearly three years.

“I don’t want to get married now,” Janet said. “I have the fear that something is going to happen and I’ll go through the same thing again.

Her only goal is to get a job, make money and help the family relocate her parents from Mexico to the United States.

“I feel content because my family never left me,” Janet said. “I haven’t lacked for anything, thank God.”

Contact Matt Hildner via e-mail at matth@montrosepress.com

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