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68 | 6 Laurie and Paul Emerging from a Cocoon Facts of the case: Paul battered and sexually abused his wife, Laurie , throughout their ten-year marriage. He was arrested for raping her at knifepoint and sentenced to serve fifteen years in prison. Laurie also suspected him of sexually abusing one of their daughters and possibly their son. Their youngest daughter—their fourth child—was conceived from the rape. I interviewed both Laurie and Paul and had access to their case files, the letters they exchanged, and the videotape of their dialogue. Laurie loves butterflies. She loves their colors and their graceful flight, but most of all she identifies with them because, like them, she herself hid inside a cocoon and then emerged and transformed. In many ways, Laurie’s story about living with an abusive husband is a familiar one. Paul exhibited most of the typical characteristics of batterers:1 he was jealous and controlling , viewed his wife and children as possessions, and engaged in verbal and physical abuse. Because both other family members and the criminal justice system ignored Laurie’s plight, she felt helpless to leave Paul. She internalized powerful social messages which dictate that women have the responsibility to nurture relationships and fix them when they go wrong. Laurie hoped Paul would change, and she wanted him there to be a father to their children. This hope persisted until the night Paul brutally raped Laurie at knifepoint and almost killed her. Laurie met Paul when she was about twenty-one years old and living with her parents, who were very protective of her. Laurie had had several schoolgirl crushes on boys, but she had never had a boyfriend or actively dated. Through a connection at her church, Laurie landed one of her first jobs working at a steakhouse, where she met a co-worker, named Paul, who took an interest in her. Laurie was flattered by his attention, and things between them escalated quickly. She moved out of her parents’ house and into an Laurie and Paul | 69 apartment with him within a few months, despite their protestations. Her parents were particularly upset that Paul was African American (Laurie and her family are white). Paul was about five years older than Laurie, and he was very streetwise. He had grown up in foster homes and had an abusive childhood. Laurie felt sorry for him and wanted to make his life better, so when he pushed to get married, they did so quickly. Danger signs were apparent early on; Paul seemed jealous when Laurie talked to other people and possessive of her time, but she initially felt flattered by his interest and thought he was being protective.2 Paul constantly berated Laurie, telling her she was “totally stupid, totally incapable of surviving without him.” Laurie says, “I couldn’t do anything. And I believed him.”3 Paul’s psychological battering succeeded in creating deep self-doubt in Laurie, which she says was reinforced by her religious background and her church’s rejection of her because she married an African American man.4 Paul’s emotional abuse quickly escalated to frequent and severe physical abuse. When Laurie got pregnant, she felt that her fate was sealed. She had been raised to believe that every child needed a father, and once you were married, you were married forever. Laurie and Paul had three children together during their ten years of marriage . It was a difficult home life. Laurie struggled to keep things intact and always stayed employed, even when Paul lost his jobs and sabotaged her job responsibilities, which involved working steadily at a local manufacturing company, twelve-hour shifts nine and ten days in a row.5 Paul was supposed to carry his weight on the home front, taking care of the kids and the house, but “that made him feel less of a man, so he wouldn’t do the housework.” Paul made Laurie give him all the money she earned, but he spent her money on alcohol and pornography while their bills were unpaid and the children went without food and clothing. When Laurie grew weary of the daily stresses, she demanded that she keep her paycheck and they split the bills; it was at this point that Paul became very physically abusive. Laurie also began to suspect that something was wrong with the kids, who begged her not to leave them when she got ready for work every day. She had a sense that Paul was...

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