The Michigan Daily-Sunday, October 11, 1981-Page 5 Many battered women find help I (Continued from Page 1) how he would swear he would never hit her again, of how he would accuse her of having affairs. "At one point I used to take down the mileage everywhere I went so I could prove I wasn't seeing anyone else. He accused me of it so much I started to believe it. "I was so in love with him when I met hiri iThe first year-and-a-half we were together was beautiful." Wood #esitated for a moment, and added, "I still love him." - * DOMESTIC VIOLENCE has no boundaries. It cuts'across race, class and. educational 'levels, according to staff: members of the Domestic Violen- ce Project, which sponsors SAFE House and offers violence prevention an.4. treatment services to families in Southeastern Michigan. Aecording to agency statistics, 35 percent of all assault cases in W4shtenaw County in 1979 were related tolomestic violence. Qomestic violence may not be on the rise, but it is coming out of the closet, si4 Lew Okun, who counsels abusive hubands at the Domestic Violence Project. "Battered women's shelters d4i't exist in the U.S. until 1974. There wasn't much help for the person coming outbefore that." THE VIOLENT behavior that occurs is the abuser's problem,, not the vic- tim's, explained Susan McGee, ad- vocacy supervisor of the Domestic Violence Project. "There is no cause and effect - she is the object of his frustrations," McGee said. These fiustrations,. counselors said, mount from a variety of factors: among them poor self-esteem, an inability to cope with feelings and anger, alcoholism and unemployment. In addition, many abusive husbands were battered as children or had fathers that abused their mothers, Okun said. The abusive behavior is passed down through the generations, he added. Wife abuse also stems from the "old law" that said it was legal to beat your spouse, Okun said. The saying, "Rule of Thumb" comes from a law that said a man could beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb, he noted. ABUSIVE HUSBANDS also tend to blame the woman for their violent behavior, maintaining that they were provoked into beating her. "This is one of the most destructive myths, it puts the blame back on the woman," McGee said. "We've done studies, and many of these women didn't know when they were going to be beaten up. Many were woken up in the ,middle ,of the night and beaten. How could they have provoked that?" But some women do provoke their husbands into beating them, said Stephanie Vail, executive director of the Domestic Violence Project. This generally occurs during a time when the tension between the couple is high and the woman knows the man may ex- plode at any time. "SHE KNOWS it's coming and can't stand the stress of trying to divert it any longer," she said. The woman wants to get it over with so the couple can move onto a phase where they make up and he promises her he'll never hit her again, she explained. The couple is locked into a symbiotic relationship, Vail said. They both need each other and are locked into a bat- tering cycle. Neither likes the violence, but they don't know how to end it, she said. Why doesn't the woman leave? Mainly for economic reasons, ex- plained University law student Chris Brzezinski, coordinator of the Family Law Project, a volunteer program that handles indigent divorce cases for low income families. "The women have nowhere to go and no money to get there," she said. "The man has usually isolated her from family and friends." Many women realize that if they do leave they may lose what possessions they, have, Brzezinski said. "Some men have killed their wives' pets and-ruined all their possessions." SHE ALSO said some women do not want to break up their families, believing that it is better for, their children to grow up with an abusive father than no father at all. Some women, like Wood, eventually do break off the relationship and file for divorce. "If it wasn't for SAFE House I never could have left my husband," Wood said. "They never told me to leave him, but let me make the decision myself." WOOD STAYED at the shelter for three weeks, giving her time to find an apartment for herself and her daughter. The limit any family can stay at the shelter is 30 days, but there are extensive follow-up programs for as long as an individual wants to use them. The Domestic Violence Project offers counseling services for battered women, abusive husbands, couples trying to reconcile and for children. The program has a 24-hour hotline! and two people on call 24 hours a day to, pick up women and bring them to SAFE House. SAFE House staffers help women find jobs, child care, apartments, fur- niture and provide a support network of caring people that the victims need at this stage in their lives. " Vail said children's programs are very important. "We work with the children and set role models for them - male and female ones. We think it's im- portant for them to see men and women getting along. "We teach -the mother parenting skills," she said. "We stress how to con- trol a child without the use of violence. Hopefully wecan break the cycle here. The children are so responsive, it's rewarding for the staff," Vail said. S~f'S a ** OCTOBER 16.17 - MICHIGAN THEATRE Tickets available at the Michigan Theatre Box Office Daily Classifieds Bring Results Abuse poses problems .f r 1 in 5 student couples (Continued fom Page ') JUDY PRICE, a counselor at the Assault Crisis Center, said the center repives calls on a regigtar basis from fgale University students who have beqn, abused by their boyfriends. She said, however, that many cases go unreported because "students discount abuse a lot." "I think students will be busy dealing with other pressures of University life, and they say this person has problems azpd ignore the situation," Price said. Dave Foulke, manager of security services for the University's housing didvision, said he receives one or two reports each term of physical abuse in University housing. THIS TERM, Foulke said, a woman coght in an abusive relationship moved from off-campus housing to" a dormitory because she felt she needed safer housing. The resident director of West Quad's Chicago House, Mary Russman, said physical abuse sometimes occurs in 4or.mitories, although the cases she has been involved in are "usually an in- stance or two, a flareuo." SOCIOLOGIST James Makepeace, a professor at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn.,: who conducted thq abuse study, said 49 percent of the stgddents surveyed reported knowing fejow students who were slapped by toeir boyfriends or girlfriends. Mgkepeace, who was then teaching at 1e5nidji State University in Minnesota, when the survey was conducted, said an additional 13 percent reported that they Yl4 either delivered or received blows. 1agcepeace's study reflects similar statistics in incidents of punching or physical threats. o ,'This is something that has been going on a long time, although everyone has swallowed almost wholly the notion -of this premarital period as roman- ticism," Makepeace said, describing campus dating° experiences as "real relationships with real problems." Makepeace, who said his results have been confirmed in similar surveys throughout the country, now feels that the 20 percent figure for student abuse may be a conservative estimate, and more likely "at least one out of four students" are involved. University counselors said juggling academic pressures with dating presents unique problems to the student, and often exacerbates abusive tendencies. Students have problems scheduling academic and personal priorities, said Jane Hessinger, a counselor at Student Services Counseling Office. "Problems come up when students have unclear priorities," Hessinger said. "Students feel pressured to spend time with studies to the exclusion of time spent forming a good relation- ship." r x ll Nirtuoso )rmance i Rerfc Classical records at the LOWEST prices in Ann Arbor. Expanded selection, including all I