Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 4, 1991 TAG: 9102040108
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
She quit her job, but later she ran into him at the produce section of the supermarket. They talked, she gave him her telephone number, and they started dating.
In less than a year, they were married.
"He was the sweetest person," she remembers. "He was so different from the other guys I'd dated. He wasn't the cool con."
But when disagreements and jealousy caused strains in their marriage, Lynn saw a side of David she hadn't thought existed - and that David says he never knew was there.
When their arguments got heated, he hit her.
"There's been times that he's hit me and I've not been able to breathe," Lynn said.
After about five assaults, David sought help. He volunteered last summer to go through a "men's anger control group" at Family Service of Roanoke Valley. He says it has helped him learn how to control his anger - and what he needed to do to make his marriage work.
David and Lynn, who have been married four years, have been trying since then to make their relationship last. David said it has been been more than six months since he last assaulted her.
David, 26, said he had never been violent before. "I had never even been in a fistfight."
But during arguments, he said, he would become angry over what he saw as her "nagging." His head would throb and his anger would peak. Then he'd strike out.
"It's like I'm going to show her. And the fist or the kicking or hitting is the answer to the whole question. Just to let her know who's boss."
After the first time he hit Lynn, he said, "I felt like crying. I couldn't believe I did it."
He grabbed his keys and left. He didn't come back until the next morning. "I couldn't say anything to her. I couldn't talk. Just went in, got ready for work and left."
As with many women who are victims of domestic violence, Lynn, also 26, blamed herself at first. "I always put myself down when all this happened, because I didn't do this or didn't do that."
She would hide from him, sometimes locking herself in the bathroom.
The assaults also had an effect on their son, 4. He would start screaming and crying when his parents argued, Lynn said.
David said the Family Service program helped him learn about himself by listening to other men talk about their problems with violence.
Now when he and his wife argue, David said, they sit down and write the pros and cons of their disagreement on paper.
"We talk much more," Lynn said last year, when she was interviewed for a documentary on domestic violence. "We talk about things that we couldn't talk about in the past. . . . We're best friends now. He's my buddy. . . . If I have a problem, I tell him. If he has a problem, he tells me."
They still live apart, he with his mother and she with hers. But David said he hopes they will be back living together soon.
But he said he understands that complete trust is something that is hard to win.
"That's something I still got to work on. I have to get that initial trust from her to show her that it's not going to happen again."
\ NOTE: Counseling: Family Service of Roanoke Valley offers counseling for abused women and abusing men. The telephone number is 563-5316.
The Turning Point shelter offers a place to stay and counseling for battered women and their children. The telephone number is 345-0400.
by CNB