Deb was a lovely woman living a nightmare. It wasn’t just that her husband verbally and physically abused her. Even worse, he tried to control her. It started slowly, but before long he was monitoring and restricting her phone calls. He made it very difficult for her to leave the house. When she went to the market, he gave her one hour and threw a fit if she came home a minute late. Deb felt she was slowly being strangled. She wanted, needed, to get out. But how?

Few things are more difficult than leaving a relationship with a controlling person, especially when kids are involved. But there is a way, and it’s called the safety-first procedure. The safety-first procedure is doable, and people use it successfully all the time.

Before I tell you what to do, I need to make one thing very clear. The safety-first procedure that I’m about to suggest is not a useful way to proceed in most normal cases. It creates terrible ill will and a totally adversarial climate. You should only use the safety-first procedure when you have a controlling, abusive spouse who leaves you no alternative. Are you in that situation? 

The hallmark of the controlling spouse is this: he or she won’t let you freely contact friends and relatives and won’t let you freely meet with people outside and inside your home.  This is NOT the same as a spouse who grumbles about your family, or who says, “Where the hell were you?” if you come home late.  This kind of thing is normal.  But a truly controlling spouse treats you like a criminal when you contact or get together with almost anybody. 

And if that’s the case, you have to use the safety-first procedure.  There are two keys to the safety-first procedure: You can’t do it alone, and you have to plan.

Here’s what you do.

The first step is to get the important people on board.

You need a lawyer who can advise you. You might have far more rights and options than you imagine. In addition, your lawyer can warn you against making possible mistakes. With your lawyer, you can work out a plan for what to do and when to do it.

You need a close friend or family member who knows how to keep her mouth shut. This friend can help in 101 ways — from giving you advice and support to giving you a place to stay temporarily, and everything in between. This person also can send letters and messages for you so that your plans are kept secret.

And, where necessary, you need a person who can lend or give you some money to pay a few bills and get you through the transition to being safely on your own.

If this doesn’t seem doable, you have a fallback. Before you act, contact a shelter for women with children who are leaving abusive relationships. The people running this shelter can advise you on what your best courses of action are, and they might be able to help you find alternatives to going to a shelter.

Once you have your people in place, you start making your plan. Here’s what you need: a place to go where you and your children will be safe, money to tide you over and a legal strategy that will assure that you can hold on to your kids and to all the assets that you have coming to you.

Now this is most important. However tough things are, and they can be really tough, you can’t tip your hand to your spouse or to anyone who might tell him. You have to play it cool until your plan and everything you need to carry it out are in place.

And then one day, when everything is all set up, you make your move.  You probably won’t need a window of more than an hour. 

You may think this is a dirty trick to play on someone.  Even people who’ve been victimized by the most controlling partner elicit some feeling of pity, and so we say, “How can I do this to him?”  Well, you wouldn’t be doing this if it were a situation where you and your spouse simply didn’t get along.  But come on: you’re in this situation because your partner has treated you like someone who is sub-human.  You are being destroyed as a human being. 

And so you have a right to do whatever you can, within the law, to set yourself free. 

If you follow this safety-first procedure, you and your kids will be under a new roof before your controlling spouse even knows what’s going on — but he won’t know your address. You’ll have done the best thing to start a new, safer and happier life.

I know this will help. Please let me know how it turns out for you.

But I also need the help of everyone out there who’s gone through this. What mistakes did you make? What do you wish you’d done differently? What great idea or resource did you discover that will help others? This is an area where we’ve all got to help each other.

How do you know if you’re in the situation where your relationship is no longer worth staying in?  For help with that, check out the classic book on the subject by clicking here. 

You deserve a good life in which you are free to live like a human being.  Please, please do what you can to make that happen.

Love, Mira and Charles

Posted: Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Category: Relationships, News & Notes, Emotional Energy, Decision Making
Author: Mira and Charles
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