Why would a battered wife grieve the loss of an abuser?

 

   "I remember how relieved I was to get away safely after that final brutal assault. But I was completely unprepared for the devastating sense of loss I experienced. My husband, who I genuinely loved, and my marriage, along with all my hopes for it, was just… gone.

   It was sudden. It was complete. And it was irrevocable. In one fell swoop, the circumstances of my life, and how I perceived those circumstances, completely changed.

   In a very real sense, widowhood had descended. And I wept… and almost no one wept with me.

   Yes, it is a good thing when a battered wife is finally in a safe place. That usually only happens when she is away from her husband. But few realize she has just experienced a painful amputation. And her grief is compounded by the fact that she usually has no one who can bear this burden with her..."

This is an excerpt from chapter two of, Woman Submit! Christians & "Domestic Violence."

The book is written from my personal perspective in chronicling my journey out of abuse, mapping [what was for me] uncharted territory in a landscape littered with explosives, in hopes that someone else might find my map useful.