Women are running and they are running from the men they love. Family Violence Week, held from Oct. 30 to Nov. 5 has been dedicated to all Northern families. It's a time set aside for men and women alike to consider the meaning of raising a family in a safe and happy environment, devoted to their own well-being and the overall health of their children.
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Nov 03/00) - Cathy (not her real name) is at a crossroads, where the past and the future meet.
Behind her is the ruin of a five-year marriage. She has three preschool-aged children. The future is a question mark.
After a three-month struggle to free herself from the abusive control of her husband, Cathy is learning about herself again.
She is living at Alison McAteer House, nurturing a simple hope for her children: a home with a little tree by Christmas-time. For herself, she dreams of raising her children, working and returning to favourite pastimes, like playing hockey.
Last week, in an office of the Yellowknife shelter, Cathy told her story to Yellowknifer reporter Michele LeTourneau in the presence of a counsellor.
Cathy's experience, rife with confusion, crucial decisions and uncertainty, is common among women in her situation. She doesn't quite understand just how she got there.
This is Cathy's story in her own words:
Yesterday was my fifth wedding anniversary.
Before we got married, he would cook supper, my dog was in the house. Since then my dog has been put outside. My husband doesn't want anything to do with him.
It was OK before we were married, but "now you have to do things like everybody else." He's always expecting me to do things that some of the Inuit women would know at this point in their lives to do.
Even something as silly as sewing. I sew like I sew and they sew like they sew.
When my daughter was born, I stopped working. Things kept changing.
It was a gradual kind of change.
It was not physical. It's been threats and some threatening touching, gestures. Not any severe physical abuse. But it's all the same, whether it's physical or mental or control or whatever. All the women feel the same.
I don't think I realized how much I was buried, that I was under this kind of lifestyle, until I was out. Then I re-found myself.
We got kicked out of the house. He literally almost kicked me in the head to kick us out.
According to him, it's all my fault.
I actually felt scared for my own life once. There was some physical threats. And he had scared the kids. I didn't appreciate him addressing me like that, and I didn't appreciate him addressing me like that in front of my kids. They got totally scared.
I told my little girl the people who come here are mothers and their kids, when the father is angry. She understood that because she saw her dad angry. He really scared them.
We went to the emergency shelter in the community for a few days. It was very impractical. We were three houses away. The crisis was over and I could go home any time. So I said, "Their home is there for now."
I couldn't be anywhere without my kids. Which is not saying anything bad, I love them. But just the odd time it would have been nice...but never. It's 24/7. It's your job. A lot of the women there just put up with that. And that's where the conflict was. Why can't you just be like that? 'Cause I'm not like them. I'm not Inuk.
The thing is, if I went to go play hockey or something like that, I'm being bad-mouthed because I'm not being a mother 24/7. I mean, what's an hour? I don't see a problem with that, but they do.
They do that. The guys play sports. They go out and play and hang out, but we can't do that. We as in the mom population. We can't go out. No. You're not allowed to go play volleyball or whatever. That's what it is. You're not allowed. I'm the one who started women's hockey up there and it's sort of gone by the wayside cause the men pose such an obstacle for the women.
I've been in the middle up there. I tried to stop it a few times. And I got looked on as a bad person. Because I tried to stop it, or because I took someone to the health centre -- from a guy hitting his girlfriend. Or bring them into the house and let them use the phone. It was considered interfering.
In a couple of cases, women on my husband's side, both of them black and blue...I have a problem with that.
I think I have gone the gamut of thinking and awareness and that's why I can't go back.
You're catching me near the end of a process. I had not even anticipated this. I always thought I was strong, that I could see this kind of thing and not accept it.
At seven in the morning I was down here saying I couldn't get on the plane. I couldn't go back. I couldn't do it. One woman, her jaw was broken, he broke her jaw. She was here for six weeks and she went back.
I need to have something more for myself. A job or something down the road. Or some recreation outlet.
I convinced him to come down here for a visit. To see the kids. And for us. To see if we're still connecting and to get a better value of what's been said.
I think it's just something I need to do for myself. It's five years in a relationship. I'm not ready to throw five years and three kids out the window and start over. That's my feeling. Whether that's right or not, I'll find out. Person to person. I'm not scared to meet him. It's either for closure or a starting point. I need to have that.
I feel bad. I have uprooted my daughter. She has friends, preschool.
I can't see the year, where I'll be at the end of a year. I can only see a little stepping stone right in front of me. I'm still in the middle of the river and I can't see the shore.
I don't know if the future will include my husband. But I know I can do it alone if I have to. Since we've been gone he hasn't really taken responsibility. He hasn't done serious counselling. I think he's gone twice. Both times it was because I was really stressed out. I won't go back there. Absolutely not.
I still have many, many good years in the workforce, while still having a family. I'm convinced that the two can go together. Working was a big thing. When I found out I couldn't work.
Pride? I have no pride left.
