If someone you’re in a relationship with threatens to hurt you, get out.
Don’t sit around, wasting time, wondering how seriously he or she meant what they said. Do not explain it away as being uttered in the heat of the proverbial moment. Don’t chalk it up to, “Well, that was just the liquor, the weed [the whatever] talking.” Don’t, whatever you do, question whether you brought the threat on yourself by not meeting demands, spoken, unspoken and those for which you’re expected to be a mind-reader.
Get out. Now.
You may well be in shock, surprised that this previously wondrous individual, a cherished intimate, is, out of nowhere, transforming into a Jekyll-and-Hyde monster. You might be stunned, completely caught off guard. It’s understandable. Just the same, pick your jaw up off the floor, pull your wits together, and hit the bricks. If it’s your crib, change the locks.
You may not be shocked. At all. In fact, you may be living in fear, after threat after threat, hoping against hope it’ll all somehow work out. Cowering in desperate prayer that this is not the day those threats are carried out. Whatever your situation, it is time to change living conditions.
Get out. Before you can’t.
You dare not chance that the threat is idle. There’s entirely too much at stake. Your very safety. If not your life. Consider.
Bilha K. Omare stated in a 2008 911 police report that Justus O. Kebabe threatened her and got three days in jail and a year’s probation. This, actually, in addition to his being on record as having beaten her. She was scared to death but didn’t get out of the relationship.
Cops, this past fall, found Omare and two of the couple’s three kids — Ogendi, nine, and Kinley Ogendi, 12 — dead in their Vadnais Heights, MN apartment. At Kebabe’s hand.
He got life in prison. Which doesn’t do her or those children a hell of a lot of good, does it?
According to the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women’s annual ”femicide” report, at least 12 women were killed in domestic abuse incidents in 2009. Not a huge number. Doesn’t need to be. Twelve is 12 too many. Importantly, are you really willing to risk being one of them?
If you aren’t killed, there’s a great chance you’ll get smacked around.
Probably punched. Maybe kicked down a flight of stairs. No one needs to drag out statistics on how many females get assaulted in the home. You’ve heard the horror stories. Seen them in newspapers. Perhaps listened to one or more of your girlfriends recount mistreatment she or they endured.
Ask yourself how many folk you know who have the slightest self-respect would stay with somebody threatening them harm. Then, ask why are you still where you are. “Because, I love him” does not count as an answer. Love yourself. At least enough to get away from somebody who, if they loved you, would not be vowing to hurt you. At least enough to get away from somebody you live in fear of. Who, instead of appreciating your companionship, controls you by scaring you.
Ask yourself. Then, go pack your bags or call a locksmith.
Dwight Hobbes contributes the commentary ”Hobbes in the House” to the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder and the TV show Spectator on the Minneapolis Telecommunications Network (Comcast Cable Ch. 17). He welcomes reader responses to dhobbes@spokesman-recorder.com.
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