From the St. Petersburg Times (and via Trish Wilson).
“Domestic violence is both emotional abuse and physical abuse, and there’s plenty of both in Charlotte County right now,” Tavorach said.
Four hurricanes in six weeks have led to a spike in calls to domestic violence shelters, and victims’ advocates fear more are on the way as recovery efforts, spread thin across the state, plod on.
Jeb Bush is quoted attributing the increase to frayed nerves.
Maybe so, but I wonder (when my nerves are frayed, I don’t find myself punching my housemates). Many abused women don’t report the abuse because they don’t want to destroy a home life they’ve invested so much in. When your home has already been destroyed, is the motive to take abuse silently reduced?
The article also contained this intereting tidbit about divorce.
Researchers at Florida International University found that many of the couples who split after the storm did so because of money – not too little, but too much. Couples whose marriages already were faltering couldn’t agree how to spend the insurance check and found it easier to split than fix the marriage.
The article also noted that Dade County’s domestic violence levels took two years to return to normal.
Your theory is probably part of the answer. Jeb’s theory is probably the other part.
I would guess that what happens is that there are spouses whose partners are abusive, but who have their temper mostly under control. IE, your wife hits you once in a great while, but not very often. For at least some people, that wouldn’t be enough to get them to leave.
Then along comes hurricane #7, and Mr. 99% In Control is now Mr. 100% Out Of Control due to the stress and the loss. The fists start flying, and Mrs. Control says “to hell with this, it was bad enough before but this is just too much” and leaves.
That’d be my guess, anyway.
Hurricanes threaten marriage.
Gays threaten marriage.
Therefore, hurricanes are gay.
And perhaps French.
And what has the failed Bush administration done to stop gay French hurricanes from damaging American marriages? NOTHING.
With four hurricanes in six week {Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne} tempers did get a little hot in Florida.
Things should cool down now in October.
If you add up all the losses of the four hurricanes it adds up to 23 billion, Andrew was only 15 billion. No Job, No house, No electricity = TROUBLE!
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No matter how we tend to see domestic violence, the fact remains that men are hitting women and women are hitting men. As one poster put it, it (DV) is a compilation of the genres of verbal, physical, and/or emotional abuse. That seems to be a way of simplifying the definitions, but abuse, is abuse, no matter how you see it, or catagorize it.
Certainly, it might have been the peripheral results of disdain and depression from the weather, but I believe it was happening anyway. Batterers have little, or no comprehension about emotional tools to quell anger and rage. It is always your fault, or it’s fault, never their fault. In this case the fault was probably blamed on the repetitive harsh weather. That’s just as good as an excuse as any…isn’t it?
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Brad Benjaminson
MS, BS, C.A.T.S.
http://bradbenjaminson.blogspot.com