The moment a victim of abuse decides to leave, or starts speaking up, is often the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship.
Abusive spouses often view a partner seeking to leave - as an act of revenge. That is because the abuser's core mindset is built on power, control, and entitlement rather than equality or accountability. And to escape abuse, you must trust the one person your abuser has convinced you not to: yourself.
When an abuser senses they are losing power and control, they frequently escalate their behavior to reassert dominance. This phenomenon is a well-documented pattern in domestic violence, known as the escalation of risk or the separation spike.
Toward the end of my abusive marriage, almost at the 20 year mark, I started to speak up and tell some people of the violence I endured. This was even before I made it to a domestic violence shelter. I began to have enough. My abuser kept me trapped by shame and silenced by fear. Punishing a victim for exposing abuse is a calculated tactic designed to enforce silence, maintain control, and protect the abuser's reputation. This behavior is a form of retaliation and coercive control. And it is brutal.
During those last two years of living with an abusive husband, I started sharing my story of surviving the domestic violence. Bruised and battered, I remember a night I went to my neighbor's house for safety. Just so you know, never ask a woman "why did you stay"....because that was the beginning of the end. As soon as my husband's secret was out (I later found out that most people suspected the abuse), everything escalated.
Abuse thrives in silence. Shame is used to keep you trapped in the relationship and fear is used to keep you quiet. Abusers will teach you that there are severe consequences if you don’t stay silent. When I started telling people what my husband did to me, the abuse escalated in every way possible.
When the veil of secrecy is threatened, abusers often deploy specific strategic responses. This can include overt threats of physical violence, making their victim suffer all sorts of consequences or targeting things the survivor cares about, such as threatening to harm pets or alienate children. When a survivor begins disclosing abuse, abusers frequently escalate their tactics to punish, silence, and regain power over the victim. This reaction is a documented phenomenon rooted in the abuser's need for total control and fear of exposure.
At one point, it was time for my two sons to get ready for sleep away camp again, Camp Wayne for Boys. They needed some special camp clothing to be ordered. Not having access to our marital accounts, I had to ask my husband for a check - to be sent to "Wolf" uniform company with the camp clothing my sons wanted. My husband told me to get a bank check for the order. He handed me five $100 bills. I thought it was unusual, but it was my only option - and God forbid you question the master.
I waited on line in the Westchester County bank for a few minutes. Finally, it was my turn at the counter. I handed the teller the cash and asked for a bank check.
BAM!
Within seconds, an alarm went off- screeching. Metal bars came down from the ceiling with a swift clang. I was caged. I had no idea what was going on as the police officers swept in, guns raised and aimed at me! I was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car. I couldn't find my handbag, I didn't even know what was happening. I remember the maroon vinyl of the police car, the lack of handles in the rear seat I was literally thrown into. And no one read me my rights. It was not like Law and Order.
I must have been crying - I was terrified. I kept asking what happened, but the two officers in the front of the car did not answer me. I must have continued to cry....as they led me into the police station jail. I still had my handcuffs on.
As I was told to stand against a dirty grey wall with measurements on it, my photo was taken. Turn. Another photo snapped. My handcuffs removed for fingerprinting.
Finally, the officer fingerprinting me told me why I was arrested. For passing of counterfeit bills. I told them I was unaware of it - that I never do that, that it was a mistake. I asked to call someone - and stupid me, called my husband. When he answered the phone, I was a wreck. And I still hear his evil laugh in my mind. I told him what happened and he said, "I know." He also told me that he'd be leaving me there for a while until I learned. I asked him, "Learn what?" and the line went dead. He set me up. Owning Foodirect in the South Bronx Hunts Point Market, his business was mostly cash. And his associates were not the most upstanding of citizens.
Not long after this incident, my abuser sought to teach me another lesson. When the police were called to my home for a domestic violence situation, I told the officer about some illegal dealings of my then husband. I was never told I could press charges. The North Castle police officer merely said he was not there to resolve marital disputes. It didn’t matter that I was visibly bruised. The officer smirked and left my home, leaving me to deal with my abuser alone.
Two days later, as I was driving my Lexus 400 LS, I heard a strange noise in the front end of the car. I drove directly to Lexus of Larchmont, NY, left my car there and drove home in a loaner car. I wasn’t in my house more than 10 minutes when the phone rang. The manager of the dealership called me to tell me he had never seen anything like this : a live rat was trapped in my car!
My son, Jared,was home when I received this call. I repeated what the Lexus manager told me. Jared then told me that he saw the live rat in the garage the night before…his father brought the rat home from work in a cage.
As I put the pieces together, I realized the message my abusive husband was relaying by putting the rat in my car.
I did finally decide that it was more dangerous to stay with him than to leave. He progressed into brainwashing my sons against me. And more of every other type of abuse he could muster up. I filed for divorce for the third time ( he had threatened me and terrorized me into dropping the law suits the two prior times), he protested it, I had trials....divorce, custody, finances.
Since he initially protested the divorce, threatening my death as well as loss of my children who were teens, my divorce was denied - even with over 200 pages of documented hospital records exhibiting the abuse. At the time, New York was a fault state and he had too many people in his pocket. He got to the judge. And on the day the initial divorce decree was denied (I obtained a divorce almost a decade later after going through more years of court and appeals- on the grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment), I remember driving home from Princeton, NJ, to West Orange when my lawyer called me with the news.
He said my divorce was denied. JHO Scancarelli (who has since died and now resides in hell) denied my divorce, even through excruciating testimony of domestic violence and several key witnesses to the abuse. I laughed as attorney Joel Bender repeated his news. What kind of joke was this? But it was true.
Shaking as I drove, I was approximately 20 minutes from home when I received another phone call. This time it was the West Orange police station. The officer identified himself on the call and told me I had a choice....I could either turn myself in or they would come to my West Orange home and arrest me for transport to the South Bronx in New York.
Yes, this sounds like an incredible nightmare. My nightmares always happened when I was awake.
I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. He then explained the warrant that was out for my arrest because my husband feared for his life!
If you know me, you know this was absurd abuse of the system again. If you know Robert Levine, you know he was capable of this and so much more.
I arrived home to find the police car waiting for me in the driveway. I was transported to the South Bronx. This time, again no one read me my rights - but at least I wasn't handcuffed. I was not as shocked as I was the first time Robert orchestrated my arrest. That's who he is....in fact, he told me during my divorce, that if I showed up at either of my sons' high school graduations, I would be arrested. He said he had a North Castle police officer in his pocket to do it.
Have you ever been to the South Bronx? You don't want to go there. The officer driving me to the precinct in Hunts Point told me that they had jurisdiction over me because Robert Levine contacted the South Bronx precinct near where his Foodirect headquarters were located. Another move that was to be expected. Why have me jailed in Westchester or NJ when he could manipulate it so I'm in the worst place in NY?
So, I was taken to this filthy precinct that looked nothing like what you see on television. In reality it was so much worse. The officer there told me to sit as he filled out paper work. Since I pretty much knew the drill from my first orchestrated arrest, I waited thinking I was going to be fingerprinted and photographed again. Not this time, though. I was merely placed in a filthy jail cell.
The officer kept telling me to sit down. I was pacing. And the metal bench along the cell's wall was disgusting. I would not sit down. Not for the three hours that they held me there in that cell. I was able to make a phonecall and a friend came to get me with a lawyer.
There was a hearing the next day. My lawyer was brilliant. He presented one piece of evidence to the judge and that case was dismissed. What was so powerful as to end this dead in it's tracks?
Something the lawyer had seen on my phone. A direct message my husband had sent me. It read, "LOL." My attorney addressed the court with one question - what kind of man is fearful for his life and sends the person a message of LOL?
The court was able to see the big picture. An abuser who could no longer use his fists was using every other means possible to continue the abuse. My children were used, jail, finances stripped from me, emotional turmoil and threats continued.
How does my God let this kind of thing happen? Why are battered mothers losing custody, and continuously trying to survive unending abuse?
No one tells victims that after they leave the abuser, post separation abuse is a thing. I wake up each morning with the consequences of exposing my personal terrorist. My sons are gone from my life, brainwashed, manipulated, bought with money and influenced by their father daily. They worship wealth over God. They chose lavish lifestyles over me, their mother. I have rarely only heard from them when they wished to hurt me deeply. I think losing them wasn’t the worst of it, though. Not even the fact that they won’t let my grandchildren know I exist. What is the worse part of all is seeing how much they turned into their abusive father.
So, I talk to God about all these horrific consequences I live with. Some might consider this praying. My ex not only hid and stole what was legally mine financially as well as most of my belongings…he stole the souls and morals of his own children. A means to his end. He alienated them from me as my punishment. And I gave up trying to expose all the lies he told my sons in the process.
What people call "moving on" is rebuilding a life from damage you did not create. It's carrying pain you never asked for, and healing from wounds the person who caused them still pretends never happened. The trauma will forever reside in my mind and body. It doesn't go away. Nor do so many memories I wish I could forget. Some people will say, "She's still talking about the abuse and betrayal, so she hasn't moved on."
No. Talking about it IS moving on.
My true healing is in my writing. My conversations. And it started when I stopped carrying it in silence. And if my voice feels "too loud" now...imagine how much I endured quietly.
I'm still in survival mode, though. With each day comes a day of mourning the family I had yearned for. With the sons I raised. Who erased me. And chose to model their lives after a father who was diagnosed as being a sociopath and morally bankrupt.
So, every morning my sons are not in my life…is another day of being abused. Sometimes in life, the nightmare is when you are awake. Consequences of exposing your abuser can be horrific. But then again, not exposing the abuser can literally end up with their victim’s death. I started feeling safer not when I left to stay at the shelters, but when I started exposing all that I had survived.
When I told the world what a monster I had lived with, it gave me a sense of security I had never known before. Disclosure was and is empowering. But most of all, it is also a coping mechanism. A way to purge and release. If I don't share my story, all of it dies with me. And that is exactly what my ex-husband and adult alienated sons are hoping for. Another vital purpose is to help others here. I hope my story exposed will be someone else's survival guide, should they need it. What I wish I knew before....
To neutralize the disclosure, the abuser may preemptively lie to friends, family, or professional networks. They may use third parties (proxies) to harass, spy on, or isolate the survivor. They especially use their own children as weapons. They will destroy you financially when you try to leave them. The tactics are endless. And no one prepared me for any of it.
Women in abusive relationships need support and understanding – not judgement. Leaving can be the most dangerous time for a woman. Careful planning is important because abusers can become more violent and controlling.
And what do I talk to God about?
Why my ex husband is still walking this earth, when the world would be so much better without him. And why are my sons following in his footsteps?
