From
AARP Magazine
by David France
Too ashamed or too scared to speak up, tens of
thousands of 50-plus victims of domestic violence
suffer in silence
Almost from the start of her second marriage, Hedy
Schweitzer felt she had to choose between two painful
options. She could endure her husband's violent
beatings and hurricanes of criticism, which shook her
confidence and left her self-doubting despite the fact
that she was a successful health-care professional. Or
she could do something she considered far worse: admit
she'd made a huge mistake by marrying him in the first
place. So from 1993 until a year ago, she tried to
cover up the abuse, even from her own grown children.
She lied when friends and colleagues saw the cheeks
enlarged by blows and the ankles gnarled from being
slammed in car doors, or when doctors inquired about
her shattered eardrums and broken fingers, now healed
at awkward angles. She pretended nothing was
amiss. Unfortunately, so did almost everybody
else.
All the while, Hedy thought she was probably among
the world's oldest victims of domestic violence. "I
thought this is something that happens to young and
inexperienced girls. Not somebody in their 50's,
not a grandmother," she says one morning as sun spills
through the stained glass windows of her living room
in Milwaukee. She glances at ictures of her children
and grandchildren, crowded on a boodshelf. "The overwhelming
thing for me, as an older person, was being ashamed,
because this shouldn't be happeningto me, I sould know
better."
Hedy may feel that hers was a singular shame but,
sadly, it isn't. Contrary to popular belief, domestic
abuse doesn't happen only to younger, underprivileged
women. It affects all classes and races and every
age group. (According to a Justice Department analysis
of intimate-partner violence in 2001, the latest year
for which statistics are available, 85% of the victims
are women.) But until recently even experts on domestic
violence used to think the problem tapered off by
age 50. That opnion became accepted wisdom because
few older women show up at shelters or call police.
Now, experts and advocates not only are realizing
there are unique facgtors keeping older victims from
seeking help but are increasingly aware of people just
like Hedy who are silently enduring violence--some
into their 70's and 80's.
"It's very hard for you to think about," says Jeanne
Meurer, a nun who is codirector of Woman's Place, a
drop-in center for battered women in St. Louis that
served older victims of abuse, one of the few in the
nation. "I couldn't imagine my father abusing
my mother, or my grandmother being abused. You
can't think of it that way. But boy, there's a lot
of it."
Exactly how much of it is hard to determine. Estimates
vary widely. In studies conducted in the late
1990's, between 4% and 6% of older North Americans
reported they were in a relationship they considered
pysically abusive. If the surveys are correct,
and the percentages remain constant with overall population
growth, that would mean a whopping 3 million to 5 million
Americans over 50 (out of 85 million) are currently
in abusive relationships. Some surveys suggest
from 150,000 to 500,000 victims of elder abuse a year,
while one group of researchers, extrapolating from
their landmark survey of all types of elder abuse in
Boston in 1988, suggests the number could be more than
a million.
One depressing fact is indeisputable: as the population
of 50-plus Americans increases, so will the number
of victims of abuse in that vulnerable demographic.
"It's a hidden epidemic," says Daniel Reingold, president
and chief executive offiicer of the Hebrew Home for
the Aged in Riverdale, New York, who compares the current
awareness of late-life domestic violence to the
nascent domestic violence and childabuse movements
25 years ago. "Which is to say,. we don't have
any agreed-upon definitions, and intervention is sporadic
and uneven."
The directors of women's centers and progrms for the
aging are now scrambling to find ways to reach this
population. But traditional responses, like sheltersand
hotlines, don't seem to be making the critical connection
with older victims. Around the country, according to
a survey by the National Clearinghouse on Abuse in
Later Life, few shelters promote themselves to older
women or are equipped yto handle their special needs,
from accessible facilities to segregation from the
many young childen who often turn shelters into daycare
centers. Yet even these specialized programs aren't
attracting those in need, and advocates are beginning
to wonder why. As Michele Waite, manager of senior
services for the City of Longmont, Colorado, puts it,
"We know its happening. We just haven't found a meaningful
way to reach older women."
Themore creative the approach, it would appear, the
more successful. "We advertised an elder-domestic-violence
support group, but donbody came," says Sharon Youngerman,
director of a well-known battered women's program in
Orange Park, Florida, called Quigley House, which closed
its elder shelter last y ear, finding that older women
preferred the support they got from younger battered
women in the main shelter. "But when we relaunched
it as a quilt-making group sponsored by Quigley House,
then people came." Designed to appeal to older women,
the quilt-making group offered a cover for victims
otherwise unwilling to come forward. The first group
of 12 finished a quilt last summer after two years.
"There's a lot more shame and embarrassment" among
older victims, Youngerman explains. "We're talking
about people raised in a generation when the wife took
care of the family; she was basically raised to do
what her husband said. He was teh breadwinner, and
if she didn't like it, she had to basically buck up
and be quiet. So talking about it is admitting that
they failed--that they displeased the husband."
"The elderly population is totally secretive about
this," says Ann Nevin, a counselor in private practice
in Colorado who treats older victims. "A lot of it
has to do with the custural and social mores established
for the people who grew up in the 20's and 30's; you
married for life and you stuck things out."
According to the Natuional Committee for the Prevention
of Elder Abuse, an assiciation of advocates, researchers,
and professionals, the problem of domestic violence
in later life divides into three main types. The first
scenario involves a new relationsihp. No matter how
mature they are, no matter how well they t hink they
know theyr new partner, intimates can be in for a terrible
surprise. It's an all-too-common problem, say experts,
"We see many second, or even third, marriages where
she had a perfectly wonderful first marriage b ut ends
up with a real loser," says Pat Holland, coordinator
of the Older Abused Women's Program at the Milwaukee
Women's Center, which laast year opened two rooms specifically
for older clients in its shelter. "A lot of times she's
so embarrassed she doesn't want anybody to know."
A second category, encompassing a seemingly growing
number of fictims, is known as "late-onset domestic
violence," in which a long, ordinary marriage unexpectedly
leads to a coda of brutality and fear. There may have
been a strained relationship or emotional abuse earlier
that got worse when a partner aged. When abuse begins,
it is likely to be triggered by retirement, the changing
role of family members, sexual changes, or disability. For
example, onespouse's failing health--the onset of incontinence,
for example--can trigger verbal or physical violence
by his or her partner.
Brain impairments common in old age, like those brought
on by stroke, alcoholism, or Alzheimer's disease, can
also herald aggressive behavior behavior in otherwise
placid marriages. A percentage of Alzheimer's patientsturn
suspicious, irritable, or even physically violent toward
their loved ones. In one study nearly 60% of people
caring for a spouse with dementia report the patient
has turned to some form of aggressive behavior.
Jacquelyn Treiber, 75, a horse breeder in Farmville,
North Carolina, says a series of small strokes and
early Alzheimer's were the likely cause for her husband's
aggression toward her which included threatening to
order her into shock treatment and trying to have her
committed for psychiatric observation. Because her
husband was a retired family practice physician, authorities
easily accepted his groundless allegatioins and dismissed
her many objections. He called the police a dozen times,
never failing to geeet them in his posital scrubs as
he filed assault charges against her.
"It was like he had PMS. Every 10 or 12 days he would
go into a rage," she recalls. "I could be sitting here
watching television and some name would come up--the
name of somebody he didn't like--and he would pick
up the phone and call 911 and claim I pushed him, and
he would put me in jail overnight! I'm not kidding."
Hisown diagnoses didn't come until years later, after
he was declared incompetent and confined to a nursing
home. He died last May. "I'll tell you what, it was
a long, tough journey,." Jacquelyn says.
A third category--perhaps the most heart-rendeing
cases of all--involves violence that begins in early
marriage and continues for decades without eer triggering
notice. Advociates call this phenomenon "domestic violence
grown old" and a study published in the Journal
of Elder Abuse & Neglect notes it is by far
the most common sort. These women were missed by the
battered women's movement, which began establishing
shelters and safe houses in the late 1970's and today
operates more than 2,500 programs and facilities across
the country. Now, in later life, battered women are
no more likely to reach out for help in their youth.
"Older battered women have the same fears today that
they h;ad as y ounger women 30 years ago: I have an
obligation to my partner; who is going to take care
of me?" says Jill Morris, who directs the public policy
office at the National Coalityion Against Domestic
Violence. "I've heard anecdotes from women who say,
' I'm 70, he's 78, we're both going to die soon. Why
don't I just stick it out?' It's awful to hear."
"Why did I marry him in the first place? I don't have
a real good answer for that," says Audrey Miller, now
80 and hapily ensconced at an assisted living community
in St. Paul. "After a while I didn't love him, that's
for sure."
Audrey's talking about Jim Miller, a handsome factory
worker from St. Paul whom she married in 1962. Pictures
of the newlyweds posing in front of their first home
suggest they were happy. But the first attack came
only a few months later. "I think it was something
I had said or done, or didn't do, that he didn't like,
and he hauled off and hit me in the face," she recalls.
"I landed on the bed, and he came and got on top of
me and started to beat me. I just pounded away, too,
but he had more strength than I did. And it didn't
end up good for me."
That's an understatement. Over the next 41 years,
although no one knew it, Jim's attacks increasedin
frequency and cruelty--making Audrey a classic example
of domestic violence grown old. Once he caught her
fingers in his car window and let her loose only when
her screams drew a crowd. Somehow she found herself
keeping it all a secret--from her mother, whose disappointment
she dreaded, and even from his children from a previous
marriage. (They had no children of their own.) She
camouflaged her bruises. But her psychological wounds
were painfully visible. Jim made her believe she was
dumb and fat, though she slimmed down to a fashion
model's stature, and rendered her totally deendent
on him. He refused to let her see friends or family
members alone. He had the telephone removed from the
house to perfect her sense of isolation. He wouldn't
even let her go to the grocery store without him until
he was too ill to accompany her. He made her account
for every minute she spent away from him.
After the first few years he refused to allow her
in their bedroom, so she curled up onthe sofa every
night for all these decades. "I mean, he was a mean
one," she says. "He was mean."
She prayed that time would temper Jim's moods, though
it never did, Retirement, when it came, seemed to make
him angrier. Even when he sank into a feeble old age,
he would strike at her with his cane, regularly renewing
an ugly bruise on her left shoulder. 'I guess when
I was older and he was ill, I thought it would stop,"
she admits, rubbing her shoulder. "He would take his
cane and hold it up and say, 'I'm going to kill you.'
That's one of his favorites: 'I'm going to kill you'."
Audrey might not have said anything until her doctor,
during a regular checkup just a few years ago, asked
her if she was experiencing trouble at home--alerted,
possibly, by her sad demeanor, "I thought, 'Well, nobody
had ever asked before.' So I told him, 'Yes, he has
been bothering me for a long time.'"
Doctors and hospital employees are perhaps in the
best position to screen for domestic abuse, but given
the curtain of secrecy surrounding the issue, it can
be a d etective's job to get to the truth, says Carmel
Dyer, M.D., a geriatrician who is an associate professor
at Baylor College of Medicine in Houstonand specializes
in issues of elder abuse. "It's hard to pick up, I
must say,. because the offender looks very, very concerned
about their wife or husban;d. It's very hard to sort
out."
For Audrey, finally unloading the secret brought a
kind of liberation she hadn't felt in years. Through
the doctor, she was introduced to the local St. Paul
Domestic Abuse Intervention Project. Bernice Sisson,
the program's legal advocate for older battered women,
secfretly drove her to weedly meetings.
But Audrey still didn;'t leave her husband. "I'm kinda
loyal, I guess you'd sa. It was bad. But I endured
it."
By early 2003 , Jim Miller was very ill with heart
trouble, high b lood pressure, and diabetes, and although
he became totally reliant on Audrey, his physical abuse
never ebbed. On August 17 of that year, he put
his arm around Audrey's shoulder. "I heard him say,
'I love you,' which didn't mean two cents to me," Audrey
says. It was only the second or third time he had ever
said those words. And not much later he died. "I was
immediately relieved," she recalls. "Forty-one years,
to be free from that? I said, 'He's dead!" Right away
she began putting his things in the garbage, working
well into the night. "You can see how much I liked
him," she says now.
"We were all relieved," admits Sisson. "We really
worried that he might do what he kept promising to
do."
Today, Audrey is once again sleeping on a bed. Her
one-bedroom apartment is spare andneat--her one indulgence
is a vast collection of videotapes, mostly of
the action-flick variety. "I always worried about being
lonely," she says, "but I'm not! I like my apartment.
I like to be here by myself. I like to be alone."
Although it occurs less often, men also fall prety
to domestic violence. But while an estimated 15% of
all the victims of intimate-partner violence are men,
the number of reported woman-on-man incidents is negligible.
The reason may be that no matter how bad the abuse,
men in their prime are typically able to withstand
the assaults of women. A more likely explanation is
that men simply are unwilling to report that they've
been assaulted by a woman.
But as they grow older, men can become vulnerable.
Sometimes, but not frequently, their abused spouses
might simply be turning the tables. An unscientific
sampling suggests that another likely scenario involves
same-sex or late-life relationships turned abusive.
In an example of the former, a man in his 80's took
shelter at the Domestic Older Victims Empowerment and
Safety Program in Phoenix several years ago after a
severe beating landed him in the hospital, says Alice
Ghareib, the agency's director. His assailant was another
man, whom he called an "acquaintance" but who program
staffers felt was likely an intimate partner.
It can be extremely difficult for older gay people
to be candid about their relationship to their abuser.
"This is the generation that was institutionalized,
discriminated against, battered by society" for being
homosexual, says Loree Cook-Daniels, founder of the
American Society of Adult Abuse Professionals and Survivors.
A late-life relationship with a younger person can
also lead to the victimization of an older man. At
the Hebrew Home's Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Center
for Elder Abuse Prevention, officials recall a case
of an older man who took a much younger foreign bride,
only to find her manipulating his medications. He was
admitted to the hospital numerous times before finding
his way into their shelter. "It appears she was just
in it for the immigration status," says Daniel Reingold,
the Hebrew Home's president. The Weinberg Center is
helping arrange a divorce and a restraining order.
But for some men, as with women, it is possible to
have lived through an abusive relationship for years
without anybody's catching on.
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