student stopped me in the hallway at Northwestern.
“I saw you on TV, Professor Weldon,” she said and paused. ”I had no idea you had a past!”
But since that public admission, more young women who are students I know from class or who have heard about my work, have come to my university office to seek help either for themselves as victims of violence or asking for tips on how to speak to their mothers, best friends, sisters or cousins about breaking out of a violent relationship. Friends refer me to friends to give advice. Readers beg for help.
As prevalent as those questions seeking help, unfortunately, another question I receive from journalists or members of an audience is why would I write a book about a private matter?
This is how I respond: If someone rang your doorbell and you answered it, and that person punched you in the face, you would call the police. No one would tell you it was a private matter because you were hit in your own home. Partner violence is no different. It is a crime. It doesn’t erase the horror because of where it happened and that you know who struck you.
There are other insidious questions. A man stood up at one book signing and said, “This is just your side of the story. How do we know this is true?”
I answered him that there is no incentive to fabricate this kind of story that is historically and culturally bathed in shame. It is not glamorous or envious. It is just true.
You know your story. You know what happens to you. And you have every right to speak it and write it.
Throughout this process, I was careful to try and keep my young sons separated from the speeches, book signings and appearances. They each reacted differently to the existence of the book. Though they all knew what was in our home and that we needed to leave, they were embarrassed to have so many know about their father. They felt shame. They were naturally angry.
That weighed heavily on me and I did my best to help them through that. So many years later, I hope they are proud of what I have done and know that I could not keep silent because I am a writer and a journalist. I had to tell this story.
They understand my goal was not to be salacious or vengeful, but to communicate the larger good in publishing my story.
I was lucky to receive several honors, awards and recognition for telling my truth in this book. I was given the Bread and Roses Individual Courage Award in Publishing in 2000 in Chicago, the International Women’s Peacepower Award for nonfiction book also that year and the American Pen Women award for books. This book was chosen for the state of Massachusetts “Step Up And Read” One-Book program in 2003. I also won the Sarah’s Inn Visionary Award in 2003, the Donna Allen Award for Feminist Advocacy in 2005 and the Twenty Years/ Twenty Heroes Award in 2007.
My former husband, a practicing litigating attorney at the time, never filed a legal claim or spoke on the record any form of rebuttal to the book. Twelve years later, he is still silent about the book. Intentionally I did not write about his supposed motivations. I wrote about me, what it was like for me, what happened to me.
The conflict with my former husband did not end with this book. There was no sweet happily ever after once he left our home. He remarried within a year of our divorce in April 1996, had a daughter with his new wife, and adopted her son from a previous marriage. About two years later they were divorced.
There were a few years after that when I believe he tried to be helpful, but when I look back, I feel manipulated. He would cancel his weekend with the boys at the last minute when I needed him to watch the boys as I had a business trip planned, or he would not show up at all. He would occasionally return the boys from a visit without shoes or winter coats saying he couldn’t find them. He was many times several hours late, if he didn’t cancel altogether. There were also times when he would fight with the boys and they would call and ask to come home. It was not easy, any of it.
My former husband left the top-shelf law firm where he was a partner-hopeful in 2001. He then moved to different jobs and one after the other to several small apartments in the Chicago area. He worked in different sales positions; I never really understood what he did. Then in 2004, he announced suddenly he was moving to Amsterdam, with his lover at the time, an older woman with whom he was a partner in a spiritual travel business.
That year he left the country Weldon was a sophomore in high school, Brendan an eighth grader and Colin in fifth grade. Their feelings of abandonment played out in different behaviors that were hard to manage alone. These were difficult years, but with the help of family, friends and coaches, the boys thrived. I cannot imagine the hurt they must have felt and still feel. But the boys were successful in school and athletics and were always good sons.
In 2005 my former husband stopped paying all child support. After he moved to Europe, correspondence and visits dwindled until he was completely absent. His sons have not seen him or spoken to him since 2007, when they saw him briefly at the funeral of his father, a good grandfather to my sons. It has been difficult financially and emotionally dealing with their father’s total abandonment. I discovered his return to the area by accident in 2010. Since then I have been involved in years of litigation to recover unpaid child support and college tuition and to defend myself against his claims that I do not need financial help for our sons. I am at times confident I will prevail. But years of what would seem to be a simple case has taken so much energy, time and money to attempt to resolve, but without a resolution.
Abuse can arrive in different manifestations long after it no longer exists in a physical form in your home. So far this has lasted 26 years.
Unfortunately this is a story that happens to millions of women in this country and many millions more around the world. Not everyone writes a book about it. Many keep quiet.
If you think of the three women friends you have emailed, Tweeted or speed dialed this morning on your cell phone, you can imagine that statistically, one of those friends will at some point in her life be a victim of domestic violence. It is more common than breast cancer, more common than being left handed.
In the 16 years since my divorce, I have certainly healed. I learned to trust again. I did fall in love and it was a wonderful relationship that lasted six years. But in the end I was not able to guarantee my partner the time and attention he demanded or deserved. I was simply too busy raising the boys alone and working as hard as I possibly could to pay for everything to be the kind of life partner he wanted by his side at all times. I realize it is not easy being partner to an imperfect, ambitious woman who is outspoken, dedicated to her children and her work. I have felt the reverberations from those men who demand a more private life. It has proven difficult to be with someone who truly understands and accepts my position and my mission, as well as my steadfast commitment to my sons above all others. I still believe wholly in the power of love and commitment.
I have given more than 200 keynotes around the country and Canada attempting to reverse the misconceptions of domestic violence. I have spoken at universities, hospitals, high schools, benefits, book clubs, fundraisers, government organizations and rallies. I have felt the applause of audiences and the appreciation of thousands of readers.
I have received thousands of letters and emails from women all over the world. The letters come from every state in the country, and in many countries; some are addressed from prisons. The women who write them are as young as 13 and as old as 86. They range from a paragraph to 13 pages long, single space, typed. They give me grace and make me humble. The letters are heartbreaking and uplifting. They are typed neatly or scrawled like a child’s. Every woman who writes me her story tells me her own truth.
But even with the comfort of this support and the soul-warming
