Shedding even more light on domestic violence, talk show host, Meredith Vierira, revealed on her show today, “why I stayed” in an abusive relationship.
Related: Celebrity Moms Who’ve Survived Domestic Violence
According to national statistics, a woman is battered every 9 seconds in the United States, and nearly 1/2 of men who abuse their female partners, also abuse their children. Hopefully Vieira’s story will help those women who are struggling to end an abusive relationship.
Vieira experienced domestic violence as a young women. “I loved this guy,” she revealed, and said the abuse started out with him grabbing her arm; then later episodes of him pushing her against the wall, then escalated to him grabbing her face and saying he could ruin her career. Meredith said one evening her ex threw her naked into a scalding hot shower, and then threw her outside the apartment hallway that they lived in. “I hid in the stairwell for two hours until he came, again, crying, ‘I promise I won’t do this again,’” she said.
So, why did Vieira stay in that abusive relationship? She said part of it was fear that maybe something worse would happen, and guilt. “Because every time we would have a fight he would then start crying and say, ‘I promise I won’t do it again’ and I would feel like maybe I contributed, somehow, to this,” she said. “I continued to stay in that relationship until I was offered a job in another state and that’s where I felt I had the ability to get away.”
The 60-year-old shared how leaving an abusive relationship can be complicated for women, and not as easy as people think, but said that if her 21-year-old daughter found herself in this situation she would tell her to leave, even if she felt she loved her partner. More importantly, she said that if anyone is experiencing domestic violence to let somebody know, find a shelter or call the domestic violence hotline
If you or anyone you know is suffering from domestic violence please contact The National Domestic Violence Hotline.
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