Lower than algae

or men who hit women.

Roxi, Dina, I'm sorry. I just needed a place to vent.

The platitudes have been said, the encouraging words have been spoken. The shaking, cold vitriol beneath the surface has risen to the top and I simply must speak.

I knew it the first moment I laid eyes on him. I knew. Don't ask me how. I cried like a baby on their wedding day. I've prayed, with despair, ever since. When I got the "urgent prayer request" email I knew and dammit, I didn't want to know. I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to have been cynical, suspicious and just plain nasty wrong. You have no idea how desperately I wanted to be proven wrong. I would have begged forgiveness in front of the entire family and worn denim jumpers and white sneakers for the rest of my life. I would have given up candy, diet Pepsi and lipstick.

But I was right and am now so angry I can hardly type. I'm shaking.

The little 9mm and the 45 are whispering veiled and not so veiled threats from the cabinet where they hide away. If only... See, I'm a fighter, not a lover. Don't get me wrong. I love. But this victimization, this outrage against someone I love.

My oldest boy came in to my office a few minutes ago. "Momma, what's going on?" "It's not something you need to think about, baby," I replied. "Just know, that when you are a man, if you ever beat a woman, I will personally make sure you go to jail. Even though you are my son." He blinked and said, "Ok, Mom."

There is no justifiable excuse for a muscular 6'5" man to EVER strike his wife and as far as I'm concerned she has every right to walk away from him forever.

This is a standing agreement between my husband and myself. If he hits me, he will never see me or his children again. Ever. Since we are a household committed to fairplay, the reverse is also true. There are boundaries that love simply does not cross.

Wife-beaters are lower than algae and among the most despicable of men. I had little respect for the man 3 months ago. Now I despise him.

Still, she loves him and for that and the hope of redemption I will pray for both.

Even though, at the moment, I am nauseated and violently angry.

This girl, his wife? My niece, my beautiful niece. I was there that day. That day when she was 2, when she came to live with my sister and was terrified of everyone. She'd been in seven fosterhomes in twenty-four months, her mother in jail and G_d only knows what happened to her on the reservation. What an amazing woman she has become. Unfortunately, she wasn't prepared for this reality and at 19 she is in a place where she's making decisions I wouldn't wish on my enemies.

Now would not be a good time for anyone to cross me. I'm too furious to care.