It happens in silence, a silence all too terrifying, and it is happening right next door. It is estimated by the FBI that two to four million women get battered each year in the United States and a thousand four hundred of those lives will be lost. Slapping, punching, kicking, choking, biting all make up the physical section of abuse. Adding onto that is sexual abuse, such as forced sexual acts like rape. Maybe worst of all, is the psychological damage received by the victim, because it is impossible to forget how your husband pushed you down and killed the baby that was growing inside you. Emotional scars stay forever and they could change the way a person feels, it changes their self-esteem for the worse. As horrifying as abuse is, women often stay in these relationships. They hide what is happening to them from coworkers, friends, and family, that is if they have any left. Fearing that without their spouse they would be left penniless on the mean streets and in dan!
             ger, the danger of their partner becoming so angry that they will come after them, to kill. If a child is concerned, the secret further deepens because all of a sudden another life is involved. Too many women feel ashamed that this is happening to them and they feel overwhelming guilt for what "they have done," and that as well keeps them from telling (AOL-health-domestic violence-complications 1). A question often asked is why does it happen?
             It might be hard to understand, but domestic abuse is not about the act of hitting and hurting and bruising and killing. Karl Hempel, M.D. of the Health Gazette says, "Domestic violence is a pattern of controlling behaviors aimed at gaining power in order to control and intimate partner. Domestic violence is about power and control" (Domestic Violence 1). This concept is often linked with the abuser's career or what they saw in their own family as children. Perhaps there is no real reaso...