At Last, Brenda Smith Takes Control

Brenda Smith is a four-time loser who’s trying to escape the pattern by turning to different choices. Make that Choices.

Brenda Smith (that’s her maiden name) is 38, attractive, well dressed, drives a nice car and lives in a nice home in north Orange County. But that’s all a little deceiving. She’s also been a punching bag most of her adult life. She finally left Husband No. 1 after he beat her with his fists so bad she worried if she’d survive.

And then she went back to him.

Husband No. 2 was worse. He didn’t use his fists; he’d throw things at her or slam her into a wall. (Smith makes an interesting point about that: A lot of batterers will say “I never once hit her.” Apparently they see tossing your wife from wall to wall as just incidental contact.) But Husband No. 2 combined physical abuse with severe emotional abuse, controlling her every move. She wasn’t permitted to take the kids anywhere without asking his permission first. Once when she dared speak up for herself after one of his verbal assaults, he left her this note: “The less you say, the better off you are.” She was petrified at its meaning.

Soon, she says, you start to feel worthless, your self-esteem shot. This marriage broke up too. Then Smith did something you just can’t believe that she’d do.

She went back to him.

He hadn’t changed, of course. And, at wit’s end last November, she started reading a book about abused wives, and spotted a toll-free hotline number. That eventually led her to call the Women’s Transitional Living Center in Orange County.

Brenda Smith finally found a way out.

During both her marriages, Smith and her husbands had spent thousands of dollars in therapy and marriage counseling, trying to figure it all out. But it wasn’t until she joined Choices, the center’s outreach group session, that she discovered the problem:

She was a battered wife and didn’t even know it.

“I see women coming into the group now, some of them there by court order, and they say, ‘Really, he’s not that bad.’ And we all just kind of smile, because we all said the same thing. It’s called denial, and I had it just as much as anyone.”

At her first session, Smith was presented with a list of questions. “Does your husband do this, does your husband do that,” she relates now. “Right down the line, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, I just kept answering yes, yes, yes. Every question, I had to say yes.”

Still, she continued to live with No. 2, who resented her battered women’s group meetings. “He’d say, ‘Oh, is tonight your man haters club?’ The women in our group don’t hate men. They’re afraid of them.”

She left him for good in February, when he blew up that she’d taken the children to the tide pools in Dana Point without calling him at work to get his consent.

“Thanks to the group, for the first time I was strong enough to say, I’ve had it. For the first time, I didn’t feel worthless.”

She didn’t go very far--just into another bedroom with her two daughters (one daughter and a son are from her first marriage.) But they did divorce, and somehow they’re living under one roof in peaceful co-existence until she can afford to move out on her own.

There are occasional flare-ups, but he knows the rules have changed. “The other day in an argument he said, “What are you going to do, have me thrown in jail?’ I said, ‘That’s right. You touch me, you go to jail.’ ” How’s that for emotional growth?

Her goals changed during her Choices meetings.

“At first I wanted the group to help me learn how to live with it. But these women helped me to see I had to get out.”

Why do these women keep going back to these kinds of men? Smith explains based on what she’s learned: During the separation comes the “honeymoon phase.” That’s when he’s sweet as when you first met. He promises to change, he’ll never hurt you again, just come back and see how good it will be.

Smith adds: “You have to understand, there are children involved. You have so much hope inside you, and you just want a family so bad for their sake.”

Smith wants another man in her life. She’ll tell you right off she loves good-looking men. But she knows it will be awhile: “It’s going to be some time before I can ever trust again.”

Remembering Mother’s Day: We all know Sunday is Mother’s Day. Danella George, who lives in the Tustin area, called me with a mother’s request: “Could you write something so people won’t forget my son? His name is Carl Dan Claes. This is my first Mother’s Day without him.”

Carl Dan, who was 14, was her only child. He was murdered last year in Lemon Heights, a few days after Mother’s Day, in the most senseless incident it’s possible to imagine: He was trying to get back some of his stereo equipment. Two juveniles are awaiting trial for murder in the case; three others have been sentenced as accessories.

On a day when I’m writing about women going through hell, it’s easy to honor George’s request. She’ll spend the day at her son’s grave site.

Before Jones: Tammy Wynette will sing at the Crazy Horse in Santa Ana on Monday night. I’ve always enjoyed her on-stage humor about her tumultuous, failed marriage to country legend George Jones. But in Wynette’s autobiography, she writes that it was her first marriage, long before she was a star, that was the most torturous. She relates in detail a long litany of emotional abuse.

Ten years after their marriage broke up, she found her ex standing in line for an autograph after her concert. She told him: “You got your autograph a long time ago.”

Wrap-Up: Sharon McQuire, a counselor who runs two group sessions for battered women each week, including Brenda Smith’s, says it’s rewarding to see these women grow, but agonizing to see the pain they’ve been through.

“I haven’t had even one woman in any of my groups who didn’t need to be there,” she says. “Some of these women have incredible, horrendous horror stories to tell.” She also echoed what Smith had said about why women join the group: “So many of them want us to show them how to make their situation work. Unfortunately, the recovery rate for most batterers is extremely low. Sometimes you just want to scream at them, ‘Get out!’ ”

If you are being physically, emotionally, or sexually abused by a spouse, the Women’s Transitional Living Center urges you to call its hotline. Here it is: (714) 992-1931.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or sending a fax to (714) 966-7711.