Don’t Ask Her

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why her eyes are swollen shut. 

Don’t ask her. 

Ask him why it’s safer for her to sleep in the street in her car rather than in her own bed.

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why she’s at the emergency room – again.

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why she’s walking around the streets with her children in the middle of the night.

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why she’s not allowed to invite her friends and family over.

Don’t ask her.

Ask him to go to a rehabilitation centre and learn to change HIS behaviour rather than insist that she go to an appalling shelter for abused women. 

Don’t ask her. 

Ask him why his wife is not safe in her own home.

Don’t ask her. 

Ask him why he still beats, humiliates and shames her and why he makes it so much worse when there is a restraining order or if she dares tell anyone. 

Don’t ask her. 

Ask him why he thinks the police are not reacting and enforcing that restraining order.

Don’t ask her. Ask him why he manipulates her to go back again and again because he threatens to kill her children.

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why he threatens to harm /kidnap/kill her children should she even think of leaving.

Don’t ask her. 

Ask him why he throws food at her if he feels it’s not cooked properly.

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why all the dishes are broken.

Don’t ask her. 

Ask him what the fighting, screaming and racket was about last night.

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why he threatens to kill her when she wants to leave.

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why he is harassing her constantly and threatening her, when she finally does leave.

Don’t ask her. 

Ask him why he threatens to break her neck if she even thinks of leaving.

Don’t ask her. 

Ask him why he’s standing outside her new apartment screaming like a banshee.

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why he broke her jaw because the coffee was too hot or the rusks were too hard and he bit his lip. 

Don’t ask her. 

Ask him why he demands to smell her panties to see if she fucked someone at work today. 

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why she has three flat tyres when she needs to go to work in the morning. 

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why only half her hair is blown dry and why she did not immediately stop drying her hair to help him with something he needed and broke her nose and smashed to hairdryer to teach her a lesson. 

Don’t ask her.

Ask him where her car keys are so she can leave when she wants to. 

Don’t ask her.

Ask him why she has a complete lack of self-confidence after being told hundreds of times how useless and stupid she is.

Don’t ask her. 

Ask him why she had another miscarriage because he punched her in the stomach. Don’t ask her. 

Just. Don’t. Ask. Her.

Don’t ask her anything. 

Don’t require of her to do anything. She is so traumatised over such consistent and long period of time that she can barely hold it together. Shift your focus to the perpetrator. 

This is the only crime where the victim is shamed, pressured to do something, asked why she doesn’t leave and told she’s much stronger than she thinks. And she simply cannot do another, single thing other than to avoid another incident. All her energy is focused there. No, she did not make a single thing up – this all happened to her. Day after day and day in and day out.

Don’t ask her. Ask him! 

Put pressure on him. Tell him what he should and shouldn’t do. Demand that he take responsibility. Ask him to be accountable.

Stop asking her. Just stop.