Domestic Disturbances

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been eagerly reading several of Bob’s (http://middle-aged-guy.blog-city.com/) posts about his career in law enforcement. This got me thinking about my own erstwhile job in the same field. What follows is from my own experience and is relevant to the themed nature of this blog.

Police officers are frequently called to the scene of domestic disturbances, which have one of the highest potentials for violence. One big reason for this is that emotions tend to run high in such instances, which causes reason to go out the window. Alcohol use by those involved only fuels the volatile nature of these calls.

Many times, the catalyst igniting these disturbances is sexual infidelity, real or imagined, on the part of one of the spouses. And frequently, the mayhem factor is greatest when the “cheating” is only imagined, as it stems from the irrationality of paranoia.

One thing that sometimes happens, is that, consciously or unconsciously, some officers handling such calls can't deal objectively with it, believing deep down that strong, harsh reactions to perceived infidelity are normal and appropriate ways to respond. While most don't actually come out and tell the man (typically the aggressor) that he’s done the right thing by assaulting his wife, some subtly express that they understand how he feels and how they are unwillingly enforcing the law in this instance.

A reason for this is that some officers themselves have acted in similar ways in their own personal lives. Domestic abuse among police officers is not an uncommon thing, unfortunately. I worked with one officer who was insanely jealous of his wife, beating up a couple of men in separate instances, whom he believed were his wife’s lovers. His jealousy controlled him and it eventually cost him both his job and his wife, who moved to the other side of the country to get away from him.

What is the solution? It’s not a simple question, so I’ll offer no simple answers. But perhaps one helpful thing would be to teach people from childhood that aggression of any sort, be it physical, verbal, or emotional, is not an appropriate way to express jealousy and to teach more rational and useful ways of acknowledging and handling it when it occurs. Some might say this would be useless and such jealous reactions are “innate”. Perhaps some level of jealousy is inevitable, but many other negative human emotions are also just as natural, yet we do attempt to control and mitigate them.

And maybe some ideas about love, romance, and marriage need to be re-examined. Whether one is in a monogamous marriage or is non monogamous, people should remember that when they enter into an ongoing intimate relationship that they do not own their partner(s), mind, body, and soul, but that our significant other(s) are merely sharing their lives with us, and that the basis for any form of relationship is formed when we respect that person’s autonomy and individuality. Just as we teach our children not to hold a pet too tightly so as not to squeeze the life out of it, we should teach people to do the same in their intimate relationships.

Just my two cents.