The Contemporary Woman

Tag: Domestic Violence

  • What is Post Separation Abuse? What are the Various Post separation Abuse Tactics?

    What is Post Separation Abuse? What are the Various Post separation Abuse Tactics?

    Domestic Violence (DV) is a very common occurrence in marriages, and sadly even typical boyfriend girlfriend relationships. However, in the case of marriage, leaving is more difficult since a marriage involves more ties and becomes even more twisted when there are children involved. Because of this, many partners, especially women stay in abusive marriages to protect their children. Because they do not want their children to come from a “broken home.” In other cases, women fear that when they leave, their partners will no longer care for their children, or even be available for them which makes them feel like they will deprive their children of their father which is enough guilt to make them go through years of torture and literally hell on earth.

    The good thing is that today, there is more information and successful cases of divorce and separation which help women to know that they do not have to live through the hell.  So finally, when their partners finally hit the last straw that breaks the camel’s back, many contemporary women leave. Mostly because they fear for their lives and in worst cases because they fear for that of their children, and because they know better. The problem is these people who support women and advise them to leave their toxic marriages or relationships sell them this idea that once you leave, that’s it! Your life goes back to being all smooth and perfect. The phrase mostly used is to sell this bliss is that “you go back to being a girl.”

    “Divorce isn’t such a tragedy. A tragedy’s staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love.”

    Jennifer Weiner

    While this happens to many women—successful divorces—the dynamic is quite different for those who were married to abusive narcissist and especially those who had been married for years, built assets together and better yet, had kids together.

    Unfortunately, the patriarchy is so deeply rooted that now that the contemporary woman has learned to run away from domestic violence through divorce, there now comes the rise of a different type of abuse, , The Post Separation Abuse. This abuse continues to escalate and might even surpass the domestic violence that was in the marriage. This is especially when the abuser is bitter, they were left, and is narcissistic enough to blame the victim for leaving mostly saying that they want to turn the children against them. The abusive ex-partner hates that they no longer have control over the situation so they attempt to gain some level of control over the situation in any way they know how.

    This can manifest in various post separation abuse tactics:

    • Stalking and Threats- This is the most common form of PSA. The toxic partner(ex) actively bombards the healthy partner with phone calls manipulative, abusive, and threatening messages. They even go to the extent of monitoring the whereabouts of the healthy partner on social media and even physically and impose physical threats.
    • Isolation-The toxic partner spreads lies rumours, and made-up narratives to the friends, family, and entire community of the safe parent just to destroy their reputation and make it seem like they were the problem.
    • Neglectful and/or Abusive Parenting- This is also one of the most prevalent forms of PSA. In these cases, the toxic parent exposes children to unsafe content, threatens them, uses violence, manipulation, ridicule, and always putting their needs above those of their children.
    • Counter Parenting- In counter parenting, the toxic parent opposes the other parent’s parenting just to spite them. This includes withholding and denying them content for certain child needs even during serious situations such as medical needs.
    • Legal Abuse- In some incidents the toxic partners misuses court proceedings to harass intimidate, coerce and emotionally and financially drain the healthy partner, especially when they gain legal custody of the children.
    • Financial Abuse- This yet another famous form of PSA. This involves the toxic ex-partner withholding, mismanaging and or delaying support payments even when they are ordered by the court. The toxic person might even go to the extent of blocking bank account jeopardizing the career growth of the safe parent among others, just to make them despair.
    • Coercive Control- For this form of abuse, post separation abuse narcissist creates a sense of fear to the healthy partner and safe parent’s life. They constantly belittle, undermine, criticize, gaslight, manipulate and emotionally abuse them just to regain some form of power and control over them. This is the most common form of PSA in the case of broken “come we stay” marriages.
    Post Separation Abuse Wheel OMB

    Unfortunately, the only somewhat related resources to help victims of Post Separation Abuse are mediators, attorneys, and judges, and these unfortunately do not distinguish PSA from high-conflict divorces. Thus, victims of PSA only get help during the few months of the divorce as they deal with paternity cases and custody battles after which they are left on their own to deal with the gruesome PSA that only grows.

    All this may just seem theoretical but there are many contemporary women (and men) dealing with severe Post Separation Abuse and its time that people spoke up about it such that there is educate information on how to navigate it.

  • Unlearning, and Relearning the Definition of a “Broken Home”

    Unlearning, and Relearning the Definition of a “Broken Home”


      Working from home, I mostly love to sit in my bed (my office) and write alone in the silence. It is so quiet and serene which is great both for my thoughts, and my writing. Although sometimes it can get too comfortable that I lose a whole day 😭. Today, my quiet was interrupted by the wailing and screams of a woman, whose voice sounded familiar. These screams followed a loud thud from what I believe was a man hitting her. The thud sounded again and this time, she screamed even louder. By then, there was commotion as I started hearing the voices or two more women, and that of a another man—aside from the attacker.


      The argument continued for quite a while and I couldn’t help but thank God their older kids were not around to watch—being a school day. I could not quite comprehend what they are saying because they are speaking in Kipsigis, but I could hear the clear cut pain and hurt in her vibrating voice. To be honest, such incidents scare the hell out of me 😱 However, every time I pray to God that I never become that woman on the receiving end. I always find myself thinking, but that woman never asked for it either. She too, prayed to never be in that position and yet there she was.  So what makes me think I am so special?

      You know the saddest thing about such cases is that sometimes—most times—these women stay. They stay, hoping, and praying that it gets better. Because when is it really the right time to leave? And you know, sometimes it is not about traditions and the aspect of women being told to stay, “vumilia” and pray. It is not about, “ what will people say?” It is about a woman who still sees the good in the man she loved. A woman whose heart still has not come to terms with the fact that that man hitting them, is not the same man they fell-in-love with. I woman whose heart is so broken, but one who still loves.  💔💔

      Over the past two years, I have seen so many of these cases that, I have involuntarily turned into a really bitter woman. It is very unfortunate for me that I might never see marriages and partnerships in as much positivity as I did before. Or was I just naive and living in a cocoon of the Disney happily ever after? — I loved it better there.


      I read on a blog I love (they had  shared the post)  that the society should stop viewing single mothers as to having broken homes because theirs is not the typical home of a father, mother, and children.  Their homes are not broken, they are a conventional home, and happy family of the mother and her kids. Broken homes are unhappy homes filled with chaos, homes where the children live with parents who are always fighting, or homes where the parents do not talk to each other. Such homes and families are so broken that they can only be best described as roommates!

       Whenever I hear a child scream because they saw their dad hit their mother, or their mother throw something at their dad and it almost hit them, or the story of how such events happened, my heart (even in a movie, because having seen it in real life, I no longer see it as just fictional acting) I imagine the pain, confusion, anger, and resentment in children brought up in such homes, and how it will affect them as adults, and I wish I there was a prayer, or a magic potion that could make sure they happen.

      Visual Representation of a Frustrated Boy


      You know I wish there was a way the contemporary woman could tell and know that their long-term relationship and or marriage would not work in the future. That the person you trust will one day turn into the one that wrecks you, and the family you built together. Then we would simply let them go when it is easy. Because honestly, teaching your heart to leave when you have spent 15 years and shared 2 to 3 kids with them, (and you don’t know who you are without them) that has got to be the literal leap of faith.  Sadly, most women do not get the strength to choose themselves and do it. Instead, they choose their families; they stay for their kids.  They just are oblivious of the fact that they choose broken families themselves and their kids. We really need to unlearn, and re-learning the definition of a broken home.

      ❤❤❤❤

      Nyambura Macharia

    • Something to Take Away from Netflix’s “Maid”

      I have been watching a series on Netflix called “Maid.” Am sure some of you have heard of it. It’s rather new but has been among the top ten trending shows in Kenya for a while now. I have been trying to diversify my stories by focusing on other women’s issues. I believe that for my blog to be authentic and realistic in representing the life of “the contemporary woman,” then it needs to have wider perspective. So, I came up with this idea of writing a story about women I watch on films, or entire films, if they feature ideologies, events, or situations of interest in relation to my blog. These are stories I believe will inspire many of you as much as they inspired me; of course, written from my point of view. Before I got this website, I wrote about, “The Bold Type” on my Facebook page. This time, “Maid” is going to debut, “the Film Series,” on the website. Here’s the drill. I will be writing like one story a week highlighting a story about the contemporary woman drawn from TV and film. Nod if you agree 😄😄

      In high school our Kiswahili teacher, bless her, always told us that, “Isimu ni kioo cha jamii.” If I could vaguely translate that to English, I would say that all types of art such as film produced are an illustration of our society. It explains why different films, songs, comedies, and other forms of art differ in their production, styles, and content; because they represent different cultures, and societies. In this segment of my blog (“the Film Series”), I will write interesting stories and analyses of different women I watch in films. This way, you can learn, and get to discover new films you can also look out for. I mean, I will also get a reasonable excuse to watch at least one film per week.

      While watching “Maid,” I was first intrigued by the main character, Alex, and her rather complicated life (to say the least). But what made me really got me hooked was the realization that all the different women characters in the story had story lines featuring issues that affect different women in the society. From then on, I took the series very seriously and also very personally. It was like I was reading a set book in high school all over again.

      Let’s start with Alex, the main character. Alex is a 25-year-old mother of one who is an abusive relationship. Sounds familiar? That’s because it is! In fact, we’ve talked about it in the past. Alex’s situation is quite sad, mostly because she did not know she was in an abusive relationship since she was not being physically abused. However, that did not change the fact that she was in constant emotional abuse, and lived in constant fear and anxiety that maybe the next time he would snap and physically abuse her.

      The story gets even sadder because she was ashamed of admitting that she was a victim of domestic violence. What would people say? And who would even believe her when she did not have any physical bruises or injuries to back her claims? I know the answer to that should be no one would believe her, and indeed, in the real world virtually no one would believe her, but someone did believe her. Alex found herself in a domestic violence (D.V.) shelter led by a former victim of domestic violence, Denise. Being an old lady, Denise has seen all types of D.V. cases, and she knew that is exactly what Alex was going through.

      While in the shelter, Alex made a friend, Danielle, who helped her face her anxiety and other fears to focus on building her life back. There’s something that Danielle told her that stuck in my head – “before they bite, they bark.” To me, this was the perfect advice for any contemporary woman in an abusive marriage. Don’t wait till it gets worse; because it will. At the slightest “bark”, leave. Unfortunately, Danielle leaves the shelter to go back to her husband which according to Denise happened more than you think. Apparently, the typical woman leaves their abusive husbands for a maximum of seven times before they fully make up their minds to never go back.

      The interesting thing is that Alex, though not intentionally, also found herself back to living with Sean, her daughter Maddy’s father. I mean, he seemed to have changed, even stopped drinking. At some point, even I thought he was a nice guy, a good father. But you see, that’s exactly the point, he was a good father but a terrible husband. Eventually, he slipped right back to his old habits and Alex remembered exactly why he has left. But she felt trapped, she had no source of income especially since Sean had acted irrationally and as controlling as usual and essentially took away the car Alex used to commute to work. So, Alex remained trapped, and became withdrawn and helpless until she was totally fed up.

      This time, when she was leaving, she left with absolutely nothing. Her mind was made up, she wanted peace and a safe home for her daughter, and she knew that she could not find that living with her abusive boyfriend. She got her friend Regina to come pick her up and she went back to the D.V. shelter to rethink her life. She never looked back.

      The story had quite a happy ending. Alex got more jobs as a maid and saved enough to buy a car, she got accepted to a college to study writing, a successful student loan, and full custody of Maddy. Her happiest day finally came and she drove to Missoula, Montana, to study. Her life had begun afresh. If you are a woman in Alex’s shoes, you certainly deserve that!

      Anyways, remember when I said that there were many women in the show whose lives and experiences resonated to various contemporary women?

      Regina was a beautiful, filthy rich lawyer, but she was struggling with fertility, which finally led to her divorce. Alex was a poor, uneducated young mother who needed the strength to leave her abusive marriage and build herself and her career. Alex’s mother Paula was an old victim of domestic violence who turned to skimpy relationships and drugs to conceal her grief and past trauma. Denise who an elderly ex-domestic violence victim who dedicated her life to helping other women who were victims of the same. Danielle was a victim of Domestic Violence who still believed her husband would change despite his constant behavior, and finally Maddy, a young girl who didn’t deserve to grow up in an abusive and violent home.

      All these women represent “the contemporary woman,” working through different life situation sand trying to figure it all out.

      ❤❤❤❤

      Nyambura Macharia