Movie Review : ' Sleeping With The Enemy '

On Thursday night I went to the “Shatter the Silence, Stop the Violence” seminar by the Sexual Assault and Violence Education (SAVE) Committee. During the seminar I learned about several parts of dating and domestic violence, as well as healthy, unhealthy, and abusive relationships. I was familiar with many of these topics, but hadn’t gone so far in depth with them before.

For this assignment, our group chose the movie “Sleeping With the Enemy” a terrifying domestic violence experience whose main characters were Laura and Martin Burney. They live in a private section of Cape Cod. Laura is a housewife who endures an abusive and controlling relationship (Ruben, 1991). Martin is her husband who maintains a belief that men control women by providing their wife’s with economic resources and that in return he believes that his wife should be obedient and submissive. Martin displays multiple signs and symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He is preoccupied with details, rules, lists, and being organized (Ruben, 1991).

Intimate partner violence is characterized not only by physical violence, but also sexual, emotional, and mental violence through the use of threats (Understanding Intimate Partner Violence, 2011). In Black and Blue, Anna Quindlen delves into the mind of a woman who faces intimate partner violence in her everyday life. Fran, or Beth, and her son attempt to get away from Fran’s abusive cop husband. While Black and Blue is a fiction novel, its points about intimate partner violence hold true in many cases such as the breaking of traditional gender roles, high levels of stress, alcohol overconsumption, and learned behavior.

As stated in Preventing Violence in America, social exchange theory suggests that individual’s trade emotions for other emotions (Hampton, Jenkins, Gullotta, 1996, pp. 24) thus, partners focus on the positive results and negative results of their relationships such as social rewards, materialistic glam, and opportunities. Domestic violence in this stage is connected to commitment, people are willing to comprise and stay

A safety plan is an essential tool for people to use to assist women or men in domestic violence relationships. A safety plan helps explore and map out options and ideas to promote safety when domestic violence or family violence has occurred. This could prevent careless actions from happening such as not knowing where to go, or becoming the aggressor. Taking these precaution can help save the lives of women or men in an event of a violent episode of rage or frustration. It is important for the victim to strategize what are their alternatives and identify triggers of what causes the violence, in order to prevent it from happening. A safety plan needs to be tailored to the individual needs and should promote safety at any moment of altercation. A safety plan encourages building a trustworthy relationship that may help the victim coupe with the situation by exchanging thoughts and ideas. This relationship is an essential resource for the victim, as violence could happen at any time. A safety plan could encourage many women to finally get the boldness to leave their partners, but there are certain resource women need to be successful. In the novel “Black and Blue” Frannie Benedetto suffered horrible abuse by her police officer husband, Bobby. Frannie finally get the valor to leave him when she realizes that her abuse will never stop, no matter how good she is to her husband. Fran decide to runaway with her son Robert. She takes on the identity of someone

Why would women and men with the seemingly complete freedom submit to ongoing physical and psychological battering? How could they continue loving someone who will not treat them lovingly in return? Why would anyone let children be subjected to such a toxic environment? Part of the answer is that remaining in such a relationship is, in itself, an act of self-preservation. The most all-encompassing term for this complicated problem is Stockholm Syndrome. This simple phrase is an explanation for a decidedly complex problem. Drawing out the individual dynamics of such convoluted interpersonal relationships is beyond the scope of brief conversation or a single article, but this is a breakdown of the most important elements.

Furthermore, factors that contribute to the beginning of violence against an intimate partner is emphasized by both literary texts, correlating with the reality of domestic violence in modern society. The thoughts of conducting abuse may arise in the subconscious mind of a person due to several influences, such as witnessing abuse as a child or mental illnesses, without the person’s intent; however, the choice to carry out the act still lies in the hands of the individual. Those who violate women once continue their abuse for extended periods of time, rarely ever being able to change. According to several psychiatrists who analyze the behaviour and influence of domestic abusers, “people with very traditional beliefs [think] they have the right

In 1979, psychologist Lenore Walker discovered that the majority of abusive relationships follow a similar pattern that cycles itself. This cycle could happen over any period of time but will almost always repeat itself a multitude of times. Lenore Walker’s cycle is not the exact same for all abusive relationships, some are much worse, but many share the same three stages which are tension building, incident, and honeymoon/calm. All three stages are fueled by constant denial from the victim. The cycle of domestic violence is a traumatic psychological sequence that millions of people of many different cultures and nationalities are tragically stuck in.

To begin with, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) has been around for a very long time and it is still a present issue in the United States. There are many forms intimate partner violence such as, sexual, physical, emotional, and psychological. IPV occurs among all religious, socioeconomic, and cultural groups in the United States and other countries. As many people know intimate partner violence tends to come with consequences after the damage is done to the victim. Intimate partner violence does not just happen out of nowhere where the perpetrator thinks they have the right to be violent towards their spouse. The issue of IPV is connected to the cycle of violence in ways that it gives you an idea as to why the perpetrator thinks they have the right to hit the victim. In many cases not only do they think they have the right to due such thing but also feel like they have control over their spouse and have a mindset that they own them and will do anything just to keep them. Often the perpetrators feel guilty for being violent towards their loved ones that they come to a point of being apologetic and doing anything in their power to keep them. This author believes that intimate partner violence is a big issue and for many victims it is hard for them to escape the relationship. The victims go through so much in staying in the relationship that once they decide to definitely leave the relationship they end up suffering consequences and seeking available resources to

With a close examination of Elizabeth Bowen’s suspenseful short story, “The Demon Lover,” I notice a much more frightening element present in the narrative than what appears to be the supernatural as this British author highlights her central notion that those who endure abusive relationships, sustain psychologically scars that may never go away.

One woman is abused every nine seconds. After a woman leaves the abuser, their chance of being in danger increases to seventy-five percent. Abuse can include psychological, emotional, and physical characteristics. In this film, multiple women shared their stories about the abuse that they went through. Several of the convicted women killed their abuser, of which was unarmed.

Many popular films and television programs feature idealized men who act with violence, which is seen as a legitimate, perhaps even the best, solution to problems.” (Ebscohost). For example, in the movie “Enough” starring Jennifer Lopez, she runs away with her daughter and disguises herself to keep safe from her abusive and controlling husband. This is just one of many ways the media tries to portray a strong message on the importance and detrimental effects that domestic violence has on people. Domestic violence grows rapidly as time goes by with television shows, social media, and even in your own home. Not only are women and men are affected by domestic violence children are too. Different causes such as jealousy, power and control can lead to physical and emotional harm, which affects the victim. Even though 85% of women are abused and are more likely instead of men, there are 15% of men who are also abused. Women, men, gays and lesbians are all either abusers or victims. $5,800,000,000 is an estimated cost of incidents of intimate partner violence perpetrated against women in the U.S. in 1995 alone (Huffington Post). Domestic violence should not be acceptable anywhere in the United States and or outside of the United

Intimate partner violence occurs among partners who are in a relationship. Such partners can either be married, engaged, and or dating and in either heterosexual or same-sex relationships. Both, male and females, can either be the victim or the perpetrator of such horrific episodes of violence against their partner. Women, for instance, are very aggressive and violent in self-defense while men, on the other hand, are most likely to engage in cycles of abuses and thus the notion that they are more violent and particularly against women (McLennan & MacMillan, 2016).

In the movie Enough it's about a terrified woman trying to battle against her abusive

While not a somatic assault, emotional abuse can cause lasting effects on a woman’s health, so much so that researcher, B. Van Houdenhove and others working on the project have found “that emotional abuse and neglect may be contributing factors to the development and/or severity of illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia” (Karakurt and Silver). Finally, emotional abuse is a rampant issue, Karakurt and Silver report that “Psychological aggression by an intimate partner was reported by 48.4% of women,” which was found in the National Intimate Partner & Sexual Violence Survey (“Emotional Abuse in Intimate Relationships: The Role of Gender and Age”). Nearly half of the population of women report being victims to psychological abuse, making it a widespread epidemic faced by not only women in dystopian novels but also real life. Psychological abuse can take many verbal and non-verbal forms, which can put great strain on a woman’s health, and affects nearly half the population of the United States.