‘No Visible Bruises’ Upends Stereotypes Of Abuse, Sheds Light On Domestic Violence 

Many women have a hard time admitting — even to themselves — that they’re being abused by their husband or partner. Suzanne Dubus’ first husband hit her, but still, she didn’t initially identify herself as a victim of abuse.

“I attributed it to alcohol,” Dubus says. “I knew that his father abused his mother. And I thought, ‘Well, this is just poor learning, and I can help him with this.’ ”

But after Dubus’ husband beat her so severely he broke her eardrum, her thinking began to shift. She eventually left him. Years later, after the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, Dubus felt compelled to volunteer for victims of domestic abuse.

Now Dubus is the CEO the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center, a domestic violence crisis center in Massachusetts. She and her colleagues have created a program designed to identify women who are are in high-risk situations and to provide them with resources to build new lives.

She joined Rachel Louise Snyder, author of the book No Visible Bruises, in a conversation about the often hidden psychological effects of abuse, and how they keep women trapped.

Snyder notes that it’s more important than ever to take the threat of domestic violence seriously.

“For years we said that three women a day were killed by their partners in America, and since 2017 that statistic is now four,” Snyder says.

Snyder and Dubus agree on the need to focus resources on women during the time when they are most at risk.

“The first 90 days after a victim leaves [her partner] is the most dangerous time for them of any kind of violence,” Snyder says. “Some of these protections … that they established at the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center [are] not a sort of permanent state of being, but a way to build systemic protections around a victim for a period of time to kind of ride [that] out.”

Photo: Nanette Hoogslag/Getty Images/Ikon Images