by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

March 26, 2009

As a clinical social worker for the past 20 years, Susan Weitzman knows well that domestic violence and spousal abuse are no strangers to affluent households outside and — contrary to popular perception — within the Jewish community.

“We typically don’t think about anyone in this population suffering from any kind of domestic physical or emotional abuse,” she told NJ Jewish News in a phone interview from suburban Chicago, where she lives and works.

In fact, abuse in upper-income families comes with a pathology all its own.

“For one thing, the person who holds more financial strings is in a position to be above the law,” said Weitzman, as she noted that 90 percent of the abusers are men. “They can put together legal dream teams their partner can’t begin to compete with. They can wage meritless and frivolous lawsuits, draining the person they are abusing of whatever assets they may have. That kind of abuse takes place in a fiduciary manner and in the courts.”

Weitzman, who will be the guest speaker at a “Women to Women” luncheon at the Park Avenue Club in Florham Park on Tuesday, March 31, has written a book on the subject, Not to People Like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages.

People who are not privy to the workings of abusive relationships, Weitzman said, still have trouble believing such situations exist in wealthy people’s homes.

“Victims and the abusers and the society all hold the myth that it can’t happen to people like us,” she said. “Because that myth exists, often times the helping professions — counselors, therapists, clergy, the courts, and attorneys — inadvertently revictimize the abused person by disbelieving them.

Dianne Finn, a social worker and coordinator of client services at the Rachel Coalition, sees similar patterns of denial and bias.

“The court system expects batterers to look like disheveled crazy people, and when the batterer comes in wearing a suit, and he is educated and successful, there is a tendency to disbelieve he could be abusive,” she said.

‘Narcissistic rage’

Weitzman, a former member of the clinical staff of the Department of Outpatient Adult Psychiatry at the University of Chicago Hospital, said bias extends to the medical professions as well.

“If a poor person goes to an emergency room and says, ‘I’ve been abused,’ she gets a referral right away.”

But, said Weitzman, “the same doctor might be reluctant to question a more affluent woman with an unsatisfactory explanation for a suspicious injury.”

Although the situation is changing, she said, in the past, many helping professionals would be reluctant to risk offending an upper-middle-class or affluent woman by asking about a possible abusive husband. Such women, said Weitzman, are “treated differently because of this blind spot.”

Class differences may also cause tensions when a wife from an affluent marriage seeks to enter a battered women’s shelter.

While some who have sought shelter might not know “where their next rent check is coming from,” said Weitzman, wealthier women may come into the facility and say, “‘My husband cut off my son’s tuition.’ The other victims seem so different to them.”

According to Weitzman, many affluent women “may be worried about image,” and how their families will react when they “come out” as abuse victims.

As far as their husbands are concerned, “Jewish or not Jewish, the upscale abuser tends to suffer from narcissistic issues that lead to a sense of entitlement that leads to narcissistic rage,” she said.

Weitzman said she receives some 200 e-mails each month from people who have read her book and that many tell her, “‘My God, you wrote about my life.’”

When readers or audience members ask for assistance, she urges them to seek help.

“The first thing I would ask is ‘Are you or anyone in your family in immediate danger?’ If they say ‘yes’ they need to make contact with an agency that can help them get out of the dangerous situation. The first thing they need is to be physically unharmed and safe.”

Comment: comments@njjewishnews.com

--TOP--