NASHVILLE, Tenn. — When Tennessee mom Brittany Carver married her husband in August 2018, she never expected that by February the following year, he would be arrested for violently assaulting her.
“He body slammed me into the door,” Carver said. “Told me that if he couldn’t have me, nobody was going to have me. He hung up the first 9-1-1 call and put his hand up against the door.”
And now, WZTV reports, Carver is facing significant financial hardship in the aftermath of the assault, since her husband insisted upon her quitting her job to stay at home.
After we got married, he wanted me to be the stay at home mom,” Carver explained. “How he saw it was ‘I’m going to isolate her, and I’m going to make sure she has nothing,’ so if anything did happen, I’d be stuck in this situation.”
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), the financial losses stemming from domestic violence amount to between $5.8 billion and $12.6 billion each year in the U.S. (Access NCADV’s National Statistics Domestic Violence Fact Sheet below.)
“I’ve lost power. I had to beg a friend to help me,” Carver continued. “Fixing to lose gas and water here in a few days, car notes, car insurance that’s all this week. I’m just going to have to figure it out I guess.”
And Carver is certainly not alone in her struggle.
Only one out of every five victims of domestic abuse, WZTV points out, knows how to get the support of victims’ advocates once they’ve escaped their abuser.
“They don’t have any financial means whatsoever, and that is so [the abuser] can keep the victim in their control. What that means is it’s harder for that victim to leave,” said Verna Wyatt who runs Tennessee Voices for Victims, an organization that seeks to connect victims with the resources they need.
Learn about the connection between domestic violence and homelessness:
Dv Homelessness 032106 by Ed Praetorian on Scribd
Access important domestic violence statistics:
Domestic Violence2 by Ed Praetorian on Scribd
