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Janay Rice hates the people who forced her husband out of professional football after video surfaced showing Ray Rice knocking Janay out in an elevator.
"No one knows the pain that the media & unwanted options from the public has caused my family. To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing.
"To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his a** [they're afraid to write "ass" but show a video of a man knocking a woman out?] off for all his life just to gain ratings is a horrific [sic]," she wrote in an Instagram posted today.
“THIS IS OUR LIFE! What don’t you all get. If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all happiness away, you’ve succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow & show the world what real love is!”
She repeated her defense of her husband today in a brief interview with ESPN, saying, "I love my husband. I support him. I want people to respect our privacy in this family matter."
Media pundits and spousal abuse experts have two responses to Janay: (1) they don't want to criticize her, since she's an abuse victim, [BUT] (2) they think she's nuts and she'll come to her senses and see that she should hate her husband like the rest of us.
Why doesn't she? She has known Ray since they were in high school. She married Ray after the knockout punch. They may survive as a couple, but dropping from a $million salary to no salary will be a serious challenge, and their lifestyles will surely be severely reduced. And you're sure all of this is good for Janay, better than staying with her husband and his keeping his job? Or must she be sacrificed for the greater good?
Janay says that she loves her husband. Is that impossible? Who decides that? Is she suffering from battered-woman syndrome? Is she not capable of making a decision for herself, and that decision should be taken away from her, like it would be from a mentally incompetent person? Who decides that? In fact, that could be argued and decided in a court of law. But it hasn't and won't be, since Ray is not being prosecuted for beating his wife.
What about Janay's cri de coeur: "If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all happiness away, you’ve succeeded"? You're good with that?
Is there a contradiction when people stick up for Janay while disregarding her, or putting her down, underneath it all? In our book, Recover! Stop Thinking Like An Addict, Ilse Thompson and I indicate that we can only help people out of addictions, along with other problems they may have, by allowing them to make genuine choices in line with their values.
Imagine an interview between a spousal abuse counselor and Janay:
Counselor: "You're husband punched you -- you could have been seriously injured!"
Janay: "We had a fight that night that we both regret. Ray isn't like that -- he's never hit me before."
Counselor: "Once a man has hit you, he will always do it again."
Janay: "How do you know that? Ray was never violent to me before. He struck out reflexively. It won't happen again."
Counselor: "And when it does?
Janay: "Then I'll agree with you. But not until then."
Counselor: "I've known a lot of women like you. They often end up seriously injured."
Janay: "Do any not end up injured?"
Counselor (voice lowered): "I suppose I've seen that too."
Janay: "What gives you the right to decide which way my husband and I will go -- can't I decide that for myself? You know, you say you're trying to help me, but you're ruining my life, taking away my husband's dignity, and his way of making a living to support us. Who or what gives you that right?"
I'm just saying.
Stanton Peele has been empowering people around addiction since writing, with Archie Brodsky, Love and Addiction in 1975. He has developed the on-line Life Process Program. His new book (written with Ilse Thompson) is Recover! Stop Thinking Like an Addict with The PERFECT Program. His website is peele.net.
