Divorce is More than a Legal Event

Our client, who is a native of Virginia, married a coworker whose immigration status was uncertain, at best.  Soon after the wedding, a pattern of abuse including beatings began to occur.  The spouse also began insisting she could not see her friends and family, leaving our client feeling isolated and alone.

Three children were born, back-to-back, and the husband refused to hold a job. He would never allow the client to be alone anywhere with all the children at any one time, so escape was impossible.

Without warning, the husband hurried the family out of the home just before dawn one day into his brother’s car and began a long drive to the Texas-Mexico border with the plan of reverse immigration.

At a skimpy border station, the brothers bribed a guard to look the other way as the car crossed from one country into the other. Our client and her children, held hostage, were driven deeper and deeper into a country where they didn’t know the language, had no citizenship, passports, or telephones.

They were nameless, faceless, and as good as disappeared.

The mountain village where the brothers were raised was their final destination. Our client desperately wished for an escape and one day at the marketplace she spotted some women speaking English.  She recognized the women as members of a missionary group that was working nearby. As they stood close together looking at a table laden with vegetables, our client furtively engaged them in a conversation.

And it began.

After weeks of stealthy preparation, the missionaries devised an escape to the United States under the dark cover of night, driving our client and her children many hours north across the border and to a shelter in Arkansas where they resided for a year before they returned to Virginia.

Upon her return to Virginia, she managed to gain custody of her children in another jurisdiction.

After she moved to Roanoke, the Legal Aid Society of Roanoke Valley assisted her in obtaining a divorce from her abusive husband. She has carefully arranged her life to conceal her and her children’s whereabouts from her former husband, fearing he may slip across the border and attempt to locate her at any time. 

Having legal counsel who is an expert in the area of domestic violence and one who is intimately familiar with the local resources available to assist clients such as these is oftentimes crucial in maintaining the safety and security of victims of domestic violence and their children.

And in a case like this, it is not just a divorce. It’s like shedding a skin and drawing a line on a personal map. Choosing to contact Legal Aid and showing up to the initial appointment is a huge step for anyone who has been deeply in the grip of domestic violence.

An abusive relationship may be like a blanket with broken glass, but it is familiar, and familiarity can be difficult to give up.

Transitioning from victim to survivor takes time, and it takes support. A consistent world of support. Our client first sought the support of missionaries, more support was given to her at the safe house in Arkansas, more support when she returned to Virginia from a Domestic Abuse services entity, and finally the support of an attorney at Legal Aid versed in the trauma informed approach and experienced working within the process of transforming victims into survivors.

A divorce is a lot of paperwork, but in those pages hold a part of a lifetime; and can help to dissolve a lot of bad living.