When Love Should Not Hurt
- Apr 29
- 8 min read
Updated: 5 hours ago
April 29, 2026 | Written By: Dr. Erlange Elisme
Making Sense of Intimate Partner Violence in Our Community
On April 1, 2026, Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen was found dead inside her home. She was 38 years old, a first-generation Haitian American, an environmental scientist, and the first Black and Haitian American woman elected to the Coral Springs City Commission. Police have described her death as a domestic violence incident. Her husband has been charged with murder.
She was, by every account, a bright star. Colleagues described her as a battle buddy with a good heart. The Florida Democratic Party called her a brilliant barrier-breaker. Her community called her theirs. She was preparing to launch a campaign for Congress.
And now we are left with grief, hard questions, and a conversation our community can no longer afford to avoid.
The Question We Keep Asking
Every time a story like this breaks, the same question surfaces. Why didn’t she leave?
People ask it in kitchens, in churches, in salon chairs, and in WhatsApp groups. They ask it with love, with frustration, with confusion. Sometimes they ask it with a quiet judgment that blames the woman before it blames the man who harmed her.
That impulse is understandable. When people love someone, or simply admire them from a distance, they want to believe there was an exit door she could have opened. The truth is harder. For many survivors, the door is not missing. It is guarded.
Research has shown this for decades. The most dangerous time in an abusive relationship is often not when a person stays, but when they try to leave. One widely cited study of intimate partner femicide found that separation, especially when the abuser perceived loss of control, was linked to increased homicide risk, along with access to a firearm (Campbell et al., 2003). Leaving is not a single decision. It is a plan, a risk assessment, and often a negotiation with fear.
What the Numbers Say
Intimate partner violence, often called IPV, is common and serious. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines IPV as physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, or psychological aggression by a current or former intimate partner (CDC, 2026). It can range from one incident to years of coercive control. It crosses income levels, education levels, religions, immigration status, and ZIP codes.
According to CDC survey data, more than 43.5 million women and 20.7 million men in the United States have experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime (CDC, 2024). In a recent 12-month period, about 6.7 million women and 2.8 million men experienced those forms of violence.
These are not distant numbers. They are our cousins, our classmates, our co-workers, and our neighbors. What happens behind closed doors is not just a private matter. It is a public health and community safety issue.
When the Survivor Is a Man
This also needs to be said plainly. Men can be victims too. Many men carry abuse quietly because communities often do not give them an easy language for being hurt in their own homes.
CDC data show that men also experience significant levels of intimate partner violence, including physical violence, stalking, and sexual violence, sometimes with related impacts such as fear, injury, or trauma symptoms (CDC, 2025). These men deserve compassion, support, and pathways to safety, not ridicule or silence.
Why It Is Harder for Us
For Haitian families and many immigrant families, the barriers to leaving, or even naming abuse, are layered and heavy. Research on IPV in immigrant communities shows that survivors often face social isolation, financial stress, acculturative stress, fear of authorities, and difficulty accessing culturally responsive services (Njie-Carr et al., 2021).
Consider what a survivor in our community may be carrying. There is the fear of shaming the family. There is the weight of a marriage vow made before God. There is the church leader who counsels patience. There is the mother who says every marriage has hard seasons. There is the aunt who survived worse and lived to tell about it.
There is the language barrier when the hotline operator does not speak Kreòl or French. There is the fear that calling the police will threaten a partner’s immigration status or destabilize the entire household. There is the economic dependence when she has no credit history, no driver’s license, or no access to the joint account.
These are not excuses for abuse. They are the context in which many survivors are making the hardest decisions of their lives.
In many Haitian households, the proverb Sa k pase lakay rete lakay, what happens at home stays at home, has protected family dignity for generations. But silence can also protect violence. Some women never get the chance to speak because the silence outlives them.
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What Research from Haiti Shows
Research using Haiti Demographic and Health Survey data found that 32.5 percent of women in Haiti reported intimate partner violence, including emotional violence at 24.7 percent, physical violence at 16.8 percent, and sexual violence at 10.5 percent (Gage & Thomas, 2017). Other Haitian research has linked IPV risk to partner control, jealousy, alcohol use, and exposure to violence within the family and community.
Recent reporting also shows that gender-based violence in Haiti has intensified amid political instability, displacement, and insecurity (Partners In Health, 2023). These realities do not explain away abuse, but they do remind us that violence in relationships does not happen in a vacuum.
The Signs We Miss
Intimate partner violence is rarely only physical. Long before the first bruise, there is often a slow erosion of the self. Survivors often describe it as a fog that thickens a little each day.
One common tactic is gaslighting, the repeated undermining of a person’s memory, judgment, and sense of reality. Over time, a survivor may begin to doubt her own instincts, needs, and worth.
Another tactic is isolation. Friendships become inconvenient. Family becomes a source of conflict. Phones are monitored. Schedules are questioned. By the time the violence becomes heavier, the people most likely to notice are no longer close enough to see it. That is not an accident. It is part of the strategy of control.
Other warning signs include a partner who controls the money, insists on knowing where someone is at all times, belittles them in private or in public, threatens harm to children or pets, pressures them sexually, or uses scripture, culture, or immigration status to justify control.
Strangulation is especially dangerous. Research has identified non-fatal strangulation as a strong predictor of future intimate partner homicide (Glass et al., 2008). The absence of visible injury does not mean the absence of abuse. Coercive control leaves marks that no photograph can capture.
What the Community Can Do
Ending intimate partner violence is not the work of one sermon, one article, or one viral post. It is a community project and a long-term commitment.
In Haitian culture, there is a word for shared labor: kombit. Ending violence will require that same collective effort.
A few places to begin:
Believe people the first time. When someone trusts another person enough to say that something is not right at home, the first response matters.
Stop asking why she stayed. Start asking what he did, what pressures kept her there, and what support was missing.
Learn the signs without becoming a diagnostician. The goal is not to label people. The goal is to notice patterns and stay close enough to help.
Support culturally grounded resources. National resources matter, but Haitian-led, Creole-speaking, and culturally responsive services matter too.
Hold men in both accountability and compassion. Boys who grow up watching domination can become men who repeat it, unless communities interrupt that learning and offer different models of love, power, and healing.
If You Are the One Who Is Hurting
If something in this article feels painfully familiar, there is no need to rush. You do not have to make every decision today. You do not have to label everything immediately. You are allowed to simply notice.
Your reactions make sense in context. The freezing, the forgetting, the defending, the explaining away, all of it may be a nervous system trying to keep you safe in a place that has not been safe. Nothing about that makes you weak. Your worth is not in question.
When you are ready, a safety plan can be one of the most protective steps to take. That may include keeping copies of important documents in a safe place, setting aside emergency money, identifying a trusted person, creating a code word, or having access to a spare phone. These steps may look small, but they can save lives.
If you are in immediate danger, call 911. If you need support, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-799-7233, and by text at 88788. Services are available in multiple languages.
For Nancy. For Him. For Us.
Vice Mayor Metayer Bowen will not read this article. But the women who looked up to her will. The young men who admired her will. The quiet ones in pews, offices, schools, and WhatsApp groups will.
Her name now belongs to a longer list than anyone wanted it to. The task before the community is to make sure her name also belongs to a turning point. To the moment people stopped asking why she did not leave and started asking what must be built so the next woman, and the next man, can leave safely, earlier, and alive.
Nou la pou nou. We are here for each other. Kombit is not only a word for harvest. It is also a word for healing. When one person is carrying too much, the rest of the community helps lift the load.
May Nancy rest. May her family find peace. And may the living do the sacred work of protecting each other better than before.
References
Campbell, J. C., et al. (2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study. American Journal of Public Health, 93(7), 1089–1097.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2023/2024 intimate partner violence data brief. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025). Intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and stalking among men.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026). About intimate partner violence.
Gage, A. J., & Thomas, N. J. (2017). Prevalence and factors associated with intimate partner violence among women in Haiti. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 35(21–22), 5215–5242.
Glass, N., et al. (2008). Non-fatal strangulation is an important risk factor for homicide of women. Journal of Emergency Medicine, 35(3), 329–335.
Njie-Carr, V. P. S., et al. (2021). Understanding intimate partner violence among immigrant and refugee women: A grounded theory analysis. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 30(6), 792–810.
Partners In Health. (2023, May 12). Addressing gender-based violence in Haiti.
About the Author
Dr. Erlange Elisme is a trauma-informed care leadership and practice specialist with over 30 years of experience as a school social worker. As Founder and CEO of Elisme Consulting Services LLC, she provides training and consulting to organizations committed to healing-centered practices. Dr. Elisme holds certification in Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery from Harvard Medical School, and has completed advanced continuing education in Trauma-Informed Care, Immigrant Mental Health, and Motivational Interviewing. She is a published author, host of the "Resilient Voices" podcast (available in English and Haitian Creole), and a 2025 Gwinnett Chamber Business Excellence Awards finalist. Fluent in English, French, and Haitian Creole, Dr. Elisme brings both clinical expertise and cultural wisdom to her work of restoring resilience in individuals and communities.
Dr.Erlange Elisme, DSW
CEO / Owner & Author
Website:https://elismeconsultingservices.com
Phone number:678-595-6446
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