Reality Check

One expert’s suggestions on how planners should handle suspected spouse abuse

Dr. Susan Weitzman used her experience and insights in writing Not To People Like Us (Basic Books, 2000), a book focusing on spouse abuse in upscale marriages. She has some additional insights to offer both on the problem of abuse itself and on what steps can be taken by someone not skilled in handling such situations.

Weitzman came to the work because of a patient she had been seeing while at the University of Chicago department of psychiatry. Her practice there included many doctors and doctors’ wives, as well as faculty, and one of her patients, the wife of a “very well-known professor,” terminated their sessions. Six months later she was back, unexpectedly pregnant, and told Weitzman a tale of abuse that included “atrocities,” says Weitzman: torture, being locked up, and numerous other abuses. “I was taken aback,” says Weitzman. “I had never once asked her about domestic violence.”

After that experience she began to ask about it with regularity, and found that it was far more common than she had thought. The literature, she says, specifically says that domestic violence cuts across all segments of society, but up until this particular incident it had not occurred to her to look for it at this level. And the literature does not relate statistics of upscale abuse (a term coined by Weitzman to describe the phenomenon). These upper-class, educated, cultured women suffering at the hands of their spouses and significant others do not talk about it, whereas most of the statistics come from hospital emergency rooms and shelters, where victims are more easily counted.

“We’re up against this cultural myth that domestic abuse doesn’t happen to people like us,” she says. But after her experience with the professor’s wife, and in response to her now-regular questions about it, she found that it was indeed happening in such circles. With the assistance of an attorney who handled divorces of couples with net worth of “six and seven figures,” she says, she was able to locate a research sample to begin her studies. Those studies led to her book (which apparently touched quite a nerve, since it went into its third printing within a week of release).

Of all the possible types of abuse, Weitzman says that except for murder and maiming, the scarring from verbal and psychological abuse is, in her opinion, far worse than that from physical abuse, whose scars heal relatively easily. “The labeling, punishing words, and threats that get leveraged are hard to erase,” she says. “Many women who have been divorced for years are still in the beginning stages of healing.” Among the psychological forms of abuse she has seen are insatiable demands, outrageous threats, including death threats, and unreasonable expectations.

And powerful, wealthy men can carry them out. “Any man can threaten a woman,” says Weitzman; “in this group–upper income–a man has the contacts and wherewithal to follow through on his threats.” She has heard quoted a statistic that in 70% of cases where an upper-income man goes to court to win custody of his children, he wins. “There are thousands of women who have not seen their children,” says Weitzman. A wealthy man has the resources to outlast his wife in court, hire a “dream team” of attorneys, and bring motion after motion that she is powerless to fight without his deep pockets. “I have one woman right now,” says Weitzman, “involved with the courts for abduction. Her husband won custody, but her children want to stay with her. Every time the kids run away to her, he has her put in jail.” And wealthy men can also put their partners away in institutions.

Signs of Abuse

Signs she suggests watching for, should you be concerned about a client, are in men, “controlling, belittling behavior and put-down humor when you see them as a couple.” You might see signs of coercion. In women, watch for signs of insecurity, hypervigilance, startled reactions, a sense of depression or resignation. “It wouldn’t feel like a clean, open relationship. I’ve had some cases,” she points out, “where the woman is the wealthy one and she’s still being battered.”

If you think it can’t have any relation to how you handle their money, she mentions the case of a woman featured on the television series 20/20. “She was incredibly wealthy,” says Weitzman, “and he forced her at knifepoint to sign over stock papers.” In another incident, a woman had inherited a lot of money from her parents and her husband took charge of it and dissipated it, stashing some in private accounts. And in a market downturn, such as we’ve been experiencing, it can be even more accentuated, because the upscale man who abuses often has his whole identity tied up in money and power. Loss of either one or the added frustration of a volatile market can accelerate or intensify his striking out against his partner.

“People in general,” says Weitzman, “need to become comfortable with the notion that abuse happens to people like us: upper educated, upper income. Breaking the myth and turning your own thinking around is the first step. Do an evaluation of how you feel about that.” Something else you need to consider, she points out, is what you will do if you do find it within your client base. “Suppose you find that your client is an abusive husband? Will you take a moral stand and not work with him? These men can be very charming.” Advisors have a decision to make along those lines, she says. “Will you have a ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation? There are a lot of consequences to more education [about whether abuse occurs]. Familiarize yourself with the fact that it does happen, and see how you feel about that. Each individual has to make their own personal moral judgment on what stand they want to take.”

What You Can Do

As far as what you can do, she reiterates that it is a very touchy area. “It depends on the relationship the advisor has with his client and who the client is,” she says. But a lot also has to do with your own perception of your clients and abuse itself. “When I had started the Abuse Awareness League in 1992, I spoke with a gynecologist who worked with high-profile patients,” Weitzman relates. “I asked him that if he saw a woman come in with bruises, would he say anything. He said it was touchy and he didn’t want to upset his patients or open himself to litigation.” One thing she suggests you do is to leave information in your ladies’ room on domestic abuse. There is a test on her Web site (www.nottopeoplelikeus.com) that a woman can take to determine whether she is indeed being abused (many women do not admit it to themselves, or have not allowed themselves to consciously identify the treatment they receive as abuse). “Gentle education and opening the door is all you can do,” she says, unless you feel they’re in danger. The safety of the woman has to be one’s primary concern, and sometimes overt action can do more harm than good.

“Another thing to consider is that because of the nature of upscale violence, and because the upscale batterer can have such different faces in public and in private, the woman tends to blame herself. She isolates, and doesn’t get help, and because people disbelieve her she becomes more isolated and shamed. This is key when you approach [a victim]–very gingerly, very delicately. Not to be apologetic about it–’I'm sorry for asking’–but, ‘This may be delicate, but I feel compelled to say that I know this happens to people.’ It needs to be delicately handled.”