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" &amp;quot;I lost my best friend.&amp;quot;  \u2014Kriquette Davis, 41, associate executive director of the Goldsboro Family YMCA, North Carolina My dear friend, Karen Crawford, was murdered by her partner, Peter Matson, on January 1, 2006. I found out she&amp;#039;d died when another friend of Karen&amp;#039;s, Becky, called me at work the next day. She said, &amp;quot;I need to tell you something.&amp;quot; And I was like, &amp;quot;Oh, my God.&amp;quot; I knew something had happened. Becky told me Pete had found Karen in bed and that she was dead. But later, we found out that Pete had strangled her in her bed, pulling the covers up to her chin and waiting some 30 hours before calling the police. Pete was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He got 20 to 24 years \u2014 the maximum for his crime. But that doesn&amp;#039;t make me feel any better. Nothing will bring her back.  I first met Karen in 1986. We both worked for a fitness company and hit it off. We even lived together in Raleigh for a short time. Then I moved to Goldsboro and got married. She got a job working for a pharmaceutical company and bought a house in Chapel Hill. But we still saw each other often \u2014 we&amp;#039;d go to the Brookline Steeplechase horse race, football games, and Jimmy Buffett concerts. She even dated my brother for a while.  Karen first started dating Pete in 2004, but she was very private about her relationship \u2014 all I knew about Pete was that they worked together and he was in the midst of a divorce. I was happy she&amp;#039;d found someone, but when I finally met him at the Steeplechase, I didn&amp;#039;t like him one bit. He was cocky, controlling, and made me uncomfortable. I didn&amp;#039;t want to say a whole lot to her: Sometimes even with your closest friends, if they feel like you&amp;#039;re trying to control them, they go in the opposite direction, and I didn&amp;#039;t want it to escalate into a long-term relationship. They dated for about a year, and I was so relieved when they broke up.  But after Pete lost his job a few months later, Karen agreed to let him stay with her while he got on his feet. When I visited her that fall, Pete was storming around the house, mumbling to himself. He was mad because Karen asked him to paint her roof in exchange for staying there. During my second visit, around mid-November, Pete was in another foul mood. I got the sense he wanted Karen all to himself. That evening, Karen told me she hoped he&amp;#039;d find his own place soon.  I called her the morning of January 2 to say, &amp;quot;Happy New Year&amp;quot; but got the answering machine. Pete&amp;#039;s name had been on the outgoing message, but that day, I heard, &amp;quot;Hi, this is Karen. Please leave a message.&amp;quot; I did, happily. Her message meant she&amp;#039;d finally kicked him out!  The next thing I knew, I was at Karen&amp;#039;s wake. The funeral home had dressed her in a turtleneck to cover up what Pete had done to her. I have asked myself, Why her? every day since. She&amp;#039;s been dead for nearly two years, and only recently have I been able to get through a day without crying. I started seeing a shrink to deal with the loss and the anger I&amp;#039;m feeling.  I&amp;#039;ve heard others call Karen&amp;#039;s death a crime of passion, but that&amp;#039;s utter stupidity. It was murder. And it could have been prevented. Domestic violence is still this dirty secret, but if we don&amp;#039;t talk about it, how will it change? I don&amp;#039;t even know if that was the first time he hurt her; she never said. But since Karen&amp;#039;s death, I have learned that it&amp;#039;s all right to say to your friend, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think your partner is treating you well.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s being a good friend.  Loved ones have organized a charitable fund-raiser to honor Karen. Learn more at nccadv.org. Watch &amp;quot;What Freedom Feels Like,&amp;quot; REDBOOK&amp;#039;s new video series with inspiration from women who&amp;#039;ve escaped abuse and the stars who support them.  &amp;quot;My wife is a domestic-abuse survivor.&amp;quot;  \u2014Adam Voyles, 31, stockbroker, Arizona I used to think women who said they were victims of domestic violence were saying it to get attention. I&amp;#039;ve never raised my hand to any woman, so it was hard for me to understand how a man could do that. Now I know it happens. It happened to my wife.  I first met Amilia at church in March 2004. When I asked for her phone number, she hesitated, but then gave it to me. When she didn&amp;#039;t show up to church for a few weeks, I called to make sure she was okay. She said she was staying in a hotel with her kids \u2014 a mini-vacation. Something seemed a little off, but I wasn&amp;#039;t quite sure what. We hadn&amp;#039;t discussed past relationships; all I knew was that the man she was divorcing lived in town.  We started going to parks with our kids \u2014 her son is 10 and her girls are 7 and 6, my boys are 9 and 7 \u2014 and I started spending time at her house, having dinner, watching movies. That&amp;#039;s where I first got a hunch that something was seriously wrong. When Amilia&amp;#039;s ex would call, I could hear his yelling from across the room. I also noticed Amilia giving advice to women over the phone. When I realized she went to weekly meetings at a domestic violence organization, I figured that she must have been a victim herself. Still, I respected her privacy; she&amp;#039;d tell me when she was ready.  One day, I was driving her kids somewhere, and her 6-year-old said, &amp;quot;Did you know my daddy tied my mommy up once?&amp;quot; I was dumbfounded, and said, &amp;quot;No.&amp;quot; And then she said, &amp;quot;She died, but then came back to life.&amp;quot; That night, I asked Amilia if it was true. She started to shake when she told me: Her ex-husband had choked her; that&amp;#039;s why she and the kids were staying in that hotel. I promised her I would make sure that never happened again.  The next time he came to the house for the kids, I waited by the door. He hopped out of his truck with a big smile and open arms until Amilia came out to ask about child support \u2014 he owed her $32,000. That&amp;#039;s when I saw his rage: His fists clenched and his face reddened. He became a totally different person.  I worried as much about the kids as I did about Amilia. He played mind games, promising them an allowance and then paying one but not the other two. He&amp;#039;d say, &amp;quot;See you guys next week,&amp;quot; and disappear for months. It devastated them.  By the time I learned everything about her relationship \u2014 how she left him in Ohio and he followed her here to Arizona \u2014 I&amp;#039;d fallen in love with her. I told her the past didn&amp;#039;t matter; we needed to move forward.  We married that April \u2014 about five months after our first real date \u2014 a year after we&amp;#039;d met. I&amp;#039;m in the process of adopting the kids now. Planning the wedding, we didn&amp;#039;t mention specific details around the kids for fear they&amp;#039;d let something slip while with their dad. Amilia has a restraining order, but she also had one in place when he tied her up and choked her \u2014 and it didn&amp;#039;t stop him.  He continues to haunt us. We moved, so he doesn&amp;#039;t know where we live, but recently, he spotted Amilia in town and followed her to a gas station to confront her. Amilia called his parole officer \u2014 she reports every incident. It&amp;#039;s all she can do. He haunts us in other ways, too. I can see the effects of the abuse in the children. Her boy, the eldest, has a lot of bottled-up anger. He freaked out on me one day; later I had to bear-hug him and say, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not trying to hurt you.&amp;quot; I have to constantly remind the older girl that when I say I&amp;#039;ll do something, I do it. The littlest one still cries out in her sleep from nightmares about a man who is coming to get her.  As for Amilia, if I walk into a room unannounced, she jumps with fright. Once, I came into the bedroom after she dozed off and she jumped up saying, &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t mean to fall asleep!&amp;quot; with pure fear in her eyes. It broke my heart. I don&amp;#039;t know if that&amp;#039;s ever going to go away. All I can do is hug her and promise her she&amp;#039;s safe with me. &amp;quot;A coworker&amp;#039;s abuse made me realize domestic violence was real.&amp;quot;  \u2014Bob Mettler, 66, chairman and CEO, Macy&amp;#039;s West, California Domestic violence has always been hard for me to comprehend. I come from a family where women were never treated violently, so it was hard for me to believe it existed. I certainly had no idea how pervasive it was. But then I witnessed something that changed my view.  It happened in 1986, when I was CEO of another large company. One of my top-level executives came to work with bruises on her face. I asked, &amp;quot;What on earth happened?&amp;quot; and she said something about an accident involving a doorknob. I believed her. It never occurred to me that her husband could have done that to her. Like so many people, I thought if domestic violence did happen, it was to women from less fortunate backgrounds: uneducated people, undocumented immigrants. Not high-level executives.  Months later, this same woman came back from a vacation with a broken arm. Again, she said it was an accident, but it seemed strange to me. I asked a few people close to her what was going on, and for the first time domestic abuse was mentioned. To be honest, I didn&amp;#039;t know what to do. I&amp;#039;d met her husband socially at company events, and he seemed like a nice enough guy, so it was really hard to wrap my head around the idea that he could do this. So there I am, wrestling with all these related issues: How do you identify domestic violence? What do you do about it? Speaking to her about it directly felt like I was crossing a line. So when I heard that she separated from him, I was relieved. At least she was doing something about it.  Not long after, I left the company, but I never forgot this woman. I became the chairman and CEO of Macy&amp;#039;s West in 2002. Two years later, several employees approached me about a partnership with the Family Violence Prevention Fund to instill domestic violence awareness policies in our company. I did not hesitate. I said, &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s do it.&amp;quot; My interest was inspired by this woman, but it was also sparked by the recognition that we have over 40,000 people in our company, 70 percent of whom are women. And more than 70 percent of our customers are women.  We also partner with the health-care philanthropy group Blue Shield of California Foundation to train the senior managers in every one of our stores to recognize the signs of domestic violence and refer people \u2014 both employees and customers \u2014 who may be at risk. And it&amp;#039;s working: People have come forward and talked about their own experiences, including one senior executive who has since gotten out of her relationship safely. With something as pervasive as domestic violence, recognition is an important part of the cure. If this program saves one person \u2014 and it already has \u2014 it&amp;#039;s working.  Domestic violence is still considered a dirty secret. As a leader in the business world, I&amp;#039;m in a position to call attention to it. I was not able to do it some 20 years ago for my former employee, and her story has stayed with me all this time. She probably has no idea how profoundly her experience touched me. At least I am doing something now. &amp;quot;My colleague&amp;#039;s nightmare may have saved my life.&amp;quot;  \u2014Karyn Van Geertry, 40, customer service trainer/recruiter, Arizona I first met Carol in 1989. I worked for a national grocery-store chain and she was one of my suppliers. We spoke on a weekly basis, and soon became friendly, but as months passed, I noticed that she was often out sick. As we got to know each other better, she told me about the fights she and her husband had. And I told her I could relate.  I married my high school sweetheart when I was 20. He was always jealous and moody, but I never really thought it was a sign of anything. We moved to Arizona and had a son, and when our boy was still in diapers, my husband and I had our first really bad fight. It scared me so much I ran out of the house and stayed away for a couple of days. But when he said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m sorry, I love you so much,&amp;quot; I fell for it.  By the time I was 23, he started drinking a lot and became like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He had such a mean streak. He never hit me, but I couldn&amp;#039;t handle the screaming. By the time I met Carol, he was calling me at work 10 times a day to check in on me. If I didn&amp;#039;t pick up, he&amp;#039;d accuse me of having affairs with coworkers. Once, when a meeting ran longer than I told my husband it would, he called my boss to say he got in an accident and needed my insurance information. So they interrupted the meeting, and I stood at my desk saying, &amp;quot;Are you okay?&amp;quot; as he screamed obscenities at me on the other end of the line. Then I had to lie to everyone and say, &amp;quot;It was just a fender bender.&amp;quot; It was awful.  As Carol and I got to know each other, I&amp;#039;d tell her what was going on at my house and she&amp;#039;d tell me what was happening at hers: She talked about how dinner would be ruined because her husband wanted baked potatoes and she made mashed. She told me about his threats, like &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m the man of this house. What I say goes.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;d get goose bumps and tell her about the time my husband sat on me and said, &amp;quot;Do what I say or I&amp;#039;ll kill you.&amp;quot;  Then one day, Carol said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m getting divorced. I&amp;#039;m scared to death, but I can&amp;#039;t take it anymore.&amp;quot; Right after that, I was promoted and no longer had a reason to talk to her at work, but I called every so often to check in. She got divorced and moved into an apartment, but was still scared. She told me, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t trust him.&amp;quot;  One night not long after she said that, I was sitting in bed, watching the news as my husband slept beside me. A reporter announced that an estranged husband shot a lady in her car while her two children were in the back seat. I immediately thought, It&amp;#039;s Carol. I started shaking so badly that I left the bedroom so I wouldn&amp;#039;t wake my husband. The next day, I called her office and they confirmed it was Carol. She was alive, but blinded. She came back to work months later, and I spoke to her a few times. She said she was hanging in there. Then my husband and I moved and I got a new job \u2014 and when I tried to find her, she had disappeared. I haven&amp;#039;t spoken to her since.  Part of the reason I was sick over what had happened to Carol is that I knew it could happen to me. And so I started planning my escape. It took me four years, and they were the worst of my life, but I never stopped thinking of Carol. The fighting got worse, my husband started in on our kids (we now had two), and he threatened to kill me more than once. The few times I mustered up the courage to leave, he&amp;#039;d hunt me down. I finally left for good in 1999 \u2014 I had to quit my job and pull my boys out of school, and we wound up in a shelter for three months. But now I have a new job in a new town and am going to school to get my bachelor&amp;#039;s degree in business. I&amp;#039;m also volunteering at a domestic violence shelter. Though we have lost touch, Carol was my guiding light. I got out alive, and I&amp;#039;m thankful to her for that. Watch &amp;quot;What Freedom Feels Like,&amp;quot; REDBOOK&amp;#039;s new video series with inspiration from women who&amp;#039;ve escaped abuse and the stars who support them. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/friends-family/a2218/domestic-violence-and-you/>