Predicting Dating Violence

That's a mugshot, above.

He's thought to have accidentally killed the girl he loved, Yeardley Love. Bloggers jumped on the story last week. Now print journalism is catching up, picking up where we left off.

The girl on the cover of today's People could have been a model. But Yeardley Love chose sports. Her athletic boyfriend, lacrosse star George Huguely V, beat her head against a wall in a drunken rage, killed her on May 3, ten days ago. Both were students at the University of Virginia, neither will return.

Page 63, lower left,

Now many are asking, how could this have happened? Could school officials have done more to prevent dating violence?

Some of us are of one mind, and the answer is a resounding YES. (See Relationship-Wise, and previous posts. Or maybe you're tired of the story.)

We only care because they're so attractive, athletes like George Huguely and Yeardley Love. And the potential of kids like this, having it all-- looks, talent, money. To blow it, to lose everything-- it makes everyone wonder. If they can't make it, who can?

The schools are getting the blame for ignoring the warning signs, which won't make the Loves, Yeardley's family, feel a whole lot better.

University President John Casteen is shouting about it, suggesting we all have a share of the process:

"Don't hear a scream, don't watch abuse, don't hear stories of abuse from your friends and keep quiet."

Or you're an accomplice, if not in the strictest sense of the word.

How many people are guilty of this? Millions, for sure. Most of us don't get involved when it comes to intimate partner violence. Most of us don't know about it. Even the cops will say: It's rough sex. People like it.

What we have so far on George Huguely V, the young man accused of murder, is that

he was fine --a happy, friendly little boy-- until age eight.

That's when his parents divorced. His father, George Huguely IV, was born to money, lived a plush lifestyle, but was in arrears in 1997 to his estranged wife Marta to the sum of $11,478.

Born to money, you sort of think, that kind of sum, he could have found it anywhere. His son was probably ten when the power and control played out. Who knows what little George saw, what he heard, what he thought.

According to People, a peer of the elder Huguely said that George the younger grew up watching his father "thumb his nose at authority."

That role model thing; it really matters.

Whereas his father thumbed his nose at the judge for child support, the younger, as a collegian, thumbed his nose at police, displayed disorderly conduct while intoxicated in 2008. Most of us don't swear at police, use racial epithets. George Huguely V, star athlete, did.

He didn't learn from his community service or alcohol abuse program, either. In 2009 he took matters into his own hands, flaunted the laws about battery, beat up a sleeping teammate. The teammate had allegedly kissed his girlfriend.

Yes, Yeardley Love.

What's interesting from our perspective is that the psycho-dynamics of childhood, the interplay between parent relationships and how children perceive their parents, themselves, their identity, the past, isn't always the focus of therapy anymore. The first order of business is to think about what's going in in the here and now, make sure no one is suicidal. Treat it all, make the symptoms abate with either meds or a very intellectual, cognitive-behavioral therapy. We don't get mired in history.

Well, some of us still do. The lesson here is that it is best to do both, mire yourself in history, and stay in the here and now, too. Make sure no one wants to bash in anyone's head. It's not as hard as it sounds, flipping the channels in therapy. Give us forty-five minutes, we'll give you your soul.

And here you have it, smoldering backlash against CBT. History does make a difference. It molds our personalities, sculpts our responses to things like. . . abandonment.

Not that people shouldn't divorce for fear of that separation, the effect it will have on the children. And not that we can truly shield our children from our emotions, our anger. These things are often unavoidable, the expression of anger, they are inevitable in life, feelings. You can't make all relationships work. Most of us can't. And kids aren't stupid.

But please. When there are kids, and they are in the middle in divorce? Take care of their emotional needs. Address their issues. Never normalize your rage or your partner's, not to yourself, not to your kids. It has to go, the rage, or it's revisited. It can be.

We hear that male members of the University of Virginia Lacrosse team carried Ms. Love's casket down the aisle of the cathedral during the memorial service. George Huguely V wasn't there, as much as he surely loved her, the girl his passion stole from him. He's in jail, awaiting a June 10 court date for first degree murder.

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