Everyone Should Watch This Movie - Because millions of people are living it!
Last night Lifetime premiered the movie “Gaslit By My Husband – The Morgan Metzer Story,” starring Jana Kramer and Austin Nichols.[1] Now if you know me, you know I am a huge One Tree Hill fan, and a huge Jana Kramer fan, but it is Jana Kramer’s advocacy around domestic violence that made me want to watch this movie. I knew she would make sure the story was told in a truthful, authentic way. However, even in knowing this, I wasn’t prepared for just how accurate this movie was. When you think of a movie that is based on true events, you automatically assume that a movie must have been made about whatever it is because it is unusual in some way. Movies aren’t really made about daily life – even those that are set in a realistic world have events or drama in them that makes them interesting to watch. For example, One Tree Hill is a TV show, set in a small town in North Carolina and centers around two half-brothers who play for their high school basketball team.[2] Sounds normal enough right? In theory it is, it is set in a realistic world about a realistic high school experience that millions of people go through – playing a sport. It depicts relationships and fights and struggles with school, career, friends and family - all very “normal” things. Yet it also features a murderous father, a deranged stalker, a forgotten child, characters that all end up famous, near-death experiences galore, a high school marriage, multiple kidnappings, oh and a failed heart transplant because the heart gets eaten by a dog in the hospital.[3] Even in such a realistic setting, so many unrealistic things happen because that is what keeps people interested. If One Tree Hill had simply depicted boys playing basketball, then no one would have watched. The same principal applies to almost all TV shows and movies. Even the ones that depict regular everyday life have a host of unrealistic, usually dramatic storylines. No one wants to escape into a movie or TV show only to find themselves watching the very life they are trying to escape.
But this is what makes Gaslit By My Husband so unusual and a must watch. Aside from two things, which I will address in a minute, it accurately depicts a life that millions of people live through on a daily basis.
Now before I go into explaining this, I’ll give you a quick rundown of the plot. Basically, Morgan Metzer in is an abusive relationship that includes gaslighting, physical abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse, abuse using children and even technological abuse.[4] It ends when her husband enters her house in the middle of the night, wearing a mask and voice disguiser, brutally assaults her and then “shows up” as himself five minutes later to “rescue” her.[5]
Yes, this is a horrific story of abuse, and my heart goes out to Morgan Metzer. It absolutely should have been made into a movie and it is a movie that, I believe, every single person needs to watch. However, while I have no idea why Lifetime decided to make this particular story of domestic violence into a movie, if I had to guess I would say it is because of the final assault. It was unusual that her husband wore a mask when he assaulted and tried to kill her, usually perpetrators don’t bother wearing masks.[6] The second unusual thing that I noticed is a small scene where Morgan is fighting with her husband and her husband is accusing her of being a bad mother and her 7ish old twins defend her. From what I have seen, kids typically aren’t able to see through the abuse so clearly, so if this actually happened massive props to Morgan’s children.
But I am not telling you to watch this movie because of these “unusual” things. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I strongly believe everyone should watch this movie because it is not unusual. I say this not to devalue or minimize Morgan’s story whatsoever. She lived in hell for years. No one should ever have to go through anything like what she went through and yet it is so common that in the time it took me to watch the movie, 2 hours and 3 minutes, roughly 2,952 people were raped, physically assaulted or stalked by an intimate partner.[7] For those who, like me, aren’t fans of math – that’s 24 people every single minute. Think about that for a second. This means that during your one-hour lunch break at work, 1,440 people are raped, physically assaulted or stalked by their intimate partner. During an 8-hour workday, 11,520 people are raped, physically assaulted or stalked by their partner. This amounts to over 12 million people a year.[8]
Just let that sink in for a minute. Every day, when you go to work or school, another 11,520 people have been raped, physically assaulted or stalked by their intimate partner before you even arrive home. It is unbelievable how common this is.
But what struck me even more about this particular depiction of an abusive relationship was how common the specific behaviors that Morgan’s husband did to her actually are. As you can tell from the title, the movie depicted a lot of gaslighting. Amongst the more ‘obvious’ examples, Morgan’s husband convinced her that she had hit him when she hadn’t, convinced her that she had pushed him down the stairs when she hadn’t, and convinced her that she was a bad wife and mother, when she wasn’t.[9] He even went to the trouble of doctoring a video so that he had “evidence” of her pushing him down the stairs. But there were a lot of subtle instances of gaslighting too that were also, just as accurate. For example, there was a scene where he was mad at her for agreeing to pick up the kids from school and then not doing so, causing him to lose his job. He was insistent that she had agreed to pick up the kids, despite Morgan being confused as to why she would say that given that she had a standing commitment at that time every week. He withheld information around finances, told her he was interviewing for a job in Dallas when he was really playing golf, called her crazy, a bad mother, violent, never took responsibility for anything, constantly shifted blame onto her, used criticism and faked concern for her and even, at one point, forced her to have sex then acted like she was the one who had pushed him into it. All of these are examples of gaslighting.[10]
He also went to others and made her out to be the crazy one, a preemptive measure that many abusers will do to trap their victim and stop the truth from coming out, or at least make sure that no one believes the victim when they do speak out about it. There is one scene where Morgan’s parents come over to “confront her” about pushing her husband down the stairs. Morgan’s husband had gone to her parents earlier in the day and talked to them about how he feared for not only Morgan but also for his and the kid’s safety because Morgan was violent, irrational and emotional. He had even doctored a video that he showed them, that showed him tumbling down the stairs after Morgan had yelled at him. We later find out that what actually happened was that her husband slammed her against a wall, threw her down the stairs then threw himself down the stairs to make it look like she had pushed him. The parents fell for it completely and sided with her husband, leaving Morgan with no one to turn to and even believing that she must have pushed him down the stairs. This scene is horrible to watch. It is horrible to think that Morgan’s parents turned on her and believed him over their own daughter. Yet this happens all the time. It is so common in fact that the tactic has a name: turning tables.[11] I have known victims, who’s perpetrators went to their parents, or their friends (as did Morgan’s husband) or even went to the police, either to file a report, obtain a protective order or, in one case, just “give them a heads up that their wife might call and tell them he had abused her but to not listen to her because she was crazy.”
Morgan’s husband also financially abused her. We see him discouraging her from following her career dreams, becoming jealous when she starts a successful business, spending money recklessly and getting angry when confronted about it, not allowing her information around their finances and telling her “she wouldn’t understand” financial matters. We even see him being “fired” repeatedly and blaming her, then being unable to find work, although I question whether he was even trying. Unfortunately, none of this is unusual, with 99% of domestic violence victims experiencing financial abuse.[12]
Morgan’s husband also uses the children to abuse Morgan. He tells Morgan that she cannot leave him because she will never see the kids again. He actively tries to turn the children against her, whether that be by making comments about her not having time to make them dinner or calling her a bad mother in front of them or accusing her of abandoning them. Unfortunately, not only is this a common tactic used by perpetrators of intimate partner violence, but more often than not, as I said above, the children are unable to see through it, which leads them to resent the victim, not the abuser.[13]
Morgan also experiences both physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband. I won’t go much into the physical abuse, as this should be easily identifiable, however the one thing I will say is that, when Morgan’s husband comes over to kill her, he has a gun. Yet the method he chooses to use to kill her is strangulation. Firstly, the presence of a gun in a domestic violence setting is extremely serious – with over half of all fatalities in domestic violence being gun related and victims being 5 times more likely to die if their abuser has access to a gun.[14] However, the strangulation was pivotal, as this is the biggest indicator of a fatal threat. Victims who have been strangled by their partner are 750 times more likely to be killed by that partner within a year.[15] This is important, because if you or someone you know has been choked or strangled by a partner, even if it wasn’t fatal, the risk that you/they will be killed is extreme.
I also want to quickly address the sexual abuse, because while I would like to think it is obvious, I don’t think it is as obvious as I would like it to be. Firstly, just to clear this up, yes, a married person can rape or sexually assault their spouse.[16] Active, uncoerced consent is needed whether you are married or not. Now obviously the sexual assault during the final attack, where Morgan was bound and had her head covered by a pillowcase is rape, as was the instance in the bedroom where her husband pinned her down and raped her. What may not have been so obviously sexual abuse, but still was, was when her husband “celebrated” their career accomplishments by having sex with Morgan in the garage. Morgan repeatedly said no, however her husband kept pushing until she finally “gave in.” This was not consent. This was sexual coercion.[17] Sexual coercion lacks consent and is therefore a form of sexual abuse.[18]
As you can see, Morgan’s husband ran the gamut as far as types of abuse in relationships goes. I have only given you a few examples – the movie is packed with a lot more. However, while this was Morgan’s story, it is also so many other people’s story too. Nothing in this movie is unusual – other than the husband wearing a mask when he attacked her. I am not telling you that Morgan’s story was “typical” to minimize what she went through. Quite the opposite actually. I am telling you this to emphasize just how many people live in hell every single day. Just how many people go through things like this every single minute. In fact, in the 8 or so minutes it has likely taken you to read this, another 192 people have just been raped, physically assaulted or stalked by their partner. By the time you click out of this post, that number will be over 200. Domestic violence is a massive problem that far too many people experience. Furthermore, about 4,000 women die from intimate partner violence every year. As we saw in the movie, it wasn’t until Morgan left her husband and made it clear that there was no hope of them getting back together, that her husband tried to kill her. This isn’t unusual, more often than not the most dangerous time for victims of domestic violence is when they leave the relationship.[19] This level of danger also continues for a long time after a victim has left – even longer than 18 months after they leave.[20] So if you are a victim, or you know someone who is a victim of domestic violence, safety planning is essential. But not just any safety planning. Perpetrators will go to great extremes to get their partners back. As we saw in the movie, Morgan’s husband literally faked a cancer diagnosis, complete with “paperwork” as proof, just to get her back. So, it seems likely that they would also research safety plans themselves, in an attempt to stay a step ahead of you. This means that, if you can find it online, then so can your perpetrator. Safety plans have to be unique, customized to you, and extremely detailed and comprehensive. This is why I have developed my own model of safety planning that cannot be found anywhere online. If you or someone you know are a victim of domestic violence and need help, please reach out. You don’t deserve to live this way. I can help.
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