Question: Over the years, my husband has been physically abusive to me. He has been charged with criminal domestic violence twice. I am afraid of him, and believe that when he drinks, me and my son are not safe in the same house with him.

However, time after time, he talks me into taking him back. He is a loving husband for a month or two, and the cycle starts all over again. Last month he choked and hit me, and was again removed from the house by police. I took him back for several days and then he left and has refused to come back home or to support me and our son.

This time I went to a lawyer, who told me that I had forgiven all of my husband’s previous cruelty, including the choking, by living with him. He said I would have a difficult time proving my case in court. I can’t understand how he can hit and choke me when he wants to, and I am barred from the court.

Answer: For whatever the reason, like so many other women, you are having a difficult time breaking the cycle of abuse. Assuming you have made up your mind terminate your relationship, you must understand that even though you may have “condoned” or “forgiven” the last episode, depending on the law of your state of residence, your husband's subsequent conduct of leaving you without support or reason should have “revived” all of his former acts of abuse.

Because your state of residence is generally said to have a third-party interest in preserving your marriage, the continued disruption of the marital relationship should not be tolerated.

Where, as here, you and your husband lived together as husband and wife for a period of time in the same living quarters after the last act of physical abuse, the law could presume you forgave him, based on the fact that you and he engaged in marital relations.

Whether or not you condoned these acts is a factual question for a judge, based upon your state of mind and surrounding circumstances. For example, if you and he fully resumed marital cohabitation after the abusive conduct for a reasonable length of time, it might be determined to be an intention to forgive his conduct.

But “condonation” is not an absolute forgiveness of your husband’s prior misconduct; instead, it is a conditional one, based on the condition that he would not engage in any future matrimonial offense. This means that your forgiveness would be revoked or nullified if your husband’s future conduct would lead you to reasonably believe that he would either 1) be cruel to you again, or 2) commit some other act that would give rise to a ground for divorce.

As complicated as the legal theories may sound, we suggest that you proceed with your action to terminate your marriage under the circumstances you describe, as neither you nor your child will benefit from this pattern of abuse.

SoloFact: Today, patterns of domestic abuse or violence often result in the police being called, charges being filed, and then, after the spouses reconcile, the victim of the abuse refuses to press the charges and asks that the criminal charges be dropped. Because of the recidivism, more and more local communities take the discretion out of the equation and prosecute the cases regardless of the “deal” between the now “lovey dovey” spouses.