We Have to Do Better: A Word on Love, Danger, and Choosing to Live

If you are in immediate danger, please call 911. National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 (available 24/7) Text START to 88788

In March, I attended the memorial service of a friend.

She was a business and marketing professional. Someone I had worked alongside, respected, admired. She was killed by her husband. He took his own life immediately after. A murder-suicide. And it shook everyone who loved her to the core.

I sat with that grief for a long time. And if I am being honest, I am still sitting with it.

After the service, I found myself asking God the questions that grief brings: What could I have done? Should I have reached out more? Should I have asked more questions? Should I have encouraged her to leave? What could I have done differently?

And since then, there have been more. High-profile murder-suicides happening all over the nation, one after another. This is not new. This has always been happening. But we are seeing it more, and it is forcing a conversation we have been too afraid to have long enough to actually change something.

This article is that conversation.

Why I Cannot Stay Quiet About This

I have been in a place where things could have ended differently for me.

When I was younger, in college, I was in a relationship that was unhealthy and abusive in multiple ways. Part of the reason I struggled so much during that season is because of what I was living through behind closed doors. And eventually, the journey of getting out of that is part of what launched me into the work I do now. Not because I built a brand around it, but because surviving it changed everything about how I see people, how I see healing, and what I believe I am called to do.

I have never called myself a victim. Some articles have used that word to describe me, and I understand why, but that is not how I carry my story. I have been through it. I know what it feels like. And I know what happens in your head when you are inside of it.

You want to stay committed to the decision you made. You do not want to feel like a failure. You want to keep your family intact. You want to hold onto your title. There is so much that runs through your mind. And none of it is simple. None of it is just "why didn't she leave?" Because leaving is not always as simple as a decision. And sometimes, tragically, leaving is the most dangerous moment of all.

I used to say the same thing people always say. I remember being in high school, working with a coworker whose relationship was abusive. And I told her plainly: I do not see how you deal with that. That is something I could never do.

And then life happened. And I did deal with it.

I say that not to diminish what I survived, but to say this clearly: none of us are immune. Not to trauma. Not to unhealthy dynamics. Not to the ways that unhealed wounds in ourselves and in others can create dangerous situations. We have to stop judging from the outside and start leaning in with more compassion, more accountability, and more real support.

The Most Dangerous Moment

There is something important that most people do not know, and it needs to be said out loud.

When a woman decides to leave a relationship, that is often the most dangerous time of her life. Not before the decision. The moment of leaving, or the period surrounding it, is when the risk of serious harm or death is highest. This is documented. It is researched. And it is why "why didn't she just leave?" is such a painful and uninformed question.

Sometimes people do not leave because leaving could mean death. That is the reality. And it is an unbearable one to sit with.

What we owe to the people in our lives, the women we know who are in relationships we are not sure about, the friends who seem quieter lately, the ones who laugh a little too loudly to cover something, is more. More check-ins. More genuine questions. More of a willingness to sit with the uncomfortable and ask: are you okay? Are you really okay?

Releasing the Guilt

To anyone who, like me, is carrying guilt about someone they lost, someone they could not reach, someone they are asking "what could I have done" about: I want you to release it.

Only Jesus can save us. We cannot save each other. But we can support each other. And sometimes, even our best support is not enough to change what someone else decides to do with their life. You have to allow people to make their own decisions. And when those decisions end in tragedy, the grief of that is real and valid. But the guilt of what you could not control is a prison. And staying in that prison will keep you stagnant in other areas of your life.

If you knew, I am sure you did everything you could. If you did not know, there is nothing to forgive yourself for. What I would encourage you to do, what I have had to do myself, is talk through it. Go to therapy. Talk to someone you trust. Come to a place of forgiving yourself for what you had no control over. And forgive your friend, your family member, your colleague for not making a different choice. Because carrying anger at them for the outcome will cause a kind of dis-ease in your body and your spirit that you were not designed to carry.

We Are Not Immune

There is something I said earlier that I want to come back to. We can be the perpetrator and we can be the victim. That is a hard sentence to read, but I believe it is necessary.

None of us are immune to life. None of us are immune to trauma. None of us are immune to carrying unhealed wounds until we finally get to a place of working through them. And when people do not get to that place, when they do not do the work, it does not just harm them. It harms the people around them. It harms their children. It harms their partners. It harms their communities.

This is not an excuse for violence. It is never an excuse for violence. But it is a call for us to be honest about the fact that unhealed people cause damage, sometimes catastrophic damage, and we have to stop pretending that getting help is optional.

We owe it to ourselves to do the work. Not just for our own wholeness, but because the ripple effect of our unhealed wounds touches everyone in our path.

What We Have to Do Together

We have to be more accountable to one another as a community. We have to actually know where the people in our lives are. Not just their highlight reel. The real version. The one they share when someone asks the right question at the right moment.

We have to stop summing up a person's entire life by the one terrible thing they did. That does not mean excusing harm. It means understanding that people are complex, and that the path to preventing more of this is to lean in earlier, before the crisis, not just after.

We have to stop stigmatizing mental health support and therapy in our communities, especially in the church. Jesus and therapy can coexist. God put professionals in this world for a reason. And sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is make the appointment.

And we have to stop asking "why didn't she leave" and start asking "what do we need to build so that leaving is safer, so that staying is not the only option that feels survivable?"

As believers, I believe God is calling us to be part of the answer. Not just to pray about this from a distance, but to show up. To be the friend that asks the real question. To be the community that someone can run to. To use whatever platform, voice, and influence we have to say: this is not okay, and we are not going to keep being quiet about it.

"The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." Psalm 34:18 (KJV)

God is near to the broken-hearted. That means He is near to the woman who does not know how to get out. He is near to the person who is struggling in ways nobody can see. He is near to everyone who is reading this and carrying something heavy right now.

And He is calling His people to be near to them too.

If You Are in a Situation Right Now

If something in this article has touched a place in you that is personal, please reach out for help. You are not alone. Getting out safely requires support and a plan, and there are people trained specifically to help you do that.

If you are in immediate danger: Call 911.

National Domestic Violence Hotline Call or text: 1-800-799-7233 Text START to 88788 Available 24/7, free and confidential thehotline.org

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Call or text: 988 Available 24/7, free and confidential For mental health crises, emotional distress, and crisis support 988lifeline.org

Love Is Respect (for teens and young adults) Call: 1-866-331-9474 Text: "loveis" to 22522 loveisrespect.org

RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network) Call: 1-800-656-4673 Online chat: hotline.rainn.org rainn.org

Your life matters. Please choose it.

Maleeka Hollaway is the founder of SAVEDpreneur Media and Lead and Influence. She writes from real life, real faith, and real experience. If this article resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it. Follow her at maleekahollaway.com.