Tom Pernice Jr.’s alleged behavior sounds chillingly familiar, and speaks to why domestic violence persists
Warning: This column accommodates depictions of alleged home violence.
Abusers are abusive for management.
They are often emotionally abusive, verbally abusive, and bodily abusive.
Usually these three issues occur in live performance: An abuser will strike their sufferer, embody name-calling or putdowns, after which inform them “look what you made me do” or “I would not have achieved that for those who hadn’t achieved what you probably did.”
Or, within the case alleged in opposition to PGA Tour golfer Tom Pernice Jr., they flat-out deny that their bodily strikes are abuse.
On Wednesday, Sports activities Illustrated published a story by Jessica Luther and Jon Wertheim detailing the on-again, off-again relationship between Pernice and MaryAnn O’Neill, a relationship that included Pernice allegedly changing into violent towards O’Neill on a number of events, and the PGA doing little in response.
It is not a lot of a shock that the Tour does not appear to have a agency home violence coverage, neither is it a lot of a shock that, up to now, Pernice’s solely identified punishment was a 90-day suspension that he appealed and was diminished to 30 days plus anger administration remedy.
Neither is it a shock that in a press release supplied to Sports activities Illustrated, Pernice’s lawyer did not cease at merely denying the allegations on behalf of his shopper, he additionally known as O’Neill a “liar” and “thief” with a “distorted model of the details,” as a result of the one factor extra dependable than demise and taxes is a person smearing a lady who says she’s skilled abuse.
We have seen related habits, repeatedly, from Deshaun Watson’s attorney Rusty Hardin when speaking in regards to the many women who’ve accused the Cleveland Browns quarterback of sexual impropriety below the guise of getting a therapeutic massage.
O’Neill known as police greater than as soon as after certainly one of Pernice’s alleged violent outbursts, and she or he tried greater than as soon as to quietly get assist from PGA Tour executives.
One of many occasions Pernice allegedly struck O’Neill was in Might 2021. Pernice had performed terribly on the Areas Traditions, a cease on the Champions Tour held simply outdoors Birmingham, Ala. Like, 31-over-par terribly.
As they drove to the subsequent tour cease outdoors Atlanta, Pernice and O’Neill started arguing as a result of he’d reached out to his ex-wife earlier within the day. From the driving force’s seat, O’Neill says Pernice started repeatedly punching her on the leg and took her telephone.
O’Neill used her iPad to message a pal, and after the pal’s suggestion, started secretly recording the incident on her system. O’Neill supplied the textual content messages and audio to SI.
She requested him, “How do you simply, like, beat your girlfriend? After which cease and undergo a drive-through and eat after which take heed to Christian music for 2 and a half hours?”
Pernice replied, “Since you received’t hold your mouth shut. I stored warning you to maintain your mouth shut and give up doing it. You haven’t any penalties. You assume you possibly can say and do regardless of the f—, what you assume you are able to do. I’m bored with it. Not gonna occur.”
“So, O.Ok., you’re simply gonna beat me?,” she responded.
“What else am I gonna do? I hit you f— within the leg. I’m not beating you,” he mentioned.
And that is the place we’ll pause.
Serial abusers have a tendency to not be essentially the most stand-up folks, however this pernicious lie — the gaslighting — that hitting somebody repeatedly with a closed fist is not “beating” them, that must be highlighted.
That is a part of the explanation why abuse continues on a broad scale. Pernice believing that utilizing a closed fist to hit O’Neill many times is not beating her can be a strategy to attempt to make himself really feel higher, to persuade himself he is not certainly one of these type of abusers. He wasn’t allegedly giving O’Neill black eyes or breaking her arm, hurting her in ways in which have been clearly seen to the general public and are the Hollywood model of home abuse.
It is just like how some may imagine so long as they don’t seem to be working round calling Black folks the N-word, they don’t seem to be being racist, and might proceed denying pregnant Black women equal medical care or ignoring the job utility submitted by perfectly-qualified Jamal as a result of that is completely different.
What O’Neill alleges occurred by the hands of Pernice is abuse. Interval. It is not one thing much less or completely different as a result of she wasn’t cowering on a rest room ground, blood dripping from her nostril.
Neither is his allegedly violent habits acceptable as a result of when he wasn’t being abusive towards O’Neill, he was “essentially the most loving caregiver of all time,” in accordance with her. That too is straight out of the abuser’s playbook: keep a loving facade, proper up till these moments if you’re not. Then apologize, provide a loving gesture, rinse, repeat.
Perhaps to a few of you, that is all apparent or pointless to level out. However clearly there are some who have to learn it.
Together with, it seems like, Tom Pernice Jr.
