GUEST COLUMN: Cycle of domestic violence and abuse can be stopped

It was nothing out of the ordinary for me. I was 7, and already used to my family being the strong ones. The ones who gave money to my aunts whose husbands controlled the purse strings. The ones who housed my aunt and her kids while she was leaving her emotionally and physically abusive husband. The ones who pretended to respect my aunts' husbands, all the while knowing those husbands were beating our flesh and blood, taking all dignity away from them, taking all hope away from them.