Dwyane Wade

What makes anyone tolerate abuse? Usually prior years of abuse. If you live in an abusive family, then you don't know, haven't been taught as a child, to leave. The message is really the opposite, that abuse is normal and a person should stay, that it is deserved.

I once talked to a woman who told me that her spouse beat her to a pulp, dropped her with their son off at an emergency room, and left them. She walked home, carrying the child, didn't admit herself to the hospital. She didn't want to get the man who beat her into trouble. She must have had nowhere to go. But that's another story. These days, there is always somewhere to go, and the beginning is, the ER.

The more experience with it, pain, the more you get used to it. But Siohvaughn Wade (the professional basketball player's wife) if her story is true, isn't waiting until the damage is irreparable to her self-esteem, her life. She knows that it's co-dependent to stay, that it's not good to get used to it.

It really is illegal for people to beat on one another in this country. Maybe you can get away with slapping your kid on the bottom, but he'll call 911. So why even bother with that?

Did Dwyane Wade behave like an animal? Innocent until proven guilty. He's going through a nasty divorce and anything goes in these. The story in the Chicago Sun Times:

Siohvaughn Wade filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing Dwyane Wade of abuse, including picking her up and throwing her to the ground while she was pregnant.

In a February 2010 outburst, Dwyane Wade allegedly called their crying 8-year-old son a "m-----------'' and said "Didn't I tell you men don't f------ cry, man the f--- up," according to the lawsuit.

Attached to the lawsuit is a March application for a restraining order, sparked --she claims in the documents -- by a recent fight between the Wades that triggered a panic attack.

Abuse makes us anxious. We get panic attacks when we're afraid. And her kids, if any of this is true, are going to be more susceptible to panic attacks and post-traumatic stress, too.

Bad PR, true or not, for the Miami Heat. We can only hope she made it up, but most people don't, is the truth. Intimate partner violence is another way to discharge bad feelings. In the wrong place at the wrong time, at home.

It's like kicking the dog, domestic abuse, after a hard day at work. Anger management is easy for those who were forced to control it as children, but so many of us never learned it. And if you grow up with violence, either at home or on the streets, you learn it's okay to whack one another. Okay to behave like an animal.

I think it's even harder for athletes than the rest of us, because competition is aggression. It's hard to turn it off. But you guys are our heroes, you're examples to our kids. You have to be especially good role models.

A devout Christian, Mr. Wade chose the number 3 for his jersey to represent the trinity. And he has two sons, Zaire Blessing Dwyane, and Zion Malachi Airamis, so he knows he has to be a role model. And he gives plenty of charity.

Tell us it's not so, Dwyane. And if it is, find a way to tell your boys you were wrong, and they should never behave this way.

Linda Freedman, PhD