We all have secrets we don't reveal the first time we cross paths with others. Then maybe the next time you came across a woman in an abusive relationship, instead of asking why anyone stays with a man who beats her, you'd have the empathy and courage to help her on her way. I'd tell you why I stayed for years, and how I finally confronted someone whose love I valued almost more than my own life. If I were brave enough the first time I met you, I'd try to share what torture it is to fall in love with a good man who cannot leave a violent past behind. Everyone in my family is blonde (the people, at least).Īh, if only being well-educated and blonde and coming from a good family were enough to defang all life's demons. A smart, loyal husband with a sexy gap in his front teeth, a softie who puts out food for the stray cats in our alley. I've got 20 years of marketing experience at Fortune 500 companies and a best-selling book about motherhood to my name. I live in a red brick house on a tree-lined street in one of the prettiest neighborhoods in Washington, DC. I have an MBA and an undergraduate degree from Ivy League schools. If you and I met at one of our children's birthday parties, in the hallway at work, or at a neighbor's barbecue, you'd never guess my secret: that as a young woman I fell in love with and married a man who beat me regularly and nearly killed me. 'I should have left then, I suppose, but I think that the power of love just overwhelmed my intelligence and logic and rationality,' says Steiner. Conor burst into the office and put his hands around her neck and shoved her against the wall repeatedly.

Then, five days before their wedding, Steiner was working at her home office and couldn't get the computer to work. For instance, he referred to her as 'retard,' which, Stainer says, was 'a term of endearment, as sad as that sounds.' 'He was really clean-cut, dressed in a business suit,' she tells Michele Norris.īut early in the relationship, there were certain warning signals that indicated Conor's violent nature.

Steiner says when she first met her ex-husband, whom she calls 'Conor,' on the New York City subway, she had no inkling that he was capable of such abuse. If you met her on the street you might never guess her secret: that she was once married to a man who beat her with abandon on a regular basis - an experience she recounts in the memoir Crazy Love. Pop Culture Teens Closely Watching Chris Brown, Rihannaįormer Washington Post executive Leslie Morgan Steiner is a best-selling author with degrees from two Ivy League schools, three adorable children and a loving and successful husband.

Crazy love books