If you need to leave this page fast, close this tab. Someone may be able to see what you look at on your phone or your computer. If that is a possibility, use a device he does not have access to, or a public library computer. A text message can be deleted after you send it. If you are in danger right now, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. They answer 24 hours a day and they answer in Spanish.
You have read pages about this. Several of them, probably, late at night, on a phone you were watching the door over.
And every one of them was about a woman he hit, which is not you.
So you closed them, because that is not your situation. He did not touch you. He touched your child.
Read the Element Again
The statute lists what has to be shown, and one item is the abuse. Here is how your element is actually written, which is not how it was read to you.
During the marriage, the person filing, or a child of the person filing, was battered or subjected to extreme cruelty by the spouse.
Or a child of the person filing.
That is not a footnote and it is not an interpretation somebody argued for. It is in the text of your element. Congress wrote it that way, and it was sitting there the whole time you were closing those pages.
What That Means, Stated Carefully
It means the law does not require that the harm was done to your body for you to be the one who files.
It does not mean you qualify. There are other elements, this page is not looking at your situation, and no honest page or phone call decides that in three minutes.
What it means is that the reason you stopped reading is not the reason you thought it was, and your question is still open.
And “Abuse” Here Is Not Only What You Are Picturing
The regulation that defines the abuse element, the one nobody put in front of you, expressly includes threats, forceful detention, and psychological abuse, and says the harm can be mental rather than physical. It has said so since 1996, which is probably longer than you have been in this country.
That matters here more than almost anywhere, because what happens to a child in a house like yours is frequently not bruises. It is what he said, what he threatened, what he was allowed to control, and what everyone in your house learned to do to keep him calm.
More on how the definition actually reads: does psychological abuse count.
We will also tell you the harder half. USCIS changed how it reads that definition in December 2025 and is now applying a demanding severity standard. That is true, it reaches cases already filed, and it is why this is not a filing for you to attempt alone. We would rather you hear it here than after.
The Thing We Are Not Going to Say to You
We are not going to ask why you stayed.
We are not going to ask you why you did not report it, or call someone, or leave in the year you have been going over in your head at two in the morning.
Nobody in this office is going to put that question to you, in the consultation or anywhere else. Not as a legal matter, and not as a human one. You were in it. We were not.
What We Are Not Going to Tell You
Whether you qualify. Not on a page, and not before somebody has actually looked at your situation.
What we can tell you is that the sentence you disqualified yourself on has a clause in it that nobody read to you, and that finding out what it means for you and for your children is a phone call, not a commitment.
Everything You Tell Us Is Confidential
Everything you tell us is confidential. Give us the best number to reach you and the best time to call, so we contact you when it is safe for you to talk.
This filing happens without him.
And the mail does not have to come to your house. Immigration correspondence can be sent to your lawyer’s address, or to another address you give, instead of the one you live at.
One Boundary, Said Plainly
If immigration has already started a case in court to remove you from the country, that is different work and this office does not do it, though we will help you find someone who does it for you. The self-petition itself is still something we can file for you. Those are two different things and a lot of the pages you found blur them.
More on how a self-petition works: the VAWA self-petition.
When It Is Safe for You to Talk
If you are in danger right now, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. They answer 24 hours a day, in English and in Spanish.
When you are ready to talk about the immigration side, call the office at 806-799-3379, or text 806-758-7665 if a call is not safe.
Tell us the best number and the best time. We will reach you then.
Law Office of Gilda McDowell.
This page explains the law. It is not legal advice and it does not tell you whether you qualify. Nothing on this page creates an attorney-client relationship. Immigration law changes, and the rules described here can change after this page was written. Everything here was verified against the primary sources on August 29, 2026.