"Every woman who walks through the door has a different story," Bonnie Hill says of those who find solace in her support group, but they quickly find they have much in common.

They tell stories of husbands controlling the money, demanding, isolating, raging, threatening, sometimes hitting, drawing blood, demanding sex.

Hill, 64, an advocate for older and rural victims of domestic violence, describes her own ordeal during a 24-year marriage to her husband, a minister.

She said that to the outside world, her former husband was charming and charismatic. But to her, he demeaned, controlled, pushed, shoved. He pulled her hair, threw water in her face, she said, and dragged her from their driveway into their house.

"It reduced me to a shell of a person," she said, adding that she left and returned many times before finding the courage to complete the break.

The Rev. Jim Hill, who now lives in another state, said he didn't abuse his wife, has different memories of the relationship and was surprised to learn she advocates on behalf of elder victims of domestic violence. "I do not look at it as a bad marriage," he said.

The abuse, Bonnie Hill countered, was not criminal but real and shows why it's hard for victims of emotional abuse to speak up. "Nobody believes a woman unless you show up with broken bones,'' she said.

Hill leads a small support group, organized by the non-profit Women Ending Abuse via Empowerment, or WEAVE, a grass-roots agency founded in 1989 that offers refuge in Madison and other parts of the country. Experts say that elderly domestic abuse victims have little help geared specifically to them and that Hill's group is welcome respite.

"There's nothing like it. Three to nine people usually show up. They need someone to listen, believe," she said.