A Defiance, Iowa, woman was arrested Tuesday and accused of committing a real-life “Goodbye Earl.” “Goodbye Earl” is a song on the Dixie Chicks’ 1999 album “Fly.” For anyone unfamiliar with the song, it tells of a woman in an abusive relationship. The woman and her best friend plan a way to kill Earl after he beats her and she is placed in intensive care due to her injuries.

The chorus includes ways to coax Earl into whatever method of killing him they can think of. In the song, the women are never caught for the murder of Earl. Instead, they start a new life, and no one bothers to ask what happened to the dead abuser. The song is somewhat humorous, but its subject matter — domestic violence — is very serious.

Unfortunately, Dixie Shanahan may be looking at a life sentence after her husband’s remains were found in the Shanahans’ house more than a year after he was shot to death. Dixie, charged with first-degree murder, is currently awaiting her court date in jail.

Looking at the couple’s history, though, it would be extremely difficult for anyone with a conscience to convict Dixie. If, in fact, she did pull the trigger on her husband, Dixie’s action would seem justified with her husband’s record of dangerous behavior toward her and their children. Scott Shanahan was convicted of domestic violence once in 1997 and again in 2000. In one incident, documents show “he locked his wife and children in a bedroom closet and wouldn’t allow anyone to answer the door.”

In cases like these, it is easy for outsiders to get frustrated with the victim. We look at a situation and wonder why she didn’t pack up her kids and move across the country. In fact, Dixie left her husband once, but then asked judges to lift the restraining order and claimed she had over-exaggerated the story from the beginning.

However, many of us don’t understand all the complications in this type of situation. In small towns like Defiance (population 312), there is often a lack of services provided for domestic abuse. Also, the couple had few relatives in Iowa, which means Dixie may have had few people to talk with about her circumstances.

Other reasons women go back to their abusive husbands include the husband threatening to kill them or take the children away or fearing the situation will be worse if she leaves. It is also possible Dixie wanted to give her husband a second chance to change if he was enrolled in an anger management program, which he most likely was after two domestic violence charges.

Not all women are as lucky as the woman in “Goodbye Earl” — she was able to go on with her life. In reality, few victims of domestic violence safely escape their abusers. Statistics about domestic violence provided by the Iowa Attorney General’s Office say that “from January 1990 to September 1999, 119 Iowans were killed due to domestic violence.” Those who do survive have to deal with painful memories for the rest of their lives.

Obviously we are dealing with a touchy subject. If Dixie was the one who killed her husband, my belief is she shot him in self-defense. Even if he wasn’t threatening her life then, documents say he had threatened to kill her before.

Through the knowledge of domestic violence I have gained while volunteering at the Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Support (ACCESS), I believe Scott Shanahan’s threatening behavior was something Dixie dealt with on a daily basis. Isn’t it still self-defense if someone’s safety is in danger for a prolonged period of time? The law of self-defense says “self-defense is the right of a person to defend against any unlawful force or any seriously threatened unlawful force that is actually pending or may be reasonably anticipated.”

Women shouldn’t have to be pushed to the point where killing their husband is the only way out of an abusive situation — but if it does happen, our justice system needs to be more understanding.

If Dixie was indeed pushed to that point by her husband, her situation has definitely become worse. Her three children have now been taken into custody by child protection workers and she has been charged with first-degree murder.

If going through the fear of pulling the trigger on her raging husband and knowing his body was somewhere in her house was a better choice than dealing with her husband while he was alive, Dixie was in a horrible situation. Hopefully, if Dixie is acquitted of murder, the court will find “he had it coming” to him. Then maybe Dixie and her children will finally have the chance they deserve at a normal life.