(no subject)
A few months ago, a friend of mine mentioned that her boyfriend was being abusive to her. I'm very firm in my belief that there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for a person to remain in an abusive relationship if they're old enough to walk away from it. (Children don't have that option, sadly.) And yes, I'll admit that my reasoning does stem from my personal experiences, as well as knowing women who have been in abusive relationships.
Also, by abuse, I'm not strictly referring to physical violence.
What made it worse was that my friend was thirty-five weeks pregnant at the time that her boyfriend decided to shove her around.
I told her that I felt like I couldn't continue speaking to her if she chose to be with him, but that I wasn't telling her she had to leave him. I just can't speak to anyone, male or female, who would choose to stay in that kind of situation.
She chose to stay with him; I chose to stop speaking to her.
Now, three months later, I wondered if she had ever gotten out of that relationship. I went back through things she had written, and she's still trying to make excuses for his behavior. At one point, she actually mentioned that she had been raped, and that this boyfriend of hers accused her of wanting it (no, he wasn't one who raped her).
After she gave birth to their daughter, she was going to visit her family for a little while, and he locked himself in the bedroom with the baby, refusing to come out until she called her mom and canceled their plans.
And through all of this, she's been trying to rationalize his behavior. She talks about how wonderful he is, and how great he is for buying her presents.
Where I come from, those are called bribes.
Halfway through reading these things, I kept telling myself to stop, but I didn't want to. I just wanted so badly to believe that she finally figured out what a jerk this guy is.
Of course, that never happened.
But I did take a break long enough to send Joe a text message to tell him I love him.
I do think it's incredibly stupid that I feel lucky that my husband is behaving the way that anyone in a relationship is supposed to behave.