Tomorrow, one of my closest friends is moving several states away to be with her new fiancé.
I should be happy for her, but I can't do it. She is an adult and more than capable of making her own life decisions. The problem I see is that she is relocating to be with a man who has been verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive towards her in the 10 months since they met each other.
Without going into personal details, I will say that this relationship had been on-again, off-again, until he got physical with her and, for lack of a better term, smashed up her face. She had him arrested. After several months of trying to be without him, they got back together in a long distance capacity, and that brings us to tomorrow's move.
I feel the way everyone (in my opinion) SHOULD feel about domestic abuse: it is unnecessary, inexcusable and unforgivable under any circumstances. And yet, as I slowly creep towards my mid-thirties, I have begun to notice a disturbing trend of tolerance among my peers. Some of the most strong-willed, independent, bad-ass women I know have begun to recently find themselves victims of domestic abuse in some form (or all forms, in the worst cases).
When we ("we" refers to my peers here, the same men and women who are involved in the aforementioned abusive relationships) were growing up, domestic abuse was talked about. I am 31. I did not come of age in an era where abuse was an elephant in the room, kept behind society's closed doors and not mentioned for fear of violating personal privacy. We were taught to SPEAK UP! if something harmful was done to you - to advocate for ourselves and for others who could be victims of domestic abuse or violence. As girls, we learned that there are resources and safe places where we could flee to if we felt threatened. Boys were taught that under no circumstances is it necessary, excusable, or forgivable to abuse anyone.
I am sure that our parents and grandparents were thrilled that the public education system, as well as media and pop culture, were teaching us girls that we did not have to live in a world where it was permissible for a man to physically or emotionally harm us. A generation of respectful men and strong, independent women was being carved.
So what happened to us? Why is it that everywhere I look, I seem to see men my own age turning their words, emotions, and hands on women? How are we still here? And why is our society still standing for it?
On the surface, we aren't. Campaigns to stop domestic abuse are everywhere, and we KNOW that it's wrong. We run 5k road races and march in parades to make sure that the entire world knows that our culture WILL NOT TOLERATE abuse! We now educate little girls to understand that no one (and we mean NO ONE!) has a right to lay a hand on them without their permission.
And yet, when I was lamenting the case of my friend (whom I mentioned at the start of this blog) to a male friend last night, he sighed and tried to comfort me by saying that we couldn't make her decisions for her and that she might just have to learn for herself. When I responded that I was concerned about how much more "learning" might occur, he said:
"Well, he has only hit her once, right?"
I was stunned. I still am. This male friend is not a jerk or a misogynist. He is the kind of man who would stand in front of a woman to keep her from being harmed.
And yet this is where we are. I see this type of attitude not only from men, but from women as well. The idea that it's NOT THAT BAD because he only hit her once. Or that there's a chance it was all a "mistake" and that he will never do it again. Or, the ever popular statement: "well, when he's good he's SO good to me, but when he's bad, it's really bad."
Please don't misunderstand me. I would never blame a victim of abuse for their circumstances. Manipulation is a tricky thing. It's all in the above paragraph - when they're "good", abusers make their victims feel like they are the most loved people in the world. Of course they do- if someone was horrible all the time, you would never stay. It is not a victim's fault that they remain a victim. Our society still does not do enough to facilitate escape and, perhaps more importantly, emotional recovery. I myself can not speak on the subject of a victim's state of mind.
Donald Trump was elected president in November and women across the country collectively tensed. What will he do to our rights, we wondered. How will his negative opinions of women affect his policies? I will be the first person to tell you that I have nightmares of what Donald Trump and his administration may do to us in the next 4 years. But we also need to think about what we are allowing to be done to us already- what our society has allowed to go on for as long as history can recall, regardless of political administration.
We may think that we are progressive and enlightened as a culture when it comes to our stance on abuse, but we haven't even come close. The fact that some of my most talented, intellectual, beautiful friends believe that it is still better to be with a man who is abusive than to be alone means our culture needs to step it up. A lot. We need to stop shaming, pressuring and openly pitying women who haven't found someone to marry by the time they turn 30. We need to teach women to recognize specific early warning signs of abusive relationships (ladies, if he's jealous all the time, it's not because he loves you too much- it's because he wants to control you) before it's too late. We women need to actually start to believe that we deserve someone who is good to us ALL the time.
We need to stop thinking that there are levels of abuse that are worse than others. Verbal and emotional abuse can leave scars that are even deeper than damage done by physical violence. Being abused by a person you love and trust is not an accident, something that can be overlooked as a one-time incident. NONE of it is ok, NONE of it is excusable, not even once.
Because one time is already too much.
