Vox Day on Charles Saatchi: Divorcing your wife after she’s already left you is a totally ALPHA move
I guess I’ll never quite understand this whole alpha thing.
Over on his Alpha Game blog, the reliably awful Vox Day is defending the ALPHA DOG honor of British art collector Charles Saatchi – you know, the guy recently in the news for choking his wife, TV chef Nigella Lawson, in a very public argument – sorry, a “playful tiff”– at a restaurant.
Lawson responded to Saatchi’s totally playful and not at all violent behavior by moving out following the incident; she’s reportedly been spotted without her wedding ring.
Saatchi, apparently recognizing that she was through with him, officially announced he was divorcing her with a whiny, self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing statement to The Daily Mail on Sunday. It read, in part:
I feel that I have clearly been a disappointment to Nigella during the last year or so, and I am disappointed that she was advised to make no public comment to explain that I abhor violence of any kind against women, and have never abused her physically in any way.
The row photographed at Scott’s restaurant could equally have been Nigella grasping my neck to hold my attention - as indeed she has done in the past, although not in front of Scott’s with a photographer snapping away.
I must stress again my actions were not violent. We are instinctively tactile people. Yes, my hands were around her neck, and they had been touching her arm.
Difficult as it may be to believe, for those who have seen the pictures, there was no pressure applied to her.
Having seen the pictures, I will agree that this is indeed difficult to believe.
Vox Day doesn’t seem to care if Saatchi choked Lawson in anger or just put his hands around her throat because that’s just what nice people like to do sometimes for fun when they’re eating out. He’s just blown away by what a total ALPHA DOG COOL DUDE Saatchi is for divorcing her. According to Day, the whole thing shows that
If you don’t show respect for and loyalty to an Alpha, he will wash his hands of you without thinking twice about it.
… several weeks after you move out and make clear that you want to have nothing to do with him.
Vox goes on, attributing Lawson’s refusal to publicly absolve Saatchi and back up his story about their “playful tiff” in the restaurant to … her worry about how she would appear to other women:
Lawson, instead of doing her part and presenting a united front to the media, was more concerned about how she would look to her female friends and audience if she didn’t play the poor abused victim than she was about her husband’s reputation.
In short, she made it clear her loyalties did not lie with him, but to her public image. This is the one thing a woman married to an ALPHA absolutely cannot do. The ALPHA always knows he has options, and in the absence of the one thing he absolutely demands, respect, he will not hesitate to exercise them. Once a woman shows herself to be disloyal in some manner, few Alphas are inclined to forgive or forget.
And what is true of Alphas is also true, in lesser amounts, of lower-ranking men. It appears that Lawson miscalculated and didn’t realize how important his reputation was to Saatchi. She is not the first woman to make this sort of mistake and she probably will not be the last.
I’m hard pressed to see how walking out on a narcissistic asshole who literally grabbed her by the neck during a fight in a restaurant can be seen as any kind of a mistake. But I confess I don’t fully understand how abusers, and those who make a points of defending abusers, think.
Lawson will go forward with her life and her career; Saatchi’s reputation will be stained forever by his actions at the restaurant, as it should be, and he has no one but himself to blame. I’m not sure what Vox Day’s excuse is.
Posted on July 8, 2013, in all about the menz, alpha males, beta males, domestic violence, excusing abuse, imaginary backwards land, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, PUA, vox day and tagged charles saatchi, domestic violence, misogyny, nigella lawson, pick-up artists, pickup artists, PUA, vox day. Bookmark the permalink. 131 Comments.
Quite how Vox Day got to be as prominent as he is is something of a mystery. The guy is a one-man monument to the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s planning to give her hell in the courts. I hope she gets a legal team that leaves him in tatters.
Thing is, Lawson doesn’t need his money at all, so if Saatchi wants to get nasty, that’s all his bruised ego talking.
Which is why I think he might be sulking because none of their mutual friends have talked her into defending him.
I just hope he hasn’t the insolence to lay claim to any of her money. Not that I think he’d succeed, but causing her pain is what he’s about. At least the children aren’t his and are past the age where he’d be claiming custody just to get at her.
Oh, yeah. Guys like him who haven’t heard a “NO” in years tend to freak the fuck out when they finally get told and can’t do anything about it.
Actually given that he’s known her kids for a while now I wonder if it was the son he was referring to.
@La Strega
Yes, sometimes there is something wrong with a person who stays with an abuser. The person who abused me certainly used my mental and physical ill health to his fullest advantage. And at the height of the abuse, I did not have the strength to leave; indeed, I didn’t have the strength to get out of bed. Might I have left if I weren’t so sick? Probably. I did leave eventually, once I got back on my meds. But I hardly see how this was a point in his favor, that he decided to abuse a mentally ill person who was becoming more physically disabled by the day. I was vulnerable, yes, but so were the foreign exchange students he had previously targeted.
But often there is nothing wrong with someone who stays with an abuser.
I missed that, Cassandra, what did he say? I know they were arguing about the kids at the restaurant.
I’m referring to the same quote as before, it just occurred to me that he must know her kids very well by now and the person that escorted her out of the shared house and has been with her since is her son.
Hugs to Viscaria and Dvarg. I know that even long after getting out of abusive relationships, the scars can still be there for a long time.
And yeah, to add to what others said, the thing is that it is very easy to get caught up in an abusive relationship without realizing how bad it is until you’re trapped. It starts out with smaller things, the red flags, that can be so subtle other people don’t pick up on them. The victim wonders “Is this all in my head? Am I overreacting?” Abusers are masters at playing mind games and turning everything around to make the victim think its all her fault. I wanted to “fix” my ex, and I felt sorry for him.
TW about DV:
But things just got worse. At first he was shouting and belittling me, and then he started grabbing, pushing, and knocking me around. He broke my stuff, cut me off from friends and family, and monitored my every movement. Then it finally progressed to hitting. One of the worst incidents was when he pinned me to the floor, grabbed my shoulders, and knocked my head into the floor a few times because “I wasn’t listening” to him.
Abusers don’t pull that shit on a first date. That stuff happens after you’re living with them and financially dependent. One of my worries about leaving him was that I was living in his apartment and felt stuck with him in order to finish my college. I was also embarrassed to admit what was going on because people might judge me or not believe me.
I think victim-shaming in the case of abuse is pretty similar to victim-shaming in the case of rape, in that it feels nice to imagine that I will obviously never ever be the victim of something like that, since I’m a good/strong/intelligent/non-slutty/whatever woman.
This. I was proud before then thinking “There’s no way I’d let a man treat me bad” but I learned that even strong, intelligent women can end up in these situations, and it’s not their fault. It is all the fault of the abusers.
Sorry if this is over sharing. I just wanted to clear up any misconceptions about dv.
All the hugs, thebionicmommy. I don’t think it’s oversharing at all.
Small funny note: remember what you said about consent not having to be “May I put my penis in your vagina” and me saying it could work in the right (silly) mood?
It does.
Cassandra - ah, gotcha, thanks.
Also I think Saatchi is seriously underestimating how fond the British public is of Lawson. He may or may not get whatever it is that he wants in court, but he’s not going to win the battle for public opinion, especially given that everyone has already seen the photo.
It would be nice if Saatchi had a get-a-grip friend in his life to tell him to let it go. I highly doubt he does.
Someone in the Telegraph is on about how he’s trying to “destroy” (according to the headline writer) her with PR, the divorce announcement, etc, etc. Humiliate, sure, but destroy? Bullshit. With any luck he’ll destroy himself. It’s only scumbags who’re taking his side in this, with the “Oh poor man, nasty public opinion is piling up on him” garbage. “How dare people say they know what was happening in the marriage!!!111eleventy!!!” Don’t need to, he attacked her in public, he has history of violence including the very same thing - choking people - that says quite enough.
@Kittehserf
LOL, that’s awesome. High five! I give better advice than the PUA’s, because my advice treats everyone as people and ends up with everyone happy.
I’m now sending you an invoice for getting someone in to clean the soup out of my keyboard.
I’m offering hugs and kittens/puppies to anyone who needs one, and the hopes that your lives are all happier and safer now.
The Daily Fail ran a story that was very (between the lines) supportive of Saatchi, quoting unnamed “friends” of the couple who said they had a very physical relationship but that Nigella had totally confided in them that Saatchi never hurt her physically. (Given that no real friends would ever blab to the Daily Mail, I think we can take those accounts with a grain of salt.) It was nice, though, to see that the top comments were ALL supportive of Lawson. Even Daily Fail readers are onto that shit.
I read about the Daily Fail and the Evening No Standards running their usual misogynistic tripe about this.
Something is definitely wrong, but it may be institutionalized power dynamics that would prevent the abused person from leaving the relationship without being ruined financially or abandoned by family and peers. It may be a profound lack of empathy in a small community that could punish and ostracize an abused person who decided that enough was finally enough. It could be a clear eyed assessment that the repercussions of leaving would be visited punitively on vulnerable elders or children in fiscal, emotional and physical form. It may very well be the result of overwhelming fear of an uncertain future leading a person to accept the demon they know over the inchoate unknown.
I suppose I agree that when a person stays with someone who so clearly and demonstrably wishes them harm, there must be something wrong, but I think it is unfair and fundamentally lacking in empathy and imagination to think that failure must lie solely with the person who stays. Sure, it’s tempting to say we would do ‘better’ were we in their shoes. Maybe some would. I choose to err on the side of trusting them to know the possibility and risks of their situation better than I do, as much as it often shatters my heart to witness what some people endure.
::applause::
OT did you avoid the Cat Anger Consequences last night, gillyrosebee?
Blech. Uncool, La Strega.
I spent a couple years in denial about my raping year, because I didn’t want to give up the image of myself as a Tough Guy. I was strong, okay, and macho, and MANLY. Getting raped for a year was bad enough; I didn’t want to admit it was to some whiny little manchild who believed himself to be a Sensitive New-Age Guy who wrote us crappy love poetry and cared very deeply about our feelings, but also believed that the only way to cure my frigidity was to fuck me through it until I stopped crying and went numb. Then I could learn to enjoy it.
Because I mean, forget what it said about him, what’d it say about ME? What kind of wimp was I, to get used by someone like THAT?
I chose homelessness over continuing the toxic dynamic with my family, but I can’t judge someone for choosing differently. Most people don’t have the support system I do, or the luck.
@Kittehs I thought so, but this morning the evidence was left all over the hall outside my room. Apparently there was this piece of newspaper that was having ideas above it’s station, requiring that it be wrestled into submission and its guts strewn to the four winds (all over the hallway and into the bathtub).
Aiieeeeee! Those are serious cat anger consequences.
I refuse to contribute to Theodore Beale’s pretense that he is the voice of God. I’ve had interactions with him in other fora: There is a reason he seldom leaves his sandbox.
If it weren’t for his parents, I’d like to think he be a total non-entity, rather than the semi-non-entity he is. I suspect he’s about to get kicked out of SFWA, which will make him the first person ever to be so.
Yes, my girls have a very unhealthy relationship with paper products. I can’t leave any loose paper, especially newsprint, where they can reach it. Adora loves the sound of paper when it is crumbled, and my balling up a piece of paper will get her to come running no matter where she is in the house. Evie doesn’t kid around, though. She’ll sit down on it and just bite and tear any piece of newspaper into little bits.
Yup, I’m another one who had been in an abusive relationship. I didn’t live with him,Thank God, but he was a big guy and he hit hard. And I stayed. I stayed because I made all these excuses for him - he had poor role models as a kid, he was confused and angry about his sexuality, I was really annoying some times. I stayed because he was just so gorgeous, and the sex was great and I wanted to be seen to be dating a guy like that. Never mind that I couldn’t really tell anyone about us (or the hitting) because he was so far in the closet. I wanted to heal his hurts and then he’d be better. He didn’t get better. Eventually I moved towns and he decided to go for another attempt at being straight. Only after I stopped having to worry about making him mad all the time did I realise how much energy I was spending trying to keep him happy.
I watched abusive relationships. The dynamics are interesting (we had a tenantish housemate, who had an abusing boyfriend, I got to watch it close up). He cultivated allies (poorly), and played on her vulnerabilities.
When she’d finally had enough, he was told to never darken our door again.
He tried once: I pointed a loaded rifle at him. That was what it took to make him realise it was over.
“If you don’t show respect for and loyalty to an Alpha, he will wash his hands of you without thinking twice about it.”
…
Because building a relationship based on mutual esteem and respect is too much like hard work, amirite? (I went to the blog. I read the comments. Now I want a shower.)
I’d bet real money that pecunium is of the “don’t point guns at things you don’t intend to shoot” school. Just how much of an asshole was he?!
Relatedly, my brother, his best friend, and some guns are going to a friend’s in Maine tomorrow. My father spent the day lecturing him on shit he already knows (when he wasn’t telling me to do my laundry for my own safety [any able to explain that one?])
Back on topic! Yeah, I stayed with the gaslighting narcissist as I was working at his father’s law firm, living with him…because he threatened my fish… (*sigh* he made good on that, I lost a dozen loaches and another dozen glass cats // Congo tetras…that tank was gorgeous)
Thanks for the hugs! And hugs also to Bionicmommy.
And I’m fine now, it was a long time (sixteen years) ago now.
(trigger warning like whoa)
The day I successfully spirited my kids out of my abuser’s reach he beat me off and on for the next 48 hours. He told me the only reason he didn’t kill me was ‘that would be too quick’.
I had no car, no job, no money. The only way I got my kids out of there was to call and beg my family to come get them- even though they flat out told me it was give them the kids or they’d let them go to foster care when he killed me. Oh, and no I was not included in the offer of escape. They wouldn’t even give me a ride into the nearest town.
After I did get out I spent two years semi-homeless and then had to prosecute him for unrelenting harassment. Which involved, among other things, periods of several hours of constant calls to threaten me with rape, dismemberment and death. Fifty plus calls in ONE HOUR. Calls I had to answer and log for several weeks in order to get the authorities to tap my phone and build a case against him.
(Twenty plus years ago, and I still nearly threw up when that lovely bit of victim blaming appeared in this thread. Thank you to every single person who called out that bullshit.)
oraclenine - ALL THE HUGS.
That’s beyond horrible.
There is so much grey area where DV is concerned. My mother had two relationships where she was physically abused. The first one was her second husband, when I was about 4. He hit her, raped her and would beat up my aunt if she tried to intervene. Some of my earliest memories are of tears and screaming and the strobes of a police cruiser outside my house. The last straw was the night he was pummeling her and I tried to defend her with my little baby teeth. My mom, her husband and my divorced aunty shared a duplex. One of my cousins is about my age and at this time we had discovered biting as a battle tactic apparently. She says that we would get into curfuffles and they would find him and I locked onto each other. I don’t remember this, apparently my fights with the cousin weren’t that big a deal to me. But it explains why I thought it a good plan to scrabble up on all fours and lock my teeth around Papa’s ankle to make him stop. Well in pain and rage he turned on me and that is where the memory (as vague as it is anyway) goes dark. From that time on I just remember being sad that Papa wasn’t around and my mom saying that he had to go away. Years later we saw him again, we went out to dinner with him. He was an alcoholic and had sobered up. Part of his treatment was to make amends to all the people he hurt (I didn’t know this at the time I was only 12). It was gross and I still remembered things then that I probably don’t now. Needless to say if he was trying to get back with her it didn’t work because I remember being distinctly bratty and insolent the whole night. I guess my point is that there are these memories about him that contradict the abuse too. He could be a great guy, I called him Papa even though they didn’t ask me to do that. I remember him smiling and carrying me on his shoulders. I know enough people have piled on this, but it is true that just because a woman is in an abusive relationship that doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with her. Sometimes it’s like they are living with two distinct people and the one who is so wonderful and loving has this other bad person attached to them. It is hard let the good side go away forever even when you know it is for the best.
To everyone who’s been in an abusive relationship: *hugs*
@La Strega: It’s not easy to understand the dynamics of abuse. If you want to know why people stay, here’s a post on the Pervocracy that explains the reasons very well:
http://pervocracy.blogspot.fr/2011/07/why-does-she-stay-with-that-jerk.html
No, there’s nothing inherently “wrong” with abuse victims who stay (are trapped and unable to, for a variety of reasons, get out). Here are some ways you can help, though (the rest of you feel free to add anything I may have missed).
We need a societal shift. Our society needs to stop supporting abusers and start supporting victims. And it does not. Sure, ask people and they’ll say “Of course abuse is wrong, but…” almost every time. There’s no but. We can’t allow it, and we need to call it out. Every time. That’s one.
You can let abuse victims know that you will support us in the way we need/choose/want and that you will support our decisions and when we leave, we will know that you are safe, that you will not judge or lecture or blame. You can acknowledge the abuse without telling us what to do. Just the acknowledgement, asking if we are ok or if we need anything (and don’t suggest what you think we need, we may not know what we need, but we will know that we can think about it and get back to you anytime) is a huge help, it makes us less isolated. That’s two.
Let us ask for help when we need it, when we have chosen. Let us decide the time and the place and the how. I know you sincerely want to help, but stepping in and telling us what we need is removing our autonomy and isolates us as much as our abuser does when he removes our autonomy. We will come to you when we can, when we have found a way to be safe with you, but if you step in, we can’t be safe with you. That’s three.
When we leave, we often need to leave everything. Friends, jobs, homes, pets, everything. Not every time, but often enough. Understand how hard that is, how hard it is to say goodbye to everything. We have to build completely new lives, with all new people, and all new everything. That’s a huge obstacle. We need you to consider what that means for us. That’s four.
Do you think that we don’t know what the stakes are when we are in that situation? Do you think that we can’t tell what’s happening, that we aren’t afraid every second about what he will do next? Trust me, we know what’s going on, we know what the threats are and leaving is as much (if not more) a threat as staying is. Leaving does not guarantee our safety, or the safety of our children. We need you to acknowledge that and actually consider what it means for us, and we need you to show us some damn respect. Telling us what we must do, no matter how right you think you are, is disrespectful, and we get enough disrespect from our abusers, don’t you think? That’s five.
Captain Awkward said it best about rape. “If you fought back and survived, that was the right decision. If you didn’t fight back and you survived, that was also the right decision. If you fought back or didn’t fight back and you didn’t survive, I assume you’re not reading this blog, but in case you are, that was also the right decision because the entire thing was out of your fucking hands.” We can paraphrase. “If you left and survived, that was the right decision. If you didn’t leave and you survived, that was also the right decision. If you left or didn’t leave and you didn’t survive, I assume you’re not reading this blog, but in case you are, that was also the right decision because the entire thing was out of your fucking hands.” Acknowledge how dangerous it is for us to leave. Understand that our abusers will frequently hunt us down, stalk us, attack us, murder us. Stop, just stop right now, stop telling us what we need to do to be safe when there’s no guarantee that your advice doesn’t actually endanger us more. That’s six.
Courts grant abusers custody at an alarming rate. If we have children, we can’t protect them after we leave when he gets custody/visitation. Understand that we know this, that we are facing the risk of having our children have to be around him unsupervised for long periods of time, and that this (custody and visitation) is used by our abusers to continue their abuse, and that leaving is no guarantee that we will escape from them regardless of the fact that we no longer live there. Be a societal shift; be the change we need. That’s seven.
Remember how easy it is to cast blame in the wrong direction. We have been primed by our toxic societies and cultures to blame the victim, and we believe in Invulnerablility Theory (if she leaves, she’ll be safe) to make ourselves feel safe which adds strength to our reflex to blame the victim due to our conditioning. Learn from mistakes made and remember that your mistakes harm others, not yourself, and make it harder for us to have safe places to go (even if it’s just to talk, and not to leave at that time). That’s eight.
Educate those around you. Teach them how the negative stereotypes of women (of any group, in fact) are the typical behaviours of people who are being abused, and that those behaviours are being used to justify and excuse further abuse against them. (Thank you Harriet Jay, for this: “Stereotypes exist pretty clearly to benefit the current social order, and when somebody enacts the stereotype perfectly, it becomes evidence for the stereotype, and when somebody acts in the complete opposite of the stereotype, they are exceptions and also fall into other very convenient stereotypes (dyke, fag, liberal). And most stereotypes, if you examine them closely, are full of the kind of survival habits that a person would develop were they being abused terribly, so perhaps it is not a surprise that abused populations behave in these ways, and perhaps it is not a surprise that the people who abuse them take these habits and use them as an excuse for further abuse, and that is why I am a feminist.”) That’s nine.
Teach the people around you that men who engage in Domestic Violence are far more likely to commit violent crimes than men who do not engage in Domestic Violence, up to and including mass murder. Domestic Violence is an indicator of danger to every person an abuser has contact with. That’s ten.
Donate clothing, donate food, donate money, donate time, and, if you have none of those to give, donate your voice to keeping women’s shelters open and filled with resources for those who can leave. Advertise their needs if you have a platform to do so. That’s eleven.
If we go back, it is our choice, one we have made for our own reasons, and, if we are wrong, we still need you to support us because it’s easier to leave again, knowing what we are facing, but harder to have support ifeveryone has judged us unworthy of support/help. It takes an average of seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship for good. Remember that, and remember that if you are judging us, you are not a safe person for us to get help from when we need it most. Also remember that we always face the loss of some or even all of our friends and even family when we left, and that our abusers frequently did not. Nearly everyone else forgave him before we did. That’s twelve.
Remember that we may not have financial support when we leave, and odds of that are greater if we have children; starving to death while homeless is only “better” than abuse when seen through your privilege of facing none of the above. Acknowledge how terrifying that very real possibility is for us (remember, we frequently have to leave our relationships behind, too, so it’s not like we always have people to take us in). That’s thirteen.
http://captainawkward.com/2011/02/21/rape-awkward/
http://www.fugitivus.net/2009/08/25/a-few-things-to-stop-doing-when-you-find-a-feminist-blog/
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/when-domestic-violence-becomes-a-mass-shooting/Content?oid=17004357&src=longreads
Now kindly go fuck yourself.
Oraclenine: So sorry that people, including myself at points in my life, just don’t get it. No more throwing salt in those wounds.
Also hugs for everyone.
Marci, Shaun DarthBatman* Day - thank you both, too.
*There needs to be a costume for this.
http://www.geeknation.com/wp-content/uploads/darth-batman.jpg
Thank you. Y’all- well, I was going to say ‘you don’t know how much your understanding and support means’, but some of you do know from bitter experience. My heart goes out to all my fellow survivors, my thanks to our defenders.
marci, no apologies needed. You’re a survivor too and I’m sorry you had to go through that especially so young. I have a no-pressure no strings attached hug here with your name on it, if you want.
A mailing list I was on years ago had a mantra. Some one would tell the list something that has happened, would share some bit of pain- a mean boss. An unfair teacher. A toxic family. An emotionally and/or physically abusive relationship. Assault. Stalkers. You know, stuff. And the answers- the support the sympathy, the offers of an open email box or couch space were all built on a basic foundation.
You Deserve To Be Fucking Cherished. You deserve to be fucking cherished says to someone in a crap situation that they still have value, are still worth loving.
And I’ll say it here, to those who shared their stories, and to those who still can’t find the words, and to the allies here because listening and believing is a gift you give,
You deserve to be fucking cherished.
Wow thanks…welled up a bit there at my workstation, but that’s ok. Hugs back to all. You guys are so amazing.
Shaun, that costume is the BEST!
I assumed he was saying that he would apply for a divorce that was legally her fault (rather than his or no fault). While it achieves the same thing of freeing her, it does seem an insult to make Lawson legally take the blame.
Seconding Marci — you guys ARE amazing. I have a big pile of free hugs for anyone who wants one.
Also hugs back to everyone who really needs them.
Late to this, but I got diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer shortly before my wedding, and my ex-husband held me against the wall by the neck (while I still had the awful stitches in my recently cut open throat) because of: “Why don’t you just GET BETTER?!”
If I could will it, it would be so.
I insisted he put me on his health insurance, so that I could COBRA off of it, before I would sign the divorce papers. Once he did that he cheerfully told me that I could fire my divorce lawyer. In this sort of, look AJ, I did what you wanted! Fire your lawyer! Thank you but no, I have the same right to representation that you do.
“And I’ll say it here, to those who shared their stories, and to those who still can’t find the words, and to the allies here because listening and believing is a gift you give,
You deserve to be fucking cherished.”
QFT.
The real issue with Vox Day is that he actually has some influence, however meager.
DV - There are things I will never, ever discuss because I might leave clues. Those of you who have gotten to a place where you are strong enough to talk about it have my deepest admiration and support. Those who, like me, stay silent have the same. People who can’t understand how it works or think that getting out is just a simple decision (“Just pick up the phone, right?”) have my deepest envy. I’d give anything to be that naive again. Although I hope I would still manage to be compassionate.
Ugh, girlscientist, that list hits me where it hurts…
Want to throw my voice in with admiration for everyone else who has encountered that shit.
I have a friend - she is tall, stunning looking, confident, both very intelligent and very physical - a keen rugby player. A whiles ago, she confided in me that, in college, she was abused by her then boyfriend. She described how he reduced her to nothing in her own eyes and how she only got out because of the best of friends who were there for her.
That was the day I realised it can be done to anyone. And no one deserves it, nothing justifies it.
@SittieKitty: Sorry about that. I have two very dear friends who I have no doubt are currently in abusive relationships. This list helps me empathize with them on days when I feel like making them hourlong Powerpoint presentations on how their partners suck and should be hurled into space with great velocity. They’re both wonderful people who deserve to be cherished and who have so much to offer, except that two mediocre, self-satisfied, whiny, violent and scary people have bamboozled them into catering to their every whim.
girlscientist, naw, it’s okay, I just got stuck with AssholeFiles being an ass this weekend and the list didn’t help :/ But I’m alright-ish
I like that “you deserve to be cherished” thing, it’s so true. And I’m sad to hear your friends are going through that, it sucks to watch and wonder if there’s anything more you should be doing.
Argenti: Let’s just say that he’d worn out all welcome. And yes, I was willing to put one through his lungs, from 10 feet away.
There’s a reason he never came back.
That would deter him from coming back, yes…
Come play with Pell!
Hi Dee! Feel most welcome. Yay for many beasties. ^_^
Hugs for all the abusive survivors here (that want them). Having grown up with it, I have difficulty having any time for people’s lack of understanding, even though I know it’s not necessarily intuitive. It just makes me so angry.
x 1 million. Perfect.
I hope I don’t seem insensitive because I haven’t really chimed in in this thread. All your stories break my heart and I don’t really know what to say.
katz…not knowing what to say is not insensitive. Saying the wrong thing is. Don’t worry about it, you’re silence is fine.
RE: katz
Yeah, it’s okay. I mean hell, sometimes I don’t know how to say it either… or tell it.
http://badmenproject.com/posts/201303/serious-question-about-chris-brown-rhianna-debacles
Regarding people who stays with their abuser… this post was a clever one!