I dated a girl in college who as a child was witness to her father physically abusing her mother. She then fell into a physically abusive relationship with her first boyfriend, Ryan. This relationship went on while she was 17-20. She got out only because of a restraining order against him. Her next relationship was with a mentally abusive guy, Kurt. Kurt is a guy’s guy. He has privilege, power, and he quickly figured out how to maintain control over the emotions of this girl to keep her around and submissive. I knew her during this period, ages 21-23. We were close friends until recently.
I was quick to assert Ryan had no right whatsoever to physically abuse her, for any reason, EVER. “That behavior is not okay,” I told her on more than one occasion. Once, in class I intercepted a couple of male students’ text message that made a derogatory comment about her and a large, phallic device, and I stood up in lecture and brought it to the attention of the rest of the class. I believe in the power to change the negative, male behavior in a continuum of a peer culture climate where the behavior is perceived as wrong and inaccessible in those peer cultures. A poor leader allows that behavior to be laughed at, brushed aside as a “stupid remark,” or ignored completely, making those outside the immediate situation of abuse complicit in the negative behavior. The issue of mental and physical abuse is an issue of leadership, not necessarily gender equality or women’s issues.
Ultimately, I sacrificed my feelings for her to give her balance. Not short-term, but long-term. All my family and friends were wary of her, they could sense the patterns of abuse. I was as opposite as I could muster from the other men in her past. This was attractive to her, it was weird. I knew that being nice, yet still a strong man, to her and not playing the “dating game” would mean an inevitable end to our relationship. I helped build confidence she would later use against me. I love that girl and she let me fall in the trap she had fallen into with her previous relationships. She took on their role and mentally abused me and cut down my self-esteem and self-worth. She planted doubt and insecurities in my mind. She played with my emotions and got me to give disproportionally to what she would take. I allowed it all to happen.
It was the right thing to do, but it meant that I would not get to be with her. I wasn’t going to “save her.” Kurt would promise to “solve her problems,” that’s not what she needs. She needs to learn how to trust men. She needs to be trusted by men. I did the best I could, however, I could not contend with the negativity. I was not ready for everything that she would unleash on me. She broke me down, I lost my composure and she left me, for good. In that experience, I began to understand what had been done to her, why she felt the way she did about the world. She broke my heart. No doubt there is another way to do what I was trying to do, I did the best I could and refuse to give up. A man is just a man, I had to forgive myself and move on.
Check out this TEDX from November 2012. It was posted May 2013 to their website. In it, Dr. Jackson Katz explains societal discourse is from the perspective of the male, the male is the dominate group in our society.
“This is one of the ways dominate systems maintain and reproduce themselves. That is to say the dominate group is rarely challenged to think about its dominance; because, that’s one of the key characteristics of power and privilege. The ability to go unexamined, lacking introspection; in fact, being rendered invisible in large measure in the discourse about issues that are primarily about us.”
Dr. Katz went on to explain our whole cognitive structure is built to blame the victim. He uses the English language to show how “John beat Mary” becomes “Mary is a battered woman” and John is no longer in the conversation, and Mary’s problem becomes a woman’s issue. Men tend to tune out “women’s issues” because they are men, the dominate gender, and simply lose interest. It happened to me in college: “Oh, Women’s Studies…where am I studying today?” My friend admitted that she played a part in the abuse, provoking it at times out of Ryan. Further, nothing was stopping her from removing herself from Kurt’s living situation. Yet, even though there is another side to the story, in those situations, as well as our relationship, this pattern of abuse began in her home as a child. Everything after that was blaming her for being emotionally unstable, or chastisement from her family for being sad over break-ups. “Ryan didn’t abuse my friend, my friend caused Ryan to abuse her.” Or, “Kurt didn’t manipulate her, she let him.”
In my experience with her, my wary family and friends were quick to point out how poorly she was treating me. They pointed out that she did not respect me and that she was manipulating me to get what she could from me. They just wanted to protect me from this “poison” when they saw how much I was torn up over her. No one helped me cope with the negativity I was enduring so I could prolong our dance. I was told to remove myself from the situation. Nope, I was not going to leave her alone, just like every other man she has given her love to in life. She had plenty of friends when I last talked to her, and she left me. I didn’t abuse her and she knows that she can trust me, still. I was sad, of course, though I stand by my actions and see the Positive. You are reading it right now.
