Growing up, I remember overhearing stories of infidelity and of unhappy marriages. I remember seeing the way the victims in those relationships – mostly women – were shamed for failing to keep their husbands. It seems, failure to stay attractive has become a vice so fatal it is only excusable for one to be cheated on.
I have always been troubled over why women put up with their toxic partners, or why they accept the belittling, the ultimatums, the manipulations. Even the strongest, most accomplished women around me have been put down and abused; the reality suddenly dawned on me when my best friend – one of these women – expressed in despair “I think at this point I've accepted that my future husband will cheat on me."
Do they not realize the world that they deserve?
But I have realized that we are inundated with instances of toxic relationships from the media and the culture around us, so much so that the manipulations become normalized. The belittling has been repeated so often that women start to believe that this is what they are worth, that to be woman is to suffer.
In Eminem and Rihanna’s top chart hit from a few years ago "Love The Way You Lie," the abuse is masked with a pretense of a tumultuous, addictive romance. Rihanna’s lines “Just gonna stand there and watch me burn/But that's alright, because I like the way it hurts” are a woman’s refrain in her silence.
Trapped in the loop of negativity for so long, she starts to believe she deserves the pain, and that she is supposed to accept it. She starts to lose herself to abuse. The romantic promise in the toxic relationship keeps the woman from leaving: “You swore you'd never hit 'em; never do nothing to hurt 'em/Now you're in each other's face spewing venom in your words when you spit them.” He loves me. He didn’t mean it when he said those things. He didn’t mean it when his actions got out of hand. And with that belief, the abused sets fire to her dignity in hope that there will be better days.
However, this codependency in relationships and addiction to the violence and control are deemed to be romantic, as if the endurance of such treatment is proof of a love so powerful it can weather through challenges and shortcomings.
Stop the glorification of toxic relationships in the media. Stop romanticizing abuse and unhealthy behaviors. We all deserve better.
