*That* picture
She only hit me the once.
So a very prominent public figure has recently been captured on film suffering abusive behaviour at the hands of her partner and (cheers from the gallery) leaving their home the next day, which was very brave and which everyone approves of. You know who I’m talking about and I’m sure her ears are burning enough with all the commentary over the past few days. I hope she sticks to her guns.
At any rate, this has led to a lot of discussion about abuse and victimisation; a lot of well-meant advice (curiously, given it’ll never reach her) from people who haven’t got any common experience to understand what she’s going through; a lot of vilification for her partner; a lot of protests of “I’d never do that/I’d never put up with that/I wouldn’t allow that to happen to a friend” from people who really can’t say what they’d do, tolerate or notice; and a lot of people very reasonably suggesting that maybe the advice and protests, as well-meant as they are, aren’t as helpful as the advisors and protestors maybe imagine. Juliet McKenna wrote a brief piece looking, practically, at what the woman in question could have done to protect herself and why everyone was sort of missing the point, and Sarah Pinborough wrote an incredibly moving account of her own experiences as a survivor of domestic abuse (seriously, read it) to try and help people understand it.
And then I thought that maybe it would help to see the situation from a different perspective. Because it’s hard, sometimes, to divorce domestic abuse from physical violence. It’s hard to not see it as being about size and strength. You hear someone say “But if she just did this, or trained in that, then it wouldn’t matter that he’s bigger and stronger than her,” and it’s alright then, isn’t it? Except the reason it’s hard to walk away from that sort of situation isn’t usually how much bigger or stronger the abuser is.
Because she only hit me the once.
She’d been shouting at me for - shit, I don’t remember; six hours? Eight? I’d been crying for half of that. I was so tired and so frustrated, and I couldn’t do anything about it. And I just walked out of the room and went to lie down on the floor in the kitchen with a sleeping bag and try and sleep there, and she followed me out a little later and started kicking me in the head.
I was just so embarrassed. I was a foot taller than her and fifty pounds heavier. I didn’t need to know where to kick her to hurt her, or to carry a taser, or to have martial arts training. I could have taken her apart without trying. And I’m lying on the floor, curled up in a ball, still crying, and she’s kicking me in the head.
She was really sorry about it later. We had one of our make-ups. We had them a lot; weekly, more or less. Making up was good, at the risk of being indelicate, and it was always really fun and great between us for a few days afterwards.
It’s hard to convey what it’s like to be a man and to suffer domestic abuse. People kind of listen and nod, but maybe, when she said how shit and unreliable I was and how I didn’t understand her, maybe I was a bit shit and unreliable? You know what guys are like! Or maybe, if I was actually a bit of a better person than she gave me credit for, maybe she was just being a bit of a nagger? You know what girls are like!
And nobody believes you. They don’t think you’re lying, per se, they just don’t see how it could be abuse. They don’t see how I could feel like I didn’t have a choice. Hell, I didn’t see how it was abuse until later. I just felt really small and stupid and embarrassed, and I didn’t understand what had happened to me.
You're doing it right now; you're thinking, "It was just one of those young, wild relationships; we all date one crazy one." Yeah, I'd dated crazy ones. This wasn't that.
She did everything you hear about. She pushed me away from my friends; made me choose between her and them, and told me I was nothing like them, and summoned me away from them whenever I spent time with them on my own. She shouted at me for talking to women, and kept accusing me of wanting to leave her for my friends and exes. She called me a nerd, and said my friends were nerds, and told me I was a shit boyfriend, and that I was unreliable, and that I was “just like all her other boyfriends,” who were also shit and unreliable. She made me go and buy weed for her during my workday, and started fights with me about drugs. And when I stepped out of line, she would shout at me all night, and hurl abuse at me, and blame me for everything in her life, and I couldn’t do anything to stop her, and it would tear me apart. She didn’t need to hit me. And just like the way you hear it, my world started to shrink, and I started to tread on the cracks and to worry about what I was going to do wrong next.
I was lucky. I guess, partly, because I was bigger and stronger, so I didn’t have to be frightened of her physically as well. Partly because I had some really, very good friends - people who are still in my life a decade later, who I will always treasure exactly because of shit like this - who wouldn’t let her drive them away from me. And mostly, I think, because I had an epiphany one day; realised I didn’t deserve this and walked away. But I can really, really easily see I could have got stuck there. The kicking wasn’t even when I left her, stupid as it sounds.
I still loved her. I still loved her so much, and I had to lie to her and tell her I didn’t love her any more, and I had to weather the storm one last time. It took about six hours to leave her. I had to make it okay for her that I was leaving her. I didn’t feel brave or independent; I felt like shit, and I felt embarrassed and cruel and ashamed. It was nearly a year before I was able to look back on it dispassionately and without guilt, and was able to see her as the abuser she was.
Heaven knows what it must be like if your abuser’s also bigger than you.
So a very prominent public figure has recently been captured on film suffering abusive behaviour at the hands of her partner and (cheers from the gallery) leaving their home the next day, which was very brave and which everyone approves of. You know who I’m talking about and I’m sure her ears are burning enough with all the commentary over the past few days. I hope she sticks to her guns.
At any rate, this has led to a lot of discussion about abuse and victimisation; a lot of well-meant advice (curiously, given it’ll never reach her) from people who haven’t got any common experience to understand what she’s going through; a lot of vilification for her partner; a lot of protests of “I’d never do that/I’d never put up with that/I wouldn’t allow that to happen to a friend” from people who really can’t say what they’d do, tolerate or notice; and a lot of people very reasonably suggesting that maybe the advice and protests, as well-meant as they are, aren’t as helpful as the advisors and protestors maybe imagine. Juliet McKenna wrote a brief piece looking, practically, at what the woman in question could have done to protect herself and why everyone was sort of missing the point, and Sarah Pinborough wrote an incredibly moving account of her own experiences as a survivor of domestic abuse (seriously, read it) to try and help people understand it.
And then I thought that maybe it would help to see the situation from a different perspective. Because it’s hard, sometimes, to divorce domestic abuse from physical violence. It’s hard to not see it as being about size and strength. You hear someone say “But if she just did this, or trained in that, then it wouldn’t matter that he’s bigger and stronger than her,” and it’s alright then, isn’t it? Except the reason it’s hard to walk away from that sort of situation isn’t usually how much bigger or stronger the abuser is.
Because she only hit me the once.
She’d been shouting at me for - shit, I don’t remember; six hours? Eight? I’d been crying for half of that. I was so tired and so frustrated, and I couldn’t do anything about it. And I just walked out of the room and went to lie down on the floor in the kitchen with a sleeping bag and try and sleep there, and she followed me out a little later and started kicking me in the head.
I was just so embarrassed. I was a foot taller than her and fifty pounds heavier. I didn’t need to know where to kick her to hurt her, or to carry a taser, or to have martial arts training. I could have taken her apart without trying. And I’m lying on the floor, curled up in a ball, still crying, and she’s kicking me in the head.
She was really sorry about it later. We had one of our make-ups. We had them a lot; weekly, more or less. Making up was good, at the risk of being indelicate, and it was always really fun and great between us for a few days afterwards.
It’s hard to convey what it’s like to be a man and to suffer domestic abuse. People kind of listen and nod, but maybe, when she said how shit and unreliable I was and how I didn’t understand her, maybe I was a bit shit and unreliable? You know what guys are like! Or maybe, if I was actually a bit of a better person than she gave me credit for, maybe she was just being a bit of a nagger? You know what girls are like!
And nobody believes you. They don’t think you’re lying, per se, they just don’t see how it could be abuse. They don’t see how I could feel like I didn’t have a choice. Hell, I didn’t see how it was abuse until later. I just felt really small and stupid and embarrassed, and I didn’t understand what had happened to me.
You're doing it right now; you're thinking, "It was just one of those young, wild relationships; we all date one crazy one." Yeah, I'd dated crazy ones. This wasn't that.
She did everything you hear about. She pushed me away from my friends; made me choose between her and them, and told me I was nothing like them, and summoned me away from them whenever I spent time with them on my own. She shouted at me for talking to women, and kept accusing me of wanting to leave her for my friends and exes. She called me a nerd, and said my friends were nerds, and told me I was a shit boyfriend, and that I was unreliable, and that I was “just like all her other boyfriends,” who were also shit and unreliable. She made me go and buy weed for her during my workday, and started fights with me about drugs. And when I stepped out of line, she would shout at me all night, and hurl abuse at me, and blame me for everything in her life, and I couldn’t do anything to stop her, and it would tear me apart. She didn’t need to hit me. And just like the way you hear it, my world started to shrink, and I started to tread on the cracks and to worry about what I was going to do wrong next.
I was lucky. I guess, partly, because I was bigger and stronger, so I didn’t have to be frightened of her physically as well. Partly because I had some really, very good friends - people who are still in my life a decade later, who I will always treasure exactly because of shit like this - who wouldn’t let her drive them away from me. And mostly, I think, because I had an epiphany one day; realised I didn’t deserve this and walked away. But I can really, really easily see I could have got stuck there. The kicking wasn’t even when I left her, stupid as it sounds.
I still loved her. I still loved her so much, and I had to lie to her and tell her I didn’t love her any more, and I had to weather the storm one last time. It took about six hours to leave her. I had to make it okay for her that I was leaving her. I didn’t feel brave or independent; I felt like shit, and I felt embarrassed and cruel and ashamed. It was nearly a year before I was able to look back on it dispassionately and without guilt, and was able to see her as the abuser she was.
Heaven knows what it must be like if your abuser’s also bigger than you.