I’m up late night talking to a friend. She’s the sweetest of the sweet. She’s someone who feels things deeply, almost to her detriment. She could use protection.
It reminds me of a moment, during my divorce.
I’m devastated and crying.
“Colleen,” says my friend. “You are missing a protective coating.”
Her words catch me off guard. Not because she speaks them. Not because they may not be true. Especially, during the most devastating time in my life.
But because under other circumstances, I might have spoken them to her.
She’s that kind of good.
I know her strength.
She knows mine. But she spies my weakness. She recognizes my self-detriment. She’s attempting to wake me up. I realize this. Her next statement illustrates it.
“Colleen,” she says. “I’m going to tell you what my mother once told me. Do not allow these people to take you down.”
Divorce is ugly.
I was feeling every ounce of it.
She was advising me to stop absorbing the inflicted pain of my ex and others.
But back to my friend who is currently absorbing pain. Because thankfully, mine has lessened. Not unlike my other friend, I spy her weakness. I want to wake her up.
We’ve been out the night before.
“I don’t like the way he talks to you,” I say.
Her boyfriend has made a comment to me. I don’t like anything about it. I don’t like it for a multitude of reasons. It’s unnecessary. It’s uncalled for. It’s unkind to the kindest of the kind.
It’s abusive.
It’s emotionally abusive.
I call him out on it.
“What are you trying to say?” I ask him.
“What?” he says
“What are you trying to say about her?” I say. “What are you saying you don’t like about her.”
I don’t think he senses my aggravation.
It’s an even bigger red flag.
This is normal to him.
He doesn’t recognize what he sounds like or what he’s doing. Thankfully, my friend lags behind us. I’m disgusted with him so I walk faster. We arrive at our other friend’s apartment.
An hour passes.
We are all laughing and having fun.
But it’s interrupted.
By his same signature arrogance.
“That’s not happening here,” says my guy friend. “This is my home, and in my home, we don’t mistreat women.”
I’m proud of this man I call my friend.
No one else notices because he does it quietly, the way a confident man does. He’s not looking for attention. He’s not looking for recognition. He’s simply being the man he was raised to be.
It’s instinctual.
The bully is shocked.
He’s immediately shut down.
In the cowardly way, only a bully can retreat.
I give up on my late night chat with my friend. It’s not the right time. No one knows better than me, that you can’t reach a woman who chooses to continue seeing the best in the worst of a man.
The next morning, I talk to her again.
“I don’t like the way he treats you,” I say.
“I know,” she says.
“No,” I say. “Really, I don’t like it. You deserve better.”
I witness her broken heart.
Down deep, she knows who he is. Any woman who’s walked in her shoes, knows who this type of man is. But they’re (we’re) the kind of women who don’t abandon people we love.
“Listen,” I say. “My ex-husband could be incredibly cold and cruel. I write about and I raise awareness to it. But even he, was rarely casually cruel as I witnessed last night. Even he, had to have some degree of control or anger to illicit it. Even this, was more shocking to me.”
“I know,” she says.
“I’m going tell you something,” I say. “I once wrote a quote, after all I had experienced with my ex-husband. I wanted to convey what it’s like to be with a man who mistreats you.”
“What is it?” she asks.
“Good men don’t mistreat women and say they deserve it, abusive men do.”
She nods her head.
“That’s the difference,” I say. “Abusive men make you feel like you somehow deserve their wrath, or being mistreated. They make you feel smaller and less then, to make themselves feel bigger.”
She nods her head again.
“I’m going to tell you something else,” I say. “It’s something my marriage counselor once told me.”
“Okay,” she says.
“Colleen,” my marriage counselor said. “Your husband keeps showing you who he is, only you don’t want to believe him.”
I watch my friend as I speak his wisdom.
I recognize her contradiction.
A woman who sees the truth.
But turns away from it.
She loves a man who’s not worth loving.
Because…
“Good men don’t mistreat women and say they deserve it, abusive men do.”
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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