If you are a man in an abusive relationship, this woman might have a message of strength for you. “You need to find the courage to get away from anything that’s unhealthy.”
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“I thought long and hard before posting this video. This is very difficult for me, but I have to do what is right. If you or anyone you know has been in a similar situation, please share this video to inspire other women around the world. Violence is not the answer!”
Emma Murphy, a 26-year-old native of Dublin, Ireland and mother of two, posted this message, along with the video shown above, on her personal Facebook page earlier this month. She posted it on July 6, a year after discovering that the man she’d been sexually involved with for an extended period of time was abusive. She did not mention whether or not she was married to him.
In the video, Murphy explains that she and her children hadn’t seen him on Father’s Day. He didn’t stop by her house that day, nor did he call her. Nothing.
In November of last year, Murphy received a call from an anonymous woman–who proceeded to tell her that she’d been “seeing” this same man who Murphy had been having relations with for months. and was pregnant with his child. After receiving this call, Murphy went to her local gym–where she and her partner go to work out–to confront him about the situation.
It was there that he initially attacked her, punching her in the face to the point where she sustained an injury. A short time after, she found out that he had cheated on her again. He then attacked her a second time, pushing and shoving her so hard that she got a black eye, as seen in the video.
This was a year in the making, but consider this: If Murphy is visibly beaten and bruised in the video, how recent was this man’s second attack? Or were there multiple instances like this prior to her shooting this video?
This story, along with the video, was originally posted on Upworthy, and has since garnered national attention. Organizations such as The National Domestic Violence Hotline and Fort Refuge have been listed as help centers in conjunction with this piece.
I’ll leave you with this: If Emma Murphy lived to tell her story–and was courageous enough to tell it the way she did, what does that say about the rest of us? More importantly, where do we leave those who are struggling and need inspiration if we choose to keep our stories bottled up inside?
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Photo credit: Nanagyei/Flickr