For what it’s worth, I don’t think that people should “impose” their reservations on someone they think is being abused. I don’t think it’s the job of an abused woman’s friends and family to force her to change her opinion of her abuser. But I think beating around the bush is stupid and fucked up. If you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t, you might as well just be honest.

Of course, there’s a fine line between someone being honest about what they see and people really just not approving of your partner for whatever dumb reason. Which is another reason I think people who genuinely think someone in their life is being abused need to be as brutally honest as possible, and use the most frank language possible. My friends/family talked about my boyfriend in ways that I was allowed to let myself believe that they just didn’t like him, not that they were worried for my safety.

As strong as certain elements of the piece were, taken as a whole it had more of a whiff of “kids today!” about it.

I was in a relationship which was never physically abusive, but which I think had a lot in common with how I have seen people describe abusive relationships and which I think was, to a degree, verbally/emotionally abusive. I stayed because I loved him and thought he needed me. And anyone who didn’t recognize or acknowledge the good qualities I saw in him, I wouldn’t listen to. Actually, it wasn’t until my friends and family more or less accepted him and stopped criticizing him that I left him. I got to a point where I knew that I had to protect me, and that I couldn’t save him from his demons. But also, I knew that my reservations about the relationship were my own, and not being imposed on me by my family/friends. I think as a young person, I was very wary of my mother’s opinions interfering in my decisions. Once she, specifically, backed off I knew that any problems I had with his behavior were mine and not hers.