lillamy

I relate to this. Here's how it was for me:

I felt like if I accepted that I lived in an abusive marriage, two things happened:

One, it would change the way I viewed myself. I've always seen myself as a strong, independent woman, one who didn't take crap from anyone and who walked away from negativity and badness. If I accepted that I lived in an abusive marriage, I would not be who I thought I was. I would be a victim. I refused to accept the victim status because I felt like it would turn me into someone I was not. Abused women are scared little fragile things who aren't strong or brave enough to tell a bad man to shove it. I couldn't relate to that. So I determined I couldn't be in an abusive marriage because I wasn't like those women who were abused. It's very much like an A who goes to an AA meeting and says "I don't belong there, that was just a room filled with failures and drunks."

Two: I felt like if I acknowledged that my marriage was abusive, I would no longer be able to pretend that it wasn't. Which was true. Once I did acknowledge it, I couldn't lie to myself anymore and I had to act. Even though it was emotionally the most difficult thing I had done up to that time, my rational mind told me it was dangerous to stay, dangerous for me and the children.

Learning that domestic abuse happens in all social groups, in all income brackets, in all races, in same-sex and different-sex relationships, among churchgoers and atheists, among Communists and Right-Wingers... it helped me. It helped me see that just as I had had a skewed view of what alcoholics were (dirty homeless people who lived under bridges and accosted you in the Walmart parking lot), I had had a skewed view of what domestic abuse sufferers look like.