#whyistayed in Not All Who Wander Are Lost

I’m getting into it with this guy on a friend’s fb wall. She posted a Tedx talk from a woman about why abused women don’t leave with the comment that victim blaming/shaming needs to stop. A friend of hers commented that of course victim blaming is bad but why is he not “even allowed to ASK why women don’t leave???1eleventy” So I responded that it is because asking the question puts the onus on the victim and not the abuser. And then he wrote this long drawn out explanation that we should expect abusers to lie so therefore all we have to go from to find out the truth is to ask the victim.

Sigh.

So I responded BACK that what, to him, is a simple question with a simple answer is rarely, if ever, simple. And it’s just the wrong question to ask entirely, not just because it’s incredibly rude and insensitive to the victim but because even if they manage to crack the code of why women stay that is still only treating the symptom of the problem and not the actual cause.

So why did I stay? Well. I was 16. He was 21. It started out slowly. This was early days of AOL and he messaged me because I lived fairly close and we liked the same books. I tried to brush him off at first but he kept messaging me, emailing me, drawing me in. I had just moved from a very happy life in Tennessee to a very miserable one in North Carolina. I had no friends, no other siblings around, I hated school, I hated my town, I hated my body, I hated every single thing about my life. Except Mike. Mike was so sweet to me. He told me I was so smart, so mature for my age. Once I managed to get a picture online (this was 1995, remember) he told me I was beautiful. I couldn’t believe it, this 21 year old MAN was interested in ME, a worthless teenager. His emails got a little more romantic and I got a little weirded out so I tried to break it off with him. He lost it, asked me why I was doing this to him, he CARED so much about me, he was drowning and I was oxygen and I was cutting him off. How could I be so cruel to him? I didn’t last long.

We agreed to meet.

I lied to my parents. Told them he went to a different high school in town. He picked me up. He took me to a hotel room. I was 16. I was scared to death. He raped me.

I didn’t realize it was rape at the time, of course. I thought he talked me into it because he loved me, because he wanted to share this with me, because only I could give him what he needed. I shook and cried and he held me and I thought it was so sweet. I thought it was sweet.

We saw each other almost every weekend, not to mention the AOL chats in between. We got hotel rooms every time. Sometimes I wouldn’t want to have sex and he’d berate me for it. One time I got so fed up, I called a cab to come get me when he went into the bathroom. When he found out he was so upset, begged me not to leave, begged me to stay, told me it was okay, he loved me so much. I believed it. Every single word.

I loved Ford Eclipses back then. Like I’ve never cared much for cars but I just thought they were so pretty. He bought one, said he bought it for me. To this day the song One Headlight reminds me of driving around Greensboro in that car. After my sophomore year ended we moved to Ohio. Mike said he still wanted to date and even came up to Ohio to see me once. He proposed, we set a wedding date (June 21st, 1999 - about a month after graduation.)

Things got hard because, well, being away from him and in a healthy environment, with friends I adored and a school I loved, I realized I wasn’t healthy. A friend from school confessed he liked me and I talked to Mike about it. He told me I should date since I was so young and he was so far away. It would be okay. He had faith in us. The next morning he picked a fight with me and broke up with me. I was devastated. He waited a week. Mike wanted to talk. We tentatively got back together. We broke up again. On and on until I told him I just couldn’t speak to him anymore.

I found out much later one he’d been cheating on me for months, with several other women. One of them messaged me and we talked. She said she was going to try and work it out with him. I wished her good luck. I didn’t mean it.

It took me a really long time to come to terms with that part of my life. I carried a lot of guilt, a lot of “what ifs” and “why didn’t I?” And that is the thing . . . You don’t need to ask women why didn’t they leave because believe me, they wonder the exact same thing. But it’s not always as easy as that, it’s not always as simple as just walking away. And yeah, you could say I was young and naive and he got to me early, but that’s the THING, though, it wasn’t just . . . It was slow and gradual and I really believed that he was in love with me and I with him. And aren’t we always taught that true love wins out? I read my paper journal for that time and I just ache for that girl. And the last thing she needed to be asked is “why did you stay?”

Anyway. I really didn’t mean to verbally unload like that. And I don’t think I ever wrote about that on OD. But there it is. That’s my story.

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Last updated September 09, 2014