Episode 10-But I Love Him...

I had a revelation of sorts today...

I joined (yet another) social networking site today. One of the more interesting facets of the site is the blogs...wooo boy! Talk about drama!

Here's the thing, as I'm reading through some of the relationship blogs the one phrase that I kept coming across over and over again was...

"But I love him" (or some variation thereof).

I HATE this phrase. The reason why I hate it, is because it is usually preceded by some tragically repetitious and familiar tale of he treats me like shit, he doesn't respect me, he's cheating on me, he's cheating WITH me blah blah blah...you get the idea.

So, I ask...if you know and recognize that this is not a situation that you are comfortable with...why stay?

Because I love him.

WTF! That just defies all logic.

Now before I continue, I too have been guilty of saying the dreaded phrase. But if age and experience have taught me anything, it's that I know my limitations. You can't possibly tell me that say, you date a married man 3 years--you still honestly believe that he's going to leave his wife for you? Get the fuck outta here.

But I love him.

Do you really? Now I'm not trying to get all high and mighty. I'm really not. So many women make this mistake of staying in unhealthy relationships. Lord knows I did! And if you do it once, that's ok. Lesson learned, move on. But if you keep doing it over and over and over, and you get on that whine about how you can't find a "good" man, you have to ask yourself...is it him or is it YOU. Why do we continue to settle for less? Is it a self esteem issue or are we really truly afraid of being alone. Hate to break it you ladies, but contrary to popular belief there is no man shortage, but there damn sure are plenty of sharks in the dating pool, so if you get bit you should know.--it hurts! I just don't understand.

For example, I was reading one of the bloggers on the new site today who was in a situation where she was (very) pregnant by a married man and wanted to know if she should tell the wife. Or, there was another one about a woman who had to ask if she should stop dealing with a man who by her own accounts was a shiftless, lazy, non-working, alcoholic, sonofabitch living in his grandmama's basement and getting money from the various women in his life including an ex wife. Or just last week I found out a former co-worker of mine had been in a manipulating mentally abusive relationship for years. And I'm willing to bet that if you ask any one of them why they put up with it when CLEARLY they weren't happy, they'd all give the EXACT same response...

Because I love him.

Jesus I've written poems about women like this... alloweth me to quote myself from a poem called "SOS"

...They say you should stand for something or fall for anything Well you done fell for the wrong one girlfriend/
But you ready to stand by your man and defend his dumb ass to the bitter end/
He got you so messed up you done cussed out your mama and your best friend/
and all they're trying to do is reason with you/ but when his dumb ass acts up they're the same ones you go running back to/
and they can't figure out why you stick by his ass/
even after he
beat yo' ass
treated you like trash/
cheated on you TWICE
gave you an STD
and paid for that OTHER chick's abortion with YOUR cash/...

Now I will freely admit, that I'm going through my own relationship issues right now, so one could probably argue I don't have room to talk...but seriously, if my biggest complaint to date is just that sometimes S is just a tad bit too sensitive, well then baby I'm doing damn good. I blame that on age and cultural differences. And the difference here is--yes I love S...

But S loves me back.

Food for thought.