Can This Be Love?

Both perpetrators and victims often justify domestic violence in the name of love.

This is the month of Valentine’s Day, when we celebrate love and romance—and when our expectations of love can sometimes leave us gravely disappointed.

There are those who may be suffering because they’re not in a relationship and wish that they were; there are others who suffer because their relationship is not at all what they expected or wished for.

And then there are those whose toxic relationships only bring pain.

When we enter into a serious relationship with someone, none of us expects to be treated badly. We are attracted to the positive qualities in a potential partner, we feel passionately towards them, we often ignore or fail to see any negative attributes, and we fall in love. But there is something else that influences our attraction to a prospective mate: our need to love and be loved.

Each of us longs for a special closeness to one other person. We may be pulled into a relationship by an intense physical attraction, but we also want to be intimately connected to someone who shares our values, who understands us, who treats us with kindness, and who will offer compassion and emotional support.

And don’t we also want someone with whom we can share our dreams for the future, someone we think of as our closest friend? Perhaps these are the things you wanted when you initially got together with your boyfriend or husband.

But is the close connection that you wanted still possible if your partner abuses you? If he verbally, emotionally, or physically hurts you, can you still hope to have a good relationship? For many, this question is not so easy to answer.

I think it may be helpful if you can imagine yourself stirring a pot in your kitchen. Into this pot, you have put all the positive qualities your partner possesses, or once possessed. Perhaps generosity, passion, and a great sense of humor are his positive traits. Maybe it is the way he used to make you feel when you first got together: loved, valued, respected. Now, add into the pot the way he treats you when he gets angry: the violent threats, the disrespectful name-calling and abusive language, the slaps or punches.

Stirring those things into the pot is like stirring poison into an appetizing meal. Even if the ingredients are healthy and delicious to begin with, once the poison has been added, the meal cannot be eaten. The poison—the abuse, the violence, and the hurt—has spoiled everything else in the pot. If you partake of what is now in the pot, it will harm you.

Learning to turn away from an abusive relationship is not always easy. Many survivors of domestic violence have told me that one of the most difficult obstacles to leaving an abusive relationship is confusion over what constitutes abusive behavior.

They say that while it should be simple to tell when you’re being abused, sometimes it’s not. If someone hits you, that’s interpreted by most people as abusive. But what about the love between you and your partner, which you may feel is still there? The shared history, which makes it hard to imagine a future without this person? Or the promises he makes to change his behavior? How do you weigh such factors that seem to modify or cancel out a partner’s violent episodes?

An abusive partner may promise to change or give you reasons to justify the violent or intimidating behavior, and at times those promises and reasons may seem to make sense. Which is why you may need a strong support system, including a counselor who specializes in domestic abuse, to help you draw the line between acceptable and abusive behavior—and to help you make decisions about how to live an abuse-free life.

Domestic abuse can never be part of a good relationship. When fear, intimidation, and cruelty are present in a relationship, can you really call that love?

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Note from Aurelia:  In this month when we get caught up in the “mood,” it is important to recognize that sometimes we can become blind to what’s going on around us.  Let’s work together to support our Latina sisters so that we can all have healthy relationships!