This week has not been a slow news week at all! You know how I love to pick apart the psychology of people in bad relationships, as I did in my article about Kat Von D and and Jesse James and my more recent article about Maria and Arnold but now that I hear that Rihanna and Chris Brown may be sending each other affectionate tweets and that Rihanna is also tweeting a mystery woman who is thought to be Chris Brown’s mother (who is urging them to get back together) I am at a loss for words… Rihanna, really?
There are few people in this world I dislike. It’s a short list really, let’s see, one of my ex-boyfriends, my crazy uncle, and CHRIS BROWN. Most people make plenty of mistakes, some offensive, some hurtful, and some otherwise. Most of the time you can forgive people while others were just born bad: rotten apples. This is the category where I put my ex, my uncle, and Chris Brown: bad apples indeed. Rihanna may forgive Chris Brown, but I never will. Someone like that is an OJ Simpson waiting to happen and if you were lucky enough to get out alive, like Rihanna was, you really shouldn’t risk going back.
Remember how Britney Spears’ father had to become her conservator because she was mentally unstable (so much so that the court ruled that she was not mentally capable of making her own decisions). I’m sorry to say that someone might have to do this to Rihanna, if it is in fact true, that she is considering taking back that monster.
Several years ago I was in a very abusive relationship. I woke up one morning, went out to my car, and found that it was destroyed. No one ever punched me in the face, but believe me, this was pretty close. I was stranded, out of state, stuck with this idiot of a boyfriend, and had no way of getting home right away. I had two choices: stay with him or find somewhere else to go in the meantime. As luck would have it, an old friend of mine let me hide out at his apartment for a few days. Yes, hide. My ex boyfriend didn’t seem to care that I left at first, but knowing, for obvious reasons, that I couldn’t have got very far without a working vehicle, he began to wonder where I was staying. He started texting and trying to contact me again. He inevitably begged me to go back to his place, though he had told me the day before that he didn’t care if he ever saw me again.
As I was about to leave my friend’s home to go back, yes pathetic, I know, my friend got really annoyed with me and locked me I his apartment. He stood in front of the door and told me that if I left and went back to him that he would never help me or listen to me bitch about him ever again but that if I stayed he would be all ears for as long as I needed him. I thought about it for a moment. I ended up staying, and never seeing that ex-boyfriend again. This guy, who locked me in his apartment really was one of the best friends I ever had, because sometimes someone needs to save you from yourself.
The fact that Rihanna successfully escaped this abusive situation but is now getting slowly sucked back in is very bad. Abusive relationships are not normal. Neither partners relate to the other in a normal way. The abused party often gets sucked back in and trapped in the relationship because of guilt and control tactics on the part of the abuser. The guilt and all sorts of negative emotions make it very difficult to get out.
The fact that Chris Brown’s mother supposedly wants them to get back together does not surprise me. Only the dumbest of women would que up to go out with a man that abusive regardless of how much money he makes. It makes no sense to me, to knowingly sign up to date a convicted abuser, and it reminds me of those women who sometimes marry convicted prisoners. Of course his mother wants her to go back out with him. What does she or Chris Brown have to lose from this deal? If anything it might even be good for his image and career, until the inevitable happens again.
I am not ashamed to say I’ve spent many nights on the phone crying into those free hotlines. Sexual assault and domestic violence hotlines to be specific. I was having trouble making sense of things after my ex boyfriend almost murdered me. I wasn’t ready to leave, even though he almost killed me. Crazy, I know, but certainly not unique. On average it takes women 8 attempts to leave an abusive relationship. 8 attempts!
I made some poor choices in my life- and went back to some very abusive men. The final abusive relationship I was in, in which I almost got murdered, I found myself on the phone with many domestic violence counselors for obvious reasons. One of the reasons had to do with rehabilitation- was it possible? He said he would try to get help with his temper. After asking MANY different counselors if it was possible, possible for someone violent like him to change, the answer I received varied between NEVER and RARELY. Violence only escalates.
Hopefully this isn’t true about Rihanna, and hopefully if it is she isn’t too far deep that she can’t still get out of it.
Remember it is divine to forgive, but it’s not always a good idea to forget:
If you’d like to read more of my work on this subject here is some recommended reading:
Have You Ever Had a Tina Turner Moment?
“She Ain’t You,” Damn Strait She Ain’t Me, Chris Brown!