It Does Not Matter

After reading all the comments the editor made to my story, I don’t feel so bad. First, these were glaring mistakes and just awful story telling from my part. Second, she had very good questions and comments. Plus, she’s actually very funny on her comments. What might have read as an angry comment the other day, today I find them amusing. One that she kept coming back to over and over again was why doesn’t she just dump him? In all caps with exclamation points.

Why do women stay with men that are so obviously toxic for them? That’s an excellent timeless question.

Based on my research of reading blogs by women who have been wronged by men, it is my opinion that there is an infinite amount of reasons women stay with all around horrible men. In one blog I read, the woman stayed with a man for four years while he made her have weekly weigh-ins and forced her into psych meds. In another one, a woman started seeing a guy. He met someone else, and the main woman got pushed to be the mistress, while the second woman became the girlfriend that he introduced to his parents. Then, the ‘mistress’ accidentally got pregnant, terminated the pregnancy because he told her to, just to find out that his girlfriend had also gotten pregnant, but that pregnancy was celebrated. It still took a few more years before she dumped him. One man told his wife that he was cheating on her because she was going to end up like her mother. And she forgave him.

At our last session with our therapist, something came up, that the Doctor asked me about my past relationships. She was surprised to learn that all my past relationships, even the casual ones, had been with very reliable, respectable good men. There were no loose cannons and that I “clearly didn’t take any crap from anybody, especially men.” She said that it was surprising, because we, as humans, normally gravitate to what we know. I had a not so great childhood, and the male figures in my life where pretty much non existent. With that said, knowing me now, before she knew all this information, the way I picked men to date was a conscious choice based on thought out attributes I had been looking for.

I get what the editor is saying. I have met woman in awful relationships and often wonder what are they thinking. How can anybody date somebody who doesn’t know how to spell “house”? (True story!) But It’s not my place to ask why. My place is to listen and, only when asked, give my opinion. In the mean time, I can only write about these women and give them a much better ending than they have (not) planned for themselves in real life.