It's always interesting to me as woman who has worked since she was 16 years old that there are women out there who want nothing more than for a man to take care of her completely as in he makes the living and she stays at home. This is not a knock to stay-at-home moms because I did that for two years when Amber was a toddler and I actually would look fondly on those days when I'm at frazzled at work running from one meeting to another. I also just experienced that for six months while I was laid off and it was nice to be home when my kids got home from school. No, I'm talking about the women who want the men in their lives to make all the decisions, who defer to him for financial issues and want to be the perfect princess - they want to get the prince, the castle, the clothes and the jewels. But as I've observed, the trade-off comes at a price - and if you don't maintain your own identity - it's pretty easy to get swallowed up into a domestic pit of despair that might be next to impossible to crawl out of. 
The reality is that mutual respect and love are the cornerstones of every good marriage - and equality is a must. I've seen too many women who like Cinderella or Snow White believe that the right man will fix all their problems and help them escape a bad situation. Unfortunately, those Prince Abuse-a-lots have a pretty good radar for picking up on women like that. They probably saw that same dynamic with their own parents. Dad taught them how to treat women badly and so the cycle continues. We have to teach our daughters what good relationships are from the very beginning because once they get into high school and college - it's too late. In my case, my father was very supportive and loving and yet I kept picking out guys who either mentally abusive or passive-aggressive probably because I was buying the whole image of needing a boyfriend to establish your status. I bought into the need to help people and to be "good and kind" as a way to get the right man to be attracted to you. Unfortunately, that kind of conditioning can also attract men who want to control you and because you want to help so badly, it's easy let it happen. We have to start educating our kids in elementary school and tell them what a healthy dynamic in a relationship is - that a good friend does not borrow all your coolest stuff and never gives it back - or when you do get it back - it's broken. They need to drop friends like that like a bad habit because they will only use and abuse and never equal the playing field. Parents need to do some role playing so that our kids will know what to say to those ass wipes but even that sometimes that is not enough. I was bullied in school and as best as I tried to prevent it - Danielle was too- ironically at a karate school that we enrolled her so that she would know how to stand up to bullies.
I once sat on a panel at a high school that was addressing domestic abuse. I worked at Children's Home Society at the time which was a charity that helped abused children. One of the people on the panel was high school girl who was pretty and well spoken - we had a chance to talk before the panel started. When it was her turn, she told the students about her experience with her boyfriend. He was a popular handsome athlete and she was a shy honor student. He started off as very charming and sweet - a guy who would literally do anything for her. As time when on, he started to change. He would call her constantly on her cell phone to see where she was. He verbally put her down not only in private but in front of his friends. He started to isolate her and didn't want her to see her friends and to spend all her time with him. Then the verbal abuse started to spiral into physical abuse. He would get mad if she wanted to study and not be with him. He would smack her and then the smacks turned into punches, but he was careful not to hit her face so no one would know. After the abuse, he was so sweet and loving that she was convinced that he would learn and it would be the last time. But it never was and it got worse. She would take herself to the emergency room and pay with the money that she had saved up for college so that her parents would not be alerted through their insurance company. She wore long sleeve shirts and long pants even in the hot South Florida sun so that no one could see the welts and bruises. She blew through all the money she had saved for college just to cover her abuse and shame. One day, her mother came into her room while she was changing and gasped. The truth was out and her parents were outraged - not at her but at her boyfriend. They asked her why she would stay with someone like that and her answer was the the six saddest words on the planet: "Because he says he loves me." She eventually broke up with him with help from her parents and school counselors. They tried to prosecute but the wounds were old and it would be he said/she said which is what so many women in domestic abuse situations find - they are the ones on trial and not their abusers. But getting away was the best thing she could have done. She closed her part of the panel by saying that she knew there were girls in the audience who were going through the same thing right now and they need to hear what she was saying - to reconnect with their friends, parents and school counselors so they could get help but because the truth was that love does not hurt and it never should.
I sat there in that high school auditorium trying to keep my own emotions in check because I had gone through the same thing in college - the abusive boyfriend who belittled, isolated me and physically abused me although it was only once. I never had a trip to the emergency room, but my psyche ended up being badly wounded for years. My turning point was when I was getting ready to go see my boyfriend Lee while I was still living at home and my father sat on the couch and started to cry. I asked him what was wrong. He told me that he wished I would stop seeing Lee because he just didn't make me happy, it broke his heart. He just wanted me to be happy. I sat down next to my dad and cried with him. It was a release - like this facade that I had been laboring under had finally been torn down and now I could see how it was effecting those around me. It made my father cry for God's sake! I hugged my dad for a long time and thanked him. Because even though my dad cried in front of me, it took balls for a guy who had fought in WWII to do that. I broke up with Lee that night.
After the panel, I went up to that young woman and gave her a big hug. I told her I had a similar experience in college and how I wish someone would have had the courage to tell me that in high school. I told her that she probably saved a few girls out there in the audience. We hugged with tears streaming down our faces and she said that this was the first time she told her story. I told her that she needed to keep telling her story to anyone who would listen - that it was important.
The belief in the fairy tale ending and living happily ever after that it can blind even the smartest women to someone who is manipulative. Let's face it, abusive men don't start out as a tool in the courting phase or they would never get a second date. One woman I know who recently got out a bad marriage compared it to a death by slow boil. When you first get in - the water is fine and as you acclimate, and the temperature rises or the abuse increases and you find a way to ignore it or tell yourself it's normal until it's boiling and you have to either escape or be boiled alive. I imagine that was how Katy Holmes felt. My guess is that while Tom Cruise is the absolute prototype Prince Charming- the guy has charisma to spare - living with someone whose that controlling can be a nightmare no matter how hot and rich they are. She got away from Tom in a way most counselors tell you - to make a plan that might take months to execute and get some outside help - in this case it was her father. She got an apartment, changed her e-mail, cell phone numbers and waited until her man was half way around the world so he couldn't get to her so she would change her mind. Having a good support network is important when leaving a bad relationship the same way addicts need a support group to keep from using drugs. Katy Perry recently wrote a song called "Wide Awake" about her break-up with Russell Brand. I like this video because she goes back in time to try to warn her younger self about the pitfalls of a bad relationship. It's a great video that can be used as a conversation starter with your kids about what she was going through in her life and how she found the courage to break free. She even cold cocks Prince Charming who apparently is a poser. The moral of the video is that you can be beautiful, rich and famous and still fall for the wrong guy but you can learn from it and become stronger.
I'm a people pleaser and while it's taken me years to channel my inner bitch to help protect myself from other bitches or assholes, it's just not an attitude I'm comfortable with - because Cinderella would never tell anyone "Screw this, I've put all this time onto your project - making you look good. I'm not even getting any of the credit or rewards from it. So ass wipe, I'm outta here and you're on your own." That's not very storybook is it? Yet, we have to train our kids to be able to say just that to protect themselves from manipulative people who seek out the good and kind so that they can exploit them. Now, I'm not saying they need to have that attitude all the time - then they'd be not better than the people we're trying to protect them from but they need to know the signs so that they are not putting way more into a relationship then they are getting back. They need to have a line of demarcation that let's them know when they might be tripping into the danger zone.
Here are just a few trouble signs to watch out for - based on my experience and others who have been there:
1. It's great that a guy wants to be helpful - but if he's offering to help out too much or too soon - that's a flag sign. After one or two dates, it's not normal for him to want to help you with errands, painting your apartment, paying for that class you wanted to take - it might seem generous but you could be heading from generous to controlling.
2. Needing to know where you are at all times is not concern - it's another form of control. If he shows up unexpectedly at something that you and your girlfriends are at just to surprise you- then he's having a hard time with boundaries - beware.
3. Texting is a two edged sword. I know that texting is a way most younger people communicate, but if it's with a constant need to know where you are - there's a problem. If he has a GPS on his phone that tracks where you are - that's a scary sign and you might need to change your cell phone number.
4. You have a right to do things without him. If he's threatened by that - it's a first step to isolating you from your friends and family. Did I mention the boundaries thing? Controlling assholes don't have any.
5. Making demeaning jokes at your expense. This is never okay and ending it with "It was a joke" does not excuse it.
6. When things go bad - it's always your fault. Lee once called me up to yell at me because it was raining and he couldn't go fishing. Now I get that he was disappointed but last I checked, I didn't control the weather. So what did I do? I apologized profusely for the weather because obviously something I did caused it to rain. Yeah, your sense of self can get that warped.
7. Don't get angry at your friends and family for not trying to do more. They probably tried to tell you but knew that if they pushed too hard you would cut them off completely. It took something like seeing my dad cry to finally shake me up so that I could find my way out of a really bad situation.
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