So everyone seems to still be talking about the Rihanna/Chris Brown situation. What a mess. All of us seem to have an opinion on what should happen next and what each of them should do. The overwhelming number of people in my circle are on the side of 'leave him' (myself included). I've never been in a physically abusive relationship but I've been around a couple in my time. Two of my aunts dealt with abusive husbands or boyfriends and they handled it in wildly different ways.
When y aunt was 25 she married her boyfriend of two years and they had a son together. After my cousin was born, their relationship became a little strained and he didn't spend much time with his son but they stayed together. A few years later they had a daughter and things quickly went downhill. He started yelling at her for no good reason and getting upset over stupid crap. Then one night she got home from a party at our house late and he flew off the handle and smacked her across the face. She fell to the ground from the force of it and then got up and kicked him right where it counts and told him they were done. She came back to our house and never saw or talked to him again. I remember him calling the house obsessively and all of us kids being told not to answer the phone or to immediately hang up if it was him. After about four months, he stopped calling and that was it. My aunt has never been married but she's been in relationships and, thankfully, all of them have been good guys.
On the other hand, my grandma's best friend had a daughter who was like an aunt to me that was drawn to abusive men. Her husband and father of her four kids knocked her around and got her into drugs and he eventually got busted and sent to prison. She got sent to rehab and their kids to foster care where they were abused. Eventually she got her kids back and while he was still in prison she started to rebuild her life. Then she met another man and they moved into a house with the kids within months. He started to abuse both her and the kids soon after and even though I was like 12 at the time, I remember wondering why she would let anyone do that to her kids. Things became complicated when the kids' father got outta prison. She bounced between the boyfriend and the husband for a good four years and then when her mom died she finally realized that she needed to get away and she moved out of state. The kids did not grow up well and did not turn out well at all. And it's sad because they were all so smart and had so much potential but children do learn what they live. I always wondered how this woman turned out to be the kind to put up with abuse. She was raised by an incredibly strong mother, a wonderful, loving father and my grandmother, who was the strongest chick I knew for a long time.
In the end, one of them chose not to put up with it and immediately end the relationship, while another kept going back to the people that hurt her. No one knows the specifics of the R/CB thing except the two of them, but I think Oprah put it best when she said, "If a man hits you once, he will hit you again." Granted they're both young and all that and it's never too late for a person to change. However the way he has chosen not to take responsibility for what he's done, publicly or in a court of law, doesn't exactly inspire confidence. You have to WANT to change and in order to do that you have to be genuinely sorry for your actions. And everyone's on her about being a role model and poster child for domestic violence and I understand it but at the same time she's kinda young. That's a lot to put on someone. Yeah, she's in a position where girls look up to her as a role model and there's a responsibilty that comes with that but it's also her life. She can live it however she chooses. But I hope she at least holds him accountable for what happened. It's never okay to lay a hand on someone else that way. I can't believe the number of people who say it's just an "issue" they need to work out. It's not an issue, it's a crime and a felony at that.
I understand all of the passion and things that go into a relationship when you're that young. Passion can breed both love and hate. My first relationship was insane and you know what it was...it was complicated. We fought a lot and there was so much between us and after awhile it just got to be too much. So we took a break...we took many breaks actually. But in all of our fighting and arguing and break ups and make ups, neither of us ever laid a hand on each other. Never even thought of it. You get mad, you walk away and CB apparently is trying to weasel his way out of his crimes by saying she hit him first and she has anger issues too. Maybe she does and it's not right for her to take a swing at him either, but he could have chosen to walk away. Her smacking him didn't give him the right to beat the hell out of her. (And, from what I understand, this was likely not the first time he touched her in that manner.) The one thing I have a problem with now is the whole friends and family aspect of this thing. I mean, it might just be my family, but if I have a visible scratch on my body I get asked about it. Some of her friends have said they saw things in the past, marks, bruises, etc., but they didn't really ask her about it because it was "her business". But I think that's crap. I think if you're any kind of friend, you ask what happened. And if I had a friend who was in her position and chose to go back to an abusive relationship, I would have to seriously consider telling that friend that I could not support them anymore. Same with a family member, nevermind my own daughter. Her father says he'll support her even if she stays with him (which is not surprising considering she's the one with the money) and I can't wrap my head around that either. If my sister was in that situation and said she was going back, even if she was the one pulling the financial strings, my mother would be far from supportive. I don't get any of that.
When all of the smoke from this clears, it'll be interesting to see whose career does what. They're basically still kids who are dealing with some very adult issues. I don't think he should be able to plead to a misdemeanor and avoid taking responsibility for what he did. Responsibility is part of being an adult and yeah it sucks sometimes but he made his own choice that night. Hell, I have a teenager who got busted for underage drinking and even she took responsibility for that, a far less serious crime. CB should man up and do the same thing. At the end of the day they have to figure out which path their lives take now and everyone takes responsibility for their part in it and, hopefully, they move on. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, what happens between them is in their own hands. This concludes my two cents.
