We all have our dealbreakers. I won’t deal with a man who doesn’t have a college degree. I can’t work with a man who still lives with his mom. I really don’t want to date a man who has kids. Some are outlandish, some are personal preferences; but as Brande Victorian mentioned earlier in the week, there are two standards that are almost universal… at least in theory.
1. We won’t put up with a man who cheats on us.
2. We won’t put up with a man who hits us.
I wrote those in no particular order. Both are pretty terrible. And while we’ve heard women say that they won’t put up with cheating or abuse; when those things happen, exceptions are made. Sure, the relationship will never be quite the same but people work things out all the time. When it comes to love there really are no hard-fast rules on how to behave in any given situation. And if there were, we wouldn’t follow them.
If you ask me, I could see myself forgiving infidelity much easier than I could see myself going back to a man who’d put his hands on me.
Both are a betrayal , represent a lack of self control and hurt the other person, either emotionally or physically.
But there is something about a man, your partner, hitting you, especially in the context of marriage, that is so…unforgivable. I can understand that the dynamics in a relationship can and will change. People aren’t being fulfilled sexually or emotionally and they look to other people to meet those needs. But I just can’t understand why you’d feel the need to hit me in the heat of an argument or because I didn’t do something to your liking. That’s about power, you exerting power over me in a way you know you’ll “win.” That’s a type of sickness I couldn’t live with, eat with and sleep with every night. Who wants to live their life in perpetual fear of being beaten or abused by someone who’s supposed to be on your team?
I do believe that men who hit women and men who quickly resort of violence in general, seriously have some type of psychological issue. Those issues can be cured with therapy and what not; but how long does that take? How will I ever know that you’re truly reformed? If you hit me once, how do I know that the next time we’re having an argument, that you wouldn’t punch me in the face to shut me up? That’s a terrifying existence, yet there are millions of women, all over the world, who live this way.
What do you think? In terms of a relationship, which is a greater offense, infidelity or abuse?
