Wednesday, March 27, 2013

He Almost Killed Me...And I Stayed

I felt that this song really related to this weeks blog post so with that being said 
The song of the week is...*drum roll* 
LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE
Oh and because I deleted every picture of my ex and I, 
I'm going to ad pics from ad campaigns aimed at helping women in abusive relationships

I kind of talked about my past and being in an abusive relationship in a previous post, but I was having a hard time relating the lesson to my life other than this. For those of you who didn't read my previous post here is a brief synopsis...when I was younger and living in Hawai'i I was dating this guy who used to beat the crap out of me on a regular basis. It took a long time for me to tell someone and an even longer time for me to leave him. That takes us to what today's blog post is about...


A lot of people don't understand why many times those in an abusive relationship don't leave, why the keep going back, why they still love that person that is causing them so much pain. But, you can chalk up much of why the "victim" stays to effort justification, that is that we love what we suffer for (according to the definition given to us in class by Dr. Guiliano). This paradigm of cognitive dissonance (to what extent our behavior affects our attitudes (Festinger) ) basically says, that when we suffer more for or because of something, that we tend to change our attitude so it becomes more of a positive. In the case of abusive relationships, and particularly my situation, my ex had even gone as far as to try and kill me so I was terrified to leave, that lead to me starting to focus on the good attributes that he did have and soon I truly believed that I was still in love with him. He meant so much to me, that I began to justify his abuse and in my head, because I had stayed instead of leaving, I figured I really did love him, that that was what love was.
It took a while before I finally told someone, and even more time before my friends convinced me to leave and showed me that that wasn't love
When I first heard this song (Love the Way You Lie) I seriously felt like I was listening to someone sing/rap about my relationship. I seriously began to justify what was happening to me by telling myself that I liked it.
Effort Justification does not only apply to abusive relationships but as I said earlier, it was the one thing that kept popping into my head as I thought of topics for this weeks blog. 



Word Count=435
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownMarch 27, 2013 at 6:34 PM

    Your story reminded me a lot of my sister's relationship with her ex-boyfriend, where he was emotionally abusive. My sister toward the last few years of their relationship, despite what ever he said to her in front of other people kept insisting he was just that way, he didn't mean anything, and that he was generally a good guy. It even got to the point where she defended saying he was a good boyfriend because he never once physically hurt her. It seemed the longer my sister was with him and the more of a an abusive jerk he was to her, and the more she suffered, the more she defended him and the more she 'loved' him; which is effort justification

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  2. UnknownMarch 29, 2013 at 9:30 PM

    Thank you for sharing your story, it was really touching to read. The theory of cognitive dissonance really opens my eyes to why some people make decisions that they know are bad for them, heck I know I have done it plenty of times. It is just too bad our coping mechanism for dissonance in situations like this is accepting it. I am glad you got out of that, and are willing to share your story with others. It may help others like you realize they are not crazy for staying, we cope with our behvaiors by influencing our own attitudes to match.

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