This morning I just got news that an acquaintance died of liver cancer. I didn’t know him as well as I wanted to, so I’m surprised at how hard this has hit me.
I met Mark through a friend of a friend of the SO. He was a tall, handsome business man with a good head on his shoulders. He had some really nice houses over the years (which I was fondly jealous of), and loved a good party. From time to time, I thought about asking his help in getting a home since mortgages were his business. But this was back before the housing bust and I knew I couldn’t afford the houses I really wanted, so I didn’t ask.
It was through the friend that introduced me to Mark that I got one of my first Information Technology jobs. Mark and his partner K set up their own business and needed a new network. The friend knew I was trying to learn, so invited me over on a Saturday. We spent the entire day pulling cables, setting up routers, and getting all the company’s PCs on the network. It was fun, informative, and instructive.
That was about the time that I learned that Mark’s partner K (who was also his boyfriend) tended to be very dominating and emotionally abusive to Mark.
I like K. He’s a charming, engaging, and jovial person. He sees the world through rose-colored glasses sometimes. How can a person like that be devious, conniving and mean to the man he loves? I hate the idea that I can like a person who is engaged in abuse (of any flavor) of another person. I always thought that there would be a switch that people could turn on or off when they find out someone does that sort of stuff. Now I know better. Not that I went out of my way to spend time with K after I found out. The thing is, despite being in an emotionally abusive relationship, Mark just couldn’t leave. Every time he tried to, K played the guilt trip or phrased things in such a way that Mark couldn’t really convince himself that leaving that relationship was a good thing for him.
Let me be honest. As much as I liked Mark, he did a lot of stupid things in recent years. Illegal things, actually, for which he’d gotten caught. But I have to wonder how much of that he was coerced into by his partner and how much was just plain stupid greed. I do know that Mark was so vain about his physical appearance that he did not properly treat his liver cancer when it was diagnosed a few years back. He didn’t want to look sickly or have his hair fall out. That pisses me off. Acquaintance or no, I am furious with him for being so stupid. Yet it had been too many years since we last talked, so I don’t know what was going through his mind when he decided not to pursue treatment. I don’t even know if he had tried options and ran out of them.
Which makes me mad at myself for not checking up.
Should have, could have, would have. And now it’s too late.
I can’t define Mark’s life because I didn’t know him as well as I wanted to. I don’t know that I could have done anything to convince him to seek treatment, to keep him from stupid decisions, to get him out of an abusive relationship that he didn’t want to leave. Unfortunately I never knew him well enough to feel comfortable broaching that last subject. The thing is, there are so many women and men trapped in abusive relationships without any means of escape. Women and men who are embarrassed, lost, convinced that it’s their fault, and who have no support structure because people either don’t want to acknowledge the problem or they feel uncomfortable getting involved. After all, why should we get involved if the abused wants to stay in the relationship?
And it’s precisely that reason why we should get involved. Why we should learn to send the message that abuse of any flavor (and I mean real abuse here, not a parent yelling at a teenager for using the family credit card on a porn website) SHOULD NOT BE TOLERATED. It’s not just rape culture we need to break, but the entire bullying I-am-better-you-are-nothing culture. The culture that creates bullies. The culture that creates abusers. But first, we need to get the abused out of their current situation.
My employer, Allstate, has created the Purple Purse foundation in an effort to educate people about domestic violence. Purple Purse is focused on teaching women the basics of financial independence since financial abuse is a big part of why women can’t escape domestic violence. This month, the company is donating $5.00 (US, up to $350,000) to the YWCA for every Purple Purse code entered at http://purplepurse.com. The virtual code I used is 0002. Just enter that code and your zip code and you’ve requested that Allstate adds another $5.00 to the YWCA’s domestic violence support program.
It’s a great program that unfortunately doesn’t address the situation of men like Mark, who are themselves trapped in a situation of emotional and mental abuse and can’t talk about it because of the stigma that men aren’t affected. Just like men can be raped, so too can they be abused. When we talk about domestic violence, we should remember that it can happen to any gender at any age, and even people who were never raised in an environment of domestic violence can become victims. So let’s take the first step. Let’s have this conversation. Let us stop just admitting there is a problem and get down to doing something about it.
Farewell, Mark. I cannot help you now. All I can do for you is work on seeing and stopping the problem the next time it happens to someone else.
