(drafted 10.20.09 cuz I’m a lagger but finished this morning after catching up on my Google Reader)

“The way [a man] treats a woman is on him, and is not necessarily a direct reflection of the woman he’s dating.”   – Jozen

What? What did he say?

Here I sit, thinking about the majority of my life’s relationships and I’m speechless.  Ok, I’m totally lying –  hence this post. But for a minute there, I was stupified.  

I thought that if I was different, he’d treat me better?   Didn’t you?  I believed this guy when he said it was ultimately my fault.  I changed because I wanted that guy to change.  I put up with that other guy, because I thought it was the right thing to do. Because thats what a good woman does.  Because thats what you do when you’re in love.  Because that was the meaning of “Ride or Die.” 

And then here comes Jozen, someone I’ve never met in my entire fucking life, droppin’ bombs over Baghdad tellin’ me the real truth:

The way he treats me is on him, and is not necessarily a direct reflection of the person I am.

Ain’t that some shit.  

So, using deductive reasoning, suffice it to say that no matter how good of a woman I was, no matter how amazing I cook, or forgiving or patient I was.  No matter how much money I made, or excuses I gave for his behavior.  No matter how much I made him laugh, or did his laundry, or intertwined my life with his.  No matter all of that — He had always treated me the way he wanted to.  

And if that’s the case, then you’re also saying that it wasn’t my fault.   That I didn’t have to change, or put up with shit, or accept the notion that being a “Ride or Die” woman equated being a “Good” woman. That I could have somehow been his woman AND my own woman at the same time.   How did I not know this? 

No wonder loving him, hurt.  “Every little bit hurts, and every little hurt counts.”