Two weeks ago, he tried to run her over with his car.
Last week, he was inside her body saying exactly what her fragile heart and emotionally unstable mind needed to hear.
This week, I felt it was necessary to turn around and go back down the yellow brick road to see exactly where it was this Black woman lost the ability to love herself.
I’ve always felt that I lacked the self-esteem I envied in other women, yet when I think of Sister Betty*, I see that I am wrong.
For many Black women, the stress of waiting for their Black prince (or princess) often proves too much. For some it begins as a debate within themselves, resulting in the decision that they will settle for the man (or woman) who is almost perfect but is lacking a few things, which are often the very important and necessary things. Others, having given up long ago, decide that they will jump onto the next train that comes along, even if its destination is hell.
Betty never knew what hit her.
Beelzebub** who knew how to recognize a woman with false confidence, moved quickly.
First were the demeaning comments about her appearance; next came the insults about her family; then the vicious rumours that he spread in order to kill the self-esteem that was already half dead; then the infidelity, which everyone (including herself, despite her delusions) knew was inevitable.
The physical abuse started one day when, out of revenge, having discovered that he was cheating (again), Betty lied and told him that she had cheated too.
Later, when she retold the story in my car, on our way downtown, surrounded by other women, she laughed at the irony while we shook our heads in disbelief.
Although she is convinced that this monster is her lover, any naked and open eye could see that she is being abused.
Over the course of a year, I’ve witnessed Sister Betty, whose obvious potential as a woman, deteriorate into a mass of living pity. At times, her hunger to be loved at all costs is so visible it’s repulsive. The sister formerly known as Fierce is now so desperately in love that she would do anything to keep him.
Estranged from most of her immediate family, Betty really has no one, so she loves Beelzebub with a frightening grip. She is an intricate and sporadic liar, finding it necessary to fabricate life to avoid dealing with the commonly known fact that her life is a tragedy and that she is being abused.
He doesn’t hit her often, just when he is really angry. She loves him, and she is truly convinced that if she stays long enough and takes enough abuse, he will one day learn to love her in the same way.
Last week, a verbal altercation between my sister and Beelzebub escalated into a fistfight. My sister (who at the time was Betty’s roommate) fought because Betty was completely incapable of doing so herself, having given away all of her power.
Unlike Betty, my sister boasts a one-hundred-fifty-pound frame and puts up a fair fight, lifting the gremlin and sending him crashing to the floor. Once the fight was over, Betty ran after her would-be murderer, screaming, “Oh no. Now he won’t come here anymore.”
The fight was so raucous that the neighbours called the police.
My sister, having forgotten how necessary it is to protect your face in a fight, was tending to a swollen lip when the officer arrived. Beelzebub had already retreated to his lair, and so Betty, afraid that my sister would press charges, approached the officer in the lobby and told him that my sister had attacked him because she was crazy.
My sister had no intentions of pressing charges because, quite honestly, he didn’t beat her up. Physically, she was his match and had put up a fair fight. She welcomed the swollen lip in exchange for letting him know that he was barely a man and was a fool to think that hitting a woman who was barely 90 pounds would make him one. That, however, was irrelevant. Betty didn’t know if my sister would press charges or not, and what she had done in the lobby was treason in the highest order.
Betty didn’t know (and still doesn’t know) that the officer told my sister about the conversation in the lobby.
Sadly, she is not the first or the last woman who will sell her dignity for pennies at the flea market.
The most interesting aspect of all of this is that you would never know that Betty was so tragic if you saw her. Having mastered fake self-esteem, she knows how to hide. Only those close to her or who have witnessed an episode of abuse would know how tragic she truly is.
My sister has given up on Betty, her loyalty having been trodden by swine. I, however, can’t say indefinitely that she is doing the right thing. I pity Sister Betty viciously, having once been in a place where lies were the truth, all in the name of maintaining my relationship. Although I’d never been verbally or physically abused, my ex-boyfriend’s compulsive lying became emotional abuse. At the time, I truly believed that I couldn’t function without him in my life. These days, the thought simply makes me laugh.
Last year, I truly believed that she would eventually leave him, but that belief is long gone. After abortions, sleepless nights and STIs, I’m starting to believe that Sister Betty probably won’t ever leave, and if she does, it won’t be for long. Even sadder is the fact that the demon is in several other relationships with several other women, which she knows about and chooses to ignore.
He’s said and done everything imaginable that would make a rational person abandon ship. But I realize that this is not about rationality. This is love.
So who’s to blame? Betty’s father and brother have been sad individuals since my sister and I were young. She is re-living the mistakes that her mother has already made.
As a friend of Sister Betty, do you lend an ear when she calls you almost weekly to tell you what he’s done? Do you grant her requests to call him from your cell phone after she’s called him fifty times with no response? Do you advise her not to listen when she informs you that his own mother told her that he doesn’t love her and that she should leave him? Do you visit her at home when she is bedridden for two weeks, nursing an STI that the doctor has never seen before? Do you stay up all night with her when numerous women are calling her cell phone, claiming to be his girlfriend? Do you encourage her dreams about her future when you know he makes his money illegally, and it is simply a matter of time before he goes to jail? Do you maintain a friendship with her when she has clearly told you in word and in deed that there is nothing she wouldn’t do for him?
My sister has counselled Betty through all of these things and can no longer be her therapist and bodyguard.
Sadly, I’m not quite sure that Betty truly understands that their decade-long friendship is over forever. To my sister, “chicks before dicks” was never merely a phrase.
So what can be done for the women that we all know who, like Betty, hate themselves so much that they would put up with anything in the name of love? More pressing is what needs to be done about men like Beelzebub who build their self-esteem by mentally, emotionally, verbally and physically abusing another human being.
Too often, the blame is placed on the woman who just can’t say “uncle” in the face of such overwhelming abuse, but the real question should be, why do certain men believe they have the carte blanche quite literally to trample a woman’s spirit?
There are many theories as to why Black women often settle for venomous partners. The blame usually falls on the lack of good father figures, racism, or the media. But before a venomous man can enter into a woman’s life, the woman’s self-esteem must already be low in order for her to believe that he is the best she can and will ever do. Despite many other contributing factors, for a lot of Black women, the most disrespectful and esteem-crushing man out there is the Black man. Whether it is a father, a brother or the brothers around the way, many Black women lose their self-worth at the hands of the men who look like them. Despite how difficult it is to voice and how desperately sisters want to defend their brothers, at times, defending them is pointless and unrewarding. I’ve witnessed the ending of friendships and sisters publicly fighting like animals over the love and loyalty of a brother so worthless that if the trans-Atlantic slave trade were still in existence today, these men would be the only free Black men around because NO ONE would pay money for them. Harsh, yes, I know, but a reality nonetheless.
Voicing this is always difficult. I can hear the cries of “Uncle Tom” even as I write this, but it needs to be said. A Black woman is expected to support her man in all times of trouble, but what if the man himself IS the trouble? Do we stand by him despite his disrespect, his abuse, his disloyalty, his dishonesty?
Mentally, I am still on the yellow brick road, and I have yet to find Betty’s self-esteem. Even if I can pinpoint the exact spot where she dropped it, should I or anyone else be the ones to give it back to her? Is that even possible? Or should I draw a map for her through encouraging words? Or should I simply keep walking in hopes that one day she’ll come looking for it on her own?
For my sister, the decision was final; she would not continue to be the Caesar to Betty’s Brutus. She realized that Betty must be saved by her own hand. On that night, lines were drawn, and their friendship was simply a casualty of the war. All is fair in love and war…right? I’m still not so sure….
I must end by saying a loud THANK YOU to all of the brothers who are nothing like the Beelzebubs of this world and who are equally as outraged by their lies, their cheating and their abuse. YOU ARE LOVED.
Bridget Antwi | Freelance Contributor
* Not her real name
** Not his real name
