Magnify

The first time it happened was on a cruise ship. We were seniors at two separate high schools, and our senior classes were taking their unofficial graduation trips together through the Atlantic Ocean. He chose to go. I chose not to. But I made him a mix tape so that he could have me there in spirit, one with great classic rock songs that would come back to bite me, like Love the One You’re With. It turns out he did (love the one he was with).

It seemed like a defining moment, and, for my definition, I chose what I always had when it came to being in relation to someone else: Calm, rational, good, nice, forgiving. If I broke up with him, I reasoned, then I would simply be allowing him to make me a different person—a vengeful, jealous person, maybe, and that’s not who I was. So I called the girl and said that I wouldn’t make things awkward, the issue was between me and him. At school, I walked past her with my head high, said hello like I always had because to vilify her over him in this matter was contrary to my sense of justice. I listened to his teary pleas, challenged him some, said it would be hard for him to earn my trust again but we could try.

A month later, I decided on a college. I had received an acceptance to the school where he enrolled, but I had no desire to follow a boy. I chose elsewhere, and we decided to see how long distance worked. That summer, I found out he hadn’t swapped spit with just one girl on that cruise. But I had already forgiven him the one, how the hell could I hold this new old news against him? I fussed a bit; I made motions; I stayed.

­ That fall, it kept happening. He’d kiss a girl here, another there. It’s what he did. What I did was figure out how to appear firm while still being nice. I cloaked firm and nice in the package of seeing other people at school and each other back at home. Meanwhile, I was the friend that my friends came to with their troubles. I was a good listener, and I was always clear.

“You deserve more,” I would tell these women that I loved. And I meant it. I wanted to see them honor their right to be fully cared for—by themselves and by whomever they let into their hearts.

“We teach people how to treat us,” I would insist, and, yet, it took months for those words to ring true in my own ears. There was a disconnect between the girl who championed others and the girl who couldn’t champion herself. It wasn’t enough, though, to believe in the worth and dignity and rights of everyone else. I needed to offer myself that same justice. I called him, one spring night, and ended it.

My friends were relieved. Over time, they had grown mortified by what he had done to me. I was only mortified by what I had done to myself. Somehow, sometime I had bought the bag of goods about what being a good girlfriend meant. The reality, though, was that the societal messages I received were getting in the way of my truly feminist heart.

­­ I think of this story now as I watch a girlfriend approach divorce from a marriage she now reveals was wrought with abuse and manipulation. She holds up each red flag as she collects these stories, a forest fire of revelation that she had refused to allow herself to see. I want to ask her why she kept all this from us, why she kept it from herself. But even though I learned the lesson of self-protection when I was young and the risks minimal, I have been to the place where it all—your perception and reality—snowballs. And that is just one small part of the greater conversation that we, as feminists, need to be having.

There is never a day where it is better to be in a relationship that undermines, undercuts, manipulates, abuses, or takes advantage of us over being single and in a relationship with ourselves that is filled with self-love. There is no man or woman worth the loss of our sense of dignity or selves. We must stop these relationships before they ever start—trusting our intuition, backing away quickly, and teaching and encouraging other girls and women to do the same. Until all of us are safe, too many of us are unsafe, and we must offer each other our absolute best in this world so that we know that there is always a safety raft, always a way out.

­

That spring night, I went out and danced until the moon was high over the sky calling to me with its lightness. I walked back to my room in the still of that early spring morning, mesmerized by my empowerment and committed to never staying again in something that didn’t fit. Being good, it turns out, isn’t about being pleasing. As every feminist knows, being good is about being just to others while also being true to yourself.

Rosie Molinary is the author of Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina (Seal Press) and one of the founders of Circle de Luz, a national giving network that provides scholarship funds and support to young Latinas in order to radically empower and inspire them to pursue further education upon graduation from high school. She blogs at hijasamericanas.wordpress.com.

­