i‘ve been thinking about the various ways that people can be internally fucked up. I’ve seen quite a few of these in romance novels, although they’re relatively rare.

One of the more common fucked-up tropes is the man or the woman who was physically (or sometimes verbally) abused by a husband, a father, a mother. I have never, ever seen a portrayal of that abuse that accurately mirrors abuse in reality. Maybe someone out there can point to a book that does abuse right, but I doubt it.

There are two things that set romance-abuse, at least those that I’ve read, apart from the cycle of abuse in real life, and one other thing that I’ve seen half the time. First, in the romance land, the abuser is all bad through and through. He (and I use “he” because it’s rare that a woman is portrayed as an abuser) is always evil. He’s verbally cruel. He beats with impunity, thinks the child/wife has the devil in him. He feels neither shame nor guilt about his actions. He never promises not to do it again. He never breaks down and cries. He never says he can’t help it. He’s just bad. This is almost universally true–can anyone think of a story where it’s otherwise?

Second, in the romance world, the abused person always hates the abuser. Often, the abuse explains why the hero can’t trust people–because he never knew love, and because he doesn’t believe in it.

A third thing crops up sometimes in romance novels (but not always) and nearly always in real life: the abused person believes the abuse is his or her fault, and that if only he’d done the right thing–if only he’d brought his beer faster, if only he’d kept his mouth shut, if only he’d managed better–it wouldn’t have happened.

Unfortunately, in real life, abuse is not so clean. For a number of reasons, I’ve been thinking about domestic violence lately. Domestic violence cases are really, really hard to prosecute, because the spouse will almost never testify. In some cases, it’s fear. But in many cases, it’s because the woman in question (or the man–women can, and sometimes are, the abusers) believes that she’s in love, that he loves her, and that if only she could just get it right the next time, it’ll stop.

Abusers often believe they love their victims. They’ll beat their wives and, the next day, go out and buy her expensive gifts, treat her lovingly, apologize profusely and say it’ll never happen again. Abuse is hell, both for the abuser and the abused. It’s a cycle, and it’s a dark, dark cycle for both parties. Not that I’m trying to justify the abuser at all; there’s no excuse for that sort of behavior. But we can understand the behavior. Abusers aren’t inhuman. They are just very, very fucked up. Abusers very rarely take pleasure in causing others pain. They lash out, and quite often they feel incredible remorse. They just keep doing it.

It’s one of the most horrific parts of our society, and it’s something I’ve never seen a historical novel grapple with: abuse isn’t just about physical pain and lacking control of your life. It’s about women who believe they love a man, men who believe they love a woman, and escalating violence that has no rational justification. Abusers aren’t all bad, and they aren’t inhuman inflicters of violence. In fact, that’s part of what makes it so horrific. It’s easy to walk away from the devil. It’s hard when you care about him, and when he can be so wonderful one minute and then turn into a demon the next, and afterwards he sobs his heart out and says he’s sorry and says he’ll never hit you again and it was a mistake.
I’ve never seen a romance novel grapple with this (admittedly, I read mostly historicals). There are novels that deal with abuse, but I’ve never seen one delve into the ins and outs of truly abusive relationships.

And I’m wondering: why is that? Or am I wrong?
Part of it, I think, is that it’s really hard to save a character–save both characters–who is that fucked up.

As we have long discovered in our society.

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