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You Think It’s Unbelievable — That’s the Problem
On abuse, denial, and the privilege of disbelief
Recently, a man commented on my post saying he found it hard to believe a story I shared. The story being that my cousin’s husband was making her flush his poop as some sort of humbling tactic.
I did not respond to the comment, but it got me thinking: many men struggle to be allies because they have the privilege of disbelief. As in, “This sounds too extreme to be real; I do not believe any sane human being could possibly put another human through that.”
Except that this “insane” behavior is exactly what women experience.
You say what?
One day, I opened my Amazon account and saw a new profile — my husband’s mistress. She had added herself using his surname, right beside my daughter’s profile.
It was my husband’s email address that was used on the account, and I had used it for over 7 years at this point. Without overthinking it, I deleted her profile.
When my husband returned to the country, I was let in on the apparent war his mistress was throwing about this. It boiled down to how his mistress was so angry I deleted her profile as it showed I had not accepted her as a part of my family.
