It makes me want to weep...

[Aldin]

There is a new song in rotation on the radio and I absolutely hate it while at the same time being captivated by it. It tears at my heart, lyrically and viscerally pulling back the curtain on the emotions and actions of domestic violence. In a strange and compelling way, it is music that has latched itself into my gut and I feel a cathartic need to express to someone somewhere that I heard it and was hurt by it and desperately wish I lived in a world where it never could have been written.

Love the Way You Lie
Eminem with Rihanna

Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

I can't tell you what it really is
I can only tell you what it feels like
And right now there's a steel knife
In my windpipe
I can't breathe
But I still fight
While I can fight
As long as the wrong feels right
It's like I'm in flight
High of a love
Drunk from the hate
It's like I'm huffing paint
And I love it the more that I suffer
I sufficate
And right before im about to drown
She resuscitates me
She f***ing hates me
And I love it
Wait
Where you going
I'm leaving you
No you ain't
Come back
We're running right back
Here we go again
It's so insane
Cause when it's going good
It's going great
I'm Superman
With the wind in his bag
She's Lois Lane
But when it's bad
It's awful
I feel so ashamed
I snap
Who's that dude
I don't even know his name
I laid hands on her
I'll never stoop so low again
I guess I don't know my own strength

Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

You ever love somebody so much
You can barely breathe
When you're with them
You meet
And neither one of you
Even know what hit 'em
Got that warm fuzzy feeling
Yeah them chills
Used to get 'em
Now you're getting f***ing sick
Of looking at 'em
You swore you've never hit 'em
Never do nothing to hurt 'em
Now you're in each other's face
Spewing venom
And these words
When you spit 'em
You push
Pull each other's hair
Scratch, claw, bit 'em
Throw 'em down

Pin 'em
So lost in the moments
When you're in 'em
It's the rage that took over
It controls you both
So they say it's best
To go your separate ways
Guess that they don't know ya
Cause today
That was yesterday
Yesterday is over
It's a different day
Sound like broken records
Playin' over
But you promised her
Next time you'll show restraint
You don't get another chance
Life is no Nintendo game
But you lied again
Now you get to watch her leave
Out the window
Guess that's why they call it window pane

Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

Now I know we said things
Did things
That we didn't mean
And we fall back
Into the same patterns
Same routine
But your temper's just as bad
As mine is
You're the same as me
But when it comes to love
You're just as blinded
Baby please come back
It wasn't you
Baby it was me
Maybe our relationship
Isn't as crazy as it seems
Maybe that's what happens
When a tornado meets a volcano
All I know is
I love you too much
To walk away though
Come inside
Pick up your bags off the sidewalk
Don't you hear sincerity
In my voice when I talk
Told you this is my fault
Look me in the eyeball
Next time I'm pissed
I'll aim my fist
At the dry wall
Next time
There will be no next time
I apologize
Even though I know it's lies
I'm tired of the games
I just want her back
I know I'm a liar
If she ever tries to f***ing leave again
I'mma tie her to the bed
And set the house on fire

Just gonna stand there
And watch me burn
But that's alright
Because I like
The way it hurts
Just gonna stand there
And hear me cry
But that's alright
Because I love
The way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

~Aldin, sorrowfully

[braveheart101]

If a song has Eminem or Rihanna in it, it is bound to be a stinker.

Now turn off the radio, before you suffer cranial damage.

[Hahma]

Yeah, domestic violence sucks. I used to work with a woman (who was 6'1") that used to come to work with a black eye or she couldn't talk much because her husband choked her. He'd always apologize and make dinner or something and then she'd forget about all the bad stuff he did because the good stuff was like a drug and made her forget. Her first husband was abusive too and now I have just seen her again after a few years and found out she divorced the second one and is involved with a guy she says is really great. Her daughter is in her mid-20's and I remember years ago she would get involved with losers like her mom did. A boyfriend would sit on her, pinning her arms down and spit in her face, hit her with a coat hanger and took all her clothes and threw them in the yard and burned them.

Something about some women where they gravitate toward loser abuser guys and make excuses to stay with them.

I did a painting job one time at this house and the one day there was the woman, her 1 year-old son and the son's father (woman's boyfriend). Next day I went there and the boyfriend wasn't there and I inquired, so how is so in so (he had a cold the day before), and the lady answered that "he don't stay her no more." I was like "okay" and didn't pursue it any further. A few minutes later, she said, "He put a gun to my head last night and I couldn't let him stay her no more." She explained that he wasn't working and was sick and she was taking care of him and babying him while he was sick, when she wasn't at work. Well she was feeling run down and asked him if he'd rub her feet and he threw her down on the bed, put a pillow over he face and put a gun to the pillow and told her that he was going to kill her. Well all she was worried about was people finding her dead, and what about her son? But the guy didn't kill her and the next day she somehow got him out of there. I didn't see him for the rest of the time I was working there and hope that he never went back. She had talked to her pastor and he said that while there was definitely something wrong with the boyfriend, there was something wrong with her too, to allow herself to be treated in a disrespectful manner (on several occasions previous to the gun incident). I had told her that also, because I've always preached to my oldest daughter who just started college, I've told her, "never let anyone treat you wrong. There are other fish in the sea and no boy/man should ever hurt you physically or emotionally."

I know another woman, a friend of my wife's, who used to go out with losers that would steal from her to pay for his debts. She'd come home and the TV and other things would be missing because he hocked it. One time she answered the door to have someone put a gun in her face because he was there to collect from her "boyfriend" but he wasn't there and she didn't get hurt, luckily.

Sadly, there are too many cases where women are with guys that are abusive losers. For anyone that has a daughter, I feel it is important to show them by example how a man should treat women and impress upon them that they should never accept to be treated poorly, no matter how much they "think" they love the loser.

[RabSheila]

Originally Posted by Hahma

For anyone that has a daughter, I feel it is important to show them by example how a man should treat women and impress upon them that they should never accept to be treated poorly, no matter how much they "think" they love the loser.

No kidding. Good thoughts and advice. I've never understood why anyone would stay in an abusive relationship. Low self-esteem? Masochism? Who knows.

[lefton4ya]

Not quite sure if Aldin is sarcastic or not. I am not sure he is even sure either and think he is a little of both.

[RabSheila]

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

Not quite sure if Aldin is sarcastic or not. I am not sure he is even sure either and think he is a little of both.

Me neither. Regardless, abuse sucks. There is no sense or excuse behind loving someone that mistreats you in return.

(Which doesn't explain my love for the Raiders. I keep putting myself out there week after week and...sob...they...choke...I don't understand....)

[Flame Gryphon]

Originally Posted by RabSheila

No kidding. Good thoughts and advice. I've never understood why anyone would stay in an abusive relationship. Low self-esteem? Masochism? Who knows.

Not by their own choice. The abuser makes the abused believe that they're the only person who will ever love them, that the abused is not even worth that love, and tell them that if they leave the abuser will kill them. Honestly RabShiela? Please think before you post.

[jschild]

Originally Posted by Flame Gryphon

Not by their own choice. The abuser makes the abused believe that they're the only person who will ever love them, that the abused is not even worth that love, and tell them that if they leave the abuser will kill them. Honestly RabShiela? Please think before you post.

Sorry, but it is sometimes a two-way street. Many of those women that feel that way were abused when younger. It's sad how high the sexual abuse rate is and these women are usually (but not always) the result of that abuse. If that's all you've ever known, you honestly cannot understand not being abused - they instantly don't trust in many cases people who are nice to them because they don't see what the angle is.

[Aldin]

Thanks for sharing that Hahma. I wasn't being sarcastic at all. There's something about the suffering of abused women that just crushes me and I think this song is absolutely haunting.

It gives insight into the evil.

I understand passion and celebrate strong passion between a man and a woman. I know the bone deep grip of a negative pattern of behavior (overeating in my case) where you try to change but fall back into what you know is wrong, loathing yourself but feeling helpless. The way this song connects those gives me the ability to see a genuinely tortured man beneath the skin of a hateful abuser.

Added to that is the abused Rihanna, singing with what sounds convincingly like experience about how the pain is worth it for the passion that exists. How many of us have willingly taken on pain in working out or studying or getting rejected by prospective dates or employers knowing that there was a pleasureable reward that made the pain worthwhile? The pain described here is a twisting of that growth process - pain for pain's sake that produces nothing but future pain... but is interspersed with enough pleasure to keep luring women back.

It's gut wrenching stuff.

~Aldin, who usually listens to the sports station

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by Aldin

Added to that is the abused Rihanna, singing with what sounds convincingly like experience about how the pain is worth it for the passion that exists.

That's probably because she was beaten by her boyfriend Chris Brown in a pretty well publicized story last year.

[RabSheila]

Originally Posted by Flame Gryphon

Not by their own choice. The abuser makes the abused believe that they're the only person who will ever love them, that the abused is not even worth that love, and tell them that if they leave the abuser will kill them. Honestly RabShiela? Please think before you post.

I wasn’t trying to offend anyone and if I did I apologize. I wasn’t kidding around when I said I didn’t understand why someone would remain in an abusive relationship. That said, why isn’t self esteem issues and masochism two out of many valid reasons? If self esteem is a person’s feeling of his or her own worth and if “the abuser makes the abused believe that they're the only person who will ever love them, that the abused is not even worth that love,” is that not a self esteem issue on the part of the abused? As far as masochism goes that seems pretty self explanatory.

Again, no offense meant to anybody.

[jschild]

First, It wouldn't be an abusive relationship if they were a masochist.

Self esteem does play in some of these issues but the most common are people that come from abusive backgrounds.