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He is a lot older than she is and urges her to marry him
at just 18, insisting it’s his life’s mission to protect
her. She mopes and gets depressed when he’s not around,
engaging in risky behavior for a chance to see him.
Yet she is entirely devoted to him, wants to spend
eternity with him, and is willing to abandon her soul
for it.
Nothing about
this relationship sounds like one we would want or want
our friends to be in. But when young women consider
“Twilight” characters Bella a hero and Edward the
perfect mate, we enter a dangerous pattern of life
imitating art.
Think about
it: If one of your friends acted like that with her
boyfriend, what would you do and what would you say?
Could you stand by her—would you stand by her—even when
it means that you get ditched and are her lowest
priority?
And if you were in a relationship like this, would you
listen to your friends and family when they protest that
this guy isn’t good for you? Or would you turn away from
them and invest more in the relationship? Without a
doubt, most young women have seen this play out in real
life, and the answers are seldom as easy as we want them
to be.
The stats
One in three women experiences domestic violence in
her lifetime, and a woman is battered
every 15 seconds in this country. These are
terrifying statistics, yet they don’t improve
significantly from year to year. (To learn more about
the signs of abuse, or to find help,
visit
this page for additional information and links to
resources.) Violence prevention
organizations have identified adolescents of junior-high
age or younger as the best to receive positive
relationship messages, because high school is often too
late to stop the violence that so many teens already
experience in their relationships.
(Continued
on next page.) |
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Visit the
study
page for ideas for discussion and further
reflection.
A
favorite kid's game is to see who can hold her breath the longest.
Variations on this game include holding one’s breath under water, or
all the way through a tunnel, or until the TV commercial is over.
Why is this fun? Maybe because when you hold your breath, your whole
body becomes taut. You can't laugh or sneeze or stretch. Then, when
you finally do let go and breathe again, you loosen up all over. You
relax.
Holding it in
This sense of release is the premise of Terry McMillan's novel
(1992) and the subsequent movie (1995) "Waiting to Exhale." The main
characters are four women who are seeking meaningful, happy romantic
relationships. When the story begins, each woman is "holding her
breath," waiting for Mr. Right. At various points in the novel, each
of them is involved with a Mr. Wrong who betrays, lies, cheats, or
in other ways makes her feel like she doesn't matter. What they all
long for are relationships in which they feel they can finally stop
hiding, stop keeping their deepest selves locked tight inside, stop
worrying that in the company of their partners they become less than
themselves. They are waiting to exhale, longing to let go of their
fear, anxiety, and anger and begin deeply breathing again.
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