Love Hurts: First Person Confidential
a high profile case triggers brutal memories
2009-03-09
By Harriette Cole
When I first heard of the alleged assault in the Chris Brown/Rihanna case, I was surprised. When I worked with Chris just a few months ago on an Ebony cover shoot, he came across mostly as a happy-go-lucky young man thoroughly enjoying his life. Nothing about him seemed violent.
Reading the police report I immediately thought that the only way something like this could have happened was if one or both of them had completely lost control of themselves. But, as more details became public, I took a horrifying trip down memory lane.
The police report? I could have written it.
In college, I had a “happy-go-lucky” boyfriend who was smart and charming and adorable. Turns out he also was a player. Over time I began to suspect that I wasn’t the only one he was seeing.
One day I went to visit him on campus. As I approached his room, a young lady I recognized was walking a few steps ahead of me. I called out to her. The short story is she too was going to visit this man, who she also thought was her man. After calling “our” boyfriend to confront him, we walked together to his room to talk to him. I was the ringleader in this communication, as I had been dating him for two years, presumably exclusively, and I was mad. When I stood before him and laid out a list of substantiated allegations, something in him snapped. He turned around, in that tiny little dorm room, and with fire in his eyes, proceeded to kick my a**. He threw me up against the door, hit me repeatedly in the face and body, ultimately opened the door and threw me down the hall only to come up to me and kick me repeatedly before walking away. The saddest thing in the moment is that no one came to my aid -- not the other woman who witnessed the assault standing literally steps away; not a single man who came out in the hallway lifted a finger to protect me or help me get away.
Worse though was when I got home to my apartment. At first I didn’t want to tell anybody, not even my younger sister who was living with me at the time. Definitely not my parents. And when this maniac called me to beg for forgiveness, I almost accepted. If I’m honest I’m sure I didn’t because my sister was there and I was too embarrassed to let her know I really wanted to take him back.
As I see it now, I believe we were both crazy. Me for believing that confronting and cornering a man about his indiscretions would somehow dissolve the behavior and make him love me singularly and with full intent; him for lashing out at me for calling him on his dishonest behavior.
Reading the Brown/Rihanna police report made me sick. I read what seemed almost like a play-by-play description of my story. I found myself wondering how many others would read their story in those graphic words. How many women take back abusive partners; how people end up healing from the emotional pain of somehow allowing themselves to be assaulted. I wonder how many of those anonymous people never get the help they need and continue to behave poorly—either through violence or fear—for the rest of their lives.
I can tell you from personal experience that it’s hard to heal. Building confidence after being violated is tough. It took me a long time to trust. I felt for too long that if I dared love somebody he would surely hurt me.
Thank God I got the professional and personal support I needed to move on. If there is a lesson to be learned in this situation, it is to recognize when to leave. It is not possible to bend another individual to your will, no matter how great you think you are. It is possible to walk away and, ultimately, to walk toward your greater self. It is possible to give up on trying to understand why and actively choose to create space for honorable, sane, respectful relationships that last anywhere from a moment to a lifetime.
It is also important to remember that out-of-control partners typically continue to try to come back into your life. My ex called me for years—as if nothing had ever happened—begging to see me and begin dating again, sometimes scolding me for ever telling anybody about what he did, and once even asking me to name my first child after him.
I never allowed him into my life again, and I urge anybody conflicted about a similar situation to do the same. For your own sanity, move on.
Ebony magazine's Creative Director Harriette Cole first wrote about this incident in her book Choosing Truth: Living an Authentic Life. Cole has been happily married to a true, gentle man for the past 15 years.
