I am a domestic violence survivor. I saw it ends with us last Friday night on opening night. I also read the book months and months and months ago. And I can honestly say fully in my bones that nothing has ever portrayed domestic violence in the way that I experienced it so accurately. That being said, there needed to be disclaimers before the movie and before the book. Because before the book, because I read it first, I felt like I was hit by a train. I was so caught off guard because I went into it thinking that I was gonna read a girly pop love story. Like a sexy rom-com. The PR really disappointed me. It seems like there were two separate agendas. You have Justin on one end advocating for domestic violence survivors. And then on the other side, you have Blake saying, “‘Go put on a floral dress. “‘Go out with your girlies and come to the theater. “‘It’s gonna be a great time.'” I know there are different opinions on this movie and book in how maybe it exploits domestic violence or romanticizes it as probably a better way to phrase it. If you don’t want spoilers, this is probably the time to swipe by. I personally believe that they romanticized the abuse in the beginning of the movie for a reason, to confuse you. To make you constantly have to remind yourself that he was an abuser, he is an abuser, he is an abuser. Yes, he is wooing her. Yes, he is really good looking. Yes, he’s doing all of these amazing things. And he is an abuser. I think that’s why I’m really upset with Blake Lively and her whole PR side, because it’s a cultural thing to normalize and romanticize abuse in literally every love story that you read or watch. It’s important to prevent desensitization by giving disclaimers beforehand. I was 16 when I got into my abusive relationship. And I do think that the normalization of abusive behaviors and the romanticization, I think I said that right, is part of why it was so easy to feel like it was normal when I was in it myself. Moving past that, it is accurate. It happens fast, it’s blurry. And before you even have time to think a lick of common sense of maybe what happened and what is accurate, they are showering you with love, the exact love that they have studied you responding to best. My abuser too was a victim of severe trauma. And had he not experienced that in his early childhood, maybe he would have had control over his own body and not harmed me in a fit of rage. And that’s the thing with abusers. They have tactics to get to your heartstrings and make you stay. Abusers, whether they know it or not, are master manipulators. Every time I was subjected to abuse, I had one less resource to reach out to until I was made to be the person he needed me to be. Exhausted, malleable, and made to believe that I was the reason for what was happening and also the only person that could make it better. This is why we cannot simply ask why victims stay, because it is not simple. We are so easy and trained to blame the victim because they are not quote unquote, forced to be in that position or in that relationship. They chose to be in that relationship. But no, no, I can promise you that if you were in our shoes, manipulated by somebody who knows all of your strengths and weaknesses, exploited little by little, desensitizing you to abuse little by little, lacking any outside perspective of what is actually going on, you would stay too, because you would not necessarily know better. Literally erode your ability to trust your own instincts and trust your own brain. It was only until after I left that I fully saw the truth of my abuser and all abusers and that is that they are not exceptional. They are all the same. They all exploit their victims vulnerabilities little by little, right? Desensitizing them to abuse into more severe abuse over time. So instead of asking why the victims stay, the real question we really need to be answering is why are we so quick to think that something is wrong with the victim when it’s the abuser causing the harm? That all being said, I do think it is a good representation of what domestic violence looks like and why it isn’t so simple. I do think it would be an even better representation if they were to prepare the viewers of what it’s actually about.