Rihanna and Everything After

Everyone's talking about Rihanna and Chris Brown these days. Is she okay? Are they still together? Even Oprah made a televised plea to her to end her relationship with him. Obviously, Mr. Brown needs help. Whether or not he learned this type of behavior during his own childhood, he needs to find a better way to control his anger. Many people on discussion boards and in the media cannot fathom why Rihanna might consider continuing a relationship with him. I hope she doesn't. If, heaven forbid, my daughter ever finds herself in a similar situation, I would do everything I could to help her and encourage her to leave the relationship once and for all. At least my daughter is growing up in a family where these things don't happen. Such behavior is not acceptable and should not be tolerated. I have a family friend who found herself in a similar situation. Her partner--while drunk--hit her after she said something that upset him. Fortunately, that incident made her partner wake up and realize he had a drinking problem. He got help, sobered up, and an outburst of that kind never happened again. That was many years ago and they are still together. Unfortunately, I believe a transformation of this kind is one of the rare results of abuse. What is a more likely scenario is that the abuse continues and gets worse, even jeopardizing the victim's life. Maybe Rihanna will stay with Chris, hoping that he might get help and change. Hopefully he will try and can. But I don't think Rihanna, or any woman anywhere, should wait around hoping for a miracle.

For more information about ending domestic violence, visit The Family Violence Prevention Fund. If you know someone being abused, they can call the National Domestic Violence hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or visit their web site at www.ndvh.org.

Erin

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