Enough … When it’s too good to be true, it’s not that good or it’s not true!

I’ll cut it short; the story of a woman being abused by her husband doesn’t have a nationality, timing or religion. It’s the same mind games, the same challenges, the same enemies, and mostly, the same way to conquer.

I just want to start by how they met, because it’s really important. Most of the times when I talk to a woman who was once abused by her husband, she keeps on saying “He all of a sudden changed” or “Something must have gotten into him”.
They refuse to admit that they neglected the signs, they wanted to believe they deserve a fairytale, or they never put the possibility into consideration.

This guy in the movie was a typical abuser; calm, steady, persistent and NEVER takes no for an answer.

I don’t want to go a lot through how obvious he was because it will make no one any use. Let’s assume that something really has gotten into him. It happened! The first slap! What would you do?

In the movie, he was caught cheating and when his wife “Slim” – played beautifully by Jennifer Lopez – confronted him and actually had “A SAY” about it, he didn’t like it and he slapped her.

And here comes the most important quote from the movie when he told her:\

“I make the money, so I set the rules!”

That’s right. When you can’t pay for your own bread ladies, don’t expect to pick it up from the supermarket. He’ll pick it up for you and you’ll say “Thank you”, and eat it … gladly!!

But “Slim” didn’t like the rules and she decided to fight. So she went through it all, this battle that is really the same everywhere.

First of all she considered the option of asking police for help, then because she was a “lady” and because she had a daughter, she refused that option;

“He’s the father of my child. I’m not going to put him in jail!”

Then she actually find no other option, so she went there, to find out that all what the police can do – if she agreed to go there with the marks over her body – is to make the bad husband sign a paper that he promises not to do that anymore, otherwise, bad things will happen to him, unless of course he has money … nothing can touch him!
OK! No police, now plan B, she decided to RUN!

The rest of the events in the movie are irrelevant and at some points depended on some Hollywood-style solutions, especially when that secret father popped out of nowhere with all the money she might need.

It all really sums up to this … RUN! Take your kids and just go away!

You will probably have no money, you will probably have no roof, and you may not have the support of your family – especially if you’re from the Middle East”, but you’ll have this power that you don’t know where it’s coming from, that power that will push you to continue.

In that movie, her push was when she saw her daughter scared of her father. The idea of her daughter being in danger was enough for her. I think this can be a very good push for so many of us!

I’m not coming of Disney Land, I know it’s hard. Especially when you can’t feed your children like they were used to, when you can’t afford their original schools, or when the time comes that you don’t have any lead and you just can’t take it anymore.
But let me tell you something,

The taste of first bite you pay for from your own money after you said “No” is just the best taste you will ever have!

Living and knowing that you are fighting for yourself and your children will make it all much easier.

The key in that movie was the fact that she said “No”.

She never thought of what people will say about her, she thought of not being “the woman whose husband beats her up!”

She wasn’t worried about the fact that her daughter might be affected in the future because her parents were divorced; she was worried her daughter might actually watch her mother being beaten up!

She made the choice that by far saved the life of her daughter, saved her from growing up thinking “It’s ok to be beaten up as long as you have a man in your house!” or “It’s that big to be beaten up, it doesn’t mean anything, a man can do anything he wants as long as he pays the bills and puts food on the table” or “Better being beaten up by a man who lives under the same roof as you do, than by living alone with no man!”
She saved her daughter’s life! Can our women one day think the same and take the same choice?