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The LGBTQ Relationship Blind Spot
Her partner of 20 years was making it impossible for her to spend time with her friends. Less than an hour into the evening, the calls and texts started. The message was clear: her partner didn’t want her to be out having fun. Inevitably, she would rush home in a panic about how mad her partner would be and how she would need to spend the next day making amends.
It didn’t matter if the event was planned weeks in advance and her partner had been well aware of it. Such was the stress that it caused her that she now manages to meet up with friends no more than once a year. Even then, she pays a hefty price.
This type of post isn’t unusual among private Facebook groups. I’m in a bunch of parenting groups and women frequently post about disrespectful behaviour from their partners. The response is usually swift and there’s no hesitation for calling it out for what it is: coercive control, abuse and violence.
It can be tricky to work out what a person is seeking when they make posts like this: are they looking for advice or just wanting to vent? Sometimes the poster isn’t sure themselves but an undeniable feeling that something in their relationship isn’t sitting right compels them to reach out. This poster ended by saying that they wanted to be with…
