Dear Love Addiction,
My story is a bit complicated. I am only 22 and just found out I am pregnant with my first child. Well my boyfriend is a former domestic violence abuser, and I knew that when entering this relationship. I thought that I would have been different that maybe it was them and not him. I found out I was wrong. He hasn't hit me since I been pregnant but still. I met him on my birthday when I turned 21 in 2010. My mom died 11 days afterwards and I sort of leaned on him then and I believed I rushed it. I realized it around Christmas that next year and told him. He felt betrayed and hurt. He told me that if I left him he would kill me. I knew he was just talking out of anger but somehow I understood the pain and I stayed. From that moment deep down I knew I was unhappy, but I was always good with masking my pain and I did...only hoping things would get better and it did for a while but soon the damages occurred. I know his dad beat his mom. His mom was a hooker and he saw too much as a child and he had too much freedom to roam the streets. Me, On the other hand, I was sheltered and was in a battered home where my mom smoked crack and so did his...You would think when we met I related to his pain and bit his love. I sometimes feel I can help people, but while falling in love I feel down and I need help...I would love to be on you're show. I think I need REAL HELP!!! Like Intervention!!! But you're the experts so you tell me please; especially for the sake of my child with him. I just don't know what to do. Plus I have more issues I just don't want to type. It’s too much for me to type right now. I would love to tell you more. Please just give me some feedback.

-Sanequa-

Dear Sanequa,
You have a lot going on in your letter and probably much more than you haven’t even shared.  So, I am going to zone in on one thing that you mentioned. You said “my boyfriend is a former domestic violence abuser, and I knew that when entering this relationship… He hasn't hit me since I’ve been pregnant but still…. He told me that if I left him he would kill me. I knew he was just talking out of anger but somehow I understood the pain and I stayed...Please just give me some feedback. ”

I’m going to be frank with you. You already know what to do and I’m sure you have received plenty advice from others as well. So, rather than echoing what you’ve already heard from countless people, I’m going to give you a scenario.

I PERSONALLY know a woman who was in an abusive relationship and her story was so powerful that I featured her in my book Why We Hate Black Women and Why We Should Love Them. The opening paragraph of the book says,

“Uhura violently awoke in a Philadelphia hospital bed to the smell of gunpowder everywhere. After nine days of nightmares, flashbacks, strange noises in the middle of the night and throbbing pain that rippled through her body, finality quickly reared its ugly head. As she painfully reached over the hospital bedrail to grab the local paper placed on the night stand next to her, she read the front page headline that brought closure to yet another chapter in her life. Her high school sweetheart of 12 years was dead. Upon completion of the article somehow she knew this day would come.

SO WHAT HAPPENED? Well, Uhura was in an abusive relationship just like you, and she justified why she should stay. She made excuses for him, covered up for him and even hid her wounds, scars and broken bones for him. She was threatened with death just like you.  Then one day things got out of hand and he pulled out a gun.

They violently got into a fight in the middle of the street and with her left arm twisted and pinned to the ground, he aimed his gun at the top of her arm and pulled the trigger. She was shot. Then bullet two was forcefully wedged inside her abdomen. As she clutched her stomach, her boyfriend fired the next shot. Bullet three pierced her right side. While she rolled on the ground in excruciating pain, a sequence of bullets were released from the gun’s chamber. The gun was then aimed at her face as bullet four grazed her nose. Within seconds three more bullets tore through her body. One penetrated her right him, another pierced her left hip, and the final bullet tore through her buttocks. Her boyfriend emptied the entire case of bullets on her in an effort to end her life.

While reloading his gun, he was cornered by the police and turn the gun on himself and ended his life instead. Somehow Uhura survived. But those 7 bullets left her with intense surgery, sections of her stomach, appendix and small intestines removed, psychiatric treatment and a diagnosis of PSTD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

The other woman Monica, whom I PERSONALLY knew wasn’t so lucky. Her boyfriend killed her in front of her two children at the local YMCA. Her funeral will forever be ingrained in my mind. So if you’re wondering what to do, re-read these women’s stories.