When my best friend of many years came to visit me and, by default, the guy I was living with when I was 19, he kept making “jokes” about threesomes.
During one of the “jokes,” he grabbed her breasts.
If he’s on social media right now, he’s shaking his head at all of his female friends saying, “me, too.”
He’s astounded at what men do to women.
I know him.
Unfortunately, I was briefly married to him.
So I know he’s not thinking about having assaulted and harassed my friend.
He thinks he has never done that. That he never would do something we would label that way.
He thinks he’s a good person. In many ways, he is. He is generally kind, generally generous, etc.
And he’s religious–very religious.
And that’s part of the problem–he thinks that because he goes to church, he’s a good person.
He doesn’t see the way in which evangelical Christianity is at odds with treating women with actual respect.
Once, we had an argument about “chivalry.” He’s Southern (like me), and he thought it was the right way to be.
Me: But answer me honestly.
Him: Okay.
Me: Do you go out of your way to open doors and stuff for fat middle-aged women?
Him: No.
Me: Then it’s not about respecting women. You “chivalrous” guys treat young women like me differently–and part of it is so you can have a chance to be physically close to us, to talk to us, to have us smile at you.
Marrying him was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done, and I won’t go into all the ways and reasons here, but he had pretended (lied) about believing in equality before we got married.
And then when we did, he said words like “submit.” He said he had “hoped God would change [my] heart” after a marriage based on that lie–that I wouldn’t believe in what I believed in anymore.
In his mind, he was a good man.
In believing myself equal, I was a bad woman.
Even though, “in the image of God created he them, male and female.”
Until he got with his current wife, he came to me with his dating problems, even though I all could do was laugh at him sometimes. Like most people his age, he slept around. Then, he’d say things like this: “I really like this one, so I talked to her and we’re going to try not to have sex anymore. It’s what God would want.”
I never could get him to see the strangeness of that logic or any of his logic about how he interacts with women.
Once, he came to me worried that a woman was going to call the police. He had run into a girl he knew in high school at a club. He had always wanted to fuck her. When she left, drunk, he followed her home, to make sure she was safe. He said she invited him in.
The next morning, she asked how he got there, how he got in, and if they had had sex.
I don’t know what happened, really.
But I know that he thinks he’s never assaulted anyone.
I know he thinks he’s one of the few good Christian men who treat women right.
But I also know that one day, after dropping my son off, long after our divorce, he made a move on me. His desire for “ex sex” was something he’d commented on before–I had made my lack of interest clear.
I asked him to leave.
He moved closer.
I asked him to leave again.
He moved closer.
I told him that if he came any closer, I would punch him in the face.
He left, after I punched him in the face.
I’m lucky that he didn’t punch back–that he didn’t force himself on me.
He probably thinks that’s where the line is–that he’s not guilty of anything because he’s never used force.
I tell this story not because he’s the worst or most dangerous or most threatening man who’s ever done something to me.
Far from it.
I tell this story because my grandmother died thinking the worst thing I ever did was to leave him, because he was such a good Christian man–and because he knows that’s what she thought.
And because he thinks it too.
