Why do we stay?

My essay for Skirt Magazine’s November issue won’t be online much longer so I hope you’ll go check it out right now if you haven’r already. 

Here is the background:  each month, Skirt Magazine invites a feminist to write an essay about any feminist issue of her choosing. I chose to write about the danger of staying in a relationship that isn’t right. “There is never a day where it is better to be in a relationship that undermines, undercuts, manipulates, abuses, or takes advantage of us over being single and in a relationship with ourselves that is filled with self-love,” I write in this piece.

Feel free to leave comments on the Skirt! board or here. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Want a teaser?

Here’s the first paragraph. Clicking on it will take you to the rest of it!

The first time it happened was on a cruise ship. We were seniors at two separate high schools, and our senior classes were taking their unofficial graduation trips together through the Atlantic Ocean. He chose to go. I chose not to. But I made him a mix tape so that he could have me there in spirit, one with great classic rock songs that would come back to bite me, like Love the One You’re With. It turns out he did (love the one he was with).