Okay, we’re going to go a little edgier with this one. I heard this song as I drove home from a meeting tonight. I’ve heard it several times before, but thought I would share it with you tonight. It’s pretty powerful.

Domestic violence is something that is scary and can happen in every socioeconomic background. It isn’t just something that happens to the poor. One time I was having lunch with a donor to our Center. She was elderly and widowed. Her husband had been a prominent member of the community. During lunch she told me about the years of physical and emotional abuse. She was not very sad when he died.

On the other side, we had a patient at our clinic who shot her husband this summer because she couldn’t take the violence anymore. Why didn’t she leave before she did this? That’s a complicated answer.

This duet between Rihanna and Eminem explains a little of what women and men experience when they find themselves in the cycle of domestic violence–especially if they grew up in it. Did you know that women have to leave their husband/boyfriend an average of seven times before they finally leave?

Since you can’t really appreciate this song without hearing the song, here is a link to a youtube version that gives you the lyrics along with the audio. Maybe it will help you understand the friend who won’t leave her husband. Maybe it will give you the courage to break this type of a cycle in your own life. Anyway, here’s “Love the Way You Lie Part 2“.