Dictating

New clients in my program sometimes look bewildered, as if I were giving a seminar on edible plants and they had wandered into the wrong room.  They can hardly wait to speak, rising out of their seats to sputter at me: “But these are our wives and girlfriends you are talking about. Do you really mean to say that someone else can dictate what we do in our relationships?”

-Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? p. 73

I still think about this sometimes.

I feel like I’m looking at a bizarre flower or one of those alien-looking deep sea creatures, where you’ve got to keep staring at it to assure yourself you’re really looking at what you think you’re looking at.