Lynn Johnston Quotes

A relationship can be deeply damaging without anyone leaving marks on you. So many people - especially young women - end up trying to maintain those emotionally abusive relationships because we don't think it's that bad and that we are really some of the lucky ones because we haven't experienced 'real' abuse.

Raining Gold' is about feeling trapped in a broken dynamic. Feeling so worn out and turned upside down from manipulation can make you feel like you're in a daze.

When a man has been consistently battering his wife, he shouldn't expect a bouquet of roses from her the morning after he promises to stop.

My father was overbearing. Very controlling. He was always the way he is, even before my success. He was not always a good person. He'd play mind games to make sure I knew my place. I don't see him, which is unfortunate. But I don't have any desire to see him. I vaguely know where he is, and I don't want to know.

It was my first big relationship and it was just very abusive. I wouldn't give him the credit of naming him, if he ever reads this. But he was older, in the music business - or so he said.

Living with one woman is horrific.

I'd rather be on my own than be with a violent man.

Daddy loves you, but he smacks you, and he can shout at you and smash things, but Daddy still loves you. So when you get into a relationship with someone who does all of that, why would it be unusual?

A lot of people say I wouldn't have a down day, but you look at the music and there's real melancholy.

When I was married to an abuser, he'd tell me he wouldn't have to get so angry if only I'd be less demanding, more supportive, more understanding. I hid the truth from everyone, especially myself.

There was a time in the marriage when I could no longer look at myself in a mirror, couldn't feel I was a nice person. A bad relationship can do that, can make you doubt everything good you ever felt about yourself.

With someone who is genuinely abusive or a bad person, you should just get out of town. But if they're being the best person they know how to be, then you have to decide if there isn't much there you can love and not become consumed with what they're not able to give you.

The harshest thing I can say is I was married to someone for whom all dissent was abuse. If you had your own opinion, you were abusive.

I'm not a proponent of staying together and being miserable and damaged and coming through actually a more battered person.

My first relationship was from when I was about 15 to 19. My second relationship was kind of like a rebound, but also a really important part of my journey - he was very emotionally manipulative and just wanted me to be an accessory.

My mother ran away from my father after 16 years of being married to him. She was 16 when she hooked up with him. She left him after having six kids.

I think for people who are inside these relationships that are really hard to leave, there is always a compelling reason to stay. It's not that they are wholly bad people.

I think most people know when they're in a toxic relationship - it requires an enormous amount of effort to keep it going, and you don't get what you want from it.

I cannot be with someone who takes pleasure in inflicting pain on me, someone who can't love me

An abusive relationship is worse than being in prison. I mean literally, not figuratively.

I wanted her to to go on talking and understand without me saying anything. I wanted her to love me enough to leave him, to pack us up and take us away from him, to kill him if need be. (107)

Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? Those who seek the folly of unrelieved 'happiness'-who fear moods, who shun solitude, who do not know the diginity of occasional depression-can find bliss easily enough: in tranquilizing pills, or in senility. The purpose of life is not to be happy.

The happier people can be, the unhappier they are.

I feel very sorry for people who are trapped in an abusive relationship and keep making excuses for their abuser.

All is going well, very well, I couldn’t ask for anything better— So why do I hate my life?