“It feels safer to believe that one person will always come out of the relationship with clean hands, and that only monsters hurt people. But this belief can actually make it harder for victims to get out of abusive situations. Abusers are human; so are the people they abuse. Both parties are capable of feeling and inflicting pain. If we can’t envision abusers as anything less than monstrous, or if we require victims to be perfect, then identifying and escaping abuse becomes that much harder. None of this is any excuse for abuse, because there is no excuse for that; still, maybe just because of its basis in well-known abuse cases, “The Way You Lie” has become a way for many people to discuss the ways in which our picture of abuse sometimes diverges from the reality. And that discussion is important.”