Spoiler Alert: I will discuss examples and plots from the film It Ends With Us in this post. If you haven’t seen it, you may want to watch it first and read this after.
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It Ends With Us, a novel written by Colleen Hoover and recently adapted to film, is a complicated story of intimate partner violence. It shows Lily Bloom (Blake Lively), a confident and kind young woman, falling for the handsome, charming, and wealthy Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni). As their relationship unfolds, she experiences physical violence at his hands, particularly when his jealousy and insecurity are triggered by her former love, Atlas (Brandon Sklenar).
As I wrote in a previous post, I like many parts of this movie. It captures some of the complexities of abuse and why people stay in bad situations, showing how the abuser isn’t abusive 100 percent of the time and how stretches of safe, loving periods can lull survivors into believing things have changed. Since this story is based on Hoover’s parents’ marriage, it may be an accurate reflection of that situation. However, it’s certainly not reflective of the typical experience of a survivor leaving an abusive relationship, so let’s look at the more common scenarios.
There Would Be Emotional Abuse
It’s a rare case where a partner is physically violent without also being emotionally abusive. Given how quickly and aggressively Ryle’s violence presented, we’d expect to see quite a bit of emotional abuse happening between those discrete incidents. We see flavors of it in the film, such as when he tends to Lily’s wounds after hurting her, gaslighting her by trying to convince her the injuries were accidents by saying her head wound was from her falling down the stairs instead of the reality, which was that he pushed her. When confronted with the truth, Ryle remorsefully caves and apologizes, but in real life, I’d expect Ryle to continue gaslighting her about what happened, get angry in response to her accusations, and engage in other emotionally abusive strategies to gain power and control.
Given his problematic jealousy, I’d also expect Ryle to start controlling Lily’s life outside of when they’re together. Perhaps he’d stop by her shop all the time to make sure no men were there, or he’d put limits on who she spent time with or how late she stayed out. Since she appears to have no other friends besides his sister, this would be fairly easy for him to do. He’d mask these demands as him showing his love and wanting to protect her and their relationship, but in truth, he would be controlling her to mitigate his own jealousy and insecurity.
Lily Wouldn’t Have Left When She Did
Survivors get sucked into the abusive relationship and have a very hard time leaving it. The abuse cycle is a tough roller-coaster to step off of, as the seemingly genuine remorse, apologies, and proclamations of change following an abuse incident are reassuring. On average, survivors try to leave the relationship seven times before actually doing it. Plus, the primary reasons people struggle to leave violent situations are feeling pressured to maintain the family (when children are present) or financial limitations, and Lily was affected by both of these factors. In the film, Lily makes her decision and executes it without wavering. This doesn’t happen in real-life abusive relationships.
If this were real life, I would expect to see Lily leave Ryle a few times, only to be drawn back in. He would apologize, show remorse, love bomb her, and promise to change. He’d say he’ll start therapy to work on his anger and trauma. He’d offer couples therapy (but never follow through). He’d leverage Lily’s relationship with his sister to guilt her into staying part of the family. Ryle would do all sorts of things to keep Lily from leaving. After a few more attempts to leave after abuse incidents, she’d finally do it.
The Breakup Would Be Bad
Leaving an abusive relationship is never easy and is often dangerous. Abusers become more aggressive and violent when they think their partner might leave. Leaving an abusive situation is often the most dangerous time for a survivor, and it needs to be done with great care and planning. However, in the movie, we see Ryle respect Lily’s decision to move out and not harass her with communication, and he quickly (and sadly) accepts her request for a divorce.
In reality, Ryle would likely blow up at Lily’s decision to leave him. He would love bomb her, show up at her apartment or her store uninvited, guilt her, and threaten her. I’d expect that, as a man with great financial resources, he’d hire expensive lawyers to intimidate her into staying, possibly by threatening to file for full custody. Lily should prepare for a long and acrimonious divorce if she doesn’t waver and return. I’d also guess that Ryle made Lily sign an unforgiving prenuptial agreement, leaving her with little money outside of court-ordered child support.
So, Is Ryle a Narcissist?
I want a little more data, but from what I’ve seen, Ryle is probably a narcissist. He lacks empathy (having no capacity to understand Lily’s complicated feelings about Atlas returning to her life), is envious (jealous of Atlas much?), and displays plenty of arrogance (we see this a lot during their courtship). We could also make a good argument for delusions of grandeur (thinking he can save any patient, no matter how severe the injury). Ryle’s reaction to his perceived betrayal by Lily is extreme and harmful, a classic narcissistic injury.
Domestic Violence Essential Reads
That’s why he wouldn’t quietly walk away when Lily leaves him. People with narcissistic personality disorder are entitled and spiteful. They lash out when they feel criticized or abandoned, and their lack of empathy means they won’t really understand how much they’ve hurt their partner. Ryle would be a very difficult person to leave, and anyone in a relationship with someone similar should be aware that getting out is much harder than this movie makes it seem.
One Takeaway: Leaving Can Be Dangerous and Survivors Need Support
The part of this film I’m most concerned about is how they portray Lily leaving Ryle so easily without fear for her safety. As mentioned earlier, leaving is the most dangerous part. There’s a significantly increased risk of violence when a survivor leaves the relationship and for the following 18 months to two years. Anyone leaving an abusive partner should create a safety plan with plenty of social support. I strongly encourage anyone in this situation to speak with trusted family or friends and contact the Domestic Violence Hotline for support and guidance.
It was concerning to see Lily allow Ryle to assemble the crib while they were alone in her apartment and then ask for a divorce while he’s holding their newborn daughter and they are, again, alone. Ryle has proven to be a violent person capable of hurting and possibly killing Lily. She should have no expectations of physical or emotional safety with him. If I were in her position, I would never be alone with Ryle and always meet up (and only when absolutely necessary) with others present or in a public setting. I was worried for her safety, but I was also worried about the lesson that many women watching this film will take: that it’s safe to be alone with a perpetrator and leave them without having a safety plan in place.
