When abuse is generational, how does one stop the cycle? In the novel by Colleen Hoover, It Ends With Us. Lily and Ryle are faced with challenges within their relationship that they never thought they would have to face. Although the love that Lily and Ryle have for each other is extremely strong, the thoughts of the abuse her mother faced from her father as a kid resurfaces to her mind as she has to make the choice of staying with the man she loves or leaving the abuse in the past for good. Growing up in an abusive household can really take a toll on someone. The relationship of Lily, her mother, and father revolved around the classic roles of positive and negative characters.
Most Importantly, Lily embodies the positive character traits
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Lily’s mother was stripped of her limits by Lily’s father and her sense of independence was gone. As Lily’s mother said, the more she accepted her husband's apologies, the more her tolerance for the abuse went up, which ultimately resulted in Lily’s mother being somewhat of a villain while her father was alive.
Lastly, Lily’s dad plays the role of an antagonist perfectly as he shows the reader what a negative force looks like. Lily continuously shows the reader of the book the violent temper and the mental and physical abuse that they had to encounter with Lily's father.
“As much as I hated him most of the time, I still longed for more of these moments with him. If he could just always be the guy he was capable of being in these moments…”
Only once in this whole book was there a moment between Lily and her father mentioned that Lily did not completely hate her father. Each time Lily’s father was brought up it was only to explain the pain he brought upon their family. The lack of interest in his daughter also caught my attention when there was little to no interaction with them. The hatred you must have for someone like your own father to not have one nice thing about him, not even at his own funeral shows the visible and invisible damage Lily’s father caused to his