I M Perfect lady

Tag: abuse

  • Until she can find her own.

    The hardest part of being a mom is when your child takes an exit that you didn’t see coming and they seem to disappear from the usual landscape and it leaves you separated.

    And I am not even sure what exit she took, where she is or what her intentions are, just that she has left the lane of what was and is now heading down a road that neither of us are familiar with.

    As I continue to travel down my regular road, off to the side is this other lane of unfamiliar nagging at me, this road from my view is full of potholes and hairpin curves with disappearing drop-offs and my daughter seems blind to all its hazards.

    I am not certain if she is at a wayside unsure or if she is going forward with a full head of steam.

    I am not even sure what is making me uneasier, her being on that road or not knowing if she is sitting down in wonder or going further into its complicated bends.

    Our voices have been silenced. But all that seems to be happening now is a silent movie, where the drama continues, but I can’t hear the words.

    The not knowing is far worse, I believe than knowing.

    In the knowing, I know and can deal.

    It is like her life has slipped from my view.

    This almost seems like the far end of a spectrum, one being you are doing too much in a child’s life, overtaking it and this is the complete opposite, where you are completely taken out.

    In the middle of the spectrum are two people who allow the other their lives, we share and explore and understand their individual journeys.

    I am wondering how to hook our roads back up, how to join them together in a way that honors and gives space, in a way that respects our differences, but allows us to trust each other.

    Is there a way two people can be together on two different roads?

    As women we have lots in common and I am sure it is harder when I have more experience and I have been her superior as her mother for all these years, but is there a bridge that we can stand upon and share our views?

    I will have to let go of my fears and my ‘know it all’ attitude and let her show me the landscape of her new world, I will have to be a visitor to a foreign land.

    It truly feels like two distinct worlds.

    Yet I believe and feel that I have traveled the world she is going into, so it isn’t that foreign to me, perhaps it is only new and exciting to her, she is the foreigner not I.

    What is so perplexing is that you never leave reality, this is an inward journey, you are traveling away from your essential self.

    Away from your morals, your values, your worth, your self esteem, your dreams, your passions, your soul. Into a world of secrets, lies and deceit…heading towards a self that is unfamiliar, foreign.

    It is the road to no you.

    You are being lured down this road by a friendly face that is the façade of negative energies, manipulating you with false promises and pretty lies.

    If she were to travel this road alone, He would be her only guide.

    What I want is to walk with the two of them and give the real story, like Paul Harvey’s ‘the rest of the story’.

    Yet he knows and perhaps she knows too, that I will be the story wrecker, I will unveil the pretty lies and unravel the promises and make them as they are empty.

    So what scares me the most is that my familiar voice will be drowned out by his, that she will tune me out and turn a deaf ear to my words and cling to his.

    Her life in its innocence doesn’t have a voice of her own.

    I am sure she feels the pull between him and I, both of us wanting her. And what I want the most is for her to have a separate voice from both of us, but I don’t feel she has one for her self as yet. I see her as a girl who confused and twisted and wants to have love and attention but it comes with such a price tag, her self worth.

    I can almost understand the twist between what he says and how she feels.

    His promise land is a secret place and it can’t reach the light of day.

    In order for her to travel down his road, she lies to me.

    What I want most is for the lies to stop.

    Lies to herself and lies to me, both are taking a toll on her.

    It is so telling to see what lies can do to your spirit, you can literally see her growing darker.

    The truth will set your Spirit free!

    The two roads I see in my minds eye is the road of lies and the road of truth. One road darkens and leads you away from self and the other will support and Lighten who you are.

    You wonder what makes some travel into the darkness and what makes others travel towards the Light. What decides this and can they make a U-Turn?

    I will do as any good mother or women who see another descending into the darkness will do. I will give her my voice until she can find her own.

  • Meant to be.

    Motherhood begins in childhood, and womanhood starts there as well. The essence of who we are as a woman will directly relate to what kind of mother we are.

    There is no separation between woman and mother; the two are one.

    We don’t leave behind who we are as we take on the responsibility of a child, we simply add this to our ongoing relationships that are already in place.

    A child joins your relationships and will emulate them as he begins to create his own, he watches how you treat yourself and how you allow others to treat you, and it is from there that he learns self-care.

    My motherhood path began with me being a valiant co-dependent, a people pleaser and a whore for love and peace, there was very little of my life that was solely for me, most of it I lived for the benefit of others.

    All my decisions and choices were linked to someone’s happiness or love, I made choices based on whether I would lose their approval or not.

    When I stopped seeking approval and instead began living inside out doing what I loved, I began seeing a Me emerge, a separated unique individual, a self.

    As I grew into being more me, I no longer needed others to support me, and it set them all free to be them selves.

    My children were set free when I set myself free.

    My children’s lives returned to them and they too are now free to be what they want to be from the inside out.

    I am there to guide them to show they the lay of the land, but at the end of the day, they get to decide their fate depending upon the choices they make.

    It isn’t my life it is theirs.

    The freedom you give comes with self responsibility and that is what I believe the goal of each parent is, to make them ownership of their lives.

    To raise them to see the consequences from the choices they make, and to allow them to sit in the consequence is the learning of life.

    How we deal with all facets of life is how they learn to deal.

    How authentic we are, how loyal to self we are, where our integrity lies, all will be reflected back to us in our children’s lives.

    Mostly what we fail to notice is that our children’s lives will be lived as we live today, not our potential or what we plan to do, but as we do today.

    To raise independent children, be independent.
    To raise children who love themselves, love yourself.
    Who you are today is the pattern your child will follow, our footsteps are leading them into a life we have.

    We can’t do nothing and hope our children learn from our mistakes, we have to undo our mistakes.

    There are a few, a slight few, changelings of this rule, they are the exceptions not the rule, that will strike out on their own and redefine themselves leaving behind a family, I know this happens for I was one.

    I changed the family legacy by leaving instead of staying in the cycle of abuse/dysfunction and co-dependency; I had to walk out to save my self.
    Time will tell as my young adult children leave our home and set out on their own making choices, was there enough time spent with me to learn a new way of being or were their formative years to tightly ingrained.

    I sit here today aware that the woman who I was and the woman who I became, mothered the same children.

    How this will affect them remains to be seen, what pattern will they follow, how deeply were they affected by their formative years and how much of an impact has my freedom made?

    What I know for sure is that the more I remain honest with myself, the more I love myself, the brighter the second pattern is seen.

    To be the best mother ever is to be the best you can be with your self.

    Loving yourself enough to say no when you mean it.
    Loving you enough to put up boundaries to keep hurt out.
    Loving you to speak your truth always.
    Loving your self as you find your self in this moment, knowing you are a work in progress and be willing to do what it takes in each moment to stand with your self.

    You will then mother a child of strong courage to be who they were meant to be.

  • You Break the Chain

    Grand Traverse Women Magazine was asking about articles on Motherhood, and immediately I felt that I had a unique perspective in how my mothering changed as I unraveled my life of abuse.

    It is like my children had two different mothers without going through a divorce, the changes in how I mothered are totally opposite.

    The woman in motherhood is the key component, how she is built and operates, is how she will mother.

    Who I was as a woman is where I began mothering from and I brought to mothering, the skills I learned from my mother, a legacy that flows into us like breath.

    Mothering doesn’t change us; we bring to the child who we are.

    All of our past lands upon the child in the way we relate to them and how we expect them to relate to us, we began building a relationship.

    A relationship of dysfunction or one with healthy boundaries, and it all depends upon the adult.

    Whether this is motherhood or fatherhood, the adult is the operator of the relationship and how they conduct themselves is how healthy or unhealthy the child will grow.

    My father was a pedophile and I one of his victims. My mother stayed married to this man for 49 years, this is the pattern I had to follow.

    I mothered as she did, until at 46, I found out that my childhood of no memories was due to the fact I was abused, I then had to re-look at who I was and how I lived.

    An adult woman of abuse is very co-dependent, she expects her children to make her shine, to make her happy to live for her.
    A woman who is clear and separated from abuse knows her children are free to live and be themselves, and will monitor but not control their lives.

    The dysfunctional co-dependent way of mothering is hell to do and tragically damages children to the extent that they don’t know how to live a life separated from others, they are groomed to be parasites.

    Living off of what makes others happy.

    My children, all four, were set free the moment I knew I was abused and that I had serious work to do on getting me back to ‘normal’.

    I allowed them to be themselves and we worked on separating them from me and my demands and my wishes and my dreams.

    As I separated myself from my mother I then could allow my children to be separate from me.

    Mothering is to nurture and to love and respect WHO they are and not hijack their lives to become arm candy and self-esteem boosters.

    My children were an extension of me, not individuals.

    The more I became an individual the more I could allow them to be individuals too.

    Motherhood to me now isn’t so scary, for I would now allow them to enter onto this planet as wonderful curious loving souls and let them explore and learn to be who they were meant to be.

    My children experienced two kinds of mothers within one woman; the changes in our home are extreme.

    My rages and violent screaming rampages have disappeared and in its place a woman who seeks to find a peaceful solution, a way to co-habitat that honors all who live here.

    Motherhood is only as happy as our childhood…the legacy will repeat itself unless and until you break the chain.

  • Our Door in the Future…

    I believe the future is only the past again, entered through another gate. ~ Arthur Wing Pinero

    I read this quote a few times and now I believe I understand it, that our karma or our lessons continue until we change how we greet them, they enter back into our lives perhaps in another body or similar relationship.

    Is it possible that how we act today will bring to us this in another gate?

    That if we act in love and awareness, we will greet love and awareness in our future?

    What we sow we reap.

    When we allow others to mistreat us, we will get more folks who want to mistreat.

    It seems the wonderful Universe gives back to us that which we sow without fail.

    The old saying, “God helps those who help themselves…” He waits for us to help ourselves.

    Many will beseech God to help them, to fix them, to do this and that for them, while they are the ones who hold the power.

    I was waiting for people to learn how to treat me better when it was I who had to learn this lesson. And in another gate flowed volumes of folks to teach me how to treat me better.

    They were not different folks, but the same ones coming in as they usually did and it was up to me to stand up and put a stop to the way they were treating me.

    I had to stop using myself to please them.

    I had to start using myself to please me.

    Most of who entered into my gate of now were surprised at this new response, this new me, this new voice and most turned around and left no longer interested in playing this new game with me.

    The new game of fair trade, this equal partnership or freedom to be a sovereign nation co-existing with them, where the boundaries don’t overlap, where we are not holding each other up, but rather supporting each other to be one strong individual unit, was not a game for co-dependents.

    What we do, what we say, how we treat ourselves today will come a knocking on our door in the future.

  • Show and Tell

    The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be. ~Socrates

    I looked up the meaning of the word Integrity and one of its meanings is to be in a state of completeness, undivided.

    My girlfriend said the definition that they are teaching children in elementary school, is that what you say, what you think and what you do all match.

    I had to let go of many relationships of people who were unable to walk the talk they talked.

    I am much more in awe of folks who have integrity and make no excuses even if what they are doing is unkind. At least they are not putting on a friendly face while acting poorly.

    If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it’s a duck.

    We get lulled by words and swayed in fancy sentences when actions are way off base.

    My husband knows a man called Snake, and he asked him how he got that handle? The man said he earned it. I like that. My husband went on to tell me this man spent time in jail for having a relationship with a young girl…

    If only we called folks by their behaviors it would make life a much easier way to navigate.

    “People show us who they are, Believe them,” is Maya Angelou’s quote.

    The key words are Show and Believe… it is as if the world is one big place of Show and Tell, but instead of bring something to show, we bring ourselves.

    We are all showing people who we are and they are showing us.

    It is not a game of pretending to be something different.

    Watch actions, how they display themselves and how they take care of their lives, they are on this stage called life being who they are, it is our job to believe what it is we see.

    How often do you give them the benefit of doubt? Whose doubt? Who doesn’t want to believe and why? What will happen if you believe? What will you lose?

    It is incredible to me now to not believe them. It is like they are screaming their truths and we are blocking our ears and shutting our eyes.

    “People Show you who they are, BELIEVE them.”

    We don’t want to believe who they are, for it will wreck our dream.

    The pain we are afraid of is the sorrow of our broken dreams.
    It isn’t so much that we lose them; we lose our dreams and our future.

    Yet what is the karma we are actually tending to?

    A lifetime of dancing with people who are disappointing, for they can’t measure up to what we hold in our minds, for we refuse to believe who they really are.

    It gets you so confused, that you then lose who you are.

    You are a believer of what is not.

    While extremely painful, it was very liberating to finally be able to believe in what people showed me. I love what is. I stay in step and in tune with the show and tell!

  • My grasp on Reality.

    “People Show you who they are, Believe them,” is a quote by Maya Angelou.

    I thought this was what my daughter needed to hear, when in fact I was talking to myself.

    I awoke to an eerie phone glow coming from the top bunk in the early morning hours, a signature sign that she is still engaged in ‘other woman’ activities.

    “They show you…” screamed out loud in my head.

    I have been twisting and turning this around and around like a rubics cube, trying to get her in one color.

    Who is being betrayed, who is cheating, who is getting lied to and who is doing the lying, what is reality and what is not, and why am I even involved again?

    Whose business is this, whose lesson, what is mine to see and be with and what is hers?

    The intricacies of this are not just plain white, there is a path, a beginning a middle and a predicted future (end).

    What am I failing to see?

    There still seems to be a juxtaposition between ‘other woman and girl in top bunk, but I have to go with reality, so other woman she now is.

    Failing to see this is to go against what is.

    No matter how she arrived at this job, she is fully working it.

    My mother’s greatest failings was not seeing my innocence fade, not seeing the changes that took place in my world, not walking with me as I stumbled affected on the other side.

    While my daughter has been pleading for me to see her an equal, I failed.

    I failed to see her dancing step-to-step, cheek-to-cheek and ear-to-ear, she is now his equal.

    My mother didn’t see my innocence in the act of abuse, but she also didn’t see the affects the abuse had on me.

    It is like she missed the whole thing, like it never happened.

    I wondered who my daughter has been truthful to all along, who she did not have to lie to, hide from or sneak out with, and it is him.

    Her and him have always been wide open, with each other, she has only changed in her previous relations.

    They still are together while she lies.

    Lies to me, in a letter that she wants to change. It is a lie.

    Here I somehow had this flipped around that she was lying to her self, making her self lower etc, when in fact what she is really changing is our relationship.

    She brought in lies, she lowered the level between us.

    It is now up to me to believe or not believe, to see or not see, to hear or not hear, to learn who she is.

    I can see now why parents feel betrayed, for the child lies.

    Why do they have to lie?

    Who are they trying to not hurt and why?

    Why does there have to be hurt and lying?

    I get so confused in this.

    When do people lie and why?

    Why can’t we just do what it is we are doing?

    Why must we stoop to keep it a secret?

    What are secrets and what is there purpose?

    Are there good secrets and bad?

    If we have a secret is it a lie about ourselves?

    Are we with holding a part of ourselves?

    And from whom?

    Is it possible that we are many people to many, or are we just one to all?

    My view of my daughter isn’t sitting at peace in reality.

    She lied to me and is now changing within our relationship? We started out as one thing and now it is turning different from the abuse.

    She is no longer the girl she was.

    She is different.

    When she changes do I have to?

    What do I do with her changing within our relationship, with her lies and odd behaviors?

    What is my response to this?

    I am not able to forbid it, but what do I do with it in my hands?

    In my hands is a daughter that lies.

    Yet what is the lie?

    Is she lying or am I?

    Did I lie to myself believing her words?

    Did I lie to myself when I didn’t want to fully embrace her new role with a married man? Did I lie to myself that she was innocent? When did I start lying too?

    It seems like this affair has us all liars.

    He lies to his wife, she lies to us, we lie to ourselves, why?

    To make it seem okay?

    To agree?

    To support?

    I want to know why I am lying?

    Maybe it feels better to lie, I feel in control, I feel less pain; it feels better to lie than it does to feel the relationship being changed.

    Lies are misleading statements.

    Liar is a deceiver.

    I still do not get why our relationship, the one between her and I has to change with this, I don’t get it.

    Why does she lie to me?

    Why does she try hard to act the same while acting different? Isn’t that what I am doing. Acting like nothing changed between us when it did.

    When I was lost before, when I couldn’t seem to find my way, I clung to reality, clung to actions, and they always showed me who they were, where their minds were, what their thoughts were thinking…

    What I can safely say today, is that her mind, thoughts, feelings and actions are with him.

    And the girl I knew is gone, my images, my view, my experience, my feelings of her have all changed.

    She lied…she wasn’t with him, but now she is, so is she still lying or am I?

    Am I lying that she doesn’t want to be there?

    Is lying a deal breaker?

    Is that her only offense?

    If our hearts and home are open, shouldn’t he be allowed in, can’t we get them out of the cell phones and into reality?

    Open house, open mind, open heart, open door; bring him in to the house in the light of day.

    Can I do this? Can he? Can she? Can We?
    Do we slowly pull this into reality, making it okay.

    What isn’t okay?

    Married man and single girl, I just can’t make that okay, it seems there is a law and morals and values in-between, and do I overlook that?

    How does this fit in our lifestyle within our home?

    Can we bring in this in and become accustomed to it?

    Over time does it fade and blend and not stick out so bad?

    Who will have to change to bring this in?

    Her or my husband and I?

    What an interesting social experiment, I just wish it wasn’t my daughter’s life and mine and my husbands.

    I can see the dynamics, the way the rubics cube works, trying to make one color, one family, one value, one moral, one reality and how it is impossible to fit.

    One of us will lose, the one not in reality.

    Reality wins only but 100% of the time.
    In my experience, there is a bunch of folks living in a land one step removed from reality, and it is I, the lover of reality, the seeker of the truth, that gets left off to one side… me and reality.

    I either gain the world or lose my grasp on reality…

  • Imperfectly Me.

    Yesterday morning, after a sleepless night I wrote the post about unconditional love, about knowing to the depth of my soul, no matter what I will not be the one to abuse my wounded child.

    I let go of all things but unconditional love.

    My husband and I had decided we would get out of the house and go for breakfast to give us a chance to talk privately.

    My husband turns to me when I enter the car and says, “do you have anything left to say to our daughter, is there anymore you have to offer?”

    And I say very weak defeated, no, I have nothing, all my knowing, my wise words and experience, all my efforts and love are not seemingly working, I am at the end of the road, I have nothing.

    He says, “Good. Here is how this is going to go down. What we did to her last night, by pressing her is going to drive her out of our home. I will not do that to her. She is hurt and needs a place to be, where there is no one pressuring her, a place where she feels comfortable…I love my daughter and want her always to feel that she is welcome in our home no matter what.

    I tell him, I agree. I just learned about my unconditional love for her, that I too will not hurt her when she is down.

    The next thing he says is you have to let her go, let her do it her way, let her be EVEN if she decides to move out of our home, let her decide, You have to let her go.

    I tell him he is asking too much.

    In that instant, I feel the little girl in me terrified of letting go, of losing once again.

    I tell him, Honey I know about letting go, about letting them decide, of allowing them to be, I let my family go and none of them came back to me.

    I have lost and I have lost and none of them ever come back, you are asking way too much, and now you are asking me to let go of my little girl to let her go free while she is alone and lost.

    I can’t let her go, for if she doesn’t come back I don’t know what I will do, I can’t let her go, I don’t have a heart big enough to bear this if she doesn’t come back.

    I tell him, “Mr. Big as a House Heart Man, you will have to lead this, you will have to stand in front of me, for me with the “Little as a Rock Broken Heart lady can’t be out front, I am afraid that if this little piece shatters, I will not have anything left, that I will go down and not come back up.”

    Honey I can let her go but your big heart will have to carry me, my heart isn’t big enough to do this alone and I don’t know how.

    In that moment I felt my holding grasp, its final clutch leave, and she was set off alone.

    Peace overcame me in that instant that seemed to settle over the spot that terror lived.

    My husband continues on unaffected by my emotional display. He says, “we can’t tell her what to do, she is a young lady, she is inexperienced, but this is how she will learn, we will offer her a space here to heal, but not tell her what to do.”

    I am in total agreement and following his lead.

    It is the first time in my life I let go of being responsible of taking the lead of getting on the back of the motor bike, of getting out of the wind and flying bugs and debris to snuggle in behind him and let him tell me what it is we need to do.

    What my husband and I then discussed was exactly what he had done for me six years ago when my world crumbled, when I too discovered that the relationships I had were very dysfunctional, when I had lost my way, when I found my self upside down and backwards, when I didn’t have a radar that knew its way, my dear husband opened up his heart wider, opened up our home, and allowed me to enter in.

    Nothing changed inside, it remained a place of normal in an otherwise upside down unnormal world.

    I entered in exactly as I found myself; there were no requirements no rules or regulations that I had to change first to be here.

    He allowed me the space, he demanded nothing, he asked no questions, he made no suggestions, he allowed me, a frightened wounded animal, to come into the warm space of his loving home and curl up an be safe.

    He never, not once asked me to do something I did not want to do, he waited for me to decide I was ready.

    He never not once wanted me to be further healed than I was, he waited for me to share with him.

    He continued to love and hold me like nothing had changed, to him I was the same person but sick or wounded, that was all.

    I told him, ”What you want me to do for our daughter is what you already did for me, I can do this.”

    I get to be him, to walk in his shoes and just allow her to be. I know even more for I have actually walked those steps.

    I felt immediately, that this was the right path for healing for I know that without him, this house, the space and undemanding loved ones, I would not have made it. I can now give to her that.

    I told him, “I can’t imagine what this had to be like for you, with a wounded wife, to be the only one to do this, it had to be very hellish, and how did we make it through that?”

    He isn’t wanting to go back, he wants to be here.

    He tells me, “you are not to say anything negative, in fact you are not allowed to say anything at all, you are to go on creating a loving home, doing what we have always done here and let her just be.”

    I say, “Honey I get it, I get to be a loving mom unconditionally l can do this.”

    I say I will follow your lead, for did the perfect job for me.

    As we sat face to face over breakfast, my body a noodle, empty and drained, feeling like I had just completed a 6 year marathon, I say to him.

    “Honey, what would a perfect mother have done?”

    He says to me, “she would have stopped this morning like you did, she would done exactly everything you did and said, but she would stop now and let her go.”

    I know for some this may not seem like an answer to a trouble wounded child, but it worked for a very mentally twisted up and wounded adult child.

    I sit in awe of what this man has done for me, and what we, him and I can do for our little girl, our almost woman child who has been wounded, we can open our home, our hearts and welcome her in.

    We demand nothing but accept all.
    We say nothing unless asked.

    We work hard to maintain the energy or atmosphere of our home as it always was.

    We keep this the one piece in the world unchanged in her very changed life.

    This home, the people in this home were my saving grace.

    They never treated me like the outside world talked of me, they remained true to me as what we had previous, they did not change.

    They went to work and did what they loved, they did not have a blame or shameful eye directed at me.

    In their eyes I was imperfectly me.

  • Without Conditions.

    My daughter asked me to clarify, that the abuse I speak of is not sexual, it is not rape, it is not fondling, it is I guess a light form of abuse, it is cheating.

    There has been no physical abuse to her body.

    While this may satisfy those who view abuse to be only sexual or physical in any manner, there is another level or spectrum of abuse.

    The psychic damage that lies beneath what the naked eye can see, its affects can only be seen by the actions of the body.

    Where it moves and how it acts, whether it has radar for when it either abuses or is abused.

    The damage psyche has a hard time discerning what is abuse and what is love, it has been led slowly and over time to shut down the body and its signals.

    It is running amuck and out of control, it is doing things that someone in their ‘right mind’ would not do.

    This psychic blindness to morals and values doesn’t happen overnight, it is a process, a slow and laborious time consuming process, it happens with saturation of crafty words, pretty messages, long winded conversations, a preaching of sorts.

    My daughter’s cell phone has recorded this outpouring of emotional cheating.

    Near 5,000 minutes in one month of talking…at least this is what our current bill shows.

    Plus another 3,000 text messages.

    Now, I will agree that there are a few sprinkled odd calls, but the most favored number appears over and over and over like a broken recorded, beating and beating, and beating, and beating…

    Some will say, I am over reacting, blowing it out of proportion that I have lost my mind or it is proof that I am certifiably nuts.

    But, I stand as I have stood and say, this MARRIED man, has taken advantage of his babysitter, he is abusing not only his wife, his children and my daughter, but he has changed the peace within our home.

    Some say, she too owns her part. I will agree. I now hold her responsible for the way this continues, how the road twists and turns, what bumps we will take, how this cheating dance that I have blown out of proportion will affect my happy home.

    It seems that my daughter and I are standing face to face, she has to lose what she loves or I have to lose what I love.

    She is standing in a spot that is very difficult to maneuver out of. You will lose something, you just have to decide what.

    She has to see where the biggest part of her self is.

    She has to feel down deeply and act accordingly.

    I have to honor her choice.

    I have had lots more practice losing.

    I told my husband, I have lost so much there isn’t much of my heart left to break, that he with his big as a house heart may have bear the brunt of it, hold me up, hold her up and carry us forward.

    It is out of my hands, has been out of my hands, it is out of my control, all I can do is allow the Universe to turn the corner, to take the next step and follow where it leads.

    If my lesson is total and unconditional love for her, she has it.

    I will love her no matter what.

    I will love and understand that she is doing what it is she is meant to do.

    I will not kick her when she is down.

    I love the confused girl, the almost woman, and the innocence she once was, there is no part of her I don’t love.

    I love now without conditions.

  • Emotional Cheating.

    Emotional cheating definition: It is an emotional relationship between a married or a committed person with another in the opposite sex not the spouse. It does not involve sex but includes emotional feelings and attraction and it is also referred to as an “affair of the heart”. It is difficult to spot because there is no physical evidence about it and its signs are susceptible to other interpretations. Emotional affairs are more about intimacy and romance but it can also be as damaging as physical affairs.

    Emotional cheating or an emotional affair has destroyed a lot of marriages because of various reasons. The cheating spouse invests his or her emotional energy and feelings to another person instead of the spouse and this usually results to a weakened marriage. These emotional investments should have made the marriage stronger but instead, it is passed on to another person.

    The problem with the emotional cheating definition is that it is inconclusive and there is a thin line separating an emotional affair and a platonic friendship. This why there are still debates whether emotional cheating should really be considered as cheating. But experts believe that an emotional affair is indeed a form of infidelity because it involves deception, betrayal, and a lot of lying.

    An emotional affair usually begins as a simple friendship with another person who shares a lot of common interest and desires. Then they start spending more time with each other and hang out more often. They share secrets and personal stories. If two persons are telling more things about each other and building intimacy and keeping it as a secret from the spouse, they are having an emotional affair.

    The most common signs of emotional cheating include: loss of sexual interest, spouse becomes too busy and spends less time at home, spouse becomes secretive and demands for privacy, spouse becomes moody, and the spouse becomes self-conscious on his or her appearance.

    Although some do not agree with the emotional cheating definition, there are still some ways to differentiate emotional cheating from a simple friendship. If your spouse’s relationship or friendship with another person is exclusive or very secretive and your spouse does not want you to be part of it and know more about it, chances are it is an emotional affair.

    Evelyn Andersen is a writer about emotional affairs and other relationship problems.

  • By each Choice we Make.

    Did you know that brainwashing is when you no longer have the option of choice?

    I witnessed my daughter lose her power of choice.

    She didn’t even know she gave up her choices while she attended only one option.

    The one option became the most important, she was willing to lie to protect that option, she was willing to give up her self for that one option, she lost her self by focusing on one choice.

    It soon had control of her and not her of choice.

    This secret life, the clandestine meetings, the specialness of feeling that only the two of them knew, created the one option.

    This one option wasn’t to be shared.

    It was separated from the world.

    It was ‘special’.

    She lost her other choices for none of them were allowed in the ‘special’ spot.

    The special spot and the man who occupied this site began changing her to fit his spot.

    She had to change to play there.

    She couldn’t bring him into her life; she could only go to his.

    This ‘special man’ didn’t fit into her old life; she had to create a new self to fit in his.

    In doing so, she lost the options.

    She lost the freedom, the flowing back and forth between two lives unchanged.

    She had to become different in both worlds.

    In his world, they had to be quiet, keep it secret, don’t let anyone know what it was they were doing, it was the key that turned the lock.

    This twisted sense of special steals away the person you are and you leave your old life and self behind to fit into this new picture, unknowingly.

    You leave yourself bit by bit by bit, until you are fashioned into this new self and the path back to your old self goes dark.

    What my husband and I had to do was let her make choices, to unlock the frozen part in her brain.

    While his key is secret, our key is freedom.

    He had taken away the choices we gave them all back.

    We had to do the opposite of what had led her down this road.

    She gets to make choices.

    We won’t tell her what to do.

    We open up the space for freedom.

    I share my views.

    I show her how I see things.

    I allow her to see them her way.

    What I love is that we remain our selves and that alone will lead her back to her self.

    She left us to play in a secret land we did not leave her.

    So she gets to decide, does she want to play in the secret land or play in our land.

    Does she want to be the person she needs to be to be ‘special’ with him or does she want to be her old self.

    The freedom we allowed was the key that set her free to begin to once again make choices.

    Choices, they seem so obvious so simple so easy, and yet that is what the perpetrator seizes first.

    You are not given an option to do it any other way.

    Their option is the only one that will keep this relationship going.

    You have no choice but to go along.

    And sadly, usually by this time you have become friends, you have given trusts and faith and love to the individual, and in order to maintain this ‘special’ relationship, IT depends upon your silence.

    Your silence and his creates a cocoon that separates you from your self and the world around you.

    You live in this upside down and backwards ‘other’ land.

    You have to change to fit in there and the changes are so noticeable in your old life.

    You have to lie to leave your old life to go to his.

    You have to lie to your self and overlook how it makes you feel in your old life.

    You come alive in his and die in your own.

    What a tragedy.

    The greatest thing we did was to give her back her choices.
    To allow her to choose what path she wants to strengthen and which one she wants to weaken.

    Her brainwashing was in a very short time and she didn’t play in the secret land too long.

    The longer you are there, the more ingrained the false self gets and the further away the road that leads you back.

    But as far as I can tell, by my experience, is that when I gave myself the option of choice, I was free.

    Free to begin, choice-by-choice, bit-by-bit to recapture life for me.

    The freedom in allowing all in our home to be free is the key that makes this a non-brainwashing home.

    A home of choices, you get to decide which ones you want to make, but make no mistake, each and every choice comes with a consequence, and it is up to you which consequence you choose.

    We create a life and self by each choice we make.