My old definition of marriage was the joining of two people of like minds, and perhaps friendship held this too, but that you both viewed life from the same space and often responded to life with the same footsteps.
Your histories and life pathways joined together for you shared similarities.
I now find myself yoked to a man who hasn’t lived life as I have, hasn’t had to walk the same footsteps I have had to take, and we are dissimilar in the way we now respond to life as it happens.
The yoke that held us close together didn’t matter, for we were the heading in the same direction, speaking in the same language and doing the same response.
Now it feels odd, like our yoke is gone, and we are two separated individuals doing our own thing.
Great freedom to be who you are, doing what you love, honoring your differences etc…all good and well, until your differences become a weak spot when combined.
I have zero tolerance for abuse and he hasn’t been affected by it like I have so, he truly doesn’t grasp the affects, nor will he; his loving trusting belief in others is a weakness when you are dealing with abuse.
Abuse and its manipulators can get away with what they do, for they bank on your trust and your kind nature and that you won’t hold them accountable for what they do.
They rely on you seeing their behavior as an anomaly in their otherwise normal world.
What we fail to appreciate is that the anomaly is the truth and all the ‘normal’ behavior is a shield to hide it.
What I trust now, is what do they do when they are asked to stand with or against abuse, no matter who it is that is doing the abusing, be it a friend, a spouse, a father, mother, sister, brother, is who they are.
I see who you are by who you support.
The greatest weakness and hole that a perpetrator, or even an abusive man hurting a woman, uses is that we trust and believe that they are more good than bad.
We want to believe that they just had a moment of confusion, a slip of control, a ‘moment of weakness’ but that all in all, they are good people.
If we all stopped and cut our old opinions up the moment abuse entered the picture, we would save a lot of little children and even young adults who find themselves in a relationship that is detrimental to their well being.
It is the stopping and not continuing that is the key.
When people show you who they are, believe them. Damn it, Believe them.
It seems so easy, so simple and yet time and time again, abuse slips by attached to the one you love.
Attached to the one you trust.
Attached to the old relationship, the kind man, the loving brother, abuse is attached to them, and you just refuse to see it.
Oh, yeah…sometimes you see it but you will not toss out the old relationship for one little act of abuse.
Or for one little moment of supporting abuse…we overlook the supporting for they too may be someone we love and trust.
It is this blind trusting faith in a person who has abuse attached to them that keeps this cycle going, the legacy of abuse is mostly to blame on the ones who love and trust the ones with abuse attached to them.
I never knew that abuse thrived more because of the love and trust than it did because of the driving desire of the perpetrator.
In my one experience with abuse, if you don’t see the abuse attached to your loved one, and you continue to have relationships with him, then abuse gets attached to you.
You are now the carrier, the supporter and the accomplice.
The ‘love, trust and belief’ that my family had in my father has allowed him to be a free man.
Each one of them who didn’t not see the abuse attached to him, now are carrying his legacy forward, in love, trust and faith in a man who gives abuse back.
So, each time I am faced with a similar type event in my world, where abuse is attached. I see abuse and let the rest fall away.
Again, the greatest supporter of abuse is love, trust and faith.
Imagine?
And yet the schools are teaching, good touch bad touch.
Stop.
They need to teach that we have the right to revoke friendship, love and trust, we can withdraw it at any time.
So, my loving trusting and believing husband and I are on the opposite sides of this and my behavior seems harsh and so narrow minded. And it is.
What I needed the most as a little girl was for someone to see the abuse, to act with the abuse and to see me and not see the man who clothed and fed 14 children, a lumberman, a hardworking, not asking for anything man.
I needed one eye to see me, one ear to hear me, one hand to hold me, and to let him go. Instead all eyes, ears and hands reached out to him and they let me go.
Me the abused child.
Refusing to let his image of goodness die, instead they let me fade away, the one ‘insane’ voice against many.
The majority wins; abuse will prevail…with your loving support.
(What happens when in one home you have opposing voices?)
I M Perfect lady 